“Can you see this?” she asked, scooping handfuls of water and tossing them at him.
When he leaped after her, she screamed and laughed and fell into his arms.
He kissed her with exquisite care, delighting in how she touched his bare shoulders. Her fingers tracing the angles in his arms made him ache for more than kisses.
“Remember the race, my lord,” she said with a teasing smile. “Will you let me beat you to the castle, or take me as your wife?”
“I will take you as my wife,” he murmured, bending to capture her and her mouth once again.
But…he couldn’t take her with so much between them, and he couldn’t reach the castle first while he had so many secrets.
“But Braya, hear me. I…I…live with a great…shame.” He released her and ran his hand down his face. “It plagues me every day.”
“What are you ashamed of, my love?” she asked, concern filling her gaze while she ran her fingers over his jaw.
He couldn’t do this. He didn’t want to admit it, hear it coming from his lips.
But he needed to. And she was the only one he wanted to tell. “I left them.” He said it. He used to dream about saying it, confessing it out loud. He always wondered if it would change anything. It did. “I ran away while my enemies burned down my house and killed my entire family. I ran away.”
Tears filled her eyes instantly. He loved that she would shed them for him. He’d never had the understanding ear of anyone before. Even if he’d had one, he would never have spoken this out loud. Not even to Avalon.
“What could you have done, Torin?” she asked him, touching his face with both of her soft hands now. “You were but a babe. You were not the man you are now. You cannot blame that child for choices he made after living for only five years. ’Tis not fair, Torin. You are feeding the shame instead of slaying it.”
“Iamslaying it by killing my enemy.”
“No.” She shook her head. “It will never be enough.”
“What will, then?” he asked, hoping she had an answer.
She tossed her arms around him again and walked with him back to the shore. “I do not know what will. You were a helpless babe, Torin. Your father could not stop them Why do you think you could have?”
He thought about it and then shook his head. “I do not know.” He laughed at it, and she laughed with him.
Would telling her he was a soldier of Robert the Bruce go this well?
He looked for his belt with his sword and knives. They were all gone. He stepped in front of a dripping wet, beautiful Braya Hetherington.
She shoved him away and retrieved a knife from a pocket in her breeches. Something dropped out of the trees.
Not something. Someone.
He heard Braya expel a strangled sound at the big brutish, long-haired Scot landing on his two feet to their right, a long claymore in his right hand. He was dressed in a long-sleeved léine and belted Highland plaid. Hell, he was daunting enough to make Torin wish they hadn’t come here.
“Commander Gray,” the Highlander sang, coming closer, unafraid. “Lord Rothbury received yer letter. He regrets that he is not seein’ anyone at this time.”
“And who are you?” Torin asked him.
“Commander Cainnech MacPherson.”
Adams appeared on his horse with Avalon and Archer close by. He leaped from his saddle and pushed forward, his sword drawn. “Where is Lord Rothbury? What have you done with him?”
“Gray,” Commander MacPherson’s voice went flat and laced with warning. But it was his glacial blue eyes that convinced Torin he spoke the truth. “Control yer man’s tongue before he loses it.”
“Why, I—” Adams raged and moved forward.
“Put yer sword away,” the Highlander warned on a deadly whisper, “before ye lose yer arm as well.”
“Adams!” Torin shouted at him to get his attention. When he had, he shook his head. “Let us be of a sound mind.”
