CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The healer left behind the sharp scent of crushed herbs and vinegar.
It lingered after the door had closed, clinging to the linen bandage about Grizel’s leg and to the quiet chamber Malcolm had turned into both sickroom and council hall.
Outside, rain worried softly against the glass.
Inside, the fire burned low and steady, throwing amber light over the table where Malcolm stood reading through a stack of papers with the grave attention of a man arranging a battle rather than accounts of grain, prisoners, and damaged carts.
Grizel had been ordered to rest. It was a thing very easily said by people not required to do it.
She sat propped against pillows, with her injured leg stretched beneath a blanket.
Her pride was suffering far more than the bruise.
The healer had assured her it was no grave hurt.
A cruel twist and an ugly tenderness that would keep her from moving freely for a few days if she possessed sense enough to obey instructions.
Unfortunately, good sense had never been her strongest ally..
Malcolm, however, appeared determined to supply it for her.
He had dismissed the healer. He had taken the cup of willow-bark tea from Eilidh and set it at Grizel’s bedside with the expression of a man placing a weapon within reach.
He had allowed servants to enter only briefly and always under his watchful eye.
Now he remained by the table, issuing orders in a low voice when men came to the door.
He did all of it near her, positioning himself where he could see her if he lifted his eyes, and where anyone entering would have to pass him first.
Grizel watched him for some time. His shirtsleeves were rolled to the forearms, one cuff darkened where rain or blood had marked it the day before. Firelight moved over the strong line of his profile, the hard set of his mouth, the controlled movement of his hand across the page.
It was alarming how much presence a man could possess without speaking.
“You need not remain,” she told him.
His pen did not pause. “I ken that.”
“Then why are ye?”
“Because there is work tae be done.”
“There is work tae be done in every room of this castle.”
“At present, I prefer this one.”
The answer was so plainly not an answer that Grizel felt her brows rise. He sensed it, though he did not look at her.
“Why?” she demanded.
Something shifted in his expression, almost imperceptibly.
“Because others are careless.”
“Eilidh is nae careless. Nor was the healer.”
“Nae.”
“Then?”
He looked back to the papers. “I dislike leaving things unfinished.”
Grizel studied him. The fire cracked softly. Rain tapped the pane with cold little fingers. Somewhere in the corridor, footsteps came near, halted, then retreated, doubtless warned off by the mere fact of Malcolm’s presence within.
“That is the sort of answer a man gives when he hopes the listener will be too polite to call him a liar.”
The corner of his mouth tightened, though whether from annoyance or reluctant amusement, she could not tell. “And are ye polite?”
“When it serves me.”
“Then I am to be rarely safe.”
“Almost never.”
For a breath, something warmed between them, then it vanished.
Malcolm returned to his papers, and Grizel leaned back against the pillows, but the silence had changed.
Before, it had been merely quiet. Now it had weight.
It stretched from his table to her bed, filled with the things he would not say and the things she was not yet certain she had the right to ask.
She drank the bitter tea. She watched the fire lower and gather itself again. She listened as Malcolm gave instructions to a guard about the prisoners from Ardbrack.
“Separate them. Feed them enough tae keep them useful. Nae one speaks tae them alone.”
The guard departed. Another man came with news from the village. Malcolm listened, asked three questions, and sent him away with orders to place two men at the lower road and another at the burn crossing. Then, he glanced at her leg.
“Why?” she asked again softly.
His hand closed around the edge of the table. “Ye must be more specific, or we shall be here until winter.”
“Why dae ye look at me as if me being hurt is some personal failure of yers?”
His expression hardened. “It happened under me protection.”
“It happened because Drummond’s men are cowards.”
“It happened because I brought ye there.”
“I agreed tae go, remember?”
“I allowed it.”
“Allowed?” Her temper stirred, but the pain and exhaustion lent it a cutting edge. “Take care, Malcolm. I am nae fond of being spoken of like cargo to be moved about.”
His jaw clenched and released in a breath.
She pushed herself a little higher against the pillows, ignoring the complaint in her leg.
“Ye saved me. Ye brought me home. Ye have bullied every soul in this castle into treating a bruised ankle as if I had returned from Culloden missing half a body. And still ye stand there as though another bruise might finish me.”
“Enough.”
“Nae.”
His eyes cut to hers. The word surprised even her, but she did not call it back. Some doors, once found, could not be politely left unopened.
“Nae,” she repeated, quietly but with power. “Nae this time. Why does it unsettle ye so much?”
He looked away. For a long moment, she thought he would refuse her entirely. Malcolm’s silences were not empty things. They were barricades, built stone by stone over many years. She could almost see him placing the answer behind one now.
Then he surprised her. “Me faither wasnae a gentle man.”
The room seemed to contract. Grizel did not move.
Malcolm’s gaze remained on the rain-dark window. “Most men will say such things and mean only that their faithers were stern, or proud, or too quick with a belt and too slow with praise… Mine… was worse.”
The fire hissed as a damp log caught.
“He liked obedience,” Malcolm continued. “Nae order. Obedience. There is a difference.”
Grizel’s throat tightened.
“He could be charming before guests. Generous after victories. Loud with laughter when men admired him. And then a door would close, or a cup would be set wrong, or me mother would speak when he wished silence.”
His voice did not break. That was the terrible part. It had gone flat, controlled, stripped of feeling by a man who had learned too young that feeling was a danger.
“She was never safe in her own home,” he whispered.
Grizel looked down at her hands, then back to him. “Malcolm…”
He made a small motion, not quite refusal, not quite plea.
“She tried tae manage him. Most women in such houses learn that art. What tone keeps a table from overturning, which servants tae send away before a mood turns, when tae agree, when taw vanish, and… when tae put herself between him and someone smaller.”
Someone smaller.
The implication hit her with painful clarity.
“Ye,” she whispered.
His mouth tightened.
“I was young enough tae think protection was standing in front of the blow,” he told her. “Old enough, by the end, tae ken it wasnae enough.”
Rain blurred the window. The chamber smelled of herbs, smoke, and something that reminded him of times gone by.
“One night,” he started, and stopped.
Grizel scarcely breathed. He turned at last, not quite looking at her. His eyes fixed on some point beyond the bed, beyond the room, beyond the years between.
“He lost control. Or perhaps that is too kind. Men like him are forever losing what they never tried very hard tae hold.” A pause followed. “She… fell.”
The words were quiet. They were dreadful. Grizel felt them more than understood them.
“She was alive when I reached her,” he revealed. “For a little while.”
Her own hands had gone cold.
“I remember thinking if I held her carefully enough, if I didnae move too quickly, if I called for help in the right voice, if I did everything precisely, then she would stay.” His throat moved. “She didnae.”
Grizel’s eyes stung, but she would not insult him by weeping over a wound he had barely allowed into the air.
“And yer faither?” she asked.
Malcolm’s expression changed. “He lived long enough.”
There was a great deal contained in that answer, and none of it invited further question. He released the table and flexed his hand once, as if it had cramped around an old weapon.
“I learned then,” he told her “that love, anger, and protection can become destruction in the same breath. A man may tell himself he is guarding what is his, when in truth he is only gripping hard enough tae break it.”
Grizel could no longer bear the distance between them.
“Malcolm.”
He shook his head. “I have spent me life keeping me hands open.”
The words struck deeper than any confession of desire could have done. Now, she understood the restraint, the refusal to take what was offered by nearness, the way he stepped back when wanting might have carried another man forward.
He was not cold. He was afraid of warmth becoming flame.
Grizel’s heart gave an answering ache. She pulled the blanket aside.
Malcolm’s expression sharpened. “Dinnae stand.”
“I am nae standing.”
“Grizel.”
“I am moving six inches, nae storming a battlefield.”
“Ye are injured.”
“And ye are impossible.”
She shifted toward the edge of the bed. Pain flared through her leg.
She tried to hide it, but Malcolm crossed the room at once.
One moment he was at the table, and the next he was beside her, with one hand braced near her shoulder, and the other hovering uselessly because he didn’t know where he was permitted to touch.
“Ye see?” he said in a rough voice. “This is what I mean. I cannae?—”
She caught his hand. He went still. His fingers were warm, strong, and very carefully enclosed within hers.
“Ye are nae yer father.”
His gaze returned to hers, dark and tormented. “Ye cannae ken that.”
“I can.”
“Grizel—”
“I can,” she said again, and this time her voice trembled, which annoyed her exceedingly.
“Because I have seen men who take. I have seen men who call appetite admiration and force protection. Drummond looked at me as if refusal were a rudeness he meant tae correct. Ye look at me as though my consent matters so much it frightens ye.”
Something in him broke then. She felt the fracture in the way his breath changed, in the slight bow of his head, in the pressure of his hand closing at last around hers.
“Ye should not trust me so easily,” he said.
“I dae naething easily.”
He was too near now, or perhaps she had drawn him near.
His hand still held hers. His other rested against the bed beside her hip.
She could smell rain on his shirt, ink from his fingers, smoke in the wool of his waistcoat.
The pulse at his throat beat hard beneath skin he tried to command into stillness.
Grizel lifted her free hand and touched his jaw. He closed his eyes. That small surrender pierced her.
“Tell me tae stop,” she whispered.
His eyes opened. “Nae.”
It was not permission spoken lightly. It was torn from him.
So, she leaned forward and kissed him. At first, he did not move.
He received the kiss like a man standing at the edge of a cliff, feeling the stone give way beneath his feet and refusing, still, to fall.
Then his hand came up, gently, not claiming, but cradling the side of her face with such aching care that her breath caught against his mouth.
The kiss changed.
It deepened by degrees, slow and fearful and unbearably tender. Grizel felt the tremor that went through him when she leaned closer, felt how fiercely he held himself back even while answering her.
That carefulness was its own undoing. This was heat, but also grief, trust, terror, and the astonishing sweetness of being touched by a man who feared his own wanting so deeply that every gentleness became a vow.
This moment between them had become a deep knowing, trust shared, that wove a closeness she had never expected to find, and at last she let go of what remained of her doubts.
He gently laid her back onto the bed, lying next to her, without breaking the kiss.
She could feel his fingers lifting the hem of her skirts, and her heart raced in desire or apprehension or a mixture of both.
Sensation blossomed deep inside of her. She moaned against his lips, feeling pleasure radiating outward, as his fingers trailed an invisible line up her thigh.
“Oh…” a soft cry escaped her when his fingers found her most intimate flesh, gently circling over it.
Her inside clenched, and her hips rose up to meet him.
There was a molten heat to his touch, a reverence she never expected.
She gripped his hair, keeping him in place, kissing him fervently, while his fingers moved with a steady rhythm.
Her need for him was a frantic thirst she could not deny.
She never wanted his mouth or his fingers to stop touching her.
She thrust against him now, wanting more, and he gave her exactly what she asked for.
She felt herself ravenous for his touch, his lips, his smell, his everything.
The tangle of yearning inside of her seemed to tighten even more, and her entire body followed suit.
Pleasure swept through her, leaving her breathless.
It was something akin to an earthquake, where a million little stars burst in her field of vision. She gripped him hard, keeping him closer than ever before, as the overwhelming sensations he had awakened in her finally subsided.
Her entire body was still throbbing when he pulled away, but his eyes were still focused on hers.
He was smiling. There were no terms for what had altered.
Yet Grizel knew, with the same sudden certainty with which she had once known danger in a quiet market, that something had been bound between them all the same.
Malcolm’s thumb moved once against her cheek.
“I will always keep ye safe, Grizel,” he promised in a voice so low it was nearly lost beneath the rain.
Grizel closed her hand over his wrist and kept him there.
“I ken.”