She stared at him as if he had just spoken a foreign language. “What?”
“Protection without what breaks a house.” His voice stayed level. “Nay intimacy. Nay claim of love. Nay bed shared. Ye ken, we daenae have to?—”
“Aye, I ken what a white marriage is.”
Alex nodded. “It would shield ye from men like MacGee. It would also quell the rumors about ye. It would give ye time to find out what happened to yer faither and braither, and it would keep me council from pressuring me into a match I daenae want. ‘Tis the perfect solution, really.”
She heard the shape of it and felt the cut anyway. “A bargain.”
“Aye.”
She looked past him to the chair by the fire. Safety had a face now, and it looked like a door that would never open all the way.
“So ye want to make our arrangement permanent. That is what ye’re saying. Ye want me to stay here forever as yer wife but nae yer wife. Nae really.”
“Ye just say the word,” Alex responded. “I will send a message to the priest, and we will keep it quiet and sign what must be signed. Ye will have peace to seek the truth.”
She licked her lips. “Ye said we daenae have to marry.”
He nodded once. “We daenae.”
“Then why offer this?”
“Because I have seen what men like MacGee make of fear. I willnae watch him try to own ye.”
“So instead of MacGee, ye will be the one to own me?”
He flinched. “That isnae what I said.”
Her jaw worked. “Owning is still owning, even if the hands look kinder.”
“I daenae want to own ye, Erica.”
“What do ye want then?” she asked, and hated herself for wanting an answer that would not crush her.
He looked away. “What I assume ye want more than anything—to keep ye alive.”
They remained awfully still as the small sounds of the room settled around them. Even the clock in her head was louder than before.
Her nails dug into her palms. “And what happens to me heart during this arrangement, Alex?”
He did not answer. He did not have to.
She drew a breath that shook and steadied it by force. “I will think on it.”
“Good.” He looked toward the door, then back. “Think on it, lass.”
He opened the door, paused as if there was more, found nothing that would not make it worse, then left. The door clicked shut behind him.
Erica stood very still. The fire flickered and danced. She let the quiet fill every corner until it had weight.
She put her hand on the cold sill and looked down at the dark yard one more time, weighing her options. A marriage that protected everything except her heart, or a life outside it that protected her heart against everything.
CHAPTER 24
Life movedas it had always done every morning in the courtyard.
The routine of it all made speaking easier, though Alex did not like that it did. He had been speaking to his grandmother for the past few minutes about his arrangement with Erica, finally deciding to come clean after weeks of keeping it all to himself.
