Page 49 of Bargaining with the Devil

He did have something he could offer her right now. “’Twould hurt and you’d be left with a great scar there, but I can cut it off you, the mark. ’Twill be gone then.”

He couldn’t offer her anything else she needed, but he could give her that much.

It turned her stomach when she understood what Quinn meant.

She also didn’t need long to consider his offer. “Yes. I’d far rather a scar put there by your hand, by one of your knives, than a mark at his behest. If you do this, it is by my choice, freely given.” And Quinn was nothing, nothing, like Compton.

She’d decided just this morning, well before things had proceeded as they had with Lymington and the gunshot and Quinn finding the gunpowder mark, that she could be a different woman here on Heston.

“Do it. I don’t care about the pain.” She swallowed. “Do it now.” The new woman she was here was someone who would face her pain head-on. All of it.

“’Twould probably be best to wait till we’re back⁠—”

“You’ll need hot water, I presume. I believe I can manage to bring in the pail one-handed.”

“Aye.” He didn’t try to talk her out of it, which she appreciated.

She also appreciated that he didn’t suggest fetching the pail for her. Perhaps—probably—he understood that she needed something constructive to do, now, to dispel the ugliness swirling inside her. Something proactive that would quash the helpless feelings that had roiled up when she recounted part of the vile months leading up to and in France.

“I’ll light the fire,” he said. “I laid it earlier.”

She’d have offered to do that too but wasn’t sure she’d be coordinated enough. She’d already been shaky from nerves and pain, and telling part of the story hadn’t helped with that. Likely he knew that too.

“What else can I do?” Besides set the water boiling, she meant. She rephrased it. “Tell me what I can do.”

He cut a look at her. “I’ll tear a few more strips of cloth now. You can set them boiling once the water is going.”

She nodded, not trusting her voice for anything further, and set to her tasks while he got to his.

Once the water was at a boil, he produced a small, wicked-looking knife from somewhere in his coat. He checked the edge on it. Apparently satisfied, he laid it aside and looked at her. “’Tis going to hurt. No way around it, a mhuirnín. I can do it careful, or I can do it fast. I can’t do both.”

No need to consider it further. “Careful. Do it carefully.” It didn’t matter if it took hours, if it would be gone afterwards.

“Come to me then, here by the fire. We’ll kneel, the both of us, you facing me so you can get your other arm around my waist if you need to lean in on me. Aye?”

She knelt where he gestured. His knuckles were bruised, a split on one, and there were scrapes on the backs of his hands. Whether from his scuffle with Lymington or some other endeavor to reach her in time, she didn’t know. Strange to think them beautiful in a way, but those marks were there on her account.

She lifted one of his hands and very gently pressed her lips to one of the bruises, absorbing the warmth and vitality of his skin against her mouth.

“’Tis nothing, a stór,” he murmured. “I’ve had far worse.”

She managed a dry tone despite her nerves. “I don’t doubt that. But you’ve never had them on my account before.”

Briefly he looked arrested. “Well then, ’tis a set of bruises I’ll be wearing gladly today.” His face was inches away, his eyes intent.

He had a faint scar through his right eyebrow. What a detail to notice at a time like this. She must ask someday how⁠—

His mouth took hers.

Quinn’s kisses were an anchor. Or an answer. After the past two days, the whole world was spinning off its axis. She’d been so carefully frozen for months, and she wasn’t anymore. And she wasn’t sure if she hated it or welcomed it, but either way, she hooked an arm around his neck to bring him closer. Nerves, cold, and the pistol wound: the three unhappy reasons she was trembling. Quinn’s mouth was a far more welcome fourth reason. She grabbed on to what he offered with all her soul.

Too soon he pulled back. “You ready, a mhuirnín?”

“Yes.” Her whisper had no sound at all, so she nodded too so he’d know she was resolved.

He took off his shirt. So different from last night when he’d removed it from practicality because it was wet. He was doing it this time for a different practical reason: because she was going to bleed.

He didn’t tell her it wouldn’t hurt. He knew it would. And he didn’t try telling her she wouldn’t have an ugly scar—because she would. It didn’t matter. She’d look at that scar every day for the rest of her life, a memory of the man who’d excised an ugly memory written on her skin rather than a reminder of the man who’d put it there to begin with.