Chapter Nineteen
As Katrin soon discovered, the men on the shore, or at least Robran, who was sworn to his chief at the heart, must have run to Da and told him what she had been about. Taking a boat out to sea for no good reason. With the harper, no less.
As a consequence, Da attempted to speak with her several times before supper. She avoided him by pretending she had duties to which she must attend, hurrying around the hall. She did not feel like making explanations and moreover did not like feeling required to provide them.
The experience out on the water had affected her deeply. Shaken her profoundly. She was a woman who liked to keep her tasks in a line and her world under her thumb. The time on the water had challenged all that.
No matter. She could beat it all into submission again. Be the strong woman she was.
But och, she did not expect her reaction when next she saw the harper.
They had gone their separate ways after climbing up from the shore, he to his chamber and she to the kitchens.
He entered the hall quietly, as was his way, while still she saw to the preparations.
When she turned and beheld him—it felt like being struck hard beneath the breastbone, and it cost her all her breath.
He wore his green cloak, the one that matched his eyes, and had braided the silver sigils back into his hair. He looked composed and self-effacing and—
She wanted to kiss him again. She wanted it so much she ached.
What had come over her? Had she indeed gone mad out there on the sea?
It just went to show her that giving in to impulse was never wise. No wonder she so seldom did that. She wanted to blame him, or rather his stories. For giving her such ideas.
But nay, she was woman enough to fault no one except herself.
Curse it all, though. Every time she so much as glanced at him, she craved the taste of him. She wanted the feeling that had assailed her when she was in his arms, all over again.
Good thing he was a man of such discretion, for he sat with her and Da and Reagan, at table. And if the time spent with him was all she could think of, he did not in any way reveal he thought about it also.
Mayhap he did not. It had been but a kiss. A man who looked like him and who possessed such talent must garner many such. He would as soon forget it.
Not until Finlay rose from the board after supper and moved away to his harp did Da succeed in bringing up the matter. Indeed, Katrin had meant to move off also but, lost in watching Finlay, failed to do so.
“Daughter, wha’ is this I hear about ye and the harper going sailing?”
“I suppose Robran told ye.” Katrin focused on her father.
“Nay less than five people told me.” Da scowled. “It seems a daft thing to do.”
It was a daft thing to do.
“’Twas no’ sailing. It was but rowing.”
Reagan, who sat by listening, raised a brow and his lips twitched. “Does it make a difference?” he wondered aloud.
“I think it does.” She sought to quell him with a glare.
“Still and all,” Da continued, “why should ye go wi’ the harper out on the water?”
“Did yer spies no’ tell ye that also?”
“Nay spies.” Da looked taken aback. “They merely had some concerns, since ye are no’ in the habit o’—”
“By all that is holy, Da. I am nearly a score and ten years old. May I no’ tak’ a boat out on the water when I choose?”
“Ye are no’ even a score and seven.”
“Same difference.”
“I hope not.” Da glanced at Reagan. “Since ye are my one hope left for an heir.”
Katrin flushed—with annoyance, so she told herself. “Must we discuss that here?” She spoke in a hushed voice that did nothing to disguise how upset she felt, but heads were beginning to turn. “The harper is about to play.”
“Aye, and,” Reagan murmured, “we would not wish to interrupt that.”
Not until later, when Katrin met Reagan behind the armory, was the matter reintroduced. Reagan was limbering up, swinging the sword he used for practice, since he did not use his grand claymore against her, when he said, “Wha’ is all this about the harper, then? D’ye fancy him after all?”
The question stopped Katrin cold. She lowered her own sword and eyed her companion. “Fancy him? I told ye before, I did not.”
One of Reagan’s mobile eyebrows rose. “Did not. I supposed ye might have changed your mind. Women do, so I understand. The lasses I have known oft spoke of fancy. Men have other terms for it, with which I will not insult your ears.”
“The lasses,” she repeated in disgust.
“The fair sex. The gentle beauties.”
“I am neither gentle nor a beauty.”
He made no answer to that, but when she glanced at him, she caught something in his eyes.
“I do no’ go about fancying men.”
“To my sorrow. Ye may not warrant it, but I have myself been fancied a time or two and consider it a grand compliment.”
She could warrant it. Seeing him standing there as he was, clad in no more than tunic and leggings with his sheen of tawny hair hanging down and every muscle on display, she herself felt a tug.
She snorted.
He gave a bark of laughter. “Well, then. What possessed ye to take a very wee boat and the harper and go out for a row?”
“He is teaching me to play the harp.”
“Is he, then?”
“Aye, just as ye are teaching me at arms.”
“And that must be done out on the water?”
“Do no’ be a fool.”
“Och, what a blinding contrast between the harp and the sword! Me, I love irony.”
She smiled reluctantly. “Me too. But”—she fixed him with a challenging stare—“there is naught between me and ye, is there? Why should there be anything between me and the harper?”
“I shall tell ye, shall I?” Reagan twirled his sword in the air. “It is in the looks ye steal at him when ye think no one can see. And the stillness that comes to yer face when he plays.”
“Stillness?”
“Like—like ye be hearing something holy. Now, I will admit, the man has a rare talent, but, well, personally I have only ever put that sort o’ look on a woman’s face after I—”
“Pray, say no more.”’
“And so, what has Finlay giving ye lessons at the harp to do with ye taking him out in a wee boat?”
“I wanted to thank him by showing him somewhat of the settlement. ’Twas a treat.”
“A treat,” Reagan repeated. Then suddenly he guffawed. “I should call that by another name also!”
Och, men, Katrin thought in exasperation. An age-old cry. “He has never seen Murtray fro’ the sea.”
“D’ye say so? And can ye be certain? He is a wandering minstrel. He will have been all up and down these coasts by boat.”
“That is no’ the point.”
“Nay, it is not.” Reagan took a step closer to her and a wry smile twitched his mustaches. “I should rather say the point is, ye wanted to be alone wi’ him.”
Katrin lifted a brow, emulating him. “And this concerns ye—how?”
“Naught at all, mistress. Does he know ye fancy him?”
Katrin thought of that kiss, the one she had bestowed upon Finlay. He knew. He must.
“’Tis neither here nor there,” she told the Gallowglass. “Up wi’ your sword.”
She fought well that night. She would say even Reagan would admit so, for she caught him a few times very nearly off his guard. A great energy flowed through her, and her muscles hummed, her reflexes sang.
“Ye grow fearfully good,” Reagan noted when they parted. “Ye, Katrin MacMurtray, be a woman in a thousand.”
“I am certain there are women all over the Highlands willing to take up weapons to defend their families—and their land.”
“Aye, mistress, but not all are so terrible good at it.”