Chapter 26
Neil rose from the high table.
The scrape of his chair was not loud, yet the music faded as if a bow had been stilled by a steady hand. The torches hissed along the stone, and the faces turned toward him in a slow sweep that gathered the whole hall.
He felt Kristen’s gaze, but he did not look down at her yet. He let the weight of the hall settle on his shoulders and stood inside it, his spine straight, his hands steady at his sides, his breath measured enough to carry what must be said.
“I have something to say to ye all,” he began, his voice carrying to the far fireplace.
He took a deep breath, then another. “For years I told meself that me braither lived. I held on to that hope even when sense told me otherwise. I thought if I searched hard enough, if I fought hard enough, I would find him.”
The old bite of failure pressed under his ribs. He made himself stand still.
“But I have heard the truth. Alex is gone. And I mean to bring his body home, wherever it is, because an Adair deserves to be buried in his land.”
Silence settled like dust across the benches, and the fiddles lay quiet in the players’ hands. Somewhere, a child gave a small hiccup and was shushed.
Neil let the silence breathe once. He cleared his throat and set the next truth where all could hear it.
“And I am making another truth plain. Me wife and I will raise Finn and Anna as our own. They are to be treated as part of our family. Children of the Laird, from this night on.” He set his cup down, the thud sharp against the wood.
The murmurs broke fast and uneven, like rain striking a roof from many directions.
“Children of the Laird.”
“His braither’s children.”
“Is this wise?”
A spoon clinked and rolled toward a boot. Two men bent to pick it up, bumping shoulders in their hurry. People leaned toward one another with questions that had lived too long in their mouths, and Neil felt his jaw tighten.
His temper rose, hot and hard. He shifted his weight a fraction, the movement that came before a command. He was ready to cut through the noise and let no one mistake him again.
Kristen rose to her feet, the scraping of her chair cutting through the noise. The sound touched the room more softly than any order could. Her hand found his forearm, light and sure, a touch meant to steady rather than restrain, and she turned to the hall.
“As ye all ken very well, I love those bairns,” she began, every word clear. “I have done so from the moment they arrived. I always wanted a big family, and me husband has given me that.”
The tension in the air eased; Neil felt it in the way shoulders relaxed and lips curled into small, tentative smiles.
Kristen lifted her chin. “So I ask ye, let us celebrate, nae question. This is a new start for the clan.” She turned to him, her eyes twinkling. “Will ye dance with me, me Laird?”
For a heartbeat, Neil did not move. He looked at her hand, the open offer, the blue of her dress that made her seem like a calm stretch of the lake, the steadiness on her face after days that had not been steady at all.
Around them, the hall held its breath.
He took her hand, and the musicians struck a slow tune, bows drawing a gentle line into the air, drums answering with a pulse the hall could breathe with.
Laughter crept back to the edges. A child clapped in the wrong place and made three elders smile. Two old men tapped their feet and nodded in time, relieved to be told how to feel.
Neil led Kristen onto the dance floor. Her palm warmed under his. His hand settled on her waist and found the shape it had already learned. They turned once.
The torches threw soft light on her hair, and she moved as if the space had always been hers, light and certain. Her skirt brushed his knees, her breath steadying where his own had grown uneven.
The guests watched, but their stares did not prick the way they usually did.
Neil heard the slide of leather soles, the low thrum of the drum, and the contented note a piper hummed as he waited for his entry. More importantly, he heard Kristen’s breathing blend with the music.
They passed the fireplace and turned again. Her fingers slid a fraction up his shoulder. He felt the press, and felt inside it the message she had given the hall.
Celebrate. Begin again.
He let his hand span her back, respectful and firm, and guided her through the dance with a care that told a different truth than his words had. Near the far wall, a woman dabbed at her eyes, and near the door, two guards stood straighter, relieved to see a pattern they knew.
The clan’s heart loosened by degrees, one breath at a time. He could feel it in the air, in the music, in the scent of woodsmoke and honey.
He bent to Kristen’s ear again, close enough that the world narrowed to torchlight and skin and the clean scent of lavender that clung to her hair.
“I have missed ye,” he whispered. It took him this particular moment to realize it, and he wanted her to know.
Her breath caught, quick and small, just enough for him to notice, and the slow tune carried them while the cèilidh gathered itself again, brighter for it.
The music swirled through the hall, a steady ribbon of fiddles and drums, and Kristen let him guide her into the turn. His palm rested warm and certain on her back, and his other hand held hers, rough from training but still tender. The crowd parted for them and closed again.
She forced herself to look at him and not at the eyes drinking them in.
“So ye’re done avoiding me?” she asked as lightly as she could manage. Her face was calm, but her heart was not.
A crease touched his brow. “Nay,” he said in a voice so quiet she felt it more than heard it. “Because ye’re nae done confusing me.”
His fingers slid a fraction down her back, not enough for the crowd to notice but enough for her breath to catch.
It should have stung.
It did not.
The ache it woke was far more dangerous, a pull that wanted to melt her into him and forget the few days he had stayed away. She had always thought he was the confusing one, and now, she started to wonder if he felt the same way about her.
They turned again, the slow music asking for little more than balance and nearness. His body knew the pattern, and so did hers. Her skirt swished, brushing his knee with every pass.
She tried to focus on the steps but failed. She was aware only of the heat of his body and the steady weight of his gaze. Laughter rose near the fireplace as the piper tested a brighter run and let it fall back into the tune.
“So, tell me something,” Neil said.
Her eyes locked on his. “What?”
He tilted his head toward the hall. “How did ye do that?” he murmured. “Turn them in a breath?”
She looked around to see the changed faces. Where uncertainty had once lived, now there was nothing but ease. Women nodded to her as if she had always sat at the high table at his right hand.
No, that wasn’t it. They nodded at her as if she had always led them, which she had. Even some of the men who frowned at most things let their shoulders drop.
Finn and Anna clapped from Davina’s bench, their cheeks bright, their eyes fixed on the floor where their mother moved with the Laird. The piper grinned as if he had been waiting five years to play this tune.
“Are ye going to tell me?”
Kristen returned her gaze to Neil, watching his green eyes shimmer in the torchlight. “Do ye really want to ken?”
He gave a charming smile, the kind that made his jaw look sharper, as if that was possible. “Well, I wouldnae be asking if I didnae want to, would I?”
A brief silence passed between them before she responded.
“They daenae need much. Just the truth. Ye gave them that. I only wrapped it in prettier words.”
He studied her face as if it were a problem he meant to solve. “Ye make it sound simple.”
“It isnae,” she relented, keeping her tone even. “But people want to believe that their home is steady. Ye tell them that it is, and they will do the rest.”
Home.
The word settled between them as his chest expanded on a breath.
She tried to match it with hers, but the excitement she was feeling at that moment was just too intense to ignore.
It seemed to rush through her entire body in waves, almost threatening to escape if she was unable to do something about it quickly.
“Ye speak as if ye ken them all,” he noted, breaking through her reverie.
“I try,” she responded, her voice clear. “Names help when winter comes. It matters to be seen, and that is all I have done for the past five years. See the people for what they are. ”
Neil made a small sound, too soft for judgment, not quite agreement. “Names helped me once.”
She lifted her eyes. “Whose?”
“Men who kept me alive,” he rasped. “Men I couldnae save.” His jaw twitched, then stilled. “And now, yers.”
Her steps faltered. He steadied her with the smallest press of his hand. She swallowed and pretended it was the floor.
Around them, the circle tightened, friends standing shoulder to shoulder, couples moving with the steady patience of habit. She felt the press of the night against her skin like the soft heat of the ever-glowing fireplace.
The knot in her chest tightened.
This was not the place to ask him what he meant. After he had stepped out of her life for almost three days, this was not the time to open fresh wounds.
She reached for lighter talk to keep them standing.
“The piper using the hard wood,” she observed, nodding toward a dancer who hopped over crossed steel and grinned. “He will blow his lips out if he keeps showing off like that.”
A huff of a laugh escaped Neil’s lips. “Aye. ’Tis a small price they have to pay for playing at the biggest cèilidh in the village.”
“Neil—”
“’Tis alright, I am only joking. Nay man deserves to have sore lips from playing the pipe for too long.”
Relief slipped in with the laugh and loosened her shoulders. She felt the brush of his hair against her temple when he bent to the pattern, and she smelled clean wool and faint steel and peat smoke.
If they had met like this before they had gotten married, would she have said yes to him strictly for love and not for convenience?
The thought stung, and she pushed it aside almost immediately. Her hand rested in his and did not tremble.
He was quiet for three beats. Then his voice reached her ear, low and certain. “I missed ye.”
She looked up fast. “Ye said that earlier.”
“Nay, ye daenae understand.” His voice lowered further. “I missed ye.”
She swallowed, keeping her eyes on him. There was no grin to hide his words or edge to soften his meaning. The words were plain and heavy, and she felt them land.
Her heart answered with a jump. She searched his eyes for the trick she used to expect, but she found none. The world shrank to heat, breath, and the simple fact of him standing where she could reach.
Where she could touch.
The set drew them through a loop that tightened every line.
Their bodies closed the last of the distance.
His thumb stroked her waist once, a small motion that said things she had told him he could not say with his hands.
Heat rose under her skin, and she hoped no one else saw it.
The guests were too busy reveling to pay close attention to them anyway.
He dipped his head, bringing his mouth to her ear. “I still daenae ken what I mean to do with ye,” he purred. “But if I daenae touch ye right now, I will lose me mind.”
Her lips parted. The urge to answer with something soft struck first. A wiser wish followed. She kept her eyes on his and breathed through both.
The drum lifted them to the edge of the last bar. She felt the beat in her ribs. She felt his hand on her back, a silent promise.
The final phrase swelled. The last note hung and fell. Around them, couples broke apart and clapped and stepped back. The space opened like a breath taken by the entire hall.
Kristen waited for Neil to release her hand. Maybe if he did, she would tell herself that she had only imagined him saying that. Only imagined the hot desire in his eyes.
He did not release her hand.
Her heart gave a wild, traitorous leap.
Dear Lord.