Emma clenched her fists.
“I kent they werenae her thoughts. Moira wasnae perfect, but she definitely wasnae evil. I kent she was being influenced. Then, me friend came in with her. He had given her the knife and asked her to kill me. Ye see, Jeremiah never loved Moira. All he had ever wanted had always been me position. He kent that if I died while married to Moira, he would become Laird MacLeod. It didnae exactly help matters that Moira only gave birth to a lass.”
Emma swallowed.
“So at the very last minute, when Moira was about to kill me, she stopped. She couldnae go through with it. Said I was the faither of her child, and killing me would do her more harm than good. That angered Jeremiah a lot. I kent he was angry. I didnae ken just how angry he was. I should have done something when he stormed off, but I didnae. I didnae think me best friend was capable of something so… so heinous.”
“What did he do?” Emma asked, her heart pounding in her chest. Something told her she already knew the answer.
“That night, I walked in on Jeremiah… he had just stabbed her with his dagger. I watched her bleed out and die on the floor. Jeremiah, angry that I discovered him, tried to kill me as well. But I killed him anyway.”
Emma sighed and watched as he closed his hand to hide the tremor there.
“Me maither cleaned the floor, and Duncan helped dispose of the bodies. We buried her at first light. I told the church what it needed to hear. Folks recounted the tale they wished to recount. I have only ever told the truth to me braither and me maither.”
Emma crossed the floor and sat beside him. The mattress dipped slightly under her weight. She turned her face toward him. The candlelight made her eyes look warmer than he had ever seen them.
She put her hand on his and did not rush to fill the silence. Jack exhaled. In telling her the truth, something felt incredibly freeing.
“I am sorry for judging what I didnae ken,” she murmured.
He nodded once. “Oh well, I am sorry for asking ye to trust me while keeping the door shut on the one room ye wished to see.”
Her fingers were gentle on his knuckles. “Did she try to take the baby?” she asked softly.
“She didnae get the chance,” he replied. “Stella slept in the next room with the nurse. She never woke. I kept the cries from reaching that door.”
Emma’s shoulders relaxed a little, then rose again. “And the portrait?” she prodded. “The empty space in the gallery.”
“I took it down,” he admitted. “Nae out of hate—ye must understand that I never once hated Moira, even after her demise. It was out of mercy. Trust me, the castle does better with fewer ghosts on the walls.”
Emma looked at the small book on the table as if the right word might be tucked there. “Folks say what they will,” she sighed. “They always do. But if that is true, then what is it ye want from me, Jack?”
Jack felt the truth arrive before he could name it. He kept his eyes on hers so he would not look for another answer in the dark.
“This,” he said.
He lifted her hand and laid it flat on his chest. She could feel his heart thud against his ribs.
That was what he wanted. He also wanted to draw her close and kiss her. He wanted nothing more than to pull her in and claim her mouth like he had done in the library.
But then he thought otherwise and decided to do the first honest thing he had done in years: to wait.
“I still daenae understand.”
Jack exhaled. “I want a partner, Emma. I want ye.”
CHAPTER 27
Emma’s eyessettled on the fireplace. She thought of getting up to stoke the coals, but something about her position was too comfortable. She didn’t want to get up.
She didn’t want to leave this place. Not even for a minute.
The fire burned brightly, but not so bright as to cause alarm. The last of the light shifted over the stone floor beside the bed as she leaned against the carved post, her hair loose over her shoulders.
Jack sat near her, the heat from the fireplace warming them. The ribbon in his hand slid smoothly, almost like silk, as he caught her sleeve and tied it back into place.
Emma looked up at him, at those damning brown eyes and how they seemed to make everything else around her disappear.
