Page 51 of Moon Awakening

"It is long past."

"But haunts you like a specter of the night."

She shuddered. "Yes."

"Tell me and I will vanquish your ghost."

Emily marveled at his confidence. Did he really think it was that simple? "You are a man, not a magician."

"I am a laird."

"There you go again, thinking that's the answer to everything," she said teasingly, but her voice was not as light as she wanted it to be.

"It is." No doubts. No questions. Just absolute certainty in his own power.

Was he right? Could telling him cauterize the wound that had bled inside her for so long? She had never told anyone, not even Abigail, why she was so wretchedly afraid of the water.

"My mother died giving birth to a boy child who also died." Memories crowded her mind and she curled instinctively further into Lachlan's strength and heat. "Until then, my father loved me and called me his precious daughter. He was kind to me and smiled often. He loved my mother very much. His grief at her death was terrible. And his affection for me turned to hatred. He blamed me for being born a girl and for Mama's death in the attempt to give him a son and heir. He drank wine by the pitcherful the first months after her passing."

She could still remember the stench of it on his breath, his clothes. She'd been a small child, hurting and frightened by her mother's death and her father's withdrawal.

"One night, I went to him… I wanted to comfort him. I wanted him to hold me and call me precious as he had before she died. But he did not want my comfort and he abhorred my touch. He started shouting at me, telling me how useless I was. He said that when animals give birth to useless offspring, the babies are drowned. That I should have been drowned at birth, I was so useless."

Her throat convulsed and she had to take several breaths before going on.

"He stumbled to his feet and grabbed me. He carried me like a sack of wheat, his big arm pushing into my stomach. It hurt. I was crying and begging him to let me go, but he acted like he didn't hear me. He kept muttering about drowning a useless pup. He carried me outside. It was dark and there was no one around. He took me to the small pond behind the keep. The water was dark and black. Terrifying. I started screaming, but no one came. He gave an anguished roar and threw me in."

Talking about it brought back the feeling of the cold water closing over her head, the terror as she realized she could not breathe. She'd flailed in the water, but could not swim and her head broke the surface only once. She'd been sure she was going to die, but then her father's hand had been there, grabbing her, pulling her into the cold night air.

She'd coughed and sputtered, throwing up water, sobbing so hard she could not breathe. He'd held her then, rubbing her back, telling her over and over again how sorry he was. He'd carried her back to the keep as if she were a baby, cuddling her close to his chest, trying to comfort her. But all she had wanted was to get away from him.

When they reached the keep, the housekeeper was there. With terror-based strength, Emily had torn herself from her father's arms and thrown herself at the housekeeper. She'd wrapped her arms around the woman's legs and sobbed and sobbed.

"Father told her to give me a hot bath and drink. Then he left. The next day, he found me in my room and I screamed when I saw him. He went away after that. When he came home, he had my stepmother Sybil with him and my two stepsisters."

Emily had needed her father's love, but had not been able to bear being close enough for him to touch her for years after that. Sybil had finished the separation his drunken rage had started, and by the time Emily was old enough to begin to understand her father's pain and drunken cruelty, she was too estranged from him for it to make a difference.

"He has never had a drop of wine since then that I know of, even when Sybil insisted he toast the birth of their first son. He drank water."

She looked up at Lachlan, wondering what he thought of her awful tale. His eyes were filled with banked rage and a compassion that touched her in places she could not afford to be touched. She scrambled off his lap and stood. He made no move to grab her back, but she felt the need for more space between them nevertheless and moved to the other side of the room.

She crossed her arms protectively over her heart. "Now you know."

"He was crazed with grief."

"Yes."

"But there is no excuse for what he did. I would kill a soldier who acted likewise."

She shivered, knowing he meant it. "I didn't want him killed. He was my father."

"He never touched you again?"

"No."

"But you are marked by his brutality."

"You could put it that way. My fear of the water is not usually a problem. I can hide it mostly. Other than kidnappings, I've never been forced into a boat."