I love you.
Her words had repeated in his head while he stood guard and he had had to fight not to let them distract him. How was it that she loved him? He had thought of her nothing more than a friend, but if he was truthful, she’d been right when she had told him he’d barely acknowledged her. How could she be so sure of her love for him? Especially now after all these years when he had changed so much?
“I can’t love you,” he whispered.
Can’t or won’t? Came his own silent response.
It was a question that followed him into sleep.
Chapter 10
The closer they got to home, the more anxious Purity grew. She didn’t have many happy memories of home or of her father. He’d been far from a loving father. She had wondered why he never married again after her mum had died. He could have had more children and secured the future of the Clan Macara. Maybe it was because he favored Bayne so much, his firstborn and only son. To her father, Bayne had been the future of the clan, of the Macara name living on.
“You are not alone. I am here with you, and as your husband it is my say that matters not your father’s,” Arran said.
“I must wear my worry heavily for you to know what I think and how I feel,” she said, not surprised she hadn’t been able to hide the obvious.
“I understand it.”
That he said no more said much. He would understand, though in the opposite way. He’d been free of restraints, captured, and finally set free. She hadn’t been free. She’d been made to follow her father or brother’s dictates, found freedom, and now she was under the dictates of her husband. And she wasn’t foolish enough to think her father wouldn’t continue to dictate to her.
“I miss my home in the woods already,” she said, her heart aching for the tranquility she had found there.
“You were no longer safe there. We will make a good home together,” Arran said.
Once again it sounded like a chore he would see done, and she supposed it was better she returned home his wife, then leave herself vulnerable to her father’s whim. Still, returning home was proving more difficult than she had thought it would be.
His hand closed around her deformed one and instinct almost had her pulling it away. She gave a quick glance at their joined hands and spoke without thinking. “No one ever held my hand let alone my deformed one.”
“I enjoy feeling your hand in mine—either hand,” he said, his eyes looking to hers for a moment before turning away to keep focused on the surrounding area.
A memory had her saying, “That reminds me of remarks I used to hear you say to women. Only you would say each with a playful smile and follow with a kiss.”
“That was another time, another me.” He turned to her. “I say what I mean, then and now. That hasn’t changed.”
“You always did speak your mind.”
“And you rarely spoke at all,” he said before turning his glance away from her.
She thought back to the times she’d been reprimanded for sharing a thought or opinion. “I learned at an early age that neither my thoughts or opinions were valued or encouraged.”
“So you sought solace in silence.”
“When your words are continually attacked, silence becomes a shield,” she said.
“And a form of surrender.”
“For a young lass it wasn’t surrender—it was survival.”
“Then you are to be praised for your courage,” Arran said with a quick glance at her and a squeeze of her hand.
She chuckled. “Not many would agree with you, particularly my father.”
“Then your father doesn’t know his daughter at all. It took courage to survive as you did in the woods, it took courage to help my da, and it took far more courage to marry me.”
“It takes no courage to marry someone you love,” she said and hurried to change the subject before he could argue. “I hope you don’t mind living at Macara keep. It can be a dismal place.”
“Then we’ll change it,” he said as if the solution was an easy one.
“My father will not approve of any changes,” Purity said, a touch of sadness in her words.
“Then we won’t live in the keep. We’ll make one of the cottages our home. I will not have you unhappy.”
She seized the moment. “You know what would make me happy?”
“What?”
“To see you smile again,” she said with an encouraging smile of her own.
“If I could, I would,” he said without hesitation, then said no more.
They continued walking, only this time in silence. Purity thought on what Quiver had told her about the evil man, Brynjar, and that coupled with what Arran had told her about what he’d done to stop a fellow prisoner’s suffering while he’d been held captive made her think that until healed from that horrible ordeal, her husband’s smile might not return.