Page 42 of A Hellion for the Highland Hawk
CHAPTER 17
“I should get ye inside,”Hunter said as he fastened his belt.
“I’m not ready to go back inside yet,” Nancy replied, before turning her gaze up to the cloudy night, where shy stars played hide and seek among the heavens.
He didn’t argue as she’d anticipated. Instead, he lay down on the stone and joined her in looking up at the night sky. For a while, neither said a word, their heavy breaths the only thing filling the silence.
As their breathing evened, however, Nancy couldn’t stay quiet anymore.
“Why were you here tonight?” She paused. “I mean, I’m grateful you were there to stop me from drowning, but…”
“To think,” he replied. “I was sitting up there on the wall when I saw ye swimmin’. I came down to tell ye to stop before ye froze, which is when ye went under.”
She eased her weight off her elbows and lay flat. “I misjudged the wall of the pool.” Tilting her head back, she peered up to where the garden wall stood. “What were you thinking about?”
“A lot of things.”
“Such as?” she probed. “I know you have this strong, silent type thing going on, and it suits you, but you can talk to me. For one thing, I don’t know anyone to tell. For another, when I go back home, no one would believe me anyway.”
And you’ll be gone in a month.
Her heart lurched violently, a sick feeling that dried up her mouth and twisted her stomach into knots.
He turned his head to look at her. “I was thinkin’ about me wife.”
“Pardon?” She sat up sharply. “Is that why you…?” She gestured vaguely at the pool, hoping that what he’d just done to her hadn’t been some sort of desire to replicate what he’d done to his wife.
A sly smile lifted his lips. “Nay, lass, that’s nae why I pleasured ye until ye trembled and cried out me name.” He slid his arm underneath her and pulled her to him. “Me wife hated me. I wanted to do me duty and take care of her, but I didnae feelanything but responsibility toward her. We lay together once, to end a war. It had to be done, though neither of us wanted to.”
“Freya?”
He nodded. “Aye, she’s the one good thing to have come of that.”
Nancy snuggled into the warmth of his body. She couldn’t help it, when the alternative was cold stone and a chilly wind.
But as she rested her head in the juncture where his shoulder met his arm, she felt a sudden swell of pity for him. She couldn’t imagine havingto sleep with someone to end a war. That seemed like an awful lot of pressure, and not at all pleasant for either party involved, especially if they were former enemies.
“Is the war where you got your scars?” she asked.
He nodded. “Aye.”
“I heard what else you had to do to end the war,” she said hesitantly, uncertain of where the lines were drawn and if she had any right to cross them.
It was the perpetual balancing act of an investigative journalist.
“Your wife,” she continued. “She would’ve been your enemy’s daughter?”
“Me cousin’s enemy, but aye,” he confirmed.
She cleared her throat. “How did she die?”
“In childbirth,” he replied stiffly. “I didnae ken she was with child when she left this castle. I only told her to go so me own people wouldnae do her any harm for tryin’ to have me killed. If I’d ken she was carryin’ me daughter, I’d have… I daenae ken what I would’ve done. She’d have gotten worse if I’d made her stay, but maybe Lady Gibson could’ve saved her if she had. I daenae ken.”
Nancy thought of Adeline. If anyone could have saved Hunter’s former wife from dying in childbirth, it would have been the time-traveling doctor. But she kept that to herself, seeing no reason to rub salt in the wound.
“I daenae blame me wife for nae wantin’ anythin’ to do with me. I was content with us living separately, I just wish she hadnae summoned her braither to kill me. She could’ve just fled back to her faither in the night, and I wouldnae have gone after her,” he added with a sigh. “It didnae need to be such a great mess.”
“No, but there’s no story in everything working out neatly,” she replied. “Nothing ever does. It’s human to be messy. I am thequeenof mess-making.”
