“She did,” he said quietly. “When I heard the howling that first night, I thought—well, ye’ll maybe ken what I thought.”
“That—perhaps her master had come with her? Had—maybe put her on your trail?” My own voice was little more than a whisper, but he heard me and nodded slowly.
“Aye,” he said, just as softly. I saw his throat move as he swallowed. “To think that I’d maybe brought something home …”
I swallowed, myself, but had to say it.
“You did.”
His eyes met mine and sharpened, a dark blue nearly black in the shade of the chestnuts. His mouth tightened, but he didn’t say anything for a minute.
“When she came alone,” he said at last, “and came to me, looking for shelter, for food … and then when the bairns took to her at once, and she to them …” He looked away, as though embarrassed. “I thought she maybe was sent, ken. As a—a sign of forgiveness. And maybe, by taking her in, I could …” He made a small helpless gesture with his maimed hand.
“Make it go away?”
He took a deep breath, and his fists flexed briefly, then relaxed.
“No. Forgiveness doesna make things go away. Ye ken that as well as I do.” He turned his head to look at me, in curiosity. “Don’t ye?”
There were no more than a few inches between us, but the aching distance between our hearts reached miles. Jamie was silent for a long time. I could hear my heart, beating in my ears …
“Listen,” he said at last.
“I’m listening.” He looked sideways at me, and the ghost of a smile touched his mouth. He held out a broad, pitch-stained palm to me.
“Give me your hands while ye do it, aye?”
“Why?” But I put my hands into his without hesitation, and felt his grip close on them. His fingers were cold, and I could see the hairs on his forearm ruffled with chill where he’d rolled up his sleeves to help Fanny with the gun.
“What hurts you cleaves my heart,” he said softly. “Ye ken that, aye?”
“I do,” I said, just as softly. “And you know it’s true for me, too. But—” I swallowed and bit my lip. “It—it seems …”
“Claire,” he interrupted, and looked at me straight. “Are ye relieved that he’s dead?”
“Well … yes,” I said unhappily. “I don’t want to feel that way, though; it doesn’t seem right. I mean—” I struggled to find some clear way to put it. “On the one hand—what he did to me wasn’t … mortal. I hated it, but it didn’t physically hurt me; he wasn’t trying to hurt me or kill me. He just …”
“Ye mean, if it had been Harley Boble ye met at Beardsley’s, ye wouldna have minded my killing him in cold blood?” he interrupted, with a tinge of irony.
“I would have shot him myself, on sight.” I blew out a long, deep breath. “But that’s the other thing. There’s what he—the man—do you know his name, by the way?”
“Yes, and you’re not going to, so dinna ask me,” he said tersely.
I gave him a narrow look, and he gave it right back. I flapped my hand, dismissing it for the moment.
“The other thing,” I repeated firmly, “is that if I’d shot Boble myself—you wouldn’t have had to. I wouldn’t feel that you were … damaged by it.”
His face went blank for a moment, then his gaze sharpened again.
“Ye think it damaged me to kill the man who took ye?”
I reached for his hand and held it.
“I bloody know it did,” I said quietly. And added in a whisper, looking down at the scarred, powerful hand in mine, “What hurts you cleaves my heart, Jamie.”
His fingers curled tight over mine. He sat with his head bent for a long moment, then lifted my hand and kissed it gently.
“It’s all right, mo chridhe,” he said. “Dinna fash. There’s another side to it. And one that’s nothing to do with you.”
“What’s that?” I asked, surprised. He squeezed my hand briefly and let it go, sitting back to look at me.
“I couldna let him live,” he said simply. “Whether he’d forced ye or no. Ye were there when Ian asked me what to do. I said, ‘Kill them all.’ Ye heard me, aye?”
“I did.” My throat was suddenly tight, and there was a band of iron around my chest, the taste of blood clotting my mouth and the fear of suffocation a blackness in my mind. The sense of that night seeped through me like cold smoke.