Reid laughed bitterly. “Nay, lass. The honorable Cinead would never do that. He offered me a place in Dun Calas, a place at his side.”
“But you didn’t take it?”
Reid shook his head. “Too much pride. How could I, after I’d been brought up to one day rule Dun Calas? How could I swallow such humiliation? How could I endure the sniggers and the whispers behind my back? ‘Look, that’s Reid Muir he was going to be laird, ye know, and now look at him!’” He laughed bitterly. “Like I said, young, arrogant and foolish, too blinded by hatred to see the olive branch that Cinead was offering me. So I walked out of Dun Calas and never looked back.
To start with, I took whatever jobs I could find: farmhand, groom, even tutor to a lord’s bratlings for a while. Eventually my uncle found me. He offered me a place in his keep—as long as I joined his crusade against Clan Muir. He hated them for what they’d done to my mother—or what he perceived that they’d done to her. I refused. I may have left Dun Calas but I was no traitor. I would not betray the people who had raised me.”
“So what changed?” Abi asked.
He gave another soft, bitter laugh. “I tried to do the right thing, tried to keep my honor but it led only to misery. I should have realized that when it comes to jealousy and rivalry, honor has no place.”
He sighed. “I wandered for a while and ended up in a small settlement to the south. It had recently been granted a charter by the king and was busy growing into a proper burgh, where people would come to trade for miles around. At the beginning I did any job I could do to get by. But I caught the attention of the local bailiff and he gave me work training the local militia. It was my first command. They were green youths most of them, and didn’t know which end to hold a sword when I first got them. But they were good lads, keen and eager to learn. For a time, I was happy. I thought I’d found my place.”
He paused, rubbed a hand across his face and stared straight ahead, his eyes clouded with memories. “I should have known better. I should have known ye canna escape yer past so easily. On a day in late August—one of those scorching hot days that dinna come around too often—I was training with my men on the outskirts of the burgh, when Clan Muir came for me. They had been told that I was working for my uncle and that I was training my men to lead an attack on Clan Muir. Lies, at the time, but that didnae matter. My lads tried to defend me, tried to stop them taking me prisoner and hauling me back to Dun Calas in chains. But like I said, they were green youths barely able to hold a sword.”
He faltered, his hands trembling as he clasped them in front of him. “It was a massacre. They died, those lads of mine, every one of them. At night, when I close my eyes, I can still hear their screams.”
“That’s why you don’t sleep?” Abi asked.
Reid nodded. “I canna seem to get the image out of my head. Those lads trusted me and they died because of that trust. I managed to escape the Muir raiders. Threw myself in the river and nearly drowned but managed to get clear. After that, I returned to my uncle’s keep, swore allegiance to him, and swore vengeance against my brother and Clan Muir.”
He fell silent, staring at nothing, and Abi could see the memories churning behind his eyes.
“I’ve done terrible things in the name of vengeance, Abigail,” he said. “Terrible things. I tell myself it’s so I can get justice for those lads but that’s me just lying to myself. It’s not wholly that. I hate my brother for what he did to those lads but I hate him more because he took my place, because he turned me into what I am. I’m a heartless bastard, Abigail. Everything I’ve done has been driven by hatred and revenge. That’s who I really am.”
He fell silent and Abi didn’t speak for a moment. She struggled to process everything he’d just told her.
“No,” she said eventually.
“No?”
“You’re wrong,” she said. “That’s not who you are at all. That’s only who youthinkyou are. Shall I tell you what I see? I see a man who shows unwavering loyalty to his men. I see a man who would risk his own life for those he cares about. I see a man who carried an injured dog up the stairs and dressed his wounds with his own hands.” She faltered as sudden emotion cracked her voice. “I see a man who took a lost, frightened woman and made her feel safe. Made her feel alive. Made her feel things she’s never felt in her life.”
She pushed away from the door and crossed the room to him. “I seeyou, Reid Campbell or Reid Muir. It doesn’t matter what name you go by. I see everything you are and I tell you this: it changes nothing. You are a better man than you give yourself credit for.”
Emotions warred on his face: shame, self-hatred, and the glimmering of something else. Hope?
“I understand now,” she said. “I get it. I get why you went racing off like that today. We all need closure sometimes and you thought this was your chance to get it.”
“But I put you in danger.”
“It worked out in the end. And I forgive you.” She gave him a tentative smile.
He did not smile back. His expression was serious, his gaze intense as he reached out and ran his thumb across her cheek. “Abigail Fenton,” he breathed. “Ye honor me. And I will do everything in my power to earn yer forgiveness.”
She stepped closer and placed the flat of her palms against his chest. She could feel his heart beating beneath her fingers.
Reid’s lips parted and a slow breath escaped him. “Abigail—”
She put her finger against his lips to silence him, then rose onto her toes and kissed him. He went rigid for a moment, as though surprised, but in the next instant, all his restraint snapped. His arms went around her, yanking her hard against him, and he kissed her back, his lips crashing against hers in a frenzy.
Heat pooled through Abigail’s body and she leaned into him, kissing him fiercely.
Without breaking their kiss, Reid walked her backwards until her calves hit the bed. Then he laid her down and Abi pulled him down with her, gripping his shoulders as they kissed with a desperate passion.
Oh god, it drove her wild. She wanted him so badly that her whole body ached with it and this time there was nobody to interrupt them. They were alone, just the two of them, and this sizzling desire that crackled in the air like electricity. Reid’s big hands swept down her torso and cupped her breast, his fingers circling her nipple until it hardened painfully against the fabric of her dress. For her part, Abi ran her hands over his back, loving the feel of that contoured muscle through his shirt.
She began pulling at it, desperate to get the man out of it, and Reid helped by putting his head down and his arms forward so she could pull it off and toss it away. Her eyes roved over his naked torso and the sight of his sun-darkened abs, his smooth, sculpted chest, only deepened the ache she had for him.
