Chapter 12
Twelve
Sin didn’t join them for supper that night and as soon as it was over, Callie went to find him. Simon suggested she try the castle parapets and though it seemed an unlikely place, she went anyway.
True to Simon’s predication, she found Sin sitting alone, perched between the crenelation. He had his back braced against one stone wall, his foot against the one opposite it and his left leg dangled dangerously over the edge, out into the night.
“Thinking of jumping?” she asked.
“It would make you a rich widow if I did.” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Care to push me?”
There was something about his tone that made her wonder if it was a teasing comment or a sincere test to see if she would.
She moved to stand by his leg and gave him a chiding stare. “Nay, I rather like having you about. But you haven’t been about this evening, have you? You’ve been hiding again. Care to tell me why you are out here?”
“I wanted some fresh air.”
“But up here?”
He shrugged. “I like it up here. People generally don’t bother me.”
She cocked a teasing brow. “Bothering you, am I?”
“Nay,” he said to her surprise. His gaze was warm and tender as he looked at her. It was a vast improvement over the normally empty stare he used. The one that kept her from seeing his mood.
He was gorgeous in the moonlight, leaning back against the wall.
The moon was large and bright and allowed her to see his features plainly.
There was something very masculine about the way he sat almost straddling the wall.
He was at ease and yet she knew he could spring into action like a hungry lion at the slightest provocation.
Shivery from the intensity of his presence, she reached out and touched his knee. “What are you thinking about?”
“Trying to guess where the rebels will strike next.”
“You don’t think you quelled them tonight?”
“Do you?”
“Nay,” she answered honestly. The Raider had never ceased when Aster had asked him to. And she supposed The Raider, being one of their clan, actually liked Aster. Therefore, it was rather hard to imagine he would stop for Sin.
Sin folded his hands over his taut stomach as he studied her face. “I’m sure all the rebels are together tonight, plotting. Did Dermot make an appearance at supper?”
Her heart stilled at his question. Could he possibly suspect...
“Aye. Why do you ask?”
“He didn’t stay the whole meal though.”
Fear ran rampant through her. Where was he going with this line of questioning? In truth, she wasn’t sure she wanted to find out. “How did you know?”
He gestured to the yard below and she saw a shadow moving toward the castle. “Dermot went to Fraser’s a short time ago.”
“They are old friends.”
His gaze went back to her and sharpened on her, making her even more fearful than she’d been before. “Why are you suddenly so nervous?”
“Nervous?”
“Aye, you have the same look about you that you had the day I met you on the turret stairs and you were trying to escape.”
The devil’s hairy toes if he wasn’t eerily perceptive at times. No wonder Henry valued him so. If she didn’t know better, she’d swear the man had the gift of Second Sight. “How are you able to read people so easily?”
“It’s what allowed me as a boy to be able to tell if my masters were going to allow me to approach them in peace or if I’d be searching the rushes for my teeth should I disturb them. Now answer my question.”
Callie watched her brother walking back toward the keep. In spite of their differences, she would never betray him. She’d never told anyone about the time she’d seen him riding back from a raid. Aster would kill him if he knew Dermot rode with the rebels.
“Shall I make it easier for you then?” Sin asked. “If you’re afraid to tell me he is in with your rebels, that I already know.”
She gaped. “How?”
“The way he acted earlier. I told you I knew them by their faces, and he is one I know by name.”
She was flabbergasted by his abilities. “How can you be so certain?”
“You can’t hide from the devil.”
She put her hands on her hips as she glared at him. “I told you in London, you’re not the devil.”
“You’re the only one who thinks not.”
Och, the man was exasperating. “If you were the devil, you would be down there right now arresting Dermot. So, why aren’t you?”
“Because I’m waiting for him to reveal The Raider to me.”
That took the anger right out of her. She had to save Dermot. There was no way she could watch her brother hang. Whatever it took to protect him, she would do. “If I can get him to tell me who The Raider is, will you let him go free?”
Sin blinked, then looked away. “He will never tell you that.”
“I think he might. You have to understand him. Since my father died, he’s been lost. He and my father were so close, and Dermot was there the day he died. Something inside him died as well and he’s not the same lad he once was,”
“You love him greatly.”
She nodded, wanting him to know just how much Dermot meant to her. “I would do anything for my brother.”
He fell silent.
Callie watched Sin for several minutes as she sorted through this entire ordeal.
Like Aster, she knew The Raider must be stopped before he started a war between her clan and the English.
Though her clan was a decent size, it was nowhere near large enough to wage war on an entire country and with things being as they were in Scotland, she didn’t know if her cousin Malcolm would help them or not.
As King of Scotland, Malcolm had his own concerns.
The rebels believed they could convince other clans to join them against England, but she didn’t hold that delusion. If she didn’t help Sin stop the rebels, all of them would be hanged as an example to the others who dared oppose the English king.
If one of her clansmen had to be sacrificed for peace, then she was willing to pay the cost to protect the rest of them.
“Do you have any ideas who The Raider could be?” she asked him.
“I’m rather certain I already know.”
She gasped at his deadpan tone. “Then why haven’t you acted?”
“I want proof.”
She smiled wistfully at that. “You are a good man. Most men would already be jumping to their conclusions and acting on them.”
His heated gaze bored into hers. “I am not a good man, Callie. Never delude yourself on that point. It’s just having suffered enough injustice in my life, I am in no hurry to deliver it up to anyone else.
” She saw the tic in his jaw. “But when I have proof of the identity of this Raider, Callie, I will see him punished for it.”
“I wouldn’t expect anything else.”
He looked stunned by her words. “You’re not angry?”
She shook her head. “I hurt in my heart at the thought of one of my clansmen being punished, but I am not angry. My father raised me with the belief that we are bound by honor to our people. My people are my clan and yours is Henry. We can’t let our emotions sway us.
I understand that duty must always come first. This Raider has made his own decisions for what he believes in.
I would rather the rebels lay aside their arms and join us in peace, but if they refuse, then I will not fault you for doing that which you’re sworn. ”
Sin frowned at her. He was aghast and somewhat angry by her speech. His emotions made no sense to him and yet he felt them strongly.“How can you not hate me?”
This time, there was no mistaking the utter horror in her green eyes. “My God, Sin, are you so used to hatred that you can’t accept the fact that someone, anyone, could care for you?”
He squelched the pain he felt at her words.
“Do you see these hands?” he asked, holding them up to her.
“Aye.”
“Know you they have strangled men? They have wielded daggers into their hearts, swords into their bodies. These are the hands of a killer.”
She took his right hand in hers and stared at him with a compassion that took his breath away. “They have also meted out justice. They have comforted me and Jamie. Protected Simon and Draven.”
What would it take to make her see him as he really was? He couldn’t understand her steadfast refusal to see the truth. “I am a monster.”
“You are a man, Sin. Plain and simple.”
He wanted to believe her, but all he had to do was close his eyes and he could see the men he’d killed. Feel the guilt and pain of his past. He didn’t deserve her kindness.
“What do you want from me?” he asked.
“I want you to be my husband. I want you to stay with me and be father to my children.”
“Why? Because of some stupid oath made before a man Henry bribed?”
“Nay. Because of the way I feel when I look into those dark eyes of yours. Because of the way my heart pounds when I think of you.”
Sin shook his head at her words. He didn’t want the home she spoke of, and the thought of children...
“I will not ever be owned again by anyone, milady. My life is my own and I owe nothing to you nor to Henry nor to anyone else.”
Callie released his hand as his words struck her like blows. It was then she understood why he bore no markings on his shield or surcoat. Nothing owned him and he owned nothing.
“I don’t want to own you, Sin. I want to share your life.”
“Share what? I have nothing to offer you.”
A wave of irritation swept through her. Och, the stubborn oaf.
Suddenly she was tired of trying to make him see her way of thinking.
“You know what? So long as you feel that way, you’re right.
You go ahead and keep to yourself. Stay up here brooding alone in the dark like some evil beastie who wants to walk the parapets at night, scaring people unto their wit’s end.
Wallow in your loneliness and the fact that you are beyond love.
Go ahead and spurn me and my feelings. But know this, as long as you persist in this self-deprecation, then you are fulfilling the very doubts you have.
No one will ever be able to love you unless you open yourself up to them. ”
Sin watched as she left the parapet, her words ringing in his ears.
Love.