Chapter Twenty
Since the weather remained fine the next day, Finlay carried his harp out to the gardens where he and Katrin often met for her lessons.
Gardens was a fairly inapt term for the place.
The western coast of Scotland was not hospitable to much more than sturdy wildflowers.
Even though a wall surrounded the place and trapped the sun, the season for flowers was short.
But there was a kale yard and beds of herbs holding up their rangy heads and, of course, the rowans.
He felt a bit uneasy when he set up beneath one of the rowans within sight of the kitchen doorway. He’d been subject to dreams all last night. Or not so much dreams as snatches of scenes from the past, set on bedeviling him.
Yesterday had felt like an extension of those dreams. Had it truly happened? Katrin getting a wildness in her head and taking him out in the wee boat. Almost as if she remembered.
Or did she but recall his tales? The romance of them.
He cursed himself. In telling the tales, he’d intended to spark her memories. But now he could not be certain what that kiss meant.
Would she feel awkward being here with him again? Had things altered irrevocably between them?
Upon the thought, she exited the kitchen door, moving in that self-controlled way she had, all gathered power. Just the way Hulda had moved, he recalled with a tug on his heart, so long ago.
As if she did not carry his whole world.
She had not bothered to dress herself in finery for their sessions, and he wondered what that meant. Was it insult, or compliment? Did it mean she did not care to look well for him, or that she respected him enough to believe he was not the man to focus on appearances?
So he was not. It was all about her presence. For the very feel of the gardens changed when she entered them. Something within him eased. And tensed.
She looked as if she’d just come from some arduous household chore—the laundry, perhaps, or the weaving shed. A plain dress frayed at the hem. Hair bundled loosely at the nape of her neck.
So beautiful.
Though he’d wondered what her attitude would be, she began as if naught of yesterday had ever happened, joining him and saying breathlessly, “I am that sorry I am late. I was delayed in the stables.”
“The stables?” He had not imagined that.
“Aye—a great fuss. One o’ the stable lads got kicked right in the basket.”
“The basket?”
“Aye, ye ken.” She swept him with a look. “He refused to see the healer, but all the wind was knocked out o’ him. God knows why he agreed to see me.”
Because she was the center of this place, its backbone, and its spirit. If she did not see that, he could not tell her.
“Ye ha’ no need, mistress, to apologize to me. As ye ken, I am at your service.”
Her gaze flew to his. And just like that, he could taste her again. Smell the salt air, the scent of sunshine on her skin, and feel the movement of the little boat.
“Where were we?” He fought to steady himself. “Grace notes, was it no’?”
She sat beside him with a groan. “Ye play them so effortlessly, I so clumsily.”
“No’ all harpers play the same. If ye keep up wi’ it, ye will no doubt find yer own style and be the better for doing.”
“If I keep up wi’ it?”
“Once I am gone.”
That drew her gaze to his again. “I thought ye said ye would stay. Have ye changed your mind? Do ye ha’ plans to leave?”
“Nay plans yet. But I can scarce stay forever.”
He gestured, and she took the harp onto her knee. It pleased him beyond expression to see the instrument in her hands.
She said, “I do no’ see why not. Why ye canna stay forever, that is. Are there no’ lairds who keep a harper in their hall?”
“Aye, so, but I ha’ never been one o’ those harpers.”
“Would ye no’ consider staying in one place?”
She does not want me to go. His heart bounded. “I might.”
“Ye might stay here?”
“Who can tell what the future holds? The past is easier to know, as we can sometimes remember it.”
“And sometimes no’.”
He had to acknowledge it. “And sometimes no’.” He wondered again at the meaning behind his remembering all they had been to one another, and her failing to. After all the trials they had endured in the past in order to be together, was not this—the recapturing of her heart—the most challenging?
“Now let us begin with the queen’s lament.” That was full of grace notes.
“Let us not. Let us play again the march ye made for the Gallowglass.”
The Gallowglass. That very nearly made him wince. He remembered having seen the two of them slipping off together through the dark, her and Reagan O’Hanlon. Was there something between them? Was it the Gallowglass she truly desired?
If so, then what had been the meaning behind that kiss she’d bestowed on him?
He said a bit sternly, “There is nary a grace note in that march.”
And she tossed her head. “Why d’ye think I asked?”
He would love to know the true meaning behind the request.
They worked together there in the quiet yard, amid sunlight dappled by the rowan branches overhead. She already knew the fundamentals of O’Hanlon’s march and learned to embellish it before she put up the harp.
“I am that clumsy today,” she said in disgust.
“Give it time.” It was all about time.
“There should be words.”
“I beg yer pardon?”
“To the march. Brave and valiant ones to be sung along.” She looked at him, her gaze lingering at his lips before finding his eyes. “I love to hear ye sing.”
He stopped breathing. Love.
“There is magic in it,” said this most practical of women earnestly. “It seems to flow up, does that magic, out o’ the past when I hear ye, and—and overtake me.” She asked impulsively, “Why d’ye no’ mak’ words for the march? To—to immortalize the Gallowglass. Reagan would be ever so pleased.”
Reagan.
“Why d’ye no’ mak’ the words,” he suggested with lightness he did not feel, “since the idea came into yer head?”
“Och, I ha’ no skill wi’ any o’ that.”
“Try, and we will work together on it.”
“Aye, so. Come walking.” Her gaze grew rueful. “No’ now—I will have to go and see to supper full soon. But tomorrow. Ye will come walking wi’ me tomorrow?”
His heart bounded again, painfully. “I will.”
“Good, then. I—” She handed Brada back to him carefully and sprang to her feet. Stood for a moment looking at him as if she would say more. Leaned a bit closer.
Would she kiss him again? He ached for her lips on his. As they had been in the sun outside the roundhouse. As they had been while in flight through Alba. Up the trail on the headland. Down the path to the Norse encampment.
But she said only, “I will see ye at supper. Ye will play for me after?” Mischief kindled in her eyes. “Somewhat wi’ grace notes, since ye manage them so well.”
He would play for her life long.
She had only to choose.
Supper was quiet and intimate that night. Folk had grown used to the presence of the Gallowglass and not many were in attendance. The fare was simple and those there left off their casual conversing to hear Finlay play.
Indeed, Finlay thought Reagan O’Hanlon dozed in his seat, head tipped onto one great fist, when the interruption occurred. A ruckus at the front door that intruded into the song Finlay sang. Raised voices and a servant putting his head in apologetically, seeking Anders MacMurtray’s eye.
“My chief, apologies, but there is a messenger. He says it is important.”
Anders sprang to his feet.
A heavily armored man strode into the hall and directly to the head table. He did not pause until he faced Anders.
“I come from Earl John Randolph,” he said then, loud enough for all to hear. “He bids ye call up your clan for war.”