Page 66 of When Bones Whisper
“Well, the complimentsaresincere.”
“You are doing it again,” she said.
“Lifetimes of habit, I’m afraid,” he said, stroking a thumb over the dark shadows of his well-groomed beard.
“Why were you cursed?” she asked, surprised that this was the first time she’d asked. Everything about the courtyard was a story, each one unfolding its hidden truths, and the more she looked, the more she realized. He saw himself as a monster, maybe even more than she or anyone else did. But evil didn’t paint themselves as so.
After a slow, tortuous pace around a leaf-covered bench in the center of the paved ground, he stopped next to the weathered, stone fountain and sighed. “It is an arduous and terribly depressing story.”
“I cannot imagine it a happy tale,” she said and stood in front of him, the cool breeze cooling the fever brought on by the blood high. “My ancestor didn’t explain why this all happened, and I want to know why—”
She stopped herself. What else could she say? That she wanted nothing more than to know him better, to understand how he became the version of himself he was now? All so she could reconcile with her growing feelings.
“Do not try to pull me into your light,” he warned, sensing the motive behind her words. “I do not seek to be redeemed, little lamb.”
“Yet you consistently drag me into your darkness.”
“You are tempted by it,” he said brashly, making her breath hitch. “Don’t feel bad. Most people are.”
“Why do you think that is?” she asked, heart pounding.
He removed his jacket and rolled the sleeves of his shirt revealing the long, corded veins on his forearms. After throwing the blazer over one shoulder, he shoved his other hand in his pocket and glanced at the moon.
“People have long hidden evil desires behind their supposed good values, while disciplining anyone who has normal self-indulgent wants. You are tempted by the so-called darkness because there you don’t have to hate yourself for embracing the most natural parts of who you are. It is beautifully human to be carried by a mess of emotions. True evil rarely hides in the darkness. It is often woven into the souls of those who come across as the most virtuous.”
His explanation nestled deep somewhere in the crevices of her soul. Guilt had often chipped away at her will to live. It followed her now, still. With a deep breath, she added, “Itisexhausting having to wrestle with every sinful thought.”
His widening eyes flashed with silver. “Tell me them.”
Heat flushed her upper body at his unexpected request, reddening her neck and cheeks. “I can’t.” She hoped he wouldn’t press her, because they were mostly about him. “Besides,” she added, “you have not yet told me the story of why you were cursed.”
“You are not going to stop asking are you?”
She pursed her lips, lashes flickering in the wind. “No.”
After a long sigh, he said, “It was over three centuries ago when my path to Hell began with a promotion to commander in Henry the Eighth’s army. I was trusted to lead the campaign to cross into Scotland and lay waste to the southern towns and villages after Scotland’s ruler refused to betroth the infant, Mary Queen of Scots and Prince Edward.”
Her mind whirled. Hartley said she’d served in his court at some point, but to hear it made her realize just how old he truly was.
“I gave the orders to desecrate a town and burn its abbey to the ground,” he continued. “We plundered and attacked without mercy, believing we were invincible with our numbers. We did not know how much our actions would strengthen the resolve of the Scots.” With a shake of his head, he glanced at the stars, the black in his eyes absorbing their reflections. “I was so young and foolish then. I should have known that men who had nothing tolose were the most dangerous. They decimated my troops just days later, and when I came face to face with a sword, I saw an opportunity to escape. I stabbed the man in the foot and ran instead of dying with my men. I left behind my two closest friends.”
Tears glossed his eyes in an unexpected display of emotion. Her fingers itched to comfort him. It was her deadliest instinct, to console those in pain, no matter the harm they caused.
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be,” he said with a huff of breath. “I was a coward. We had grown up together. Our mothers were close friends,” he continued, his gaze lost to memories she could not see. “They were brothers. Of course, Moor was their father’s family name. Their mother’s was Lysanmore.”
Her stomach dipped.
“They were my ancestors?”
“Yes. Richard and Nicholas Moor.”
“How old were you?” she asked, judging he was in his late twenties when he died based on his appearance.
“Thirty. Nicholas and I were the same age, but Richard was only twenty-three. That loss hurt his mother, Elizabeth, the most. It was, in fact, her sister, Delanie, who I was betrothed to. She tried to intervene, but Elizabeth was heartbroken, grieving, and angry. She stole the spell of immortality from the witches who trusted her and changed it, devoting and pouring the grief of losing her children into exacting vengeance against me. Three months later, she completed her curse and used it on me. It killedher to do it, but if I am being honest, I believe she wanted to die anyway.”
“Christ,” Charlotte blurted, slowly seating herself across from him with a long sigh. She wasn’t sure what she expected to hear, but it was not that. “You didn’t deserve that.”
