Chapter 17
Neil held her gaze while the hall held its breath. The silence had a pulse, and his heart matched it beat for beat.
“Aye then,” he rumbled, the edge in his voice eliciting a flinch two benches down. “Since the lady has such fine thoughts, perhaps she can tell us how many people should attend this cèilidh.”
Kristen squeezed her eyes shut. “Neil—”
“Ten? Fifty, perhaps? Shall we send word to every valley, Kristen, or only those who please ye?”
The discomfort moved through the hall like a wave of cold. Men shifted in their seats, and a maid studied her shoes. Davina tightened her grip on her cup.
Amid the low murmurs that had started again after his question, Neil could hear a voice hiss, “The Wolf has come back with a bite to his tongue.”
Kristen did not lower her gaze. Her fingers trembled where they rested on the table, and she lifted her chin.
“Do ye really want to ken me thoughts or nae?” she asked, her voice level. “Apparently, everyone else does.”
Lachlan leaned forward, steady and low. “Braither, there’s nay reason to pressure the lass like this.”
Neil did not look at him. “I am only waiting for an answer. Is that nae what ye’re all doing?”
“Aye, and ye’re wringing it,” Lachlan hissed, louder now so the hall could hear. “Folks are eating, and ye want to make a show of her.”
A footman near the wall coughed and looked away. An old councilman slowly shook his head, as if measuring the change in a man he had known since boyhood.
Neil’s jaw worked while irritation and confusion warred within him. The hall felt too cramped. He kept his gaze on Kristen anyway, so he did not have to see the rest.
“Everybody out,” he ordered. The words came out quiet, dangerous.
The hall went still. No one moved.
Davina looked from Neil to Kristen, worry tightening her mouth. “Me Laird,” she said softly, “leave it for the morning. Ye daenae have to do this now.”
Lachlan stayed seated, the air around him dense as the morning fog. “Braither.”
Neil did not blink. “Did ye nae hear me?” he bit out. “Leave us.”
Chairs scraped across the floor as murmurs rose and died. People shot to their feet, with the mothers gathering the children. A guard near the door dropped his hand from his swordbelt and backed out as if from a sickroom.
Davina paused, her eyes asking what could not be solved at a table. She touched Kristen’s shoulder in passing, a brief press of warmth, then stepped away.
Lachlan stood up last. He held Neil’s gaze, and for a heartbeat, the air bristled with the thought that he might refuse to leave. Neil fixed him with a glare that dared him to do just that.
He did not.
He touched Davina’s elbow instead and led her toward the door.
In a matter of minutes, the heavy door swung shut. They were all gone. The hall was now nothing more than an echo of his breath and a wave of anger he could not push down.
He heard Kristen pant like a woman who had run too fast, but did not take his eyes off her. The space between them felt small and full of the same heat that coiled low in his stomach.
Kristen pushed to her feet so quickly that the bench toppled over.
“What is wrong with ye?” she snapped. “He was just being nice. Lachlan has always been kind to me. And to the bairns.”
“Too kind,” Neil grunted.
“To ask me what I think?” she shot back. “In me own hall, where I have kept our people fed and quiet while ye were gone? Have ye gone mad?”
His mouth flattened. “It is me hall.”
“Fine, it is,” she hissed, her breathing ragged. “But I kept it for ye.”
He gripped the edge of the table until his knuckles turned white. “I am finding it rather obvious,” he gritted out, “that I daenae like it when other men are being nice to me wife.”
She glared at him, flushed to the throat. “Then ye should have been here to be nicer yerself.”
He flinched. Her words shivered in the space between them. “I wasnae free to be anything.”
“Aye,” she said, her voice lowering. “And yet ye come back and bite the only hands that helped me hold together what was yers. Ye ask for me voice, then snarl when another asks for it first.”
Neil raked a hand through his hair, mussing it. His eyes kept falling to her mouth and darting away as if caught.
“Ye stood there in that dress,” he said, each word measured as a blow, “and men looked at ye.”
She lifted her chin. “I noticed.”
“I noticed more.”
Her breath hitched. “And what will ye do with that, Neil? Lock me in the tower ye banned me from? Put me away and look at me from the stairs?”
He rose from his seat and took a step toward her. She did not yield. The candlelight struck the slope of his collarbone where his shirt hung open.
“Do ye want me to speak the truth or nae?” he asked.
“I want ye to stop snarling like a dog that forgot his own door.”
“I want something else,” he said, his voice rough. “I want to gouge out every eye that touched ye.”
“That isnae how the world works,” she whispered.
“It is how I work.”
“Then change.”
His breath shuddered out, and he closed his eyes like a man seeking fortitude.
“I daenae understand this,” he said harshly.
“I have swung a sword and walked through smoke and learned how to choke a cry with me teeth. None of that taught me what to do, with ye sittin’ there, looking at me like that. ”
“Like what?”
“Like ye arenae afraid anymore.”
“I told ye I wouldnae be,” she said. A tremor ran through her hands, and she curled them so he would not see it. “I told ye I would stand here and tell ye what I think.”
“And what do ye think?” he asked, his voice low and dangerous. But truly, he was the one in danger. In danger of grabbing her and losing himself in her. Of forgetting their stupid rules…And showing her exactly why she should not provoke him like that.
“I think ye are scaring folks with a tongue ye sharpened while ye were away,” she replied. “I think ye are angrier with yerself than with me. I think ye want to be cruel so nay one can hurt ye first.”
He barked a mirthless laugh. “Listen to ye.”
“Nay. Ye listen to yerself,” she shot back. “Ye cleared a hall so ye could win an argument with the only person who has fed ye since ye came home.”
His gaze fell to her mouth again. “Fed,” he echoed softly, as if the word had a second meaning he did not trust himself to ponder.
Color climbed her throat. “Ye ken what I mean.”
“Aye,” he uttered.
He took another step forward, undeterred by the table between them. He braced his hands on it and leaned in, caging her without touching her at all.
The air smelled of smoke and iron and the tang of wine. His pulse leaped. Hers did, too. He could hear it. He hated that he could hear it.
“While ye were away,” she murmured, “yer whole clan was kind to me. I am grateful for that. I daenae take it for granted.”
His eyes opened darkened. “Me whole clan.”
“Aye. Yer brother, Davina, the guards, the women who helped with the children, the old warriors who brought firewood when it got cold—everyone. When I was tired, they carried water. When I was lost, they walked me home.”
“That should have made me happy,” he said. The words dragged like a chain.
She nodded. “It should.”
He looked as if the floor had shifted beneath his feet. “But instead—”
“Instead, ye feel left out of a life ye promised me and then abandoned,” she interrupted.
“Daenae finish me thought,” he snapped.
“Ye must pardon me, me Laird. After five years, yer patience tends to thin quickly. I wouldnae finish yer thought for ye if ye just speak it.”
Neil tried, but the words stuck in his throat. He hated that she was able to see right through him.
Anger rose to his throat, and his hands balled into fists. A low growl escaped his lips as he slammed both fists on the table.
The plates flew up and clattered to the ground. The cups toppled and shattered, the sound echoing through the empty hall and coming back jagged.
Kristen gasped and took a half step back, then stopped herself. Outside the doors, guards shuffled and shifted their weight as if they had long learned to stand but not to intrude when their Laird’s temper rose.
“Look at what ye do,” she said quietly.
“I am looking,” he answered, his voice shaking.
Silence thickened between them, and she put her hand on the table where his blow had fallen, near the shards of a broken plate.
“Ye arenae the only one with ghosts, Neil,” she murmured. “But I learned how to speak kindly so I wouldnae make more. Ye could learn that, too.”
He stared at her hand. His eyes traced the small crescents her nails had dug into her skin. His throat worked, and his jaw relaxed a fraction. She felt the shift like a light breeze.
“Step away from the shards.”
“Oh, now ye care?”
“Kristen, please.”
“If ye daenae want to deal with the aftermath, then mind where ye swing yer fists.” Her mouth trembled into the smallest curve before she caught it.
His gaze fell to that curve and held as if it were the only thing left in the hall. The only warm thing left in the hall.
He rounded the table, his breathing ragged, his eyes churning with more than anger. Each step felt like a crack in the surface of a frozen lake, one stride further across thin ice. He stopped close enough to feel the heat of her skin and the quiver in her breath.
“Do ye still think I daenae care?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Kristen looked deep into his eyes. “I think ye should care more.”
The hall held its breath.