He smacked her playfully on the arse. “ ’Tis something I’ve done since I learned to read and write when I was a young lad. My father was a learned man and he taught his sons. He thought it an important skill. He oft said that intelligence served a warrior better than a sword.”

“He sounded like a wise man.”

“He was,” Caelen said quietly. “He was a great laird, beloved by his clan.”

Rionna looked into her husband’s eyes and knew that demons from his past gnawed at him this night. She sorely regretted making him think of his father, for ’twas impossible to separate his death and Elsepeth’s betrayal. But at the same time, she wanted to know more and perhaps ease her husband’s burden.

“Tell me of Elsepeth,” she urged.

Caelen stiffened and his expression darkened. “ ’Tis nothing to speak of.”

“I would disagree. She’s made you hard. She’s taken something that should be rightfully mine.”

Caelen looked at her in confusion. “What is it you speak of?”

She touched his cheek. “Your heart. You cannot ever give it fully to me because she still occupies it.”

“Nay,” he swiftly denied.

“Aye,” she argued. “You hardened the part of your heart that you offered to her. When she betrayed you, you locked that part away, never to open it again. She’s trapped there. She has what is rightfully mine and I want it, husband. I’m no longer content to wait.”

He looked incredulously at her. “You make unreasonable demands, wife.”

Rionna huffed impatiently. “ ’Tis unreasonable to want the whole of my husband’s heart? Would you accept that part of my heart belonged to another man and you could never touch it?”

He scowled at that. “You’re making too much of it, Rionna. Elsepeth is part of my past. You are my future. The two have nothing to do with each other.”

“Then tell me of her,” Rionna challenged. “If she poses no threat, then ’tis nothing to speak of her.”

Caelen sighed and ran his hand through his hair in frustration. He rolled to his back and stared up at the ceiling. Rionna remained still, waiting as he grappled with his irritation.

“I was a fool.”

Rionna didn’t respond as she watched the emotion play out over her husband’s face. She didn’t believe for a minute he still harbored tender feelings for Elsepeth, but his past was still very much alive in his heart and mind. ’Twas like a poison he’d yet to purge from his system.

She could still see the naked pain in his eyes and his regret at all that had transpired so many years ago.