“I do,” he acknowledged. “But I was startin’ to think that every assumption I made about ye was thoroughly wrong. Everythin’ I assumed before we entered this betrothal has been proved more or less wrong.”
A faint line appeared between her brows. Her hand fluttered up to her face, fingertips sliding along her lower lip, then up over the curve of her topmost lip. It took him a moment to realize what she was doing—tracing her scar.
“I imagine ye expected yer bride-to-be to be scar-less,” she remarked, with a lightness that did not quite ring true.
Creighton pursed his lips. “Did I? Maybe. But I immediately had the urge to kiss ye there, so it was nae so very bad for me.”
She glanced up at him, eyes wide with shock. It was almost comical, almostsweet. How could she be surprised athissurprise?
Immediately, she pulled her gaze away, as if afraid she would be caught staring. She cleared her throat and fidgeted with her fingers again. He sensed she was gathering the courage to say something, maybe to ask a question. Possibly. If the question was about how badly he wanted to kiss her when she first removed that mask, then it was better to steer the conversation away before it gained any momentum.
“Yer sister, then,” he managed. “Tell me about her.”
“I… I daenae ken if I want to.”
“That’s certainly nae the response I usually get when I ask people about their families,” he conceded. “Ye are under nay obligation to do anythin’, lass.”
Her face crumpled. He just had time to glimpse misery in her eyes before she turned away, pretending to look at something in the distance.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered, after a moment or two had gone by. “I have a little sister meself. I can imagine how it would feel if I lost her. HowIwould feel. It… It would hurt more than anythin’ else in the world.”
The silence stretched on for a few more seconds. He would not have been surprised if she’d turned and run away, or burst into tears, or perhaps both. He was just beginning to assume that the conversation was well and truly over when she let out a ragged exhale and turned to face him.
“I suppose ye do deserve to ken what’s going on here,” she said at last, her voice harsh and a little rasping. “After all, ye are the most irritatin’ man I have ever met…”
“I’m surethatcannae be true. Have ye ever met other men? Insufferable pricks, the lot of them.”
“Ye deserve to know the truth,” she plowed on, obviously trying to ignore his comment. “So, I’ll tell ye. There’ll be nay secrets between us. At least, onelesssecret.”
“Much more manageable,” he agreed.
Turning to face him, she looked up for a long moment, her eyes dark in the moonlight. Long, green-tinged fingers played a complex rhythm on top of the wall, with the gentlethunksof fingers hitting stone sounding louder in the quiet. He forced himself to wait, almost holding his breath, until she was ready to speak.
“I came here for a reason,” she said at last, lifting her chin. “And it had nothin’ to do with me love for me clan, andnothin’to do with Laird Bryden. Ye can get that idea out of yer head right now.”
“I already had,” he confessed. “I never saw anythin’ between the two of ye. Besides, I would expect that man to at leastpretendto be betrothed to me cousin.”
“I am lookin’ for me sister,” Nora breathed at last, in a rush. Her shoulders shivered, as a weight had slipped off them. “Margaret. Margie, everybody called her. Me little sister.”
He tilted his head. “She’s nae dead, then?”
“Nae as far as I ken. She went missin’ about a month ago. There was an attack around that time, a raid. Or so I heard. I wasnaewith her. I work in the Keep; she travels outside the Keep. Often. She’s restless, she has lots of friends, lots of places she wants to see, I… I never even kent she’d been taken until it was far too late.” Nora let out a ragged breath, squeezing her eyes shut. “There were bodies in the village. Nae many. A few people were killed when they resisted. Margaret’s body wasnae among them, and I daenae see why they would have buried her or disposed of her body in some other way than the others. So, I… I think she was taken.”
“And ye think it was MacColl soldiers who did that?” Creighton murmured, frowning. “I will admit, sometimes these raids get out of hand, but me soldiers are under instruction to shed as little blood as possible. And this allyship, thistreatywith Clan Bryden, should stop the raids. Under the terms of the treaty, I cannae touch the clan’s boundaries without violatin’ our agreement. We must do nay harm to each other until the year’s betrothal is up, whereupon there’ll be a proper treaty in place.”
“Aye, but this happenedbeforethat. And I ken that…t hat guards do worse things to enemy women than simply kidnap them, aye?” Nora’s eyes fluttered briefly closed when she said the wordsworse things. Creighton tightened his jaw until his teeth creaked. “Ye ken what I mean.”
“Aye, I ken what ye mean,” he muttered. “Such a thing is punishable by death amongst me soldiers. I willnae stand for it.”
She blinked. That surprised her, then.
“Could they have done it and not told ye?”
He shrugged. “I suppose. I daenae attend all of these raids. In fact, me councilors insist that I daenae attend any of them. Dallas is very concerned about me health and strength. And so he should be, I suppose. I am the Laird, after all. It wouldnae do for me to be found dead on the edges of enemy territory with an arrow through me eye socket.”
She winced. “Nay, I imagine nae.”
“So, yer sister. Ye thought she might have been taken by MacColl men, and that she might be here?”
