“You pretended to be nothing more than a hired sword, and instead I find out you are part of the most revered fighting force in Scotland? A member of the king’s closest retinue. I thought you had no loyalty. I thought you’d betrayed me. And now I find out this? If you’d told me—”
“It wouldn’t have changed anything.”
“It would have for me. I might not have spent two years hating you for something you did not do.” Suddenly, her eyes widened with realization. “Robert and Sir Alex? William and Magnus? The two men at the convent?”
“Stop!” he said, grabbing her wrist to pull her hand away from his arm. Fear made his heart pound. She knew too much. “Don’t ask, don’t even think about any of it. Don’t you understand how dangerous knowledge is? Do you know what those men would have done to you if they thought you could tell them anything?” She paled. “Forget you heard anything they said.”
He should have known better than to try to scare her. “Haven’t I earned the right to know the truth?”
He clenched his jaw. “Not if it puts you in danger. Damn it, Bella, don’t you understand? My former brother-in-law found out that I was a part of the guard, and now I have a price on my head to rival Bruce’s. They will do anything to find out the names of the other men. Anything. It isn’t just the other men at risk—their families will be in danger.”
She lifted her chin, not backing down one inch. “I wouldn’t say anything.”
He nearly laughed. “Spoken like someone who has never been tortured.”
“And you have?”
“Aye,” he said bluntly. He hadn’t broken, because at the time he hadn’t cared about anything. He didn’t have a weak spot. Then. “Care to see a sampling?”
He turned his back.
This time she gasped. Her eyes widened. He saw the horror that he feared, but also something else. Something unexpected. Something like admiration.
“My God, Lachlan.” Her fingers ran over the jagged lines where the steel hooks had pierced and ripped his flesh, nearly to the bone. “To survive this…” Their eyes met. “What happened?”
Once he’d told her to ask him anything. He had no secrets. He didn’t care. His past was behind him.
But something had changed. Her care, her concern, her questions had opened old wounds.
And he feared it would reveal too much to a woman who had already gotten too close.
Bella knew he didn’t want to tell her. He was pulling away from her, just as he’d been doing for the past two days. The closer they drew to safety, the farther away he seemed.
If she thought the way he’d avoided her and acted as if nothing had happened between them had hurt, it was nothing compared to the pain she’d experienced on hearing his crude disavowal to Robbie Boyd. Not until that moment did she realize just how much she’d come to care for him.
“Just because I want to fuck her…”
If he’d pointed an arrow at her heart it couldn’t have been aimed more perfectly. Her chest squeezed and burned. To be an object of lust and nothing more. Dear God, would a man ever want her for something more?
She’d thought Lachlan was different. She’d thought…
What, that because it had felt special to her, it was to him? Had prison left her so desperate for a connection that she’d felt one where there wasn’t?
No. She couldn’t believe that was all it had been to him. He didn’t mean it. He’d probably just been trying to stop Boyd’s probing. Probably. But she couldn’t be sure.
Perhaps his past would give her a clue. She wanted to know the truth, not what people said about him. She wanted to know everything abouthim.
“Tell me,” she asked again. Knowing he hated being challenged, she added, “I thought you had nothing to hide?”
He knew what she was doing but answered her with a shrug. “There isn’t much to tell. My wife was very young, very beautiful, and very spoiled. I was infatuated with her.” Though he said it without emotion, Bella’s heart pinched. It seemed so unlike him. “Within a few months, Juliana’s ardor waned, and she regretted her impulsivity in marrying a bastard without much land to his name—even if he was a chieftain to a clan.”
Bella paled. “You were chieftain?”
He smiled tightly. “Aye, for a while I did ‘my duty,’ as you call it. I was completely unaware of my wife’s discontent, too blinded by lust to see what was happening right before my face. She devised a way to get rid of me—quite an ingenious little plan, actually—telling her brother that I intended to betray him. Unfortunately, Lorn believed her.
“At the time, King Edward was acting overlord of Scotland, and he was furious at Lorn and the rest of the MacDougalls for a recent spate of attacks on English soldiers. My brother-in-law decided this was a good opportunity to get back in the king’s good graces. He needed someone to blame, and I was convenient. He sent me and my men on what was supposed to be a raid, but instead it was a slaughter—our slaughter. I alone survived. Forty-four men who’d followed me into battle never went home to their families.”
She put her hand on his arm. God, no wonder he’d turned from his clan! He blamed himself for the deaths of all those men. “Oh, Lachlan, I’m—”
