Her eyes widened. “It was Northumberland.”
“Aye, it was.”
She stared at him a long while, a question forming in her eyes.
“My hair was long then, and I wore a beard,” he said in a quiet voice. “At that age, my pride at being able to grow one was greater than my annoyance at how much it made me look like Hotspur.”
Her jaw dropped.
“It was you?”
He nodded.
She scrutinized him through narrowed eyes. “ ’Tis true, between the beard and the darkness I could see little of the man’s face,” she said slowly. “But the difference is in more than your appearance.”
“I am changed?” he asked, though he was not sure he wanted to hear.
“You are used to command now, and it shows,” she said in a tentative voice. “Back then, you were… you were… more trusting.”
“What do you mean?”
She bit her lip, hesitant.
“You can tell me,” he pressed.
“You did not know me, yet you took every word I said on faith.”
He saw the hurt in her eyes. And the accusation.
“I thought you had forgotten that night,” he said, his heart in his hand. “I dream of it as well. But in my dreams, I always rescue you.” It made him feel vulnerable to tell her, but he made himself continue. “I chastised myself for not finding a way to help you that night. I think that is one reason the dreams would not leave me.”
“You could not know how Rayburn would mistreat me,” she said without a hint of hesitation. “And there was nothing you could do. Rayburn was the king’s choice.”
He shrugged. Practical considerations did not release a man from what honor required.
“How long have you known I was that girl?” she asked, an edge to her voice now. “Did you know even before you came to take Ross Castle?”
“I did not know until I saw you on the drawbridge.” He closed his eyes as he recalled how he had ridden his horse up to her in a fit of rage. “It was when you fainted.”
They were silent for a time, each lost in their own thoughts.
“Guilt was not the only reason I dreamed of you.” He wanted to tell her all of it now, before he left for battle. “There have been other women. But from the night I rode with you in the moonlight, it was always you I wanted.”
The confession was hard to make. He expected it to please her. Instead, her expression grew melancholy.
“At times in these last weeks, I believed you cared for me.” She sighed and shook her head. “But it was never me you cared for. You were in love with a girl in a dream.”
He came to her tonight hoping to bridge the rift between them. Even though he had doubts about her, still he came. He confessed he had wanted her—dreamedof her—for years.
And yet, she dismissed all this as nothing.
“You have hurt me more than Rayburn ever did,” she said.
There was nothing she could have said that would have surprised or offended him more.
“I’ve never taken my hand to you,” he snapped.
“Rayburn battered my body, but he could not touch my heart. He was predictably cruel, never once to be trusted.” She looked hard at him as she spoke, her eyes revealing both hurt and anger. “But you, William, you are so kind to me that I trust you—and then you rage at me.
