Chapter 15
Neil put his hand on the back of the carved chair and sat in the place that had waited for him for five years. Benches scraped across the floor, and the clansmen rose as one, a brief swell of respect, before they settled.
The eyes in the hall swiveled to him, some bright, some careful, a few hard as flint that had struck too many winters. He remained steady underneath it all. A laird did not fidget.
His gaze swept over the hall to count what must be counted. Breadloaves split in half. Stew thick enough to fill a man’s belly. Children clustered with their mothers near the fireplace. Maggie hovering under a bench in wait for a scrap.
Then he saw her.
Kristen took her seat beside Davina. Her wine-red dress caught every sliver of light and threw it back into the hall.
The cut fit her to perfection, neither too ample nor too tight.
Her pinned hair accentuated the curve of her neck.
When she lifted her cup for a sip, the stones at her ears twinkled.
Murmurs drifted from the benches near her to his ears.
“The lady looks great tonight.”
“Aye. She always did, ye goat.”
Neil forced his attention to the bowl before him and watched the steam rise. He lifted his spoon and ate anyway, trying to push away thoughts of her. The spoon scraped his lip, before he set it down and reached for his cup.
He took another sip, and his eyes drifted back to Kristen. She leaned close to Davina and gave a smile, a neat line that did not say much. Her dress shifted when she turned, and he looked up at the rafters in a bid to distract himself.
A young man, Ewan, Neil suddenly remembered, worked his way through the crowd with a pitcher of watered wine. He was broad in the chest and eager in the eyes. He bowed to Davina, then turned to Kristen, hopeful as a pup.
“Me Lady,” he said softly. “May I fill yer cup?”
Kristen gave a polite smile. “Ye may. Thank ye, Ewan.”
Ewan poured as if her cup were holy.
Neil’s hand tightened around his own. He tried not to glare or speak. Instead, he watched the wine rise in his wife’s cup and tried to ignore the way the lad’s breathing quickened. His shoulders rose a notch. The bench under him felt too narrow for his muscular thighs.
Lachlan leaned in, his voice pitched low. “Ye are crushing yer cup, Neil.”
“It can bear it,” Neil muttered, lifting his cup again.
Davina cleared her throat with a brightness that reached the far wall. “Me Laird,” she called, and the hall settled. “We should host a cèilidh for yer return.”
Cheers went up in honest relief. A palm slapped a table. A boy tried to whistle and failed. Even the maid at the corner cracked a smile.
“Aye,” a man agreed. “Music will shake old bones loose.”
“And fill new plates,” another added, eliciting laughter.
Davina raised her hand, hushing them. “It would also be the perfect opportunity to speak about the two bairns who grace our castle,” she continued, her voice clear. “Publicly and with care. The people love them. They should hear the Laird claim them openly as part of the clan.”
Heads nodded along the benches. A woman near the end laid a hand on Finn’s hair, and Anna clapped at the rather enjoyable chaos.
Neil set down his spoon.
A celebration. He had nothing in five years that could carry that word without breaking under it.
He looked at Davina and nodded for her to pause.
Lachlan leaned back to scan the faces. “Ye hear the sense in it,” he reasoned. “Folks need music to bind their talk.”
Neil folded his forearms on the table and lowered his voice, yet it still carried across the hall. “I hate having to plan such gatherings when there is still so much to deal with.”
The table fell so quiet that the sound of a cup clinking yards away could be heard.
“Alex is still missing; I was unable to find him. I am afraid the celebration willnae be complete.”
The words hung in the air like iron fresh from the fire.
Tension spread across the tables. It moved from older men who had held a shield to younger lads who had not yet learned how to mask their fear with a grin.
Kristen’s head turned toward the high table, quick and sharp, but Neil did not meet her eyes. He kept his attention on the map in his mind, the paths that ran like veins from this hall to the places where his brother could be held. He lifted the cup to his lips and drank to buy himself some time.
“However, a public cèilidh might just be what we need. It might flush someone out,” he continued.
“The leader of the bandits. The woman who left the bairns here. Any soul that might be linked to that night.” As murmurs rose and rippled through the crowd, he placed his cup on the table.
“Ye ken what they say: noise brings rats to the light.”
Davina’s chin dipped once, a subtle sign of approval.
Lachlan hummed. “A good idea,” he acknowledged. “But I doubt he will risk revealing himself among so many people. A crowd shields both the timid and the bold.”
Neil’s fingers drummed once on the table. “Then let him stay hidden.”
He looked over the rim of his cup at the far wall and the door that led to the courtyard. He could feel how a man might stand there and count guards, how a woman might stand there and measure the hall for a lie that would fit. Somewhere, someone had grown used to their lie.
“I will drag him out, eventually.”
The words carried just far enough to be heard by those who needed them. Men clenched their jaws. Women breathed out slowly. The hall relaxed a touch, then found that fine balance a castle must keep when truth had cut and no one knew if they would bleed more or less for hearing it.
He reached for the bowl of stew again, because a laird must eat. The hall found its rhythm again, cautious and then a little braver, as if folks remembered they could move.
Ewan hovered two paces behind Kristen with the pitcher; apparently, he had not found a good reason to leave. Davina took the pitcher with a pointed look and refilled her own cup. The lad flushed and bowed and retreated with more clatter than he had brought.
Neil’s shoulders relaxed. He let himself look at Kristen directly now.
She had resumed her talk with Davina as if she had not felt the hall hold its breath and release it.
Her hands moved as she spoke, quiet and sure, the same hands that had made a cold chamber feel like a place a man could breathe.
Her dress did not need the light; it carried its own.
“Ye could make the speech yerself,” Lachlan muttered under his breath. “Or ye could have Davina do it for ye. Folks love her voice.”
“They will hear it from me,” Neil said. “With Kristen beside me to show the thing that stands inside these walls.”
Lachlan nodded his head. “Aye. Makes sense.”
Neil took another slow sip. The cup’s rim cooled his lip. He listened to the hall as a hunter listens to a field. He tried not to think of the woman in the wine-red dress beside Davina and failed, and told himself the failure mattered less than the work ahead.
He drew a long breath and let it out through his nose. “Organize the cèilidh,” he instructed firmly. “Three nights from now.”
Although his voice was not loud, Davina heard him. Her eyes flickered to him, bright with purpose. She spoke at once to the nearest footman, and the hall caught the current. The men began to name tasks because they liked to move when there was a shape to move toward.
Neil swallowed, staring at nothing and everything at the same time. Let whoever was behind his brother’s capture stay hidden. One way or the other, he would drag them out.
Lachlan wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and set his cup down with care. He had on a look that said he had thought through something and decided the shorter path was best. He twisted in his seat.
“What do ye think of the cèilidh, Kristen?” he asked, warm as he would ask a sister.
The din in the hall died down, ceding place to an expectant silence.
Heads turned, first in ones and twos, then in a sweep, like rain falling in drops and then torrents. Neil’s hand closed around his cup again. He did not drink. The metal pressed a cool line into his palm.
Kristen swallowed, yet he felt the movement in his own throat. Color rose to her cheekbones, and her arm tightened a fraction around Anna to keep the lass from slipping. Finn’s hand found the hem of her sleeve, trusting her without looking.
Neil did not look away. He had told himself a hundred times since he walked through the gates that this hall would take its measure from him.
In that hush, he saw that the measure his people trusted most had been set by the woman in wine-red who had taught children to laugh, and cooks to plan, and men to lower their voices when fear rose.
He did not know if the twist in his chest was anger or respect. He only knew it held.
Everyone waited for her to speak.