Yet that, too, was becoming easier to do with her. Blair tempered him, taming him like a wild animal. The more time they spent in and out of bed, the more he grew to care for this lass who had been forced upon him yet managed to glide into his heart when he’d believed such a consequence impossible.
Blair spoke little during the evening meal, and once she quietly retired to their chambers, Reade excused himself and followed her.
He caught up with her on the stairs and held his elbow out to her.
“Might I escort ye to our chambers?” he asked in muted voice.
Blair tipped her head toward him and silently accepted his arm. She wrapped her slender fingers around his interior elbow, and he walked with her to their door.
She left him at the door, stepped to the table, and grasped the cloth by the wooden bowl. She dipped the cloth and wrung it out, then wiped at her face and neck, letting cool droplets trail down her neck and chest to wet her chemise.
Reade remained by the chamber door, watching her ablution. Something heavy was on her mind — her stiff back and tight face spoke as loudly as her voice. He leaned against the stone wall and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Does something ail ye, lass?” he asked, keeping his voice level. He didn’t want to frighten her if she had something of significance to tell him.
She turned her face to him, her wan smile barely cracking her lips, and shook her head. “Nay, milord. Some days, I live in the past and forget to feel blessed with my new position here.”
Her lips twitched, and she turned her face away. Her shoulders curved in, as if she were carrying a heavy weight across her back.
It was a stance Reade was far too familiar with, as he had carried a similar burden for nearly a year.
In three long strides, he was at her side and took her cool, damp hand in his. Blair twisted to look at him, her face like a question mark. She glanced down at their hands.
“Milord, I —” she started, but Reade shook his head to quiet her.
His mother had advised him to tell her about Camden, to share with her his guilt and sorrow over the death of his dearest friend, so Blair might understand Reade’s hesitation and general hatred for all things Campbell. And while he had opened up with her a bit, letting this fair lass farther into his heart than he’d expected, he had never confided in her about that experience. She might have heard rumors, but he understood well how misleading those often were. From what she knew, he had only disliked her because of her dead husband’s alliances and the chance she shared them.
“I understand the weight ye carry,” he continued. “The heaviness that our pasts can have on us, even on our best days. Sometimes that grief and those emotions are far too much to bear.”
Her lips parted as he spoke, but no sound came out as she waited for him to speak his peace.
“When we retrieved ye and brought ye to Glenachulish, I despised ye for your family’s connections to the Campbells. Aye, because of their support of a false, foreign king, but I had another, more considerable reason for my animosity toward ye. I laid a specific act committed by the Campbells at your feet, and some days I yet struggle to remind myself ‘twas no’ ye who committed that foul act.”
Blair turned toward him and pressed her chest lightly against him. Her other hand had dropped the cloth on the table and reached for his fingers. They stood together as they had at their wedding, but this time, only Reade spoke. He bowed his head low as the words came forth, at first in a trickle of information.
“My cousin, we were of an age. His name was Camden, and we were closer than brothers. We were likelethaon,jointly born babes. We spent every moment together, learned to ride together, to fight together.” Reade paused and inhaled deeply. He grappled with saying the words aloud, of putting voice to his greatest sorrow. “Less than a year ago, we were riding in the woods to the south, on Stewart lands but too close to the Campbells, I suppose. As a game, Camden had ridden ahead, and I gave chase. When I caught up with him, ‘twas too late. Campbells had stabbed him and rode off. I had a choice of following them to slay them all or try to save Camden. I stayed, but ‘twas no use. He was dead before I pulled the blade from his gullet. He was dead in my arms, his eyes wide and questioning why such a dreadful thing had happened to him.”
Once he started speaking, his vision glazed over and the words spilled out, a deluge of words finally breaching the dam, and with it, the unwieldy weight lessened. When he finished and refocused his gaze, Blair was looking up at him, her eyes like the sea on a bright Highland summer day, watery blue with unshed tears.
“’Tis why I harbored so much enmity towards ye when ye first came here. ‘Twasn’t that I loathed ye, I loathed what I thought ye represented.”
Blair blinked several times as she reached her hand up and cupped his cheek. Her tearful blue eyes never left his face.
“I shared my past with ye, and in the sharing,” she told him, “ye helped me carry that weight. Now that ye have shared this with me, I shall do the same. ‘Tis no’ a weight anyone man should carry alone.” Reade lowered his head so their foreheads met. “Death always hurts the living the most. My parents died when I was but a bairn, of illness of some sort. At least ye had the joy of knowing the man. ’Twould seem the Campbells have injured us both,” Blair lamented breathlessly. “Only your scars are unseen, embedded in your heart rather than on your skin.”
“Perchance together we might finally let them heal,” he said, his own voice husky with emotion.
She smiled enough for a glint of teeth to shine and a shadow of a dimple to mar her cheek, and in that moment, her face transformed from pretty to absolutely stunning. Reade’s heart clenched in his chest. He decided then and there that he wanted to see her smile more often.
Then she shifted, pressing closer until their lips met in a light kiss, one that was both sweet and intimate, a kiss that pulled him in until he was willing to drown in the ocean of emotion she wrought.
Blair took his handand led him next to the bed. Reade’s insides were raw, as if by telling Blair his sorrow, he had scraped out his insides. How deep had he buried his sorrow about Camden’s death, letting it fester and turn to rage?
As a result, himself, his family, and Blair most of all, had been victims of that impotent rage.
Now here Blair was, helping him to accept his sorrow, understand his scars, and accept them as part of his life, even as he had accused her over and over.
‘Twas far more to the lass than met his eye, to be sure.
