“Change?”
“Ye’re hot and cold,” she accused. “One minute, I’ve bewitched ye, and the next, it’s like I’m just the healer.”
“Ye’re always more than a healer to me, Jeane.”
He looked down at her with the most earnest brown eyes, and he seemed so genuine. This was a different Fergus than the one who had captured her in the woods, even a different Fergus than the one who had first kissed her or had demanded that she marry him.
“I’m afraid,” she admitted. She was most afraid of her feelings for Fergus, but she did not say that. “Afraid that me father will find me?—”
“If yer father steps foot on these lands tryin’ to take ye away from me, I will strike him down,” Fergus said, a fierce expression in his dark eyes as he looked at her.
He cupped her face with one hand, so close that he could kiss her in an instant. She breathed out his name, hoping that he would, but he did not.
Instead, he took a deep breath, dropping his hand from her face. He took a few steps back, and although it was sweltering in the forge, Jeane missed his warmth, his touch.
She flushed with something like embarrassment, but that was closer than desire. He had sworn to protect her, even from her father. That was what she had always wanted in a partner. She had wanted someone who would choose her side, every time, and not listen to her father’s criticisms. She wanted someone who would protect her, and Fergus had just promised that he would.
And the way he made her feel… it was something deep in her bones, in her soul. Something that yearned for him. Wanted his touch, his kiss. And when he did touch her, when he did kiss her… oh Lord. It was something precious. Almost something holy. “Ye daenae have to kill him.”
“I will kill anyone who tries to take ye from me,” he said, just as fiercely, and he paced around the forge, walking a few steps forward and then back.
Jeane just watched him, sensing that he had something else he wanted to say to her.
“Ye’ve never asked me about these,” he said, turning toward her and gesturing to his face.
“Yer scars?” she asked softly.
“Aye, what else?” he snapped, taking a few steps toward her. “Ye cannae pretend ye daenae notice them. Do ye find me repulsive?”
She shook her head. “No, not at all! Honestly, I noticed them when we first met, but I daenae think about them now.”
“Ye arenae curious what turned me into… this?” he asked, something strained in his voice.
She tilted her head. “Do ye want to tell me?”
He let out a long breath. “I went to a festival with me man-at-arms and me best friend, Murphy,” he explained. “I was tired, nae paying much attention, and we came up upon a crowd of bandits. Too many of them.”
Jeane looked at him for a moment, trying to decide if he wanted her to respond or just listen. She figured it was the latter, so she kept her mouth shut, just watching him as he began to pace again.
“They came at us, probably ten of them, and I cut so many down. I did everythin’ I could, but me horse spooked, ran off, and I got cornered. Swords slashed at me from every angle. They cut me down.”
“And that’s when?—”
He cut her off. “That’s when I got this.”
He pointed at the long scar from his left eyebrow down to his chin, looking away from her.
“And Murphy?” she asked, her heart seeming to still in her chest. She thought she knew what had happened to Murphy, but she could not be sure.
Fergus hung his head. “Dead. He bade me to run, and I did. Like a coward. I left him there, Jeane.”
“Ye had to go and get help,” she said softly, reaching out to touch his arm.
He flinched as if her touch burned him, but he did not pull away.
“Did ye ken I was betrothed then?”
Jeane froze, her heart dropping into her stomach.
