Page 107 of The Scot Beds His Wife

“Holy God!” She gripped his hand tighter, and he squeezed back, feeling more unburdened than angry for the first time in more than a decade since the occurrence.

“Now ye see why there is a rift between Liam and me that will never mend.” He brought their joined hands to his lips and kissed her knuckles.

“Never is a long time…,” she said hopefully.

“Not long enough.” He made a short sound of melancholy amusement in his chest. “It’s all ancient history, anyhow. I spent the next decade becoming the dissolute and debauched ne’er-do-well ye’ve come to know and lo—” His throat caught on the word.

Love.

They’d never spoken of it, except to deny it. He’d promised himself he was forever incapable of opening himself to the emotion again. That the best they could hope for was to put up with each other to their mutual benefit.

He already knew it had gone way beyond that.

At least on his part.

“Do ye feel better knowing that, lass? Or worse?” He kept the anxiety out of his voice as he asked, wondering if his honesty had earned him her condemnation.

“Better,” she said instantly. “And worse.”

“Ye canna ken the guilt I’ve carried,” he confessed. “Ye canna know the regret.”

She twisted to face him, her lithe body sliding along his, her lovely features pursed with a mirroring apprehension. “This may sound strange… but I think I can.”

“Is that so?” He searched her face, suddenly struck by how little he knew about her. What sins could possibly haunt the past of a woman so young? “Confess yer sins, then, and I’ll absolve ye as ye have me.”

She pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “You didn’t need absolution. You didn’t mean to hurt anyone… Thank you for telling me.” To his surprise, she pushed away from him and got out of the tub with rather jerky, ungainly movements for a woman with such usual grace. Remaining hunched over, she covered herself with a towel and padded across the room. Reaching for her robe, she hurriedly belted it around her.

Goddammit, he’d just gotten her naked, and laid himself bare. There was no way she was covering up now… nor was she avoiding his question.

Most especially now that he was certain she hid something from him. Something important.

The water nearly sloshed out of the tub as he swiftly rose and dried himself before stalking over to the bed upon which she attacked her hair with the brush.

Unabashedly nude, he gripped both of her wrists, putting a stop to her frenzied almost violent grooming, and pulled her to her feet.

“It’s yer turn, lass,” he said gently. “I know ye’ve been wounded, as well. And I want to know by whom.” Was it Grant? God, he’d never forget that name.

The man she might have married if not for him. The man who’d taken her virginity?

“I’m not wounded,” she said warily. “I—I’m broken. I’m ruined. And it’s no fault but my own.”

“Nay, lass,” he argued, forcing her arms to wrap around his middle, drawing her close until he splayed her hands over the scars on his back. “I see wounds in your eyes when ye forget to hide them from me. We share them, I think. The kind of wounds that never heal. But we doona let them break us, do we? They scar, but those scars create us. They remind us of what we can survive. Of the strength we have. Ye’re the strongest woman I’ve ever met. It’s one of the reasons I—”

“I’m weak,” she said, burying her crumpling face against his chest. “And I’m a coward.”

“Tell me why ye think that.”

“You don’t want to know,” she groaned.

“Ye’re wrong. I want to know everything about ye. I want to know what makes you desperate. What makes you despair. I want to know what brings ye joy.” The truth of his confession astounded them both, it seemed. But he meant it. Sliding a finger beneath her delicate chin, he gently forced her to look up at him. “I want to be yer husband, lass.”

“Well… youaremy—”

“Nay, not like this. Not in the way we initially agreed. I doona want to besomewhatfaithful to ye, and I doona want ye to pine for another. Because, even though I’ve loved in the past, I never think on her when I’m with ye.” This felt like a revelation, even to himself.

“I thought it was just Erradale that made me happy this last month, lass. But now I ken it’s more than that. It’s working alongside ye, sleeping beside ye, being inside ye. It’s all of it. It’s this life ye brought back and gifted me with.”

His every word seemed to create a wellspring in hereyes that overflowed her lashes in fat rivulets somewhere during his declaration.