A buried part of her panicked at the thought, that he might have left her alone once more.
It was what she wished, after all, was it not?
So why, then, did it worry her?
But then . . . anotherthunkof his head—
“Please, Eilidh. Please let me in.”
Kieran nearly stumbledforward when the door unexpectedly opened.
He truly thought Eilidh would refuse him entry.
Jamie certainly would have; she would have ignored him and licked her wounds in silence.
The terror on Eilidh’s face right before she had run from the great hall . . .
She had been a feral animal, trapped and caught, lashing out.
This had been his own fear, had it not? That some sort of physical assault lurked in the chasm of her missing memories. She had been alone aboardThe Minerva, after all. Unprotected. At Cuthie’s mercy.
And Cuthie had no reason to treat her kindly.
But the man had to have known that if even one member of the Brotherhood survived being marooned, he would hunt Cuthie to the ends of the earth to avenge Jamie’s wounds.
It was the reason Cuthie and Massey had not returned to Britain in nearly three years. The Brotherhood were men of power, and Cuthie had hurt, if not broken, one of their own.
Part of Kieran had hoped that Cuthie, being self-preserving and shrewd above all else, would have at least not brutally assaulted Jamie directly.
Even so, Eilidh had been without Kieran for nearly six years. Anything could have befallen a woman during that time. He hated that he knew so little of her recent past, that he did not understand all the forces that had shaped her into the reticent, fearful woman she had become.
But . . . shehadopened the door just now.
He righted himself and met her gaze.
She had beengreiting, his lass, her face splotchy and pale, eyes stormy and red-rimmed. Her dark hair had tumbled from its pins and now hung in a riot of curls around her face.
But she faced him with her jaw stubbornly clenched, her gaze holding traces of the brave woman he had married.
“Thank ye for opening the door.” He nodded. “May I come in or would ye prefer to speak elsewhere?”
She paused, as if the courtesy of his words caught her off-guard.
“Here will be fine.” She stepped backward, allowing him to enter. “I cannot imagine our conversation will last long.”
She left the door fully open and motioned for him to take a seat in a chair before the fireplace. She grabbed a shawl from off the trunk at the foot of her bed, wrapping it tightly around her shoulders.
“What must ye say to me?” Picking up her hair pins from the counterpane, she sat opposite him. She gathered the heavy weight of her hair over one shoulder and then proceeded to twist and twirl the mass into a knot, pinning the lot to her head.
It was hard not to see symbolism in her actions. That she was containing her internal, feeling self as ruthlessly as she flattened and smoothed her rebellious curls.
She had utterly withdrawn, retreating into the blank-faced woman who had arrived just a week ago.
Kieran feared even the minimal progress he had made with her was now lost.
And so, he gave her the only words he had left.
“I love ye, Eilidh.” He waited until she met his gaze. “And because I love ye, I want ye tae be your fullest self. So I have tae ask it—are ye happy with who ye feel yourself to be at the moment?”
