Page 55 of Dangerous Exile

Her hand on his knee clutched hard. “What if I could prove it to you—prove to you who you are?”

“Leave it, Ness. Just leave it.” His hand jutted upward and he clunked on the ceiling with his knuckles. “Stay the course to Scotland.”

Another “Aye” echoed down to them.

Her look pinned him. “Why do you not want to know? Why won’t you even give it a chance—to know who you are, where you came from? How can you live with this blank space in your life?”

“Because it wasn’t good, Ness.” His words snapped. “Whatever it is that I can’t remember. It wasn’t good. It was bad. It would have to be or I would remember it. And I already live in darkness. I don’t need more.”

She crumpled back against the cushions, her right arm curling across her stomach. “You live in darkness?”

He stared at her for a long moment, his jaw flexing hard. “People that I’ve destroyed. Killed. Sins I’ve had to come to terms with. There is already so much darkness that permeates my world that it is hard enough to live in. I don’t need to add to it. I don’t want to know what happened to me. Where I came from.”

Her jaw dropped, her amber eyes stunned.

Good. She would drop it.

Her mouth closed for a breath, but then her lips parted, not quite defeated. “Knowing the past would make who you are now worse?” She leaned forward. “Or could it make everything better?”

His head instantly shook. “That is optimism not becoming of you. You’ve lived through the end of innocence. Is it worth knowing what you were when you compare it to what you’ve become?”

A frown set deep on her face. Worry. But not worry for herself. Worry for him. Worry so deep it made the corners of her eyes wrinkle as she looked at him.

He wouldn’t take her pity.

“We need to make it to Scotland, Ness. Your safety depends on it. We need to wed before anything else.”

She exhaled a long sigh, her voice quiet. “You don’t understand, do you?”

“Understand what?” This woman was intent on driving him to Bedlam.

“That I want you to know who you are before you marry me.”

“Why?” His hand flipped upward. “It won’t make a difference to me. I could learn I was the King of England and still the only thing I would be concentrating on is getting you across the border in front of a blacksmith with me.”

“But it will make a difference to me.” Her palm landed flat on her chest. “I want you to know who you are. This isn’t for you—it’s for me. So you don’t think you’re marrying a woman who is insane.”

“I don’t think that.”

“I know how marriages work in Scotland, Talen. The reasons it takes to get out of one. Believe me, I know.” Her knuckles set upon her lips as her stare fell to the floor of the carriage by his feet. “Adultery or desertion is primarily needed for a divorce. But an annulment may be pushed through if one party is insane or lied about one’s identity.Both of which are very relevant in our case. Both reasons which my father could manipulate to rip me away from you, and I don’t want to give him that chance.”

“How do you know so much about it?”

Her look snapped up to him for a second before her mouth clamped shut, and her stare shifted to the window.

“Ness.”

She kept her gaze trained at the window. “I inquired into it years ago when I still had hope of getting out of my marriage with Gilroy. We had married in Scotland and I knew the laws were different, but I didn’t know what they were. So I had to find out.” She paused for moment as her lips pulled inward. “And I ended up paying dearly for that knowledge.”

Instant rage coursed into his veins and he leaned forward, setting his face in her view, only barely able to keep his voice to a low rumble. “How did Gilroy find out? What did the bastard do?”

“The clergyman told him of my inquiry. That was when I realized I was truly alone up there. I was rewarded with a jaw pummeled so far out of place I couldn’t eat solid food for a month. So I know. I know what my father can use against me. Us.”

Never in his life had he wanted someone who was dead, so much alive. He wanted Gilroy alive. Alive so he could tear the bastard apart with his own hands. Limb by limb. Scream by scream.

He couldn’t do that, but he could give this one simple thing to Ness.

He shifted backward onto his bench, his words coming out through gritted teeth, the rasp in his voice rougher than usual. “Fine. We’ll go.”