Chapter Twenty-Three

Lillian’s dark eyes widened at Kirk’s question. She seemed surprised that her strategy to get him to talk had worked.

In truth, so was he, but he couldn’t argue with her logic. He had to go forward with his mission. But even given that, the desire to open up to her, to let her truly know him, was a powerful ache in his chest.

It was as he’d said—only his actions mattered. And as long as he followed through with his assignments, then it mattered not what he revealed to her of his past or his scarred soul.

“You did once fight in the Bruce’s army, didn’t you?” she asked again.

“Aye.”

He could feel those intelligent, searching eyes on him, but he kept his gaze on the dancing flames.

“You…you fought for Scottish independence?”

Kirk’s mind drifted back. He’d been full of manly pride and arrogant self-assurance as a lad of eighteen when he’d first joined the Bruce’s army in 1306. But even as a hot-headed youth, he’d always been guided by a strong sense of honor. Freedom from the tyranny of the English hadn’t just been an ideal to him—it had been a calling. The pull toward justice had been strong—too strong to deny.

“I joined when the Bruce made his first real stand against the English,” he said. “He proclaimed himself King of our people and vowed to fight for our freedom. Like many lads in the Highlands, it was no’ only a duty to stand with the Bruce against our oppressors, but an honor.”

“Why were you sent to Ireland?”

Kirk picked up a twig and twirled it between thumb and forefinger. “Do ye ken about the Bruce’s campaign there?”

He glanced over to find her delicate brows wrinkled together. “Only that the Scottish sent troops there to fight with the English and English-sympathizing Irish.”

He nodded, glancing down at the twig he toyed with. “I rose quickly in the Bruce’s ranks. I gained in skill, and others began looking to me as a leader.”

He shrugged, uncomfortable at the memory. Once, he’d been thought a rising star within the Bruce’s army. He’d even fancied himself on track to become a member of the Bruce’s inner circle someday.

“Two years ago, I was selected by Robert the Bruce to serve under his brother, Edward Bruce, who led the campaign in Ireland,” he went on. “I was Edward’s right-hand man, his top commander.”

It had been a time of pride for Kirk, but also the beginning to the stirrings of doubt he’d felt.

“We were supposed to be in Ireland to liberate the Irish from their English oppressors, for we had already made great strides in beating back the English in Scotland. But what we found instead was a people divided, with many loyal to the English—and unwelcoming of the Scots. They had already been downtrodden by famine and hardship. Our presence—and our battles with the Anglo-Irish—only made matters worse. I…I began to question the rightness of the mission.”

Lillian remained silent, and the crackling of the fire filled Kirk’s ears. “But I didnae voice my concerns,” he said softly. “It wasnae my place. Though I served at Edward’s side, I was still a soldier. I had to follow orders.”

His throat tightened. That had always been his excuse, hadn’t it? He was just following orders. He’d followed the Bruce’s order to go to Ireland, and then Edward’s order to siege Carrickfergus. And now he was following the commands of the Bruce and the Order of the Shadow, still the dutiful soldier, even when it might cost him his life—or Lillian’s.

Kirk clenched his teeth against the thought.

“Did…did something happen?” Lillian’s low, velvety voice cut through his dark musings, a temporary balm to his blackened soul. Her sharp mind had already moved several steps ahead and had anticipated what he had to say next.

“Aye,” he ground out, throwing the twig into the fire. “Carrickfergus happened.”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw her shake her head slowly in confusion.

“Carrickfergus Castle is Ireland’s greatest stronghold,” he said. “It was one of our first tasks: capture the castle and make it the Scottish headquarters for the campaign. We set to sieging it almost immediately when we arrived in Ireland.”

When the siege had started, Kirk had carried every hope that it would be over quickly. The Scots had cut off the castle’s flow of supplies, and Irish reinforcements, kept busy with the Scottish army, were held at bay.

“Edward Bruce was called farther south to subdue the Anglo-Irish forces resisting us,” Kirk went on. “So I was left to run the siege in Edward’s stead. That was in May of 1315.”

He worked his jaw for a moment, struggling with the next words. “Come September of 1316, they still hadnae surrendered.”

Lillian gasped, and he turned to find her face stricken with horror. “But how…how did they survive for so long inside?”

“At first, they lived on the provisions they’d stored up for such an event. But when those ran out in February of 1316, they agreed to a parlay to discuss possible terms of surrender. I led a contingent of Scottish soldiers to the castle for the parlay, but the men within sprung a trap on us. ”

The screams of his own men as they’d fallen under the hail of arrows just inside the castle’s gate rang hollowly in Kirk’s ears.

“Many of my men were killed, and thirty more were taken hostage. Those inside the castle hoped to ransom them back to us in exchange for an end to the siege.”

“Were you taken hostage as well?” Lillian asked softly.

“Nay.” The word came out gravelly from Kirk’s tight throat. “I should have been, though. I was their commander. They put their trust in me to lead them, and I—”

He clamped his teeth shut. He’d lived with that guilt this past year and a half. But that wasn’t even the worst of it.

“I escaped the attack,” he went on quietly. “I tried to get word to Edward Bruce, tried to ask him how to proceed when thirty of our own men were now trapped inside the castle, but he was locked in a land battle with the Anglo-Irish forces to the south and couldnae join me at Carrickfergus to strategize a solution. The only guidance he gave was that I was to continue the siege. Naught was more important than taking Carrickfergus, he said. It was an order, so I followed it.”

Kirk would never forget that long, terrible summer spent outside Carrickfergus’s impenetrable stone walls. The air had at first been tinged with the stench of unwashed men, mud, and camp smoke, for the Scottish army had been living in tents around the castle for more than a year already.

But then the air had taken on the sour tinge of decaying flesh. Once, late in that unusually warm, rainy summer, a dozen rotting bodies were unceremoniously dumped over the castle wall.

“We kenned that the men inside suffered greatly, but we couldnae do aught but wait—for them to surrender, or die.”

“And what happened?” Lillian breathed.

“When the ravens stopped spiraling overhead and instead descended into the castle, we kenned that it was over. But what we found inside when we finally managed to break down the gate…”

Kirk swallowed hard, the memories rushing back and making bile claw at the back of his throat. He dragged in a breath and forced himself to shove down his emotions.

“All inside were dead,” he said flatly, “including the thirty Scotsmen they’d taken hostage. My men…there was evidence that the Irish had…had resorted to cannibalism.”

“They ate the Scotsmen they’d captured?” Lillian gasped. A shudder wracked her.

Without thinking, Kirk leaned over and pulled his cloak tighter around her still-damp shift. Her eyes were wide on him, their dark depths registering all the horror he’d experienced that terrible day inside Carrickfergus.

“I cannae hold that against them,” he replied softly, returning his gaze to the fire. “They were pushed to those terrible extremes—by me.”

A long silence stretched, and Kirk sank into the self-loathing that had been an ever-present companion since that day.

“Were there women and children inside?” Lillian whispered, breaking into his gut-churning memories.

“Nay, and that was the only saving grace,” he said. “When the siege started, the women, children, elderly, and infirm were all released from the castle under a truce. It was a small mercy, but it doesnae undo the suffering and deaths of those other men, Scottish and Irish alike. It left those who survived without their husbands, fathers, brothers, and sons.” Kirk’s voice dropped low. “And no man, enemy or nay, deserves to die like that.”

He tensed when Lillian’s soft hand came to rest on his forearm.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I’m sorry you carry that with you.”

It was the exact right thing to say, and yet Kirk’s heart twisted painfully. Her words only proved her goodness, the pureness of her heart. He didn’t deserve her pity, or her sorrow. He didn’t deserve her . And she didn’t deserve the mess he’d dragged her into.

He stiffened, hardening himself against the ache in his heart. “After that,” he said, keeping his voice neutral, “I lost faith in the cause I’d devoted my life to. I was meant to be fighting for freedom, and I ended up taking the freedoms—the lives—from the ones I was supposedly liberating.”

“And so you left,” she finished, her eyes searching him. “And became a bounty hunter.”

Kirk hesitated. He’d said he would tell her the truth, but some part of him still held back. If he told her of his mission with the Bruce, it would confirm her suspicions about him—that he wasn’t who he seemed, nor did he enjoy this terrible task of turning her over to evil men.

But that knowledge wouldn’t change what he had to do, he reminded himself. And it might even endanger her further. The men to whom he was delivering her wanted information—and what could be more valuable than knowledge of a spy in the midst of the Order?

So he let himself slide past the deeper truth and instead nodded in acknowledgement of her assumption that he’d joined the Order of his own free will.

“And Patrick—he knew you before you became a bounty hunter,” Lillian said.

“Aye.”

“Why did you contact him? What message did you want him to deliver?”

Kirk repressed a curse. Lillian was far too perceptive. He was still unwilling to reveal his cover, but as he had done with the Order, sometimes using the simple truth was best.

“I…I asked him to contact Colin MacKay.”

“Why?”

Kirk drew in a breath to steel himself. “I hoped to find a way out of this mess.”

He sensed her stiffen beside him. When he shifted his gaze to her, those soft, pink lips were slightly parted and her eyes were wide with hope.

Damn it all .

“But there isnae a way out,” he said quickly. “Logan reminded me of that.”

“Logan Mackenzie,” she said slowly. “He is a bounty hunter like you, isn’t he?”

“Aye. I was a fool to think that Colin could help me find a solution. I cannae see any way out of this.”

That was the worst truth of all. He’d be crossing the Bruce if he went through with delivering Lillian, but Roland Gervais would extract his punishment one bit of flesh at a time if he failed. Colin and Logan had made that painfully clear.

“But there must be some way,” Lillian said, gripping his arm. “You don’t want to do this. I know there is still good in you—honor. Together, surely we can—”

He shook his head, cutting her off. “Ye dinnae understand the forces at work, Lillian,” he said. “Lives hang in the balance—yers and mine, aye, but many more as well.”

Kirk clamped his jaw shut. He was skirting dangerously close to telling her everything. He steeled himself against the aching desire to bare all to her.

She stilled, holding his gaze. The hope in her eyes broke his heart.

“Richard used to always say ‘Fallibility lies not in the stone, but in men’s hearts.’ You were once vulnerable to losing faith, to turning away from goodness. But that needn’t define you. Unlike a cracked stone, hearts can be mended, the weaknesses chased out.”

He stared at her for a long moment. It was a beautiful sentiment, yet he could not put his trust in it. He needed to wedge more distance between them—to close his heart to her else he say something that put her in even greater danger.

The mention of her husband twisted like a knife in his gut. She had once been another’s. The thought made his ribs contract in a squeezing ache.

Aye, he could use that—use it against himself to turn into the cold, uncaring warrior he needed to be once more. She was not his to want, to care for, and her late husband was the perfect reminder of that.

Teeth locked tight, he steeled himself for what he had to do.

“What sort of man was your husband?”