Chapter 20
Kristen stepped further into the square with Neil at her side. The sun had gone down, and dusk was settling across the village like a blanket being spread very slowly by invisible hands.
Small torches burned in iron sconces and threw warm circles on the ground, and families drifted to the edges of the dance floor. Children chased each other and wove between legs, while the air held the smell of woodsmoke and honey and the clean bite of the dawning night.
Kristen moved a little closer to see the sword dancers taking their places. Two blades lay crossed on the ground, silver catching firelight. The young men lifted their chins and began to step, light and quick, their feet threading the narrow spaces.
Neil’s arm grazed hers. The touch was brief, but it sent a thrill through her all the same.
“Ye like this kind of dance?” he asked, his voice low so only she could hear.
“I like anything that keeps lads from breaking ankles,” she replied, her eyes fixed on the pattern of steps. “Though I’ll admit I hold me breath every time they jump.”
He leaned closer to see past a tall man who had shifted in front of them, and the ends of his hair brushed her temple.
She knew she should step away. But she did not.
The dancers swayed and turned, and the crowd clapped along. A mother beside Kristen smiled and lifted her baby to see. Kristen waved at the baby, then tried to concentrate on the music, not the man at her shoulder.
The villagers began to press small treats into their hands. A woman with a tray offered twists of fried dough dusted with sugar.
“Take one, me Lady. And another for the Laird,” she offered, her eyes bright.
“Thank ye.” Kristen passed one to Neil. “Ye’ll like this.”
He bit into it with grave care, as if he were facing an opponent, then made a face. “If I eat more of that, lass, I’ll be sick till spring.”
Kristen covered her mouth to muffle a laugh. “Ye’re hopeless.”
“I prefer meat,” he said. “Or bread that tastes like, ye ken, bread.”
Another villager brought a skewer of roasted bits. Neil took a piece and bit into it. He nodded once.
“That sits better,” he said.
A boy tugged at Kristen’s sleeve and offered a small handful of wild berries. “For ye,” he whispered. “Ye always make Maggie look after the dogs.”
“Do I?” She crouched to his height. “It is kind of ye to notice.” She picked two berries and pressed the rest back. “Share them with yer ma, aye?”
“Aye,” he said, then ran off.
Neil watched her rise. “They ken ye.” It was not a question
“They ken all of us,” she replied, brushing her hands. “But they ken me well enough. I was here.”
He looked past her to the ring of dancers who were now clacking sticks and then back at her. Still, she forced herself to watch the dance. It helped, yet it did not help at all.
As the music quickened, a stout baker thrust a small sugared bun toward Neil. “For the Laird.”
Neil took it, then held it out to Kristen. “If I get sick before the night’s end, it’ll be yer fault.”
She broke the bun in half, bit into it, and closed her eyes for a heartbeat as the sugar and spice melted on her tongue. When she looked up, he was watching her mouth.
For a moment, the noise around them faded.
He cleared his throat. “Sweet enough for ye, me Lady?”
“Aye,” she said, steady again. “And sweet enough for ye too, even if ye’ll never admit it.”
He huffed a laugh. “I’ll survive.”
They moved together, and the crowd shifted around them like a slow tide. Every now and then, the space would shrink, and Neil’s hand would settle on the small of her back to guide her through. It felt natural. It felt as if he expected her to let him do it.
She did.
“Try this,” a girl called, holding up a steaming cup. “Cider.”
Kristen took a sip and passed it to Neil. He drank and handed it back.
“That I can stand,” he said.
“High praise, indeed,” she teased.
A pair of old men argued cheerfully over which fiddler had the best bow arm. Two little girls hopped along the edge of the dance floor and tried to match the steps.
Maggie would have liked the chaos.
Kristen pictured the dog’s tail sweeping benches and her nose finding every dropped crust. The thought made her smile.
Neil narrowed his eyes at her. “What?”
“Nothing.” She shook her head. “Only thinking that Maggie would be stealing the buns already.”
“Aye, she would.” There was warmth in his tone that she had not heard before.
They stopped near a table where a woman was selling small ribbons and tin brooches hammered into thistles and stags.
Kristen lifted a ribbon that reminded her of the shade of the lake at twilight and then set it down.
Her eyes kept finding the dancers, the shifting flames, the breadth of the man beside her.
“Do ye want it?” Neil asked.
“For Anna.” That made it safe. “But she will yank it out of her hair before the first tune ends.”
“Buy two,” he urged. “Ye did buy two strips for Finn back at the dressmaker’s, did ye nae?”
Kristen looked at him. “That is a practical thought.”
He shrugged, a smile tugging at the corners of his lips. “I have them on occasion.”
She paid for two ribbons and tucked them into her pocket, then stepped back into the crowd. It would be easy to pretend that this was ordinary. A wife and husband out among their people, sharing food, touching only when necessary.
It would be so easy that she could cry.
A fiddler struck a bright tune, and the sword dancers began again, blades ringing as heels kissed steel and never slipped. The torches popped and hissed.
Neil stood with his arms loose and his attention focused on the revelry. Still, when someone bumped Kristen from the side, he gripped her elbow and steadied her.
“Ye all right?” he asked.
“Aye.” She felt his touch long after he let go. “Thank ye.”
His eyes lingered on her, then flicked to the square. “Stay close. Crowds are foolish.”
“Ye came; that is what matters.”
“We agreed on the hour,” he said, but his voice was not as flat as it had been in the past few days.
They both knew they had spent longer than an hour together, but neither of them was ready to acknowledge it. They simply did not want to.
They drifted toward a stall where a girl was powdering cakes with a sieve held high. Kristen bought one and split it neatly. “Take the larger half.”
“I daenae need the larger half.”
Yet Neil took it and popped it into his mouth, leaving a streak of powdered sugar on his jaw. Immediately, Kristen reached up and brushed it away. Her fingers grazed his skin, and his breath caught. She withdrew her hand as if she had been burned.
“Thank ye,” he said quietly.
“Of course,” she mumbled.
They stood like that for a small eternity while the villagers reveled without them. A cheer rose as a boy landed a clean jump over the steel. The drum thumped so hard that Kristen felt it in her ribs. The torches popped and sent up a new thread of smoke into the air.
“Had we met under different circumstances…” she trailed off.
The thought felt foolish. She took a long breath and tucked it away.
“Never mind.”
“What were ye saying?” Neil asked.
“Nothing that matters.” Kristan forced a smile. “Look at them. Nae a single ankle lost.”
“A miracle,” he agreed.
He shifted closer without meaning to. She leaned toward him to hear a joke that a man shouted to the fiddlers. His hair brushed her temple again.
Every brush of his hand against her back felt deliberate. Every time he dipped his head, she had to hold her breath.
She looked at the ring of light, and then at his profile, which was all sharp lines and shadow, and a thought came as gentle and terrible as rain on a slate roof.
Had they met under different circumstances, this might have been a day in their courtship. A slow evening and shared treats. His hand steady on her back for no reason but care.
She pushed the thought away and decided to change the subject.
“Ye should try one more thing,” she suggested, reaching for a cup at a nearby table. “It is only cider, like the one ye had earlier. I promise it willnae kill ye.”
He took the cup and drank, and a small smile touched his mouth, brief as a flicker. “Fine,” he allowed. “I’ll admit it’s good.”
“Then we have achieved peace.”
He nodded. “For a few moments.”
They stood with the music and the heat of the torches washing over them. The square glowed like a fireplace, and for one tender stretch of time, they let themselves belong to it.
Every step they took fell in time with the music, and every glance felt like a secret. Her hand tightened around the parcel, and she tried to steady her heartbeat.
She couldn’t.
She knew herself well enough to fear how easy it would be to fall in love with a man like Neil Adair.
Neil lingered a pace behind Kristen while the square swelled with music and conversation. Children tugged at her dress and held up ribbons dyed bright as berries. An older woman caught Kristen’s hands in both of hers and spoke with the fierce gratitude of winter survivors.
“I have been meaning to come to ye and express me thanks, me Lady,” she said. “We would have lost half me bread if ye hadnae stepped in.”
Kristen smiled and squeezed her fingers. “It is nothing. Plus, the men did all the work. I only asked.”
“Aye, and ye asked the right way.” The woman kissed her knuckles and stepped back with wet eyes.
Another villager approached. “Me Lady, have ye been given something to eat? I would hate to ken ye have been starving the entire time. We have more meat if ye would—”
Neil’s eyes widened at the sound of meat. He opened his mouth to speak, but Kristen beat him to it.
She nodded her head. “Aye. We’ve had enough to stuff an elephant. I daenae think our stomachs can hold any more.”
She bent to the smallest child, met wide eyes, and listened to a long tale about a lost shoe and a sticky bun. She laughed at the right moments. She remembered names that Neil didn’t even know or hadn’t heard in years.
He watched, and the knot in his chest refused to loosen.
How did she do it? How did she manage to rule these people in a way that made them want to be near her?
He had left a castle that needed a laird. He had returned to a castle that already had a heart. His clan had become her own while he rotted in a cabin and counted footsteps to know when pain would come.
A girl with a garland of paper flowers skipped up and looped it around Kristen’s wrist. “For luck,” she said.
Kristen bowed solemnly. “Thank ye, lass.”
Neil felt the urge to say thank ye on her behalf, but he did not. He stood still and let the sound of pipes and feet fill the places where words would not go.
The torches hissed. The air tasted of honey and smoke. For the first time in years, he let down his guard a fraction.
A dancer stumbled and recovered. Neil stepped closer without thinking and leaned to Kristen’s ear. “That lad shouldnae be trusted with two blades,” he murmured.
Kristen snorted and clapped once, then caught herself and covered her mouth, her eyes bright. “Be kind,” she whispered. “He is trying.”
Neil suppressed a smile. “He is trying to lose a toe.”
They stood like that for a while, shoulder to shoulder, the crowd’s warmth lapping at them in easy waves. He did not move away, and neither did she.
He could feel her breath when she laughed at some small mishap in the dance. He did not know what to do with the steadiness that came from standing so close to her, only that it asked nothing of him and still gave something back.
A man with a tray passed, and Neil grabbed two cups of cider. The villagers shifted again, and a new little circle formed around Kristen.
An old piper with a scar on his chin bowed his head. “Me Lady, the tune for the fourth set was yer request last winter,” he said. “We learned it for ye. Will ye hear it again?”
“If ye please.” Kriten smiled at him as if he had offered her a crown. “And mind ye rest between sets. Ye play like a man half yer age.”
The piper clutched his belly and laughed. “Ye flatter me way too much.”
A young mother with a sleeping babe crept close. “I am certain they can play for as long as it takes,” she whispered.
“Nay, I willnae ask anyone to exceed their limits,” Kristen insisted. “Ye have done enough for tonight.”
“So humble,” the woman murmured, then retreated with soft eyes.
Neil’s chest grew tight, then tighter still. He had seen Kristen fight him. He had seen her flush and snap and lay down rules like stones across a river. He had kissed her and tasted the sharpness she reserved for him.
This was not that. This was steady and simple and kind. This was the peace no one had given him in five years of rope, noise, and pain. This was the peace he did not deserve, and she gave it to others as if it cost her nothing.
“Ye carry a great deal,” he remarked before he could stop himself.
She glanced up at him, surprised. “We all carry a share.”
He looked at the dancers again so he would not say more and lose what was left of his guard.
The dancers swung their blades to the beat and coaxed a cheer. The torches spat sparks that drifted and died. Music rose on the pulse of the drum and pressed against his ribs like a second heart. He let it in.
Kristen turned toward him with a small, soft thing on her tongue. He could see the shape of it coming and felt his own answer form.
The air between them drew tight like the string on a bow. He was about to say something he had not planned to say, something small and true that would gentle the night.
“Kristen—”
“There ye are.” The voice rose loudly above the music and cracked it.
The square went still. The fiddlers faltered, then stopped. The crowd turned and pulled back as a group of rough-looking men pushed through the light.
“We’ve been looking for ye, Wolf of the North,” the largest called.
Mothers pulled children behind their dresses. Men reached for sticks and knives that were not meant for a festival. The air grew thin and tight as if the whole village held its breath.
Kristen’s head snapped toward Neil, who did not take his eyes off the men. He stepped forward without a word, every line of his body coiled, his hands loose and sure, his mind already finding the ground between torches and stone.