As if sensing his powerful stare, she angled her head toward hisand let her face break into a smile that made him feel like some pitiful sot who would allow her to make him forget…
The warmth that curled his lips bubbled up out of someplace he had forgotten. He let himself get a little lost in her and what she—it seemed only she—could do for him. She chased away his ghosts, even brandishing her stick against his demons.
“What was she like, Chief?” she suddenly asked. If the sound of her did not make him toss away reason, he would have better guarded himself against such a question.
Had he not told her he wanted quiet? Here she was not an hour in, talking.
“I dinna wish to speak of her.”
“Ye loved her.”
Despite the words piercing him, her voice soothed his wounds.
“Of course.”
“Do ye miss her?”
“Lass,” he said on a warning thread, “aye, I miss her. Why are ye askin’ me these questions?”
She bent her knees and sat on the ground, then looked up at him. “I have never been in love as ye have. My father didna force me to marry without love. Neither he nor I thought I would ever wish to wed a man.”
Constantine listened and folded his legs to sit next to her, his heart thumping madly as he remembered the reason she would not wish to marry. He also recalled her telling him the chief who had abused her was dead. By whose hand? The man who had adopted her?
“Ye said ye were taken in as a babe,” he began. “How did ye come to know yer father, whom ye loved?”
“He saved my life when I was eight and took me in. I lived with him and his wife and he cared fer and loved me as his own daughter.”
“I would like to thank him fer bein’ a good man. But ye mentionedhim dyin’.”
“Aye, he fell ill this past summer. The clan physician couldna be certain what was the cause. He continued to grow more ill until he perished.” She looked as if she wanted to say more. But she dipped her gaze to her hands folded in her lap.
What was she not telling him?
“Ye loved him,” he said in a quiet voice, seeing the pain in her face, wrapped in foggy tendrils.
“He was the only man I have ever or will ever love.”
She lifted her elegant fingers to wipe her eyes. It soon became apparent to him that she was doing her best to conceal her emotions. Normally, Constantine hated emotions. Weeping usually meant pain—and Constantine had enough of that in his life. But from the first night this lass had wept while she ate her supper, he felt pity and compassion—and understanding. It was as if she could not stop herself that night, but now she could.
“Lass,” he said softly, not really understanding why, save that sometimes he wished there was someone who understood his pain, who would just listen. “Ye dinna need to hold back yer tears. Losin’ the one ye love can be earth shatterin’.”
She stopped sniffling and looked at him. “Has it been earth shattering fer ye too?”
Habit told him to shrug his shoulders and remain quiet. Some things he could not share. But he found himself being held steady by her gaze while he nodded and then spoke. “It shatters anew every day.”
He shook his head, gazing at her. “Nae. No’ every day.”Not anymore.
A wave of guilt washed over him. His wife and child were lost to him forever and he hadn’t even bid them farewell properly. How dare he take interest in any other woman?
He watched her rest her tear-stained fingers on his forearm. “Lochiel, ye dinna need to hold back yer tears either.”
Of course, he would not weep. It would not bring his family back.
“I didna have a chance to mourn my father,” she said, looking off in the distance. “Almost immediately his wife arranged fer me to be courted. A se’nnight after my father’s final farewell, my betrothed swore that the more I mourned my father, the crueler he would become toward me. My mother spied on me, I am certain of it and reported my tears to him. Despite the chief keeping his word, I still wept fer my father.” She blinked away from wherever she was and gazed at him. “But it was always in fear. I dinna feel afraid right now.”
He was glad. Even when she bent her head and wept into her hands, he was glad she was not afraid of him. He did not weep with her, and was barely familiar with comforting anyone, especially a lass.
But he had known how to comfort Alison.
