She shrugged. “I doona require much food.”
Would she deprive herself of sustenance just to feed them, letting herself wither away? He would never allow it. “I canna let ye do such a thing.”
“Ye have no say in what I do with the portions allocated to me. Am I not the lady of this tower now?”
He folded his hands in his lap to keep from cracking his knuckles—a bad habit when he became frustrated. “I will send more food for ye. Enough to feed a small army. Someday,” he observed, “ye will have to trust someone again.”
Kali cast her gaze in the opposite direction of his face. “I trust meself and me sisters. Perhaps even Heather and the old woman abovestairs—but men…”
Unable to contain himself, he slipped his fingers under her chin and gently coaxed her to look at him. The clarity of her blue eyes stole his breath. “Notallmen are alike, lass.”
She shivered but didn’t shy away from him. “The men I have encountered have wanted only one thing from me, Adam. Or they are like me father.”
…
The conversation brought back a bitter memory—one of the last conversations she’d had with her sire…
“The world doesna care about the dead,” Thomas Bane said to his eldest daughter. “Yer mother is gone, and the sooner ye accept it, the better for all of us.” His words hurt her very soul.
Kali did not love her sire, but she feared him—more than anything in the world. He had a long history of being a tyrant, especially to the women he should love and protect. So she often placated him to avoid his violent temper. Not because she was worried about her own miserable life but more for the happiness and safety of her two younger sisters. Both were delicate and susceptible to anything their father did, and Kali tried to shield them from the ugliness of their bitter reality. So, she wisely remained silent as he continued to chastise her.
“Aberdeen is filled with miscreants, thieves, and rapists. No lass, not even ye, should be wandering the streets alone in the middle of the night.” His countenance suddenly darkened. “Unless…” He wrapped his thick fingers about her upper arm. “Unless ye are involved with someone. A secret lover, perhaps?”
She gasped as he gave her a violent shake.
“Yer silence is an admittance of guilt.”
“Nay.” She finally found the courage to speak. She must defend herself in this, for she would never sacrifice her innocence for something so worthless as an affair with a man who didn’t care about her. “Why would I risk my reputation, chance ruining our family’s honor, by having a clandestine affair?”
He let go of her and stepped back, rubbing his hand over his scraggly beard. “Maybe not.”— he changed his mind suddenly—“for ye have the look of yer mam, and therefore must have her lack of intelligence. Ye are too stupid to find a man capable of loving ye—or at least one willing to take care of ye for longer than a night.”
Accustomed to the insults, Kali wore imaginary armor to protect herself from her drunken, ill-tempered sire. For with every daughter her mother had borne, the vitriol and violence had only worsened—until that fateful night two months ago, when her mam, deemed too old and frail to give birth again, had been cruelly taken from Kali’s life along with her stillborn brother. The one thing Father had begged and prayed for. There had been a moment of unfettered joy, when her sire’s excitement had shaken the rafters of the house. “I have a son!”
Fate had snatched that prideful moment away. His rage followed—cursing her mam, lamenting the day he had met her—wishing her dead. That wish had come true days later.
“Ye forbid me to visit her grave during the day.”
“I forbid ye from visiting at all! My chains in matrimony to a weak woman have been broken. And ye, and yer worthless sisters, will bend to my will. I will have a new wife and the heir I deserve.”
“All right,” she said between clenched teeth, teetering between submission and outright rebellion. “What will ye have me do?” She fisted her hands at her sides, hiding them within the folds of her gown.
He spat on the ground at her feet, the light from his lantern and the full moon casting strange shadows about him. They were standing alone in the fenced courtyard of their house, which offered some privacy, but she knew the servants were huddled somewhere nearby, sharing in her humiliation.
“What is it, lass?” Adam’s soothing voice brought her back to the present. His warm fingers caressed her hand.
“Nothing,” she said, “Nothing more than I already told ye—men always want something…”
…
Adam didn’t need to ask. The first moment he’d beheld her, he’d been guilty of wanting thatone thing, too. As a gentleman, he would never tell her what lower feelings she inspired in him.Possession. Jealously. Protectiveness. Desire. Lust.The list was long. He smiled and chanced touching a strand of her long hair. And just as he knew, silk caressed his fingers, forcing him to swallow his sigh.
“Ye have beautiful hair, lass.”
“Thank ye.” She edged away from him slowly, seemingly unsure what to think about his attention. “My hair has always brought me trouble.”
“Is that why ye cover it?”
“I thought ye brought me down here to advise me, not admire me.”
