Chapter 37
Ragnall could not settle after the burial.
He spent the evening meal in his hall as if on guard, choosing his words carefully in front of the Blythe folk beneath his roof.
He watched the ale being served and the wounded being fed, all the while carrying the words he had wanted to say at the graveside, which stayed lodged behind his teeth like a stone he couldn’t swallow or spit out.
He had confronted armed men on wet ground with a calmer heart. He was ashamed of this, a laird who had become a coward in his own home over just a few words, yet he could not bring himself to care.
He attempted to ascend the tower stairs twice, but each time he turned back, cursing himself. He paced the dark hall like his own hound until the fire in the grate turned into a red eye.
It was Maisie who brought him down in the end, even though she was in bed and never knew it. He heard her voice in his mind, dry as a summer field.
“She willnae be needin’ it pretty… She will only be needin’ it true.”
And so at last he climbed, one hand on the cold stone, ten years of a locked door heavy on his back with every step.
The door to the south tower stood ajar. Olivia had not gone to bed.
She stood at the deep window with her back to him and her red hair loose around her shoulders, looking out at the dark shape of the glen and the pale thread of the river she had once crossed as a hostage, and she did not turn when the door gave under his hand, though he saw her go still and knew she had heard him come.
“Ye almost killed me second braither,” Olivia said. Not a question, and not quite an accusation. Only the truth of it, set down plain between them like a sword laid flat on a table.
“But I didnae.” His voice came out rough as a rasp drawn over stone. “Because of ye.”
“What?”
“Olivia.” He made himself stay by the door, his bound arm stiff at his side, because he did not trust what his hands would do if he crossed to her too soon.
“I’d never let an enemy laird live when me clan was under attack.
Yer braither stood there in the dark with a bloody blade over a dead man of mine and every soul at me back cryin’ out for Blythe blood to answer it.
By every law of this glen, I should have struck him down and slept soundly for doin’ it.
I’ve done it to better men for less.” He drew a breath that shook the length of him.
“But I didnae kill him. For ye. Because ye said the word please, and it was yer kin, and I found there was nay power under heaven that could make me put me steel through aught ye cared for.”
She turned then. Her face in the last of the light was pale and wary and so dear to him that the want of it was a physical hurt beneath his ribs.
“I daenae understand,” she whispered.
“Nay. I ken ye daenae. I’ve made certain of it a month and more, God forgive me.
” He pushed off the door at last and came a few steps into the room, into the small warmth of the one guttering candle.
“So I will say it to ye plain, for ye’ve earned it plain, and I am done bein’ a coward in me own keep.
I find that I care about yer opinion of me more than a man has any business carin’ for a thing that can be taken from him.
And I cannae stop thinkin’ about ye, lassie.
Nae for an hour. Nae for the space of a single breath since ye rode off me land and left it the size of a grave behind ye. ”
“Ragnall—”
“Let me. I’ve a thing to tell ye that only two livin’ souls ken, and one of them is too auld and too fond of ye to tell it straight.
” His jaw worked. “Ye’ve wondered why I am the way I am.
That locked door of a man. Why I’d sooner take a blade through the arm than say a soft word and mean it.
Ye ken what happened to Kate. What I had to do.
I made meself a promise then, hard and foolish and meant clean to the bone. ”
Olivia had gone very still. He could not stop now, even if the roof came down.
“I swore I’d never let meself want a woman so badly that losin’ her would do to me what yer braither’s wickedness did to me sister.
I took me whole capacity for wantin’ and locked it behind that door, then I threw the key in the loch and called it bein’ a good laird.
Duty afore the heart. The clan afore the man.
” His mouth twisted. “And then the Elders sent me a red-haired Blythe hellion over the hill, spittin’ fire and hatin’ the sight of me, and within a fortnight the door I’d kept locked for ten years was rattlin’ fit to come off its hinges, and it has frightened me worse than any war I ever rode to. ”
“Is that why?” she asked, and her voice was not steady now either. “Is that why ye sent me away?”
“Aye.” The word cost him everything. “Ye were bleedin’ in me arms and talkin’ of leavin’, and I let ye go, and I told meself it was to keep ye safe.
But it was a lie, lassie. I sent ye off because ye’d gotten behind me door, and I was too much of a coward to stand in a room with ye and feel what I felt and nae drown in it.
I watched ye ride out from the study window, and I let the keep go quiet as a tomb around me, and I called it duty.
” He shook his head slowly. “It was fear. Plain fear, dressed up in a laird’s coat.
And I’ve been ashamed of it every hour since. ”
For a long moment, she only looked at him, and he made himself stand and bear it, which was harder than any blow he had ever taken.
“And how am I to trust it?” she said, her voice quiet and terrible.
“That’s the heart of it, Ragnall. That’s the knot I cannae cut.
Ye sent me away once without a single word to me face.
Ye stood at a window and watched me go and let me think ye had nay use for me at all.
How am I to lie down in this and trust that ye’ll nae do the very same the next time wantin’ me frightens ye?
That I willnae wake up one mornin’ to a cart at the gate and a maid with an apology in her mouth because ye got afraid in the night and decided for both of us again? ”
It was the fairest question anyone had ever put to him, and he did not reach for a soft answer, for she would have known it was a lie.
“I cannae swear to ye I will never be afraid again,” he said.
“I’d be lyin’ if I did, and ye’d ken it, and I willnae start this with a lie.
I will likely be afraid of losin’ ye every day I draw breath, for that’s the price of wantin’.
I ken it now.” He took another step. “But I can promise ye this, and I will swear it on whatever ye like—on me faither’s grave or Kate’s life or the bairn’s.
I will never again let the fear choose for me.
When it creeps upon me, and it will, I will bring it to ye.
I will say the words out loud to yer face sooner than pack ye off in the dark and call it wisdom.
Ye will never again wonder what I am thinkin’ behind a shut door, for I am done with shut doors.
That’s the only trust I ken how to build.
The kind ye lay down a plank at a time and walk out on together. ”
She said nothing, but her arms had come loose from around herself, and he counted that a small mercy and pressed on before his nerve could fail him.
“Stop thinkin’ about the past, wife. I cannae change it.
God kens I’d give me good arm to change the whole black run of it, but I cannae, and I willnae stand here and pretend I can.
” He was close to her now, close enough to see the candle flicker in her wide eyes.
“But I cannae change how I feel about ye either. How I lose me mind when ye arenae near. How the sound of yer footsteps in a corridor undoes a full day’s work.
“I’ve tried. I’ve tried for a month to unfeel it, but to nay avail.
” He stopped. His heart was pounding like a hammer against his ribs.
“So, tell me ye daenae feel the same, Olivia, and I will never trouble ye with it again. Say the word, and I will go back down those stairs, and we’ll be Laird and Lady and nay more, and I will keep ye safe till the day I die and never once reach for ye. Tell me ye daenae feel it.”
“I cannae,” she said.
Something in his chest cracked open. “Why nae?”
She turned from him and began to pace the narrow room, her arms wrapping tight around her again. “Ragnall…”
“Why nae, Olivia?” He turned with her, helpless to do otherwise. “I need ye to use that sharp tongue on me now, of all the times ye’ve ever used it. Daenae go soft on me at the one hour that matters. This is our future we’re speakin’ of. Why nae?”
“Because I hated ye!” The words tore out of her, and she rounded on him with her eyes bright and furious and wet.
“Because I was meant to hate ye. Ye killed me faither. Ye killed Magnus. Ye came into me life like the wrath of God, and ye took everythin’ from me, and then ye had the gall, the sheer black gall, to be gentle.
To be kind to me when I gave ye nay reason on this earth to be.
“To rock a bairn who isnae yers and smile like the sun had come out doin’ it.
To kill a man for layin’ hands on me at me own weddin’ and then carry me up the stairs and tend me like I was made of glass.
” Her breath was ragged now. “How was I meant to keep hatin’ a man like that?
How was I meant to lie in yer bed for a month and watch ye be that and nae feel meself come loose from everythin’ I ken?
“I fought it with both hands. I told meself it was a pity, and then I told meself it was a habit, and then I ran out of lies to tell.” Her voice dropped and broke on the drop.
“And then ye sent me home, and the castle was full of kin who cared for me, and it was the emptiest I’ve ever been in me life.
“Because ye werenae in it. And yer daft dog wasnae in it. And Rosie wasnae in it. And I stood in me maither’s garden with the sun on me face, and I ached like a pulled tooth for a place I’d been dragged to in chains.
” She rubbed the back of her hand across her wet cheek and glared at him through it.
“So, aye. Aye, ye great locked fool. I feel the same. I’ve felt it that long I daenae ken who I’d be without it now, and I’ve half a mind to hate ye afresh for makin’ me say it first.”
He crossed the last of the space between them, took her face in both his hands, the bound arm and the good, and kissed her.
There was nothing careful about it. A month of holding breath, of keeping hands and rules laid down in the dark, erupted like dry gorse catching a spark.
Olivia made a small, broken sound against his mouth and returned it with her whole self, her fingers clutching the front of his shirt to pull him closer. He felt the final hinge of that long-locked door tear away completely.
“Say it again,” he breathed against her lips. “The last part. Say it once more so I ken I didnae dream it.”
“I feel the same.” She said it fiercely, her forehead pressed hard against his, her hands still knotted in his shirt as if she feared he’d vanish. “I feel the same, Ragnall. Now, in the name of all that’s holy, stop talkin’.”