Page 66 of Captured By the Highland Devil
Sitting back with the goblet of wine in hand, he gave her an inscrutable look. “Why thank ye for tryin’ to understand but ye’re are wrong. I choose violence because I like it.”
Paige reached for her sliver of cheese and stared at him long enough that the silence began to scrape over his skin.
Finally, she tutted. “If ye think I will believe that, ye are as naïve as ye think I am. Ye are a warrior, that is true, but ye are also generous, with a fiercely loyal heart.”
“And how do ye figure that?” Ruben asked.
“Call it me intuitive sense,” Paige said. “The reason I asked ye to share with me what yer needs are is because I want to tell ye what I want.”
The shadows danced over his face. “What do ye want?”
“I want ye to be honest with me,” she said. “At all times. Tell me the truth of what ye think, of ye want from me and what ye feel. I ken ye feel deeply, Ruben, even if ye daenae how show it.”
Leaning forward, he braced his elbows on the table. “Ye truly think high of me.”
“I am star?—”
A brisk knock came on the door, startling them both and prodding Ruben to stand and answer it. A healer was standing on the other side of the door, her grey robes dim in the faint light.
“Me laird and lady,” she dipped her head. “I do apologize for interruptin’ ye, but Norah is awake and steady. She wants to speak to ye—” she looked to Paige “—thebothof ye.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Paige startled when Ruben leaped to his feet, “She is fully awake?” he asked the healer.
“Aye, me laird.”
Ruben’s face was firm. “And is she lucid?”
The healer nodded. “And while it is late, she wants to speak with ye, without delay. Please, come with me.”
They took the stone stairwell that curved gently upwards and came to the top floor. Norah was sitting on her cot, hands calmly folded in her lap. Paige’s heart leaped into her throat at seeing her peaceful expression, miles away from the frantic, panicked girl she’d seen two days ago.
The torches at the end of the room gave enough light that he could see that the healer was right. The girl looked so placid,Paige was not sure if she remembered what had happened that night? Could it be that she had forgotten why she had shattered?
Does she hate me or will she forgive me for hurtin’ her?
“Norah,” Ruben approached her slowly but directly. “How are ye feelin’?”
“Better,” Norah replied, and for once, Paige heard steady, real emotion in the girl’s voice.
He took a seat on the edge of her bed and reached for her. “Tell me truly, are ye all right?”
“I am,” Norah said, her eyes moving over his shoulder to land on Paige, “And I can only thank ye for this.”
“Thank me?” Paige blurted. “But I—I?—”
“Ye made me finally stop ignorin’ the past I’d suffered and start to contend with the truth of what happened. See, before ye told me of what nearly happened to ye, I had put me ordeal behind a curtain, behind a wall. I thought of it as only a dream, nothing more.
“But now, I am dealin’ with the truth of it all.” To Ruben she said, “I think ye want to ken why I called ye here.”
“I do,” he said.
Norah narrowed her eyes. “I ken that look Ruben. Ye are thinkin’ about this part to me, if it is real and how long it will be before I slip back into that girl who only existed but dinnae live.”
“I want to hope,” Ruben said. “But daenae ken if I should.”
“I—” Norah plucked at the sheets before her. “I cannae answer that in truth, because I cannae see the future. I suspect there will be bad days and good ones but that is for another day. What I can do now is to tell ye what I remember. To get this burden off me chest and start to try anew.”
