Page 84 of Owned by the Scarred Laird

“Who called me a beast?”

His voice had gone flat and cold, stripped of the warmth that had been in it a moment before over the whisky and the casks, and it was worse than shouting would have been. He turned to face her fully now, and whatever had been open in his expression by the still was shut, bolted, gone.

“Nay one called ye that,” Chloe said quickly. “Edward, that’s nae what she meant.”

“Say the word again.”

“I didnae say it at all. I said violence. I said…” She stopped, hearing how it sounded a second time. “I only wanted to understand ye. That’s all it was. I thought, after the sea, I thought we’d started trustin’ one another.”

“Trust.” He said the word as if it tasted wrong in his mouth. “Ye go askin’ the housekeeper what I am, behind me back, and ye call that trust.”

“I didnae ask her anythin’. She said it on her own, and she stopped herself before she finished, and I have thought of nothin’ else since because ye willnae give me a single straight answer about anythin’ that matters.” Her own voice had risen to meet his. “What was I meant to do, Edward? Say nothin’? Pretend I didnae hear it?”

“Ye were meant to leave it be.”

“I cannae leave it be. I am married to ye.” She set her own cup down hard, whisky sloshing over the rim onto the stone. “I sleep two doors from ye. I am raisin’ yer nephew with ye. And I still daenae ken the first thing about the man whose name I carry, because every time I get close enough to ask, ye go cold like this, exactly like this, and walk away.”

“I am nae walkin’ away.” His jaw was locked so tight that the words came out barely moving. “I am standin’ right here tellin’ ye to leave it be.”

“That’s the same thing, wearin’ different boots.”

Something moved behind his eyes at that. Not softening, nothing so simple as softening, but a flicker of something that looked almost like she’d landed a blow he had not braced for. He did not answer it. He picked his cup back up, drained it in one motion, and set it down with a small, final click against the stone shelf.

“Go back to the keep, Chloe.”

“Edward.”

“Please.” The word came out rough, nothing courteous in the shape of it at all. “Go back to the keep.”

Chloe did not move.

“Edward. I only wanted to understand ye.”

“I ken what ye wanted.” He turned from her, back to the still, both hands flat on the cold copper edge of it. “Ye wanted the story. The wound underneath the man. Somethin’ to turn over at night and feel clever for havin’ found.”

“That’s nae fair.”

“Isnae it?”

He came back around to face her, and whatever had been steady in his chest a moment ago over the whisky and the casks was gone, replaced by something that moved faster, burned hotter, and had no patience left at all.

“Ye stand in me distillery asking after violence like it’s a story with a moral at the end of it. Ye ken nothin’. Nothin’ of what I’ve done, or what was done to me, or what a man learns to become when the only choices left to him are blood or the grave.”

“Then tell me.”

“Ye want it?" His voice had dropped, gone rough at the edges, and he heard himself as though from some distance, unable to stop himself.

"He had me tied to a post in that room. Told me it would make me stronger. That night I finally got a hand loose, and I wasnae thinking of killing him. I was thinking of me next breath. That's all. One breath, then another, and by the time I'd got enough of them, he was on the floor and he wasnae getting up again, and I stood there, and I dinnae feel a single thing ye'd call sorrow."

Chloe had gone very still, the cup forgotten in her hand.

"That's what I am," Edward said. "A man who killed his own father with his bare hands and felt nothing but relief. Ye want to ken what the beast is, Chloe? That's it. That's the whole of it. Ye should be afraid of me."

He waited for it. The step back. The hand that would find the door behind her, the way every person who’d ever gotten this close to the truth of him had reached for it eventually, one way or another.

She did not move.

She looked at him instead, straight on; she did not flinch even when he was expecting that. She looked, God, help him, like she’d just understood a thing about him rather than learned to fear it.