Not only did her eyes feel more opened, somehow, but her heart, as well.
Curse her expressive face, he must have read her probing thoughts. Because before he even withdrew from her body, he drifted back behind his screen of shadows and ice, leaving her cold and vulnerable and alone.
Don’t go, she thought desperately. She’d unlocked something. Exposed it. But couldn’t decipher what it was yet, or what it meant. She needed more time, just another moment with him. Beneath him.
“I must,” he clipped, drawing out of her body and off the bed.
Farah frowned at his back as he adjusted his clothing and buttoned his jacket over the front of his trousers. She hadn’t realized she’d spoken aloud until he answered her.
“Why?”
Dorian retreated from the question, walking over to the basin and pitcher and pouring water over a towel.
Why? The reasons were innumerable. He was both protector and coward.
Protector, because his nightmares, while physically harmless to him, might prove lethal to her. If he woke in a panic, fighting off his memories, he’d likely break her before he’d fully become aware.
Coward, because he couldn’t face her hatred in the morning. Couldn’t see the marks the bindings had left on her wrists. Couldn’t bring himself to witness the regret and disgust when she realized what she’d done. What he’d done to her. That he’d taken her precious innocence and left his tainted seed inside of her.
Twice.
He wrung the excess water from the towel and returned to her. She looked like a captured goddess. Like the spoils of an ancient war, tied and displayed for her new lord’s pleasure.
He’d treated her as such.
And he deserved to die for it.
Releasing his necktie that bound one of her hands, he pressed the cloth into it. He should stay and wash her. But the sight of her broken virginity might send him over the edge. Better that he escape, while he still could. While he was still together, because surprisingly, he was. He was strong. He’d kept his word. His duty was absolved. She could untie the knot of her plaid with relative ease.
Of Dougan’s plaid.
His composure cracked.
“Stay?” she prompted softly, her eyes almost obscured by heavy lids and thick lashes. “I’ll not—reach for you.”
“Sleep now,” he commanded, turning away from the beckoning halo of her curls. Dousing candles on his way to the door, he didn’t look back as he left her in darkness.
Once the latch clicked behind him, his control gave. Imported carpets muffled the sound of his knees hitting the floor. He’d been a fool to think he was strong. A bloody fool.
He had an evident fucking weakness. One with liquid gray eyes and silver curls.
And God help him if she ever found out.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Good morning, Mrs. Blackwell!” Daylight burst into the room, jarring Farah awake as drapes slid along their rails, grappled by a cheerful Murdoch. “I trust ye slept well?”
The sun battled its way through high white clouds and low gray mist, but still managed an illuminating brilliance.
Only in the Highlands.
“Good morning, Murdoch.” Farah yawned, blinking the film of sleep from her vision. “What time is it?”
“I let ye sleep as late as I dare, lass, but Blackwe—Jesus Christ Almighty, the bloody oaf tied ye up?”
Startled, Farah tested the movements of her arm, only just becoming aware that her left hand was still above her head, secured by Dougan’s plaid to the headboard. She must have been so exhausted last night that she’d drifted off without untying herself.
Farah looked up at the hand that had since lost all feeling resting limply against the mattress and headboard, wrapped in a faded cloth woven with black, gold, and blue.
A reminder of what binds us, she thought. The interpretation of her husband’s words now alarmingly literal rather than just figurative.
Murdoch rushed to her side, reminding her that she’d also fallen asleep quite nude. Grasping the bedclothes to her chest, she allowed him to work the knot free.
“No wonder he lit out of here this morning like the devil chased him. He knew we’d all turn on him and flay his skin from his bones with a dull knife for treating ye like this. And on yer wedding night! I doona care if he is Dorian bloody Blackwell, when I see him I’m going to—”
“It’s all right, Murdoch,” Farah soothed, testing her tingling fingers once they were released and wincing as the blood rushed back with little needles of fire. “It needed to be done in order to—You see, I reached for him in a moment of…” Farah closed her eyes against the blush heating her skin. When she opened them again, Murdoch regarded her with a mixture of regret and understanding, carefully handing her plaid back to her.
“He didna hurt ye, did he?”
Farah shook her head, sitting up and inspecting the faint bruises around her wrists, and testing the twinges and aches in muscles she’d never before been aware of. “I rather think last night was more difficult for him than for me.”
“Aye.” Murdoch nodded his agreement. “I imagine so. This isna like him…”
Farah’s lips lifted in a sardonic smile. “I would have guessed this is exactly like him.”
“Not when it comes to ye,” Murdoch insisted.
“What do you mean?”
The burly Scot cast his eyes away and turned from her, gathering familiar lacy underthings from where they draped, and laid them out for her at the foot of the bed along with her silk polonaise that she’d worn the night of her abduction. “I only meant that ye’re Dougan’s Fairy. He should have been gentle and taken great care with ye.”