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She nodded, not trusting her voice, and let him take her hand. She followed him back down through the darkening garden toward the keep, her heart aching unexpectedly for a grief that wasn't even hers to carry.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

He brought her to his own chamber, not the study, not the battlements, and she understood, crossing the threshold behind him, that whatever he meant to tell her, he needed the space to be entirely his own.

He didn't sit immediately. He stood at the window a long while, the last grey light catching the line of his jaw, and she waited, quietly, giving him time to find the words.

"I told ye my father loved my mother, in his own fashion," he said finally. "I think he believed he did. It was an arranged match, same as ours was meant tae be. It was a border alliance, agreed upon before either of them had a say in it, just as I told ye on the battlements. What I didnae tell ye is what that marriage became."

She said nothing, only crossed to sit on the edge of the bed, leaving him room to pace if he needed it, and he did, three slow steps and back, his hands working at nothing.

"He blamed her for it. Nae all at once. His resentment built over years. Every choice he felt he'd been denied, every freedom he told himself he'd have had if he'd nae been bound tae her, he laid at her feet, until there was naething left between them but his bitterness and her silence." His voice had gone low, rough, each word costing him something visible. "I watched it happen, growing up. Watched him grow crueler tae her by degrees, watched her grow smaller by the same measure, watched a whole household learn tae move quiet around him the way ye'd move around a storm ye couldnae outrun."

"Marcas—"

"He killed her." He said it flat, fast, like tearing a wound open quicker hurt less than doing it slow. "I was sixteen. I didnae see it happen, only found her after, and I've spent every year since telling myself the story of it differently, softer, until I could bear tae carry it at all. But that's the truth of it, Neilina. My father murdered my mother, over a marriage neither of them chose, and I buried her in that garden ye found me standing in. I swore, standing over that grave at sixteen years old, that I'd never become a man who did tae a woman what he did tae her."

The silence that followed felt enormous, the whole room gone still around it, and she found she couldn't speak for a long moment, her chest aching with a grief born of the devastating weight of finally understanding.

"That's why ye showed me every gate," she said, the pieces settling into place at last. "Why ye told the council ye'd nae hold me against my will, whatever it cost ye with them. Why a scrap of embroidered cloth could make ye shut me out faster than any argument ever had. "

"Aye." He finally stopped pacing, standing before her now, something raw and unguarded in his eyes. "I've watched what a forced marriage does tae both people trapped inside it, Neilina. I'll nae do that tae ye. I'd rather lose ye entirely than become him."

She rose, and crossed the small distance between them. Unable to find words that felt adequate, she reached for his hand and held it tightly.

He let her hold it. She felt the faint tremor still running through him, felt him exhale, slow and shaking, as though her hand around his had loosened something he'd been holding tightly for fifteen years.

"I understand now," she said, "why ye'd give up the Accord entirely rather than force this. I understand why ye brought me tae yer gates and told me tae take whichever horse I liked. It wasnae only kindness, was it. It was ye, refusing tae become the very thing ye've spent yer life fearing."

"Aye." His voice had gone thick. "And since ye arrived, I’ve feared it more than ever"

She lifted her free hand to his jaw, the way he'd once done to her at the inn, and felt him turn into the touch, his eyes closing briefly, something in his body easing under it like a man finally setting down a weight he'd carried too long alone.

"Ye're naething like him," she said, quiet, certain. "Ye've proven that tae me a dozen times over since the postern gate, whether ye credit yerself for it or nae."

He opened his eyes, looser now that the weight had been lifted. He raised his free hand to cover hers where it rested against his jaw, and he turned his face just enough to press his lips, softly against her palm.

"Neilina."

"Aye."

"I dinnae ken how tae do this properly," he said, low, rough, his forehead coming to rest against hers. "I've never once let anyone this close tae it. I dinnae ken how tae want someone without being terrified of what wanting turns intae."

"Then dinnae do it perfectly." Her own voice had gone unsteady, her whole body impossibly aware of the scant inch between them, his breath warm against her mouth, his hand still holding hers pressed to his jaw as though he couldn't bear to let it go. "Only do it honestly. We’ll find our way together."

He made a low, broken sound at that, and closed the last of the distance between them, his mouth finding hers slowly, unhurried, nothing of the desperate heat of the overlook in it. It was gentler, more careful, a question asked with lips rather than words, and she answered it by winding both arms around his neck and pulling him closer, feeling the tension finally bleed out of his shoulders under her hands.

His hand slid from her jaw down the line of her throat, careful and reverent, as though he were learning her by touch alone. She felt her own breath catch and break against his mouth, her fingers finding their way into his hair, and when he drew back just far enough to look at her, his eyes had gone dark and open and entirely undefended.

"Neilina." Her name again, rougher now, a question and an ache both.

She answered by guiding his hand lower, letting it rest over the slow rise and fall of her breast. His thumb brushed the skin above her dress and the contact sent a warm ripple through her. She watched his face as he explored the shape of her through the fabric, each pass of his fingers gentle, patient, as though he had all night to learn her curves and swells.

Her own hands wandered in return. She traced the hard line of his collarbone, the dip at the base of his throat, then lower, slipping beneath the open neck of his shirt to feel the heat of his skin. His breath hitched when her fingertips brushed his chest, and she smiled against his mouth before leaning in to press a kiss against his skin, tasting salt and the faint trace of woodsmoke from the fire.

He made another low sound, half wonder, half need, and his hand slid to her waist, fingers spreading wide as he drew her nearer. He turned them until her back met the edge of the table, their bodies pressed together from chest to hip. She felt the hard length of him against her belly, unmistakable even through layers of cloth, yet he made no move to grind or rush. Instead, he simply held her there, letting her feel him, letting her choose how close she wanted to be.

Neilina chose to be closer. She rose on her toes, fitting herself more firmly against that rigid heat, and felt his fingers tighten at her waist in response. His mouth found the corner of her jaw, then the soft place beneath her ear, lips parting so his tongue could taste the skin there. She shivered, and the shiver turned into a quiet gasp when his teeth grazed, not biting, only testing.