“Aye, one of the people they lived with raised them.”
“Lies, lies and more lies.”
“I was desperate,” he said, and hurried to securely latch the door when he saw her eyeing it consideringly. “I need ye to speak to me. I would stay here until ye do but I have to return to Lochancorrie soon. The harvest and all, ye ken.” He went back to stand at the side of the bed.
“Simon, I will say that I have acted badly.” She held up her hand when he began to protest. “I have. I cannae say whether I was trying to punish ye or just sulking, but it was unkind and many other wee sins I am sure my mother could enumerate, to just keep ignoring ye.”
“Then why did ye do it?”
“Ye hurt me when ye pushed me away so coldly, so abruptly and completely that day in the dungeons. It also hurt more because I was free, and all we had done to prove who the real traitors were was at an end. I wished to share that success with ye and, aye, even the sad part of it since it was your own blood involved. And then it seemed like ye and I were at an end as weel and it made me feel as if I was naught but another innocent ye work hard to protect.”
He sat down and pulled her into his arms, ignoring the faint hint of tension in her lithe body. “Nay, ye were never just a puzzle to me, something to solve, toss aside, and go on to the next. Never. I had to make the cut quick and sharp for I was weak. I wanted to stay there and hold ye and let ye comfort me o’er the idiocy of my mad brother.”
“But why did ye have to go at all, Simon?” She tried to catch him by the hand when he stood up and began to pace.
“This isnae easy to explain,” he said. “I was a craven coward. I had just watched my eldest brother, my laird, lose his last grip on his sanity. The things he said were still sitting in my head proving his insanity nay matter how I looked at things. It was terrifying to watch that last thread snap and hear him talk of all the killing he had done and why, and who are we to judge. I was reeling with it. It was as if he had somehow tainted me with it.
“All I could think of was how ye deserved better than to become tied to a mon who could turn into what Henry did at the end.”
“But, Simon...”
“Nay, I ken now that I am nay like Henry. Ne’er was; ne’er will be. But it took a while for me to see that. Those bouts of rage I suffered didnae help me see clearly, either, for I was certain they were a sign of something wrong. And they were, but nay what I thought. They were a sign of years of built up anger o’er all the bad things Henry had done to good people.”
“Simon, I told ye that ye werenae like him,” she said. “I told ye that. Why couldnae ye believe me?”
“Because ye were my lover,” he answered as he sat down beside her. “My lover and my confidante and I dared not accept your opinion. I think ye would tell me the truth, but it was always possible ye would lie or soften the truth to spare my feelings.”
“Oh. That makes sense in some ways. But why did ye stay away for two months, Simon? Two months without sight or word. Did ye ne’er think I might do my best to forget ye?”
“That was what I told myself I wanted ye to do–forget me. I wanted ye to find happiness with a mon who didnae have madness and a traitor in his family.”
He lightly kissed her frowning mouth, fighting against the urge to ravish that beautiful mouth until neither of them could breathe right. “And I would think of that and then I would hate the mon ye found who didnae have a problem with such things as madmen, treason, illegitimate children, and three brothers now living with him.”
“Simon, if ye hadnae thrust me away so coldly, if ye had told me that ye needed to think, that ye were worried about the insanity, I would have waited.”
“Would have waited?” He frowned. “Are ye telling me that ye didnae wait for me?”
“Bad choice of words. I would have waited for ye because ye asked, instead of waiting for ye and doing naught but hoping ye would come back, that mayhap I mistook what had happened, and then hating myself for that weakness.”
“Ah, Ilsabeth, I was unkind. Nay. E’en worse, I was so lost in what troubled me I ne’er gave a thought to what it was all doing to ye.” He pulled her into his arms. “I was a confused idiot. I kenned that madness doesnae have to be in the blood, have seen that with my own eyes, but then I would fear that what ailed Henry was one of the ones that can be in the blood.”
He gently pushed her down onto the bed. “I wanted to do what was right for ye and yet I didnae want ye to leave me. I feared the insanity yet kenned that I couldnae have it. I think I drove my brothers to distraction with my own confusion.”
“And when did ye ken that they werenae worried about the madness?”
He kissed the side of her neck and then grinned. “That did take a wee while to sink in to my mind. I needed some time and distance from all Henry was and had done. I think I was shamed by him as weel,” he admitted softly. “Shamed that such a creature shared a family tie with me.”
“That is verra understandable. Despite what he was and all the cruelties he had inflicted upon his own family, ‘tis always difficult to, weel, disown the one doing them.” She slowly began to unlace his shirt.
“And all the while I was sorting through my wee troubles ye were thinking I had tossed ye aside just because I was done with ye?” The ways she blushed was all the answer he needed.
“I cannae apologize enough for that. I hurt ye and I kenned I had when I walked away that day. I have ne’er been able to shake the look on your face from my mind. Each time I saw it I wanted to come and beg your forgiveness.” He unlaced her bodice and kissed the soft swell of one breast. “I also kept hearing Elen’s bellow, hearing the pain beneath the fury. I hurt her, too.”
She placed her hands over his to stop the undoing of her clothing. “Simon, I do need to ken something. I need to ken that ye willnae just walk away from me like that again. It felt as if something broke inside me and I cannae bear to ever feel that again. The fear of feeling that again is one reason I have been so unkind, pushing ye away again and again.”
He framed her face with his hands and looked into her eyes. She had not said the words but he could read them in her eyes, hear them in how she spoke of her pain. Simon touched his mouth to hers in soft apology.
“Never again, Ilsabeth. I cut out my own heart when I walked away. I love ye,” he whispered and, with a soft cry, she flung her arms around his neck and kissed him in a way that thrust all other thoughts from his head but the taste of her.
