Adair’s jaw tightened. What had felt like closeness a moment ago now felt like helplessness.
“Did anyone—” He broke off. He didn’t want to make her say it.
“Nay,” she answered anyway, as if she’d read the question in his eyes. “No one hit me. We just… learned to take care of ourselves. Or we didnae.”
A muscle ticked in his cheek. He could tell a lie from the truth, and that was a blatant lie.
“So ye’ve been treatin’ yer own wounds since ye were a lass.” It wasn’t a question.
“Aye.” She tugged down her sleeve again. “And I’m still verra good at it.”
He picked up the knitting that had fallen to the floor and studied it. The stitches were small and even. Perfect, really. No loose threads, no mistakes. The kind of work that took time and patience and hands that didn’t shake.
It didn’t match someone with her past.
His chest tightened. Children with hungry bellies didn’t learn to make things like this. Girls who’d had to fight for every scrap didn’t sit quietly and build beauty with their hands. Yet here it was. Something soft and careful born from a life that had been anything but.
Her voice was soft when he pressed the wool into her hands. Their first touch. “Why did ye react like that?”
“The pattern.” He flipped over the weave that was just an inchoate square, then traced the pattern she had once again knitted. “It haunts me.”
Her brow furrowed. “The pattern is dear to me. I cherish it as me fondest memory,” she said. “It was on the pendant given to me by the man who saved me sister and me.”
The chill in the room seeped into his bones.
“Tell me what happened.”
Judging from the look on her face, he had poked a sore spot.
She brushed herself down, avoiding his gaze. Then he remembered her tendency to shy away from attention. His position placed her on a pedestal, and she found it uncomfortable.
He extended his hand, indicating a chair. With unsteady feet, she took it. She still looked like she needed a cup of ale.
He decided to give her a moment to gather herself, but she began speaking anyway.
“I was ten when I lost me parents.” She swallowed hard, lifting her gaze from her hands. “Our carriage was crossing a frozen loch when the ice shattered and swallowed us whole.”
Adair listened with dread.
“There was a kind hero who had witnessed everythin’. He risked his life to save us. He pulled me out and then Elize, but when he went back for our parents, he didnae come back up.” Her voice trembled. “He said somethin’ before he went back for me parents. After he placed the pendant in me hands, he told me to keep it safe. It was as though he kent he wouldnae emerge.”
When Adair opened his mouth to speak, she raised her hand. “I am nae finished. He gave me somethin’ else that I have carried with me all these years. He gave me his eyes. I daenae have a face or a name to recognize him by, just his eyes.” Her eyes fixed on him in such a way that his heart sank. “I have seen those eyes only twice in me life, me Laird. On the ice when I was ten, and here… in yer face.”
Adair unclasped the pendant at his throat and presented it to her on ice-cold palms, as cold as his father’s had been when he had placed it in her hands twelve years ago.
The truth of his father’s death held him in a daze, and his movements seemed foreign to him. He tried to lower his hands to his sides, but they would not obey.
“The pendant ye had belonged to me faither. I wear me maither’s, which is an identical one.” Her hands flew to her mouth. “He disappeared twelve years ago. At least I now ken what had happened to him. ‘Tis better to ken he didnae abandon us.”
“Still, I am sorry,” she murmured.
He gave a wry smile. “What do ye have to apologize for? I have grieved me faither. I suspected he was already dead.”
“Oh?” she said curiously.
“Aye.” He nodded, swallowing. “I remember that day like it was yesterday. I was woken in a hurry by Fergus, which was a surprise in itself, considering I was staying with Clan Fraser for training. I had thought me faither had come to visit, since he and Fergus often traveled together, but when Fergus told me he was missing, it felt as though me world had shattered.”
Emily’s eyes watered, and he looked away from her. He could not bear to see her pain.
