“Ye mustn’t do anything, Ceana. “Tis nae safe. Ye will put yer family in danger. If ye are nae able to prove it, ye will be looked at as suspects, and the Laird’s brother is eager to kill as many as are involved.”
Ceana had heard this so many times. Even worse, she knew it was true. It didn’t make her feel better. How would it make anyone feel better? Was she to do nothing and let him die?
“How are ye so calm about it?”
“Calm?” he laughed dryly. “I am nae calm. For days, I have been angry, afraid for me life, and alone, I thought to meself what ye must think of me, and it made it worse. But today, for the first time in days, I have more than a slice of bread and water in me belly and ye are here. I have accepted me fate. I ken that the killer will nae stop simply because I am gone. He will go on. Then, they will realize their mistake. It would be too late, however, too late.”
“And how do ye write me part?”
“I beg yer pardon?” he didn’t understand her question.
“Well, ye have it all planned out neatly. Do ye think of what would happen to those who love ye? Yer uncle is nae the same man he used to be. Me da varies this guilt almost as heavily as I do.”
“Ceana, love, ye did naught. ‘Tis nae yer fault that I am here. If we hadn’t had an argument, we would have another date, and I would have tried to save her still. Ye would have tried to help me, and yer hands would have been bloodied. What if we were taken together? Then, I wouldnae be calm. “Tis the best way.”
Ceana understood him but found it hard to feel the gratitude that he felt. Her heart felt empty, hollow, and she was scared.
“Torcall,” she whispered to him.
“Aye?”
“I feel fear for the future in me bones. I do nae ken how I will go on without ye.”
Torcall slipped her hands to his. “There is naught that we can do. The keep gates are nae like the gates of the prison. I have been a soldier once before, remember? I have scouted these lands through and through. If anyone kens these lands more than me ‘tis me uncle. There is nae a way to sneak out the keep gates. I would be caught out.”
And with those words, Torcall effectively erased the budding hope of an escape that she had been nursing. With sad eyes, Ceana gave up.
Torcall slipped his hands to hers. Slowly, he caressed her palms before taking them in his hands and running circles on her palms. “An unhealthy amount,” Torcall said.
“Pardon?” she asked.
“An unhealthy number of times. ‘Tis the number of times I thought of seeing ye again. Ye are hard to forget, Ceana.”
Besides herself, she blushed and looked away.
“Do ye ken somethin’?” he asked.
“Nay,” she replied, realizing for the first time how awfully close to her he was.
“I want ye to promise me somethin’,” he said.
“What?” she asked him.
“When they kill me, ye will nae let it kill ye—the guilt, I mean. I want ye to live till I am exonerated. Ye need to be there to watch me ghost haunt them.”
He was jesting, she knew, and she tried to laugh but instead, she burst into tears. Torcall pulled her to him and embraced her in his arms.
“I do nae want ye to cry, Ceana. I couldnae stand it, please,” he begged her, but she could not stop. She sobbed harder and harder still.
Torcall placed kisses on her cheeks and all over her face muttering to her as he did so. “I will always be with ye, Ceana. I am nae dead yet, and even when I am, ye will have me in yer heart.”
Ceana nodded, trying to stop the sobs, but it was no good, and so Torcall kissed her. Slowly, the sobs stopped. He kissed her lips with a tenderness that was like nothing she had ever known. He was comforting her in the best way possible.
He ran his tongue across her bottom lip as he liked to do, gratifying in her shiver. Unable to resist, he pulled her even closer to himself and placed kisses on her neck. Slowly, he suckled on a spot he had found sweet, her moans rewarding him.
Ceana clung to him like a woman afraid of drowning. He was the air, and she craved him. How wonderful his full lips felt against hers. They sucked on her lips in the most enticing of ways. Her body’s reaction was immediate; between her legs, her longing grew.
“Torcall,” she moaned. “Do nae stop,” she begged him.
