“Oh, certainly. If you say so.”
Her left eyebrow lifted.
“You are dying to tell me what it means, Daphne, so tell me.”
“It means a revelation, of sorts. An insight.”
“And a pretty word it is, too. Feel better now?”
She mimed mopping her brow, and he smiled.
“And an epiphany indeed it was. For if me da was wrong about that, then what manner of other things might he be wrong about? From that day forward I questioned all authority. And when I was big enough, I resisted all authority. And then... I made damned sure I became all authority. And then... I made my own laws.”
He paused, then huffed a short laugh.
“So I suppose you’re right, Daphne: every time he said that word, he handed me a weapon.”
She was quiet a moment.
“I should like to say...” she began carefully, “that I’m very sorry you were compelled to endure such unkindness. I imagine it was like being pelted with sharp little rocks all the time.”
Lorcan had, in fact, been pelted with sharp little rocks before as a child, because he grew up among little heathens like himself, and it was just one of the many things they did both for fun and for defense.
But the analogy disarmed him. It was apt. Buthe found himself hoping she’d said it because her imagination could not extend to worse violence. He wanted to shelter her naivete about such things in the way he’d never been able to protect the hopeful child he’d so briefly been.
And her eyes were haunted.
“Aye, but I warrant few of us get through life without needing toenduresomething, lass,” he said gently. “Or lots of somethings. Endurance builds muscle, aye? Until your very soul is brawny.” By way of illustration, he languidly curled his forearm.
Gratifyingly, her eyes fixed on the rising bulge of his bicep as if she were present for the birth of a mountain range.
“I’ll wager there’s naught I can’t endure now.” He shrugged.
She rested her cheek against her knees a moment and considered this. Then lifted her head.
“I have wondered...” She hesitated. Her voice lowered. “Is it muscle... or is it scar?”
She turned to him.
He went still. Suddenly he was wary.
“Both are useful,” he said shortly. “After a fashion.”
She flicked her eyes over his features. Then she gave a short nod—agreeing with him or merely taking in his words, he could not say—and turned back toward the fire. He felt, oddly, that she’d been seeking an answer to a question that had dogged her, and had not yet found the right person to ask.
He wondered if she was disappointed in his answer.
He was disconcerted to realize he found the notion of disappointing her distasteful.
Even cowardly.
It was a new way to feel about himself, and he didn’t like it.
And yet. These exchanges of little intimacies formed a mesh from which it was difficult to escape. His entire life so far had been predicated on knowing the routes of escape. He did not see any advantage to letting Daphne Worth take a look at his fluffy insides, so to speak.
A log languidly tipped in the fire, succumbing to its fate: consumed in flames.
He gave a short, not entirely amused laugh. “You’re not a restful woman, are you, Daphne?”