Chapter Twenty

Evelyn’s heart jumped up her throat, an instant flush prickling her cheeks. She blinked several times. “I…” Her mind went blank. She wasn’t about to discuss the intimate details of her life with two women who were not only strangers but also fairly hostile.

If she were her father, she’d start yelling at them for their insolence. If she were her mother, she’d weep and faint. If she were Scarlet, she’d smile and make light of the question without actually telling them anything. But what would Evelyn do? She’d never had anything to hide before, except for her radical ideas about women, which no one wanted to hear.

Evelyn took her sister’s smile, letting one side of her mouth curve upward like the idea was humorous, her brows rising high. She folded her hands in her skirt and met Rebecca’s questioning stare. “How about this? I will write about any and all of my exploits, with all the men I’ve encountered, in my journal, and when you come to my school and learn to read, I will hand it over for your pleasure.”

Cat made a sound like a chuckle in her throat, but she continued to reposition the snails on Aiden’s back. “Ye will likely find blank pages,” Cat said.

Evelyn shrugged, picking up her book from the side table and walking toward the hearth. Her gaze followed the lines of text, though she didn’t see any of the words. “You will need to learn to read to find out.”

“I could ask Kirstin,” Rebecca said with a frown. She turned to look at Cat. “I hear that she’s sleeping with Grey. Likely, she’d know if he was throwing up another’s skirts.”

Was Kirstin already Grey’s lover? Perhaps Evelyn was just another woman to lose her virginity to the fierce Highland warrior. But his kisses last night… The kiss just now under the tree… There seemed such passion and heat in it. And truth. But some men were known for being generous lovers while not tangling themselves in affairs of the heart, King Charles for one.

Evelyn stood, brushing her skirts. She hefted the book to her chest, wrapping her arms around it. “I believe the two of you have Aiden’s health well in hand. I will return to Finlarig unless you wish me to stay.”

Cat met her gaze. “No one wishes for ye to stay.”

The statement fell like an ax, and Evelyn’s strength toppled. She managed to nod and turned to step out into the night.

Numbness infused her as she walked through the silent woods, the book heavy in her arms. No one wanted her here. No one had wanted her at Hollings either or court, for that matter, not unless she kept quiet and married well. Even Nathaniel probably wanted her gone. Why else would he have agreed to her school idea so quickly? Exhaustion breeds self-pity. She’d seen it often in her mother as her tears would begin in the evenings when she was tired. But the hateful thoughts continued to pock Evelyn’s confidence until the pressure of tears in her eyes ached, pushing past the dam. Hot tears blurred her vision, a few rolling past her eyelids to course down her cheeks.

She ignored them. Let them fall in the dark where no one could witness her weakness. Perhaps they would bleed the self-pity out of her, and she could go on stronger. Evelyn trudged through the woods, breaking out onto the road behind Isabel’s hut. Was that why Cat disliked her so much? Because Isabel had actually been coaxed away from her family home? As she stared at the house, a large shape came from the shadows, making her heart beat fast. Grey.

He walked straight toward her, a lit lantern before him. “Lass?” he asked as he neared, flooding her face with light.

Good God, could he see her remaining tears? Evelyn turned to present her back, walking to cross to the other side of the dark road. He followed, of course. The man couldn’t let her sulk in peace.

He came even with her stride as they passed the smithy. “I thought ye were staying to assist.”

They are cruel, and I’m pathetically weak. The silent words made her eyes ache. She cleared her throat. “They have everything under control.”

He blew out the lantern, leaving it near one of the smithy hearths, and took the heavy book from her arms. He didn’t say anything as they walked side by side, their feet crunching.

Thoughts flitted into and out of Evelyn’s mind. But with each thought of Grey’s plot against her, the memory of their recent kiss dissolved her anger. He was caught in this mess, just as she was caught. Maybe even more if he was committed to another woman.

She glanced at his regal profile, his hair resting around his strong chin. “Are you having sexual relations with Kirstin?”

He continued to look forward. “Is that why ye were weeping? Did Rebecca or Cat tell ye I was lying with Kirstin?”

“I was not weeping, and even if I was, it would not be over something like that,” she said, her tone clipped.

He turned his face toward hers, and she could see his serious expression in the light of the rising moon. “Nay, I am currently having sexual relations with only one woman.”

She pressed her tongue hard against the roof of her mouth. “In the past then?”

Grey stopped, his hand on her arm. They stood in the dark lane alone. “Ye wish to know about all the lasses I’ve tupped?”

“No,” she said and huffed. “But…just Kirstin. Is that why she wishes me ill?”

After a long moment, Grey looked up at the sky where stars were beginning to break up the darkness. Evelyn waited, but with each heartbeat, her stomach tightened. He lowered his gaze back to her. “Last Hogmanay I kissed her. We might have ended up in my bed, but she drank too much whisky and passed out. Alana took care of her. The next day, we received word of my father’s death with a package that held my mother’s wedding ring and sash within it.”

“They killed your mother too?” she whispered. “The English?” Why hadn’t she asked about all of this before coming?

He looked back at the stars. “It has not been confirmed. Only my father’s body was returned for burial.”

“I am sorry,” she said, her voice soft.

Grey began to walk again, ushering her past Kirstin’s house where a light shone in the window. The woman, no doubt, hoped to rekindle their earlier romance.

“Why were there tears on your cheeks?” he asked.

Damn. “There were not,” she said but knew he’d seen them. He’d likely not rest until she admitted it. “Tears only make one appear weak, so I do not acknowledge them.”

“Ye think tears make one weak?” he asked.

All the years of her father berating her sex for their penchant for tears, his sharp, disdainful gaze whenever she tried to comfort her weeping mother, filled her memories. She snorted. “So I’ve been told.” Evelyn saw a white stone on the path and kicked it, watching it skitter farther up the road without rolling off.

“When I was a lad,” Grey said and rubbed his chin, “I thought the blacksmith was the strongest person alive. He banged steel into shape all day, and his biceps were mountains compared to a child’s.”

Evelyn kicked the rock again, her gaze on the dark path flanked by bushes. The slight smell of gorse from the meadow came on the breeze that rustled the bushes.

“And then,” he said, “my mother birthed Alana. I remember that night, as Ma cried and yelled. It was a very hard birth, from what the midwife told my Da. But Ma carried on without pause, and Alana came screaming into the world at dawn.”

“They were fortunate,” Evelyn said and kicked the stone again, watching it roll almost to the hedge.

“What I realized then was that my mother was actually the strongest person I knew, not the blacksmith.”

She inhaled and lifted her gaze to the night sky as they walked without touching.

“I’ve sat outside many births now,” Grey said, “with my warriors as they wait, listening to the cries and tears of their wives. A woman is at her strongest while releasing tears.”

Evelyn swallowed past the tightness in her throat. “Good God, Grey, they were only a couple tears from letting another’s poor opinion of me weaken my resolve for a few minutes.” She pulled her shawl closer around her arms. “You don’t have to talk about my weakness.”

His hand gripped gently around her upper arm, making her stop on the road. “That’s just it, Evelyn.” He waited until she finally met his gaze. The tears that she refused to acknowledge had dried, leaving the skin of her cheeks tight.

Grey leaned closer as if he were imparting a secret. “Tears are not a show of weakness, especially when a woman continues to battle to birth a babe or build her school.”

“Do your men weep in battle, Grey?” She pursed her lips tightly together.

“Nay, not usually, though they curse and yell, which is just another way to release the pressure that builds up. It’s the silent ones who often crumple, especially outside the birthing room.”

Back at Hollings, Evelyn had helped a couple mothers through births when no midwife could be found in time. Her frown softened. “Is that why you sit with them?”

“Aye, the midwife is too busy helping the wife and babe, so I catch the falling husband.”

She sniffed a small laugh and turned back to the road, spied another rock, and kicked it ahead of them. “Well, I was raised by a mother who wailed all the time. She used her tears to sway my siblings and me to do her bidding, but it just made our father furious. He railed against her lack of control. No one should lose control of their dignity. It was my father’s strictest rule,” she said, her voice lowering. “For everyone else but he, I suppose.” When Benjamin Worthington ranted, threatened, or struck her, he did not see it as losing control, for he was the head of the house, and she was a weak woman.

Grey’s tone was soft. “I’ve learned over the last months that fathers can make some very poor decisions.”

“Finlarig?” Evelyn asked.

“Aye.” He breathed in through his nose and stepped up to her stone, kicking it with the toe of his boot. It flew straight, up the path nearly to the open portcullis.

She stopped before the raised gates that were flanked by lit torches. “What a rotten mess,” she whispered.

He turned to face her. “Aye,” he said. “A rotten mess.” Hard eyes met her own, reflecting the bright flame. Strength and determination warred with a pain Evelyn knew only too well when remembering her own sire. Her father’s disregard of the future happiness of his daughter had led him to set a contract for her marriage, damning her to a loveless life.

“It’s no wonder we must strategize against one another for our own survival,” she said.

He tipped his head slightly, studying her. “What do ye lose if your school fails to make a profit, Evelyn? Because if I fail to win Finlarig back, I lose my honor, my clan, and if I’m unable to protect my people…my life.” His words held no self-pity, just fact.

She thought of Nathaniel, standing before their father’s desk, the night before she left, with her betrothal contract in his hands, their father’s will before him. Make the school profitable, Evie. The sheep will help to bring in coin. Then it won’t matter that you are cut from Father’s inheritance. You will be an independent woman and won’t need to marry anyone if you so desire.

The thought of being trapped in a loveless marriage squeezed the very breath from Evelyn. She would be forced to dwell with Philip, to kiss his cold skin, forced to let him paw her body. She would live away from Scarlet, forced to spend her days playing the subservient wife, something her honor would likely not allow. She would be a disappointment, laughed at and probably despised by Philip. Her life would spiral down until she’d be forced to flee under the suffocation of an aristocratic marriage, and who knows what would become of her.

Forcing an inhale through her nose, she leaned forward. “If I fail,” she said, “I lose my honor, my family, and my life.”

…

Grey shut the door to his bedroom, holding his taper before him as he strode past Evelyn’s silent door. The lass must still be sleeping. It was before dawn, but after a night of tossing in his bed, knowing she was just a wall away, he’d finally risen for the day. Even in his dreams, he had stood before the door connecting their rooms, unsure if he should knock. Her silence was the answer.

He walked lightly in his boots along the corridor to take the steps down into the great hall. After their words before the gatehouse last night, Evelyn had barely said a complete sentence to him, and retired early as soon as she’d eaten. He’d had to survive an interrogation by her sister after Evelyn went above.

Scarlet Worthington had a nose for secrets and a mind that could easily take her down a carnal path where she’d guess that he and Evelyn had spent an adventurous night together. So, after a few non-answers, he’d retired to his own room. After an hour of listening for a light knock, he’d finally forced himself to sleep, only to wake every few hours.

Grey rubbed the side of his face with his hand. “Bloody hell,” he whispered, lighting one wall sconce down the back corridor toward the kitchen. What he wouldn’t give to be warm and welcome next to Evelyn. Would you give up Finlarig?

“Mo chreach,” he muttered. He wanted Evelyn and Finlarig. You can’t have everything in life. His mother’s words haunted him as much as not knowing where her murdered body lay. Bloody foking hell.

His boots thudded along the descending stone ramp out the back of the keep, past the untended herb gardens, and into the dark kitchen. He strode directly to the glowing coals in the hearth and stirred them with the iron poker. Adding some dry peat, he blew on the catching fire and added some cut wood. Molly would likely want it soon enough. Standing, he looked around at the empty room, last year’s herbs still hanging in the windows. By now Gram would have replaced them, but she refused to return to Finlarig, and now her mind seemed to have snapped toward bloody retaliation.

Grey opened the stone larder and held his taper close to the opening. Evelyn’s tarts. He plucked one out and took a bite. Chewing, he paused to examine the dark fruit inside. Blaeberry. The lass had used blaeberries in her tarts.

“Shall I add tart thief to your offenses?”

Evelyn’s voice whipped him around to face the door where she stepped inside. She was dressed as if for the day, her hair pulled back into her matronly knot. Without waiting for a reply, she walked across the room to take water from the copper in a small pot, setting it on an iron spider over the coals.

“Are the tarts not for your students and teachers?” he asked and took another bite of the sweetened berries housed in the light crust. Her spine looked very straight. “I was but breaking my fast for the day,” he said.

“’Tis barely day.” Evelyn straightened to look at him. “Could you not sleep?”

“Nay.” He couldn’t tell if she looked tired in the low light. Did dark circles plague the skin beneath her eyes? He’d seen his own in the mirror that still sat in his bedchamber. “And what brings ye here so early? Or do ye walk in your sleep?”

She crossed her arms over her breasts. “Why couldn’t you sleep?”

Evelyn didn’t play games or spill words about like some lasses. He grinned. She wanted the truth, but could she handle it? “My thoughts kept running,” he said and shoved the rest of the tart into his mouth.

“To where did they run?” Her eyes looked black in the shadows, even though he knew they were a gray-green like a mist-shrouded moor.

Grey leaned his arse against the table flanking the wall and crossed his arms over his chest. “To the lass lying in the bedchamber next to mine.”

“Oh. Were you planning her demise perhaps?”

“Nay.”

She walked toward him. He held his breath until she veered off to fetch herself a tart. The sky was still black, and they were alone in the kitchen. Not even their maid would rise for an hour. Grey watched Evelyn take a bite of her tart, her gaze raising to his. She swallowed. “What then were you planning for this lass next to you?” she asked.

Evelyn, using the word “lass,” made him smile, and he reached forward to wipe a dab of blaeberry off her lower lip and lowered his fist to the high table beside him. “I lay abed all night,” he said, his voice low as his grin faded to seriousness. “Imagining how I would make the lass scream out her pleasure, the two of us against each other, carnal and wild.”

Evelyn’s lips parted as she stared at him, her arched brows slowly rising toward her hairline. “And yet,” she whispered, rubbing her two lips together. “You didn’t knock.” Her tone, once clipped and sharp like jagged ice, was soft. Had she waited for his knock? Did she toss and turn with pent-up passion?

Grey raised his fist from the table beside him and softly rapped his knuckles down on the wood. Knock, knock, knock.