Hurting people was something he’d always excelled at, something his superiors in the military had noticed right away. They’d honed him from a violent youth into an efficient weapon and had unleashed him upon their enemies. Pain became his arsenal and his ally. In his long life, he’d hurt so very many.
But causing her pain seemed as unfathomable as did erasing the sins of the past.
Liam hated himself almost as much as he loathed whoever had put those shadows in her eyes. He’d relish using his considerable skills to bring the word pain a new and horrific perception to that man.
Grappling his temper, he schooled the wrath from his features as he searched his person for a handkerchief.
“Mo àilleachd,” he whispered gently.
Her eyes sharpened with a question, but she remained still and watchfully silent as he pressed his handkerchief to the few small wells of blood.
“Tha mi duillch … Maith mi.”
Forgive me.
Liam had never apologized before, and could only bring himself to do so now in his native tongue. Perhaps because he asked too much? That he was beyond forgiveness.
Had been for years.
Miss Lockhart searched his face with those huge, haunted eyes, her entire body still, yet coiled to spring away, like a rabbit beneath a stroking hand.
Working his jaw as though grinding his pride down enough so he could swallow it, he flicked her a penitent look. “I vow on my honor as Laird of the Mackenzie clan never to strike ye.”
She watched him with care, testing each movement of his muscle, assessing every change in his expression. “I do not question your honor, Laird, but it seems that I, also, may trust no one’s word.”
She’d heard such a promise before. And it had likely been broken.
So where did that leave them?
A small tendril of her lovely hair escaped its pin, caught the breeze, and snagged over her soft features. Liam released her uninjured wrist to reach up and brush the curl away from the nearly healed bruise on her cheek.
She winced, but did not flinch away.
“I’ve been the cause of enough such wounds in my life to recognize one made by a fist,” he murmured. He wanted to say that he’d never raised his hand to a woman … but a terrible night in his youth would have made him a liar, and a familiar shame choked him into silence.
Her throat worked over a swallow, and the tension loosened, if only the slightest measure.
“I’ll believe that yer walk through the forest with Gavin St. James was innocent, lass … if ye admit ye’ve been keeping a secret from me.”
Her lashes swept down over her pale cheeks, and it warmed Liam that she was a terrible liar. An endearing trait in a woman.
“This was no carriage accident,” he prodded. “Some bastard struck ye, did he not?”
The backs of his fingers caressed her cheek, the satin skin cool and unutterably soft beneath his work-roughened hands.
She stared at the space between them for several uncertain moments, and gave a barely perceptible nod.
“Tell me,” he urged.
Her features became indescribably bleak. “I—I can’t. Please don’t ask that of me.”
The sun gave one last explosion of light as it finished its dip below the trees, setting fire to her hair. Her jade eyes became luminous with unshed tears.
Never in his life had Liam seen anything so heartrendingly beautiful.
It unsettled him. It was as though when she looked at him, she saw not the man he struggled to be, but the man he truly was.
The demon he tried to keep locked away, but that he’d very nearly unleashed upon her.