“Ye can cooperate or no,” he said, “but I’m going to have a look.”
Her bottom lip trembled. Saints above, what was this about? Sìleas never cried. Even when she was a child of six and her father forgot her places, leaving her to find her own way home, she hadn’t shed a tear.
He kissed the side of her face and gently turned her around.
“Don’t,” she said in a small voice, but he could tell she had given up expecting him to concede.
His fingers felt big and clumsy as he unfastened the tiny hooks. When he had them undone to her waist, he pushed the gown off her shoulders. The chemise she wore beneath it dipped low enough in the back for him to see what she was hiding.
Rage took him like a storm, pounding in his ears and making his hands shake. He reached around her to slam his fist on the table. “I’ll kill him. I swear, I will kill whoever did this to you.”
She was weeping silently, but he was so filled with violence that he was afraid to put his hands on her.
“Who did this to ye?” he asked. “Ye must tell me.”
She wiped her face with her hand. “Who do ye think? My step-da.”
“Ach, Sìl, why didn’t ye tell me?” He wanted to throw his head back and howl in his outrage. She had still been a child when Murdoc did this. “If I’d known he was hurting ye, I would have done something.”
But heshouldhave known. He had always been her protector, and this had happened under his nose.
“When did he do this?” He strained to soften his voice, knowing anger was not what she needed from him now, but it was hard when his body still pulsed with it.
She took a shaky breath. “Mostly Murdoc didn’t trouble himself with me. As ye know, he expected my mother to give him a son who would inherit Knock Castle.”
Sìleas’s mother had lost several babes before they reached a year. And Ian had no idea how many miscarriages the poor woman had.
“After she died losing that last baby, Murdoc got it into his head that he could keep my lands by wedding me to his son Angus. He gave me no peace after that. When I told him I would never marry a MacKinnon, let alone that disgusting son of his, he tried to beat me into agreeing to it.”
Ian clenched his jaw until it ached to keep from shouting curses. Years ago, Angus MacKinnon had nearly caused a clan war by raping a woman from Ian’s mother’s clan, Clan Ranald. The matter had been settled with a hefty payment, but hard feelings remained—as did rumors of Angus’s penchant for violence.
“But ye know how stubborn I am,” Sìleas said, glancing over her shoulder to give him a bittersweet smile. “In the end, Murdoc locked me in my bedchamber and sent for Angus.”
“And that was the day I found ye?” Ian asked, though he already knew the bitter truth.
She nodded. “Murdoc didn’t know about the tunnel.”
Christ, forgive me.All this time, he had blamed Sìleas for their forced wedding. He thought she’d caused it through some girlish foolishness that had gone farther than she expected. He’d had no notion she was in serious trouble that day.
But then, he hadn’t made much effort to find out, either.
She covered her face and said in a choked whisper, “I knew ye would find me disgusting again once ye saw it.”
“God help me, Sìl, how can ye say that?” He turned her around and pulled her against his chest. “Please tell me ye don’t think so little of me.”
He held her tight and kissed her hair until she ceased to weep. Then he lifted her in his arms and carried her to the stairs.
Sometimes words were not enough.
CHAPTER 16
Sìleas rested her head against Ian’s chest as he carried her up the stairs. She didn’t know what she wanted anymore, but she felt safe nestled in his arms, and she needed to feel safe now.
Ian carried her into her bedchamber and kicked the door shut behind him. As soon as he set her on her feet next to the bed, he whisked her gown over her head, leaving her standing in her chemise. She was too drained to be embarrassed. He kept one hand on her shoulder to steady her as he folded back the blankets, then he lifted her onto the bed.
With a gentleness surprising in such a big man, he brushed the hair back from her face with his fingers. The gesture reminded her of his father’s kindness that day he found them in the wood and knelt beside her, talking softly and holding her hand between his huge ones.
Beneath the dangerous, war-hardened man Ian had become, the kindness of the boy he once was lingered. He framed her face with his hands and leaned down to kiss her. She sighed as he brushed his lips over hers.