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“Which is why…” Adelaine reached into her cloak and pulled a small pewter jar. “…I brought this. I saw your back. This salve might help.”
His eyes flicked from her to the jar and then back to her eyes. “That is mighty kind of ye. But I’d need help to apply it.”
Adelaine’s cheeks reddened. “I could do it if you want me to.”
“That would be best.” Leaning away, Caelan gently took the shirt off and winced at the tight pull of badly-formed scars on his back. God, how had he not noticed them?
He turned his back to her and a moment later felt her fingers on his skin, lightly tracing the line of a whip mark from where it had started to the end, near his tailbone. Her finger came back, slippery this time, the slave on the tips. Caelan smelled yarrow and goldenrod and smiled. Those two herbs worked wonders alone but together were nearly unparalleled in their healing power.
“Where did you get hurt?” she asked while moving to another lash.
“I’d rather nae tell ye,” Caelan said.
What good will it do to tell ye yer faither ordered me to be whipped for the death of yer brother?
“I may look like a frail flower but I can handle what you can tell me,” Adelaine said as she added more salve. “I can assume that there was no time to be whipped during the fighting so it had to be after.”
Intuitive and beautiful, what else is there to this lass?
“Was it another soldier?” she pressed.
“Lass, please,” Caelan said. He did not want to tell her it was her father. She already mistrusted him, what if what he told her could lead her to hate him too?
“Caelan,” she snapped. “Just tell me the truth! Who was it?”
Her words echoed in the hollow room, and when they died, Caelan spun and grabbed her hand. Her eyes were wide but she did not pull away. His throat worked. “Ye said it. Ye said me name.”
“I…did,” Adelaine replied as she pulled her hand away and stared at him. “Will you just tell me who did it?”
“I won’t,” he said.
“It was my father, wasn’t it?” Adelaine said.
“I never said that,” Caelan replied.
“You didn’t have to,” Adelaine said as she closed the jar. Her laugh was hollow, “Why did I expect anything else?”
“He lost his son and I was the last one who was with him,” Caelan said, “He was angry and in grief, lass, any loving parent would have done the same.”
She shook her head, “But you’re innocent, why would he have done it?”
“I cannae answer that, lass,” Caelan said softly.
“I just cannot understand why people are prosecuted for something they did not do. Is that how our lives are going to be led, by using hate instead of understanding?” Adelaine said.
While tugging on his shirt, Caelan could feel the oiled scabs which were not pulling as harshly as before. “Sadly, lass, that is how many live their lives, by hate rather than love.”
“A sad way to live,” Adelaine sighed. “You would think love is the primary thing we were born to feel and give.”
“It is,” Caelan smiled, “Have ye ever seen a newborn babe gazing at his mother? Love is in the bairn’s eyes for his mother, there is nothing else there.”
“I’ve never seen a child in that stage,” Adelaine admitted. “And the only people I’ve ever loved were my mother, but she passed when I was seven, my father, and my brother.”
“Ye’ve never fallen in love with a man?”
“Have you fallen in love with a woman?” she asked quickly, a bit defensively.