Chapter 20 #3
His eyes dropped, just briefly, to her mouth. It was the smallest thing. Barely a flicker of green. And yet, she felt that glance land against her skin with the exact same impact as his hand had in the rain. A jolt of pure lightning shot straight down her spine.
"With war comin'," he said, his voice dropping so low it was almost a growl, "the council will stop askin' about weddings and heirs soon enough.
They'll have much graver matters to occupy them.
Blood. Territory. Survival. Ye already gave me what I needed, Claire.
The betrothal held the peace long enough to matter.
Ye dinnae owe me anythin' further. And I willnae let ye pay for what ye already gave me with yer life. "
"I could stay," she whispered. Her voice shook, betraying every ounce of her composure. "I could help, the way ye helped me that first week, when I hadn't the first notion how to survive in this place. I am not useless, Finn. Let me do the same for ye now."
"Ye already have."
He said it so quietly she nearly lost the words beneath the steady drum of rain against the glass.
His hand lifted, trembling. She thought he would touch her jaw like in the storm, leaning in desperation, but he stopped, curling his hand into a fist, seeming to restrain himself from the one thing he desired.
"More than ye ken, lass," he added.
Claire watched the guarded, tense space he kept between them, like a warhound on a leash.
His gaze dropped to her lips, then shifted to the window, rain, anywhere but her.
He wasn't pushing her away for being a burden or a liability.
He was doing it because he wanted her, and losing her to an enemy scared him more than facing an army.
That was so much worse, somehow, than if he'd simply told her plainly that he wished her gone. It meant he felt the exact same pull she did, the exact same terrifying gravity, and he was choosing to sever it anyway.
"I see," Claire managed to say. She was distantly proud of how level she kept her voice, even as she felt something vital and fragile cracking quietly behind her sternum. "Ye've decided this, then. Without asking me. Without considering what I might want."
"Claire…" he started, taking a step forward, his hand unclenching.
"Nay, I understand perfectly." She stepped back, putting the distance between them herself now. If he was so set on building a wall, she would lay the bricks for him. "Ye've made up both our minds for us. How very noble. How very like a Highland laird."
His jaw tightened, a dangerous flash of temper rising in his green eyes. But it died quickly, swallowed back down under a mountain of iron control. "It isnae about decidin' for ye. It's about keepin' ye breathin' long enough to resent me for it properly."
Despite the profound ache lodged in her chest, her mouth twitched before she could stop it. A humorless, broken little smile. "I feel fairly confident I could manage both at once, Finn."
Something in his expression loosened at that, just a fraction, though the relief didn't quite reach his eyes. "Aye," he said, the word rough and low. "I di nae doubt that for a moment."
The rain kept tapping against the glass behind her, patient and indifferent to the pair of them standing three feet apart, both refusing to close the distance.
"When?" she asked, her voice hollow.
"A fortnight. Mayhap less, if the weather turns kind and the mud dries on the southern pass."
A fortnight. She turned the word over in her mind, trying and failing to make it feel like enough time to prepare, or too much time to bear the agony of waiting. It felt like neither.
"Well." Claire gathered the heavy wool of her skirts, needing to move, needing to flee before she did something remarkably unwise.
Like cross the last of that agonizing distance, press her mouth to his, and dare him to send her anywhere at all.
"I ought to look in on our injured. Someone in this castle should make themselves useful this morning. "
She walked past him, giving him a wide berth, the scent of cedar smoke trailing after her. She was nearly to the door, her hand reaching for the iron latch, when his hand closed around her wrist.
"Claire."
She froze. She turned slowly. He hadn't followed all the way, just close enough to catch her, his thumb resting warm against her pulse.
The rain-grey light fell along the hard, unforgiving line of his jaw, and for a moment neither of them moved, his grip loose enough to let her go and neither of them testing it.
"I am nae doin' this because I want ye gone," he said. The words were dragged up, rough and bleeding, from somewhere deep inside he clearly didn't visit often.
Claire looked at him, seeing the terrifying vulnerability in the Devil of the North, and felt her heart shatter completely.
"I ken," she said quietly. "That's rather the trouble, is it nae."
She pushed the heavy door open and walked out into the corridor.
She left him standing alone among the rain-streaked windows, and she did not let herself look back.
She was absolutely certain that if she did, she would find her own devastating ache mirrored plainly on his face, and she wasn't at all sure her heart could survive it.