Oh, that was because shehadbeen.
“We already had a version of this conversation when I arrived.” She set down the bap and placed her hands on the table, staring at him.
“Yes and no.” He mirrored her, his hands also on the table. “We spoke, yes, but that was before we discovered ye might hang for actions ye dinnae remember doing. Now, we need tae help ye recall—”
“Why yourself? Why are you the man who is here?” she interrupted. “Why are you the one who meets me for breakfast and sends me to my chambers at night? Why not Lord Lockheade? He is a physicianandsomeone I trust. Why was it decided thatyouhave to be the one to assist me in this?”
She didn’t add that MacTavish lurked most inconveniently . . . in the dark recesses of her memory, in the unwanted puzzle of her sentiments.
“Why myself?” He stirred two lumps of sugar into his coffee. “I suppose because the rest of the Brotherhood know I had—have—a close relationship with yourself—”
“Close? Us?” Eilidh’s eyebrows flew upward, her accent disintegrating right along with her sense of equanimity. “Ye may think ye know me, butIdon’t know you. Aside from the unsavory bits and bobs my father mentioned over the years, ye are, more or less, a stranger to me.”
“That’s why ye need tae get to know me.” MacTavish sipped his coffee with an annoying slurp, clearly unruffled.
Eilidh did not want him composed and calm.
She wanted him seething and frustrated like the coiled knot currently tightening under her sternum.
“Get to know ye? Why would I?!” She leaned toward him, ticking off on her fingers. “Ye abandon my father in his hour of greatest need, leaving him to a pauper’s grave. Ye bring me here by paying off my friends. Ye bribe me with new clothing, but thumb your nose at all propriety, depositing me in this castle, alone with yourself. And then, as if that all weren’t enough, ye ask me to plumb the most painful moments of my life with your untrustworthy self as my guide. No, thank ye.”
Again . . . she got little reaction from him.
He merely shook his head. “Now, lass—”
“No! Enough!” Eilidh took in a deep breath. “I understand you and the others think me to be in danger. But I know myself. There isnochance that I deliberately had anything to do with that ship exploding. The very thought is appalling. This is simply a mistake, and Captain Cuthie’s account of what happened will likely show that I am innocent.”
Master MacTavish laughed, a dismissive crack of sound. His composure crumbled—brows frowning, eyes narrowing, shoulders bunching.
“Captain Cuthiedespisedye, lass,” he said, leaning forward on his hands. “Ye pulled the wool over his eyes for nearly eight months. He only realized ye were, indeed, a lass right before ye were parted from us. Ye made him look foolish. And a man like Cuthie is most dangerous when he feels humiliated. He would perjure himself tae spite ye. Dinnae think tae receive any respite from that quarter.”
Eilidh sat back in her chair and folded her arms across her chest, as if they could stand as a barrier against . . .allof it.
Angerfearshamepainhorrorchurned just beneath her sternum. It was lava—fiery and scorching. It choked her breathing and stung her eyes.
“I cannot do this. Not with yourself,” she said, shaking her head, proud that her voice didn’t tremble. “If I must remember, leave me to it. Allow me to remember on my own and in my own way.”
Master MacTavish sat back himself, arms crossed, again mirroring her. “Ye dinnae have the time tae wait. Alex has suggested that perhaps engaging in activities that ye did aboard ship might help ye—”
“No!”
The lava burst from her chest, painfully clawing up her throat.
Images flooded her mind. Snippets of memory she never wanted to relive.
Her brother, Jamie, lurching upright in bed as he died, vomiting a river of blood all over his chest, the counterpane, her hands.
Herself, curled up on a mat in a villager’s hut, drowning in shame and horror, her head an endless drum of pain, the metallic tang of blood in the air.
So. Much. Blood.
Her past ran red with it.
She feared someday she would wake to find the world itself pulsed red—
Eilidh pushed back from her chair, her only thought to get away, away, away—
“Jamie . . .” Master MacTavish’s voice reached her.
