“The McKane still hunt us,” Grimm said through his teeth.
“The McKane have always hunted any man they suspected was Berserk. They’re jealous. They spend every waking moment training to be warriors and can never match up to a Berserker. So defeat them, and lay it to rest. You’re not fourteen anymore. I’ve seen you in action. Rouse up an army. Hell, I’d fight for you! I know scores of men who would. Go home and claim your birthright—”
“My gift of inherited madness?”
“The chieftainship, you idiot!”
“There might be a small problem with that,” Grimm said bitterly. “My crazy, murdering da has the dreadful manners to still be lingering on this earth.”
“What?” Quinn was speechless. He shook his head several times and grimaced. “Christ! How can I walk around all these years thinking I know you, only to find out I don’t know a blethering thing about you? You told me your da was dead.”
It seemed all his close friends were saying the same thing lately, and he wasn’t a man given to lying. “I thought he was, for a long time.” Grimm ran an impatient hand through his hair. “I will never go home, Quinn, and there are some things about being Berserk that you doona understand. I can’t have any degree of intimacy with a woman without her realizing that I’m not normal. So what am I supposed to do? Tell the lucky woman I am one of those savage killing beasts that have gotten such a bad reputation over the centuries? Tell her I can’t see blood without losing control of myself? Tell her that if my eyes ever start to seem like they’re getting incandescent, to run as far away from me as she can get because Berserkers have been known to turn on friend and foe indiscriminately?”
“You’ve never once turned on me!” Quinn snapped. “And I’ve been beside you when it happened many times!”
Grimm shook his head. “Marry her, Quinn. For Christ’s sake! Marry her and free me!” He cursed harshly, dropping his head against his stallion.
“Do you really think it will?” Quinn asked angrily. “Will it free any of us, Grimm?”
Jillian strolled the wall-walk, the dim passage behind the parapet, breathing deeply of the twilight. Gloaming was her favorite hour, the time when dusk blurred into absolute darkness broken only by a silvery moon and cool white stars above Caithness. She paused, resting her arms against the parapet. The scent of roses and honeysuckle carried on the breeze. She inhaled deeply. Another scent teased her senses, and she cocked her head. Dark and spicy; leather and soap and man.
Grimm.
She turned slowly and he was there, standing behind her on the roof, deep in the shadows of the abutting walls watching her, his gaze unfathomable. She hadn’t heard a sound as he’d approached, not a whisper of cloth, not one scuffle of his boots on the stones. It was as if he were fashioned of night air and had sailed the wind to her solitary perch.
“Will you marry?” he asked without preface.
Jillian sucked in a breath. Shadows couched his features but for a bar of moonlight illuminating his intense eyes. How long had he been there? Was there a “me,” unspoken, at the end of his sentence? “What are you asking?” she said breathlessly.
His smooth voice was bland. “Quinn would make a fine husband for you.”
“Quinn?” she echoed.
“Aye. He’s golden as you, lass. He’s kind, gentle, and wealthy. His family would cherish you.”
“And what about yours?” She couldn’t believe she dared ask.
“What about mine, what?”
Would your family cherish me? “What is your family like?”
His gaze was icy. “I have no family.”
“None?” Jillian frowned. Surely he had some relatives, somewhere.
“You know nothing about me, lass,” he reminded her in a low voice.
“Well, since you keep butting your nose into my life, I think I have the right to ask a few questions.” Jillian peered intently at him, but it was too dark to see him clearly. How could he seem such a part of the night?
“I’ll quit butting my nose. And the only time I butt my nose in is when it looks like you’re about to get in trouble.”
“I do not get into trouble all the time, Grimm.”
“So”—he gestured impatiently—“when will you marry him?”
“Who?” She seethed, plucking at the folds of her gown. Clouds passed over the moon, momentarily obscuring him from her view.
His eerily disembodied voice was mildly reproaching. “Try to follow the conversation, lass. Quinn.”