Page 45

Alasdair had wanted to break a grieving man’s neck in front of his own people, and he could not get the want of it out of his hands.

He had brought her home before dark, and Agnes had taken one look at the blood on her sleeve and gone for water herself. Now Iona sat on the stool by his fire with her sleeve cut away to the shoulder, and he knelt in front of her with the basin.

The cut ran down the outside of her forearm, long and shallow, the edges clean. He washed the mud out of it a little at a time. She did not make a sound.

“Ye’re very gentle,” she said, “for a butcher.”

“Hold still,” Alasdair said.

“I am still.” She looked down at him. “It’s yer hands that are shaking, MacVey. Ye’ve a habit of it.”

“Then stop giving them cause,” Alasdair said. “Ye’re sitting by my fire with yer arm bare to the shoulder, lass.” He laid the linen over the cut and wound it around her arm, firm and even, and tied it off without pulling. Her skin was warm under his fingers, and the inside of her elbow was soft and white, and he wanted his lips there. He kept his eyes on the knot.

When it was done he did not get up. He stayed on his knees at her feet with her bound arm across his palm.

“I was cruel to ye,” he said.

Iona’s brows went up. “Which time?”

“Pick one.” He made himself hold her eyes. “In my hall, when I made them laugh at ye for asking after the keys. On the stairs this morning, in front of my mother. And those women.” The words came hard. “I brought them into my room to make ye burn, and stood there and smiled while they did it. I’m sorry for it, Iona. For all of it.”

He had told Neil MacKay it was not her who carried those torches. He had roared it to stop a grieving man’s mouth, and halfway through he had heard his own words and known them for the truth. She had not burned his village. She had not killed his father. And he had spent every day since the wedding making her pay as if she had.

She stared at him. Her mouth opened, and closed again.

He reached into his belt and took out a small knife in a leather sheath, the handle plain horn, the leather strap on the sheath long enough to tie above a stocking. He put it in her good hand and folded her fingers over it with his own.

“Wear it,” he said.

She looked down at the knife, and then at him, and he saw her understand what he had not said. Neil MacKay’s black hands on her. A cart’s iron edge. Every man in that village who had stood and watched.

He let go of her hand and got up, and went to stand at the hearth with his back to her, because if he stayed on his knees he would beg her for something.

He heard the stool scrape. He heard the rustle of wool, and turned his head.

She had set her foot up on the stool and drawn the brown skirt to her knee. She was tying the sheath on above her stocking, with the knot pulled tight in her teeth because of the bandaged arm, and she did not look at him while she did it. The firelight lay along her bare thigh. His mouth went dry. He gripped the edge of the mantel until the stone bit his fingers.

She let the skirt fall.

“I forgive ye the hall,” Iona said. “And the stairs. And yer women, God help me.” She held his eyes. “No’ Coll. Dinnae ever think I’ve forgiven ye Coll.”

“I willnae ask it,” Alasdair said.

“Good.” The word broke in the middle. “Because I hate that I can forgive ye any of it.”

Then she came across the floor to him.

She came slowly, with her bound arm held against her and her eyes on his face, and she stopped so close that her skirt brushed his boots. Her breath was coming fast. A flush had climbed her throat to her jaw.

“Go on, then,” she said. “Crow.”

“About what?” Alasdair asked.

“Yer floor. Ye wagered I’d cross it to ye.” Her eyes blazed up at him. “Well, here I am, MacVey. Say ye won.”

“Damn the floor,” Alasdair said, “and damn the wager.”

He took her face in both hands and kissed her.