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“What happened to yer face?” The thought became spoken words before she realized they’d slipped from her lips. Curse her curiosity and loose tongue.

His hands calmed in her hair, and he remained perfectly still and silent for so long, she assumed she’d offended him. Well, off course she had with her blatant snooping. Dolt.

“I beg your pardon. I oughtna have asked somethin’ so personal. Forgive me.” Thank God her eyes were shut. She couldn’t bear to see his scorn directed at her.

To her astonishment, he began rubbing her scalp again.

“My wife attacked me. She…she often imbibed too liberally in spirits and had a fierce temper when she did.” His voice rumbled low and controlled, as if speaking of the incident strained his resolve. “One afternoon, already deep in her cups, she took our daughter for a walk. In her drunken state, Kristin wasna as attentive as she should’ve been, and Mareona wandered to the lake. She adored the ducks, ye see.”

Had his children looked like him?

They’d been quite young at the time of their deaths. She wasn’t sure she would ever have been able to recover from such a horrific loss. It would have broken her spirit. She supposed after something so life-altering, a person lived a new reality. What had been could never be again.

He changed the angle of his fingers until he was rubbing slow circles at her temples.

A moan of pure bliss formed in her throat, but she swallowed it down.

“A gardener spotted the bairn toddlin’ about alone, too near the waters, and returned her to the house. When I arrived home that evenin’ and learned of the mishap, I went straightaway to Kristin’s chambers.”

That couldn’t have been pleasant.

Emeline felt she should say something, but, honestly, had no idea what. Anything she said would seem trite and insufficient. Her heart swelled with emotion that he would share this story with her, the telling of which obviously pained him.

“What happened, Liam?”

“I informed her that I intended to instruct my family and staff that she was nae longer permitted to be alone with our children.” His fingers went still. “She became enraged and seized a letter opener—”

Emiline’s horrified gasp interrupted him. Oh, my God. She’d attacked her husband.

“Och, ye can see the results.” Unlike that first day, no restrained wrath weighted his words.

However, righteous anger sent Emeline’s blood boiling. His wife had been an unhinged banshee. How had he ever come to marry such an evil woman?

That question would have to wait for another time. Not only wasn’t it any of her business, Liam had waded through enough miry, unpleasant memories for one night.

She leisurely lifted her eyelids, and her gaze locked with his. Something more than firelight glittered in their arresting slate-gray depths. When his focus sank to her mouth, she could no more have stopped her tongue from darting out and moistening the lower lip than she could have halted the flash flood of a few days ago.

A torrent of a different sort flowed through her every bit as powerful as those riotous waters.

She wanted Liam to kiss her. Needed him to.

For days, she’d yearned for his firm mouth on hers. Even when he’d vexed her to no end. Even though he’d made it perfectly clear that while he’d rescued her, he offered her nothing more. Owed her nothing more.

And he didn’t. Not a thing.

“Em?” His question rang with an unspoken suggestion.

“Emeline,” she countered, needing the control that requiring him to call her by her given name and not a pet name afforded her.

His gravelly whisper came a mere, exciting inch from her mouth.

“Obstinate lass.” His words rang as an endearment rather than a scold.

“Pig-headed boor,” she countered. Most definitely an endearment.

With a throaty groan, he clasped one big hand behind her head and the other cupped her chin. The first brush of his lips was light. Fleeting. The merest wisp of a butterfly’s wing. A tantalizing tease. A heady promise leaving her wanting more. More. More.

“Liam?”