Page 104 of Desire's Ransom
His words made her glow.
Until he added, “To think I was afraid to meet my bride.”
She wrinkled her brow. “Afraid. Why?”
“Because o’ the rumors.”
She stiffened. The warmth of the moment turned icy with his words. He’d said he didn’t believe the rumor that Temair had murdered her sister. He’d said it was unfounded. She was almost afraid to ask. “Ye believed the rumors?”
“I didn’t know what to believe.”
Her throat ached. But she wouldn’t cry. She promised herself she wouldn’t cry. Her voice was wooden. “So ye thought I was a murderer—”
“What? Nay!”
“That I’d killed my sister—”
“Nay!”
“And ye feared I might killye.”
He turned her toward him. “Nay! Never!”
She stared at the ceiling of the cave, numb.
He explained. “I meant the rumor that Cormac had kept his daughter under lock and key for six years.” He shook his head. “I couldn’t imagine what the loneliness and isolation might have done to you, that’s all.”
She swallowed down the lump in her throat. “So ye don’t think I killed her?”
“Nay, not for a moment.”
His trust in her was sweet. It was touching. But she also realized, with a sort of tragic inevitability, that it was misplaced. She moved her gaze slowly toward him until their eyes met. “Well, ye’re wrong about that.”
For an instant, her admission startled him. But he continued to stare at her, so deeply it seemed he was peering into her soul. Then he shook his head. “Nay, I’m not. I know you now. I know you’d never do such a thing.”
“Ye can’t know that. Ye weren’t there.”
“Why don’t you tell me then, Temair?” he coaxed. “Why don’t you tell me what happened that night?”
She’d only told the story once aloud—when the woodkerns first took her in. But in the deep, dark, shadowy places of her mind, she’d recited it over and over, thousands of times, each telling more excruciating than the last. She didn’t want to dredge up that pain again. She shook her head.
He gently persisted. “What happened to Aillenn?”
She blinked in surprise. It had been a long while since she’d heard her sister’s name. Most people no longer spoke of her by name. Most people had forgotten her.
Still Temair didn’t answer.
“If we are to be husband and wife,” he said, “there should be no secrets between us.”
She gulped. He was right. But it was one thing to share her body, another to open her soul.
He took her hand, clasping it between his two. “I know the memory is painful, Temair. I know you don’t want to talk about it. But I vow I will love you, no matter what you tell me. For better or worse.”
She looked at their joined hands. His words were earnest and kind and heartfelt. But she didn’t know how he could possibly keep that promise. After all, how could he love her when she didn’t love herself?
As Ryland watched Temair’s eyes fill with silent tears, his heart ached. He wished he could take away her anguish.
Making love with her had bound the two of them together somehow, melded their souls so that he felt her pain as if it were his own. Now all he wanted to do was remove it.
