Chapter 7
“It is a scratch,” Neil muttered, as if the candle had lied.
“Now is really nae the time to lie to me, Neil. Sit. Please.”
He held her gaze for a heartbeat, stubborn as ever. But then her hand found his forearm, and he let the fight drain out of his shoulders. He sat on the bench by the table.
“Ye should have said something,” she chided, scrambling for the ewer and a clean cloth. “Ye shouldnae walk around with a wound like that. Men think that pain makes them grand.”
“It keeps us alert,” he argued.
“It keeps ye dead,” she shot back.
Her fingers shook, and she clenched her jaw to steady herself. She had cleaned cuts on calves and lambs, had wrapped torn knuckles and scraped knees, had pressed cloths to children’s brows while fever raged.
But never a wound like this. And never on her own husband.
Neil watched her hands. “I am nae a bairn, ye ken,” he huffed.
“Then act like a man who wants to live.” She wrung the cloth tight and drew close.
The scent of soap met the coppery tang that had warned her. She touched the wet linen to the stain and pressed. Neil did not flinch. Heat seeped through the cloth and warmed her palm.
“What happened to ye anyway?” she asked quietly.
He looked past her to the window, which showed only darkness. His jaw set. When he spoke, the words were bitter and sharp, as if pulled from a place with no air. “Ye daenae have to worry about that.”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “About what?”
“I ken what ye are thinking, Kristen. I wasnae with another woman.”
“Ye thought I was with another man when ye arrived,” she whispered, her eyes burning. “Ye looked at me last night and saw a faithless wife. So excuse me if I daenae have full faith in ye.”
He did not respond. The candle wavered, and the shadow along his cheek deepened.
Kristen would not beg for gentleness or flee this room again. Not tonight. Not ever.
She set the cloth on the table, before her fingers found the tie at his collar. “Take it off so I can see.”
“Nay,” he said. “Stop challenging me.”
She did not step back. “If ye want obedience, ye should have come home five years ago.”
He lifted his hand as if to brush hers away, but she stood her ground.
“I must do this, whether ye like it or nae,” she pressed. “I daenae fear ye enough to want ye dead.”
Something loosened in his face. He dropped his hand and exhaled slowly, then reached for the tie. He tugged it loose and pulled the shirt over his head before dropping it to the floor.
His chest rose and fell as old burn scars curved over his ribs and shoulders in pale ridges that tugged when he breathed. He was broad, and spare, and stronger than the story she had let grow in her head.
“Look yer fill,” he rumbled.
“I am looking for what to treat,” she said, her voice steady.
If he didn’t believe her, he didn’t show it.
She wet the cloth again and found the wound high at the shoulder where seam met skin. The cut was shallow and long, the kind that bled to make a fool of a sleeve. She cleaned it with careful strokes until the water ran clear.
Neil was watching a point on the wall.
“Hold.” She pressed the cloth. “There.”
He did as she told him, his long fingers steady on the cloth.
Kristen reached for the salve jar and opened it. Ever since Finn had scraped his knee a few months ago, she had asked the maids to keep a salve jar and some bandages in every room. That way, an emergency would not have them running from room to room for aid.
A clean scent rose from the jar, sharp with pine and something bitter. She scooped a little with her fingers and rubbed it on the wound.
Neil hissed a breath through clenched teeth.
“Sorry,” she breathed.
“Aye.”
Silence settled over them.
Kristen dipped the cloth again and gently dabbed it along the edge of a burn that curved around his neck. The raised skin was warm under her touch.
“Who did this to ye anyway?” she asked again.
This time, her voice cracked.
“I told ye, Kristen, it is nothing,” Neil insisted.
“It is nothing,” she echoed, because he needed the lie even if she did not. Her eyes traced the map his body had become. “Folks here call ye the Wolf of the North, and ye still willnae tell me who did this to ye.”
He turned his head a fraction. “Leave it.”
She nodded and said nothing more.
She folded a strip of linen, tied it with neat fingers, and set the knot where it would not rub against the edge of the wound. Neil picked up his shirt with one hand, but did not put it back on.
For a moment, they stood there, unsure of the next step.
“Ye should sleep in me chamber tonight,” Kristen urged. Her voice belonged to a woman who knew steadiness by practice. “For the bairns’ sake, if nae for mine.”
“I told ye I would come,” Neil muttered.
“I daenae ken. Something about yer voice makes it hard for me to believe ye.”
When he did not respond, her hand hovered and then dropped. She turned to wash the bloodied cloth she had used to clean the injury and wrung it once, twice—an easy task that kept her from shaking. Then she pushed the ewer aside and looked up at him.
“Trust me, Kristen,” he said, his voice softer, as if that might make it true. “It is nothing ye need to worry about.”
She looked at the ruin cut into him. It was not nothing. It was a battlefield carved into his skin.
“Well, I think I should,” she responded, her voice a tad harsher than she had intended. “Should I nae ken who did this, so I can be prepared if ever I or—God forbid—the bairns are in danger?”
Neil went still. The silence thickened.
“As long as ye’re nae important to me, ye’re safe.”
Kristen frowned. “Nae important to ye?”
Neil nodded. “Aye. Ye ken what I mean.”
“Nay, I daenae ken.”
Neil exhaled. “As long as ye’re nae carrying me child, ye daenae need to worry about being hurt. Ye’re safe.”
The words struck clean, and her hand trembled around the cloth. She felt the tremor pass into the wet linen and back into her skin, as if it had also heard his words and reacted to them.
“Kristen…” he trailed off, having caught the shift in the atmosphere.
Kristen said nothing. Instead, she folded the now clean cloth and set it on a table, her breathing shallow, each knot set as if it were a small wall she could put between his voice and her chest.
“I see,” she whispered.
Neil watched her, his face unreadable, his lips sealed.
Kristen stepped back until the heel of her shoe found a crack in the floor. She wiped her hands on the corner of a cloth and found they still shook. She folded that cloth and laid it straight beside the jar of salve, a little row of order to stand in for steadiness.
She turned for the door, her spine straight and her chin set. She did not look back at him once.
In the corridor, the air felt colder, and the stairs that had seemed steep on the way up looked simpler now. She took them without haste, one hand to the wall so she would not reach for her throat.
The castle lay quiet beneath, save for the popping of a torch near the corner. For some reason, it felt too loud for a castle that had gone to sleep.
She stepped into her chamber, her eyes settling on the bed first thing while the door clicked shut behind her. Then she sat on the edge and stared at the door.
Neil did not come.
Time slowed to a thin thread, and the candle flickered with each passing minute. She tried to keep her breathing even and let the words he had said to her beat slowly in her head until they were just feelings she couldn’t explain away.
For the love of God, Kristen.
Why did she care this much about what she meant to him? She had been managing well in his absence. How did his mere arrival manage to undo all of that?
Heat gathered behind her eyes, and she closed them so the tears didn’t fall. Tears could wash nothing clean. They would only salt the face and leave the taste of it.
She could check on the children, though. That should give her something to do.
She rose to her feet the minute the thought took root in her mind. She then left her chamber and crossed the short passage to the nursery.
The nursery door opened without a sound, revealing a low fire in the grate. Finn lay sprawled as if he had argued with a dream and won, and Anna slept curled like a kitten, her thumb tucked in her mouth and her hair a soft spread on the pillow.
Maggie had claimed the rug beside the bed and lifted her head when Kristen came in, then settled again with a sigh, as if to say, Ye are here, so the world is right enough.
Kristen crossed to Finn first. She brushed his hair from his brow, feeling the blessed warmth of a child who slept without fear. She checked the blanket and pressed it down, the way she had pressed down cloths on Finn’s wounds.
Ye love pressing things down, do ye nae, Kristen?
Finn’s lashes fluttered, but he did not wake up.
Kristen turned to Anna and studied her for a few seconds. Then she tucked the blanket more snugly around her small shoulders and touched her soft cheek with a knuckle. Anna’s lips parted on a sigh. The knot in Kristen’s chest loosened for a minute, then tightened again.
She crouched and laid her palm on Maggie’s head. The old dog leaned into it, her warm weight conveying more than words ever could.
Kristen closed her eyes and let the silence live in her hand for three counts. Four. Five. Then she rose to her feet and headed back out.
When she got to the door, she looked back at them. The room was steady enough for her not to question it, and for this night, that was all she needed.
However, the heat she had felt in the tower still haunted her. She could feel the rise of his chest under her fingers. She could feel the strength in the lines of his body, the way muscle tensed under skin when pain flared.
He was no legend to her now. He was a man cut and marked by five hard years.
Her vow rushed back to her like fresh water in the middle of the day.
She would not be afraid or keep herself small. Nothing he said or did would ever break her.
She went back to her chamber and lay down on the sheets without undressing, as if she were a visitor in her own room and might need to rise at once. The candle had burned to the bottom layer of wax at this point, so she pinched it out.
Night faded into dawn. She listened to the keep breathe around her. The door remained closed, the lock never lifted. Only one thought lingered in her mind as sleep eventually took her like a thief in the night.
Neil did not come to bed.