True to her nature, she didn’t flinch.
But her fingers tensed around the mug she held.
As if she, too, were fighting the unexpected current that threatened to drag them both out to sea.
10
Eilidh woke the next morning, dread sitting like an albatross on her chest.
How many mornings had she awakened to this heavy sensation? How many years had she lost to melancholy and despair?
Her carefully constructed numbness was crumbling.
She rose and paced over to the window, pulling back the curtains, and opening the shutters. The window was small, as was typical for a medieval Scottish castle, she supposed. But if she pressed her forehead to the glass and looked to her right, she could see the ocean. The wind whipped the water into a turbulent froth, sending plumes of sea spray crashing into the cliffs.
It felt too much like a portent. A shadow of the emotional maelstrom headed her way.
One hundred and twenty-seven men.
The numbers spun incessantly in her head—1-2-7.
Dead.
Fathers. Brothers. Sons. Husbands. Friends.
Men who had been known to her. Some had likely been her friends.
Men whose deaths certainly left gaping holes in the lives of those who loved them. She couldn’t fathom the depth of such collective grief and pain.
And now . . . she was accused of being the cause of it all.
It felt impossible.
She would never have done such a thing. Never. No matter what Captain Cuthie claimed had happened.
And yet . . .
Overnight, vague memories had wormed their way through her consciousness. Images that her mind labeled as Captain Cuthie—a grizzled sailor with dark eyes and a hooked nose, skin leathery from his years at sea.
Cuthie yelling at a cabin boy for mopping the deck too slowly, cuffing the lad upside the head and sending him sprawling.
Cuthie’s onyx eyes wide and mere inches from her own, shouting unintelligible words before pushing her down a ladder.
Cuthie advancing on her with a knife in hand—
She took in a slow breath.
This was the problem with the dark chasm of that missing year.
Every time she plumbed her missing memories, scenes rose, wraith-like, from the murky depths. Ghoulish images that were ugly and frightening and best left undisturbed.
Why?She shook a fist at the specter of memory howling at her back, clawing at her vision.Why can you not let me be?
She had finally—finally!—crafted a space of light and safety with Simon. A numbed white void where such darkness did not intrude. She had a future before her, one of hope and hard-won peace.
Why could she not simply continue forward with her life, leaving the bleak depths of that year far behind?
Lord Lockheade’s examination of her yesterday had been . . . painful. Not physically, of course. He had merely checked her pulse and asked about her bodily health.
