Chapter 18 #2
“It will help the bairns as well,” she added. “Folks will see the talk for what it is: merely talk. And it will put the rumors about the children to bed.”
“Aye,” he said. “For the bairns.”
His gaze traced her face and dipped to her mouth, then snapped back, as if he had given himself an order and meant to keep it. He took another step back, then stopped, still too close for safety.
She did not know whether she wanted safety or air.
“Ye should sit properly. Ye’re too close to the edge of the table,” he cautioned.
“I am sitting,” she answered, and heard the tremor in her voice. “I am fine.”
He looked at her hands. “Ye’re shaking.”
“Because ye slammed the table like a wild man and then fixed me dress like a nurse,” she said. “Ye must forgive me for being confused.”
The corner of his mouth quirked, not quite a smile. “Aye. I will ask the maids to replace the plates.”
“That isnae the point.” Heat flared in her chest. “What just happened in here—I daenae ken if it can happen again.”
“Ye daenae want it to happen again?” he asked. “Or ye daenae want it to happen again in the hall?”
“Neil.”
“I daenae ken what ye want me to say.” He raised his hands. “It happened already. The most important thing is that nay one saw. And if they did, I could keep them quiet. Even if it is the entire clan.”
She could not help it; she snorted. “Nay one can keep a whole clan quiet.”
“Aye.” His mouth twitched. “That is true.”
The corridor stirred again, and they heard booted steps scurry away. The candles hissed, and Kristen felt the tremors in her legs ebb. She slid forward and stood, careful on her feet.
Neil lifted a hand as if to steady her, then lowered it, his fingers curling instinctively. She smoothed the front of her dress, though it lay flat already. He watched her hands.
“Ye look…” he trailed off, before clearing his throat. “Ye look like the lady of this castle.”
She swallowed. “I try to be.”
Silence settled again, thick and charged. She looked over at the doors so she would not look at his mouth.
“If ye daenae mind,” she said, “I will go up to me chambers.”
“All right.”
“In case I am asleep when ye come to bed,” she added, her voice low, “goodnight.”
He held her gaze. “Goodnight, Kristen.”
She shifted one foot, then the other.
Move, she told herself.
She did not move.
Neil drew a slow breath. “That sound was a guard,” he said quietly, as if the words could ease the tension in the air. “He willnae trouble ye.”
“I ken.”
A beat passed.
“I daenae like folks waiting outside doors when I am nae ready for them,” she admitted, hating the small quiver in the truth.
His hands clenched at his sides. “I will speak to them. They will keep a wider distance at night.”
“Thank ye.”
“Kristen.”
She looked back. “Aye?”
“If we hold the cèilidh in five days instead of three, would ye mind?”
“Nay,” she replied. “As long as it is soon, before rumors snowball.”
“If anyone speaks about ye, I will end it,” he vowed.
Her chin rose. “Ye will let me end it. I have a tongue; I can use it.”
His eyes darkened, making her cheeks flush all over again. “Aye, ye can.”
“Daenae look at me like that,” she huffed.
“I am trying nae to look at ye at all,” he drawled. “It isnae going well.”
She fought a smile that felt too close to surrender. “Then stop trying.” She turned on her heel so he would not see the heat spread to her chest.
Her steps toward the doors felt heavy and too fast all at once. She kept her head up and her expression neutral. The mess on the floor crunched under her shoes.
She thought of the moment he had braced his hands on the table and asked if she would stop him. She thought of what she had begged for. Heat shot straight to her core, and she had to breathe slowly to quell it.
Behind her, Neil said nothing, but she could feel his gaze between her shoulder blades like a warm hand. She forced herself not to look back. She put her palm on the cool wood of the door and pulled it open. The hall breathed, and she breathed with it.
Tonight, she would sleep.
She must.
In a few days, they would have a hall full of people, a piper by the fire, and a laird who would stand before them in truth. She had asked for that truth, and she would hold to it, even if her hands shook.
“In case I am asleep,” she repeated in a whisper, “goodnight.”
This time, she did not wait for an answer. She slipped outside and gently pulled the door shut. The corridor lay dim ahead of her, and her heart beat like a fist on wood that would not open.
Tonight, she would sleep. Even if her body still vividly remembered every kiss and caress.
Neil lay on his back and stared at the dark rafters. The hall lived behind his eyes, the scrape of chairs, the click of the doors, the heat of Kristen standing too close.
Beside him, she breathed slowly, her face turned to his shoulder on the pillow. She was asleep when he came. He envied her calm, and hated that he envied it.
Rain tapped at the shutters, and the first clap of thunder rolled across the hills. His jaw clenched, and he tried to match her breaths. In for a count, out for a count.
It did nothing.
Another thunderclap pressed on the floor and on his skin. His hand twitched toward a weapon that was not there.
The bed felt like a trap.
The room felt too small.
A bolt of lightning split the night, and his body moved before his mind could catch up. His fists clenched, and his breath stuttered in his chest. He braced for boots, and the scrape of metal, and the slam of a torch against a wall.
“Neil.” Kristen’s voice was soft. “Neil, are ye awake?”
He forced air out. “Aye.”
Her hair brushed his shoulder as she pushed up onto her elbow. She found his hands in the dark, her fingers stroking his fists. “Let me see.”
“They always made noise.” The words sounded rough and strange in his mouth. “Loud. On purpose. Every crash meant they were coming. Sometimes for a fight. Sometimes for worse.”
He swallowed, tasting smoke on his tongue even though the room smelled of soap. He could still remember what followed every time he heard the noise.
It was intentional, the noise those guards made. They did it to announce their presence. To make sure he knew what was coming. The torture. The pain. The vague certainty that he had failed his brother. His wife.
Even now, the thought still rang hard and true in his mind.
There was nowhere to run if I was to keep them safe.
Her thumb traced his knuckles, slow and steady, almost like she was reading his mind. “Yer mind kens ye’re nay longer in captivity, but yer body doesnae. We have to help it realize that.” She eased one finger free, then another. “Breathe with me.”
He tried. In and out.
Her warm palm settled on his fist until the ache dulled and the bones felt like his own again. Thunder rolled, and he flinched again, although less than before. She stayed close.
“Talk to me,” she coaxed. “About anything other than the cabin.”
“I cannae.”
“Ye can. Just tell me what comes to mind.”
“Nay, ye daenae understand. There is nothing in me head.”
A brief silence, punctuated by the gentle tapping of the rain against shutters, ensued.
“Then I will talk,” she said, eventually. “Ye can just listen to me voice. How about that?”
He nodded once, but her hand did not leave his.
“Let me tell ye a story.”
He looked up at her, his eyes narrowed. “A story about what?”
A smile touched her lips, but she did not answer.
“Two months before the bairns came,” she began, her voice low and even, “a woman reached our gate in tears. Her husband meant to drag their daughter across the sea to Prussia. The wee lass was clinging to her, screaming.”
He turned his head on the pillow so he could hear each word.
“The truth was worse,” she sighed. “He meant to sell her body. He denied it, saying that he only wanted her to learn a trade. I kent the maither was telling the truth because she begged me nae to let him take her, so I told him I would buy the child from him.”
Neil’s mouth fell open. “Ye what?”
“I offered him money,” she said. “It was what he wanted in the first place, so I thought I would make it easy for him.”
“Ye offered to buy—”
“Do ye want to listen to the story or nae?”
Neil scoffed. “Aye. Me apologies.”
“He agreed too fast. Asked for more. Asked for goats as well. I asked yer braither to fetch everything he had asked for,” Kristen continued.
“Lachlan must have thought ye have lost yer mind.”
“Aye, he did, but he fetched them anyway. We paid the man. Then I told him if he ever came back, I would have him beheaded in public.” Her tone did not change. It did not need to. “The guards threw him out, and I took the lass back to her maither.”
Neil tried to picture the courtyard, rain on the flags, his wife’s small figure at the gate with a child behind her skirts. Heat that had nothing to do with anger spread through his chest.
“Did he return?”
“Nay,” she replied. “But the maither did. Two days later, she brought a dog. Said the dog would keep me company. Said she kent what it felt like to have an absent husband.” She made a faint sound that might have been a laugh.
“She set the dog at me feet and said her name was Maggie. Fierce and loyal. Maggie looked at me like she had picked me herself.”
Neil exhaled. “Ah, so that is where the dog came from. I have always wondered.”
“Did ye wonder because ye were curious, or because Maggie doesnae like ye?”
Neil frowned in the dark. “I like to think she does.”
“She has just started warming up to ye. When ye arrived, she could have bitten yer head clean off.”
Neil laughed, but the sound was quickly drowned out by a roar of thunder. For a moment, he felt nothing but warmth and contentment in the pit of his stomach.
“When Finn and Anna arrived a few months later,” Kristen murmured, “Maggie took one look at them and decided they were puppies. She followed them from cradle to fireplace and back again. She takes bread from Finn’s hand and never lets him drop it.
She sleeps by Anna’s feet so the lass doesnae roll away.
That is why she’s me shadow. Before the bairns came, she was sent to make sure I wasnae alone. ”
Neil let the words sink in.
The shutters rattled as the wind shifted. The next roll of thunder felt farther off, less sharp. He could feel the mattress under him now. He could feel the weight of the blanket and the warmth of her knee against his thigh.
“Thank ye,” he said.
“For what?”
“For talking. For distracting me.”
“Oh well, I wouldnae have been able to sleep either way. This may surprise ye, but I care about ye.”
He moved closer. Even in the dark, he could tell she was watching him with that steady look that made him feel seen and bare at once. “I daenae ken what to do with care.”
“We do the same thing we do with thunder,” she said. “We practice.” Her thumb moved once more over his knuckles. “Again. In and Out.”
He did as she asked. The urge to rise and pace the room faded. The need to hold a blade dulled in the back of his mind, and his hands relaxed.
Kristen settled back down, her head near his shoulder, her breath brushing his skin.
“Tell me more,” he demanded, surprising himself.
“Of what?”
“Of when I was gone.” The words came out thin. “Of what ye did.”
“I worked,” she replied. “Villagers at the gate. Grain sheds. Goats. I learned names. I learned how to make a hall feel safe. I learned that men listen when ye sound confident even when ye arenae.” Her voice lowered. “I learned how to sleep alone. I learned it poorly.”
Guilt moved through him like a slow knife. “I’m sorry, lass.”
“I ken.” She did not add anything, no mercy and no blame.
The restraint settled over him like a blanket.
Thunder rumbled, distant now. Rain softened on the shutters.
“Try to sleep,” she murmured.
He stared at the ceiling. “I will.”
“If it helps, I can talk more about Maggie,” she offered, a smile lacing her voice. “She once stole half a pie from the kitchen and hid behind Finn’s chair as if nay one could see a dog her size.”
Neil huffed a laugh. “Of course she did.”
“She hates the fishmonger,” Kristen said. “Barks at his cart and then accepts a herring from his hand.”
“She takes bribes,” Neil drawled.
“She is wise.”
The silence lengthened again, and the air cooled.
He finally felt the pull of sleep. He did not slide into it. He chose it, the way he chose to lower his blade. He kept his hand loose in hers and let the room stay like it was.
He didn’t know when he fell asleep.