Chapter 30
CHAPTER THIRTY
In the dying light of the gloaming, with red clouds chasing the sun over the horizon and blue ones gathering to begin the next storm, Lochahearn was a pallet of shadowy colors reflected on the pale-colored keep and the curtain walls.
Tearloch offered no reason for holding Kenna’s hand, but it he held it just the same while he gave her a tour of the inner bailey.
Reluctant to go back inside with the rain still holding off, they moved to the expansive outer bailey.
The spring lambs, getting in one last frolic before dark, captured their attention, and he lifted her onto the back of a small wagon so they could watch at their leisure.
She seemed as comfortable with silence as he was, and for a long while, they simply watched and laughed at the wee animals’ antics whilst trying to avoid their mothers.
Around the end of a pen, something toddled their way in the dying light. It squealed and moved faster, as if someone were chasing it. Before he could see it clearly, Kenna jumped from the wagon and ran to it, crouched, then glanced back at him in awe.
“A baby,” she whispered quietly.
The bairn squealed at her.
She glanced at Tearloch as he neared. “What do I do?”
“Not to worry. The mother will be coming along any moment, I am sure of it.”
She laughed. “We cannot just leave it and hope for the best.”
“You might pick it up.”
“I have never…” She shrugged. “Tell me how.”
“Put your hands beneath its arms and lift.”
She did so and groaned. “My, bairns are heavier than I thought.”
He laughed when she held it away from her. “Hold it against ye. Speak to it. Comfort it.”
She tried to do all that and eventually, awkwardly, she managed to get an arm beneath its backside, then beamed back at him, pleased with herself.
“That looks right,” he admitted.
Another child came screaming from the same direction. A wee lad, frightened and angry, headed for Kenna. Tearloch resisted the urge to free his weapon and rushed to intercept the child, but the wiggly thing got past him, ran full on at the woman, and began beating his hands against her gown.
“Give her back! Give her back! Dinnae touch her! Ye cannae have her!”
Kenna was horrified, but crouched again, with the babe still in her arms. “I will not take her. I believed she was lost and waited for her mother to come. I would never harm her.”
The laddie was not satisfied until Kenna put the babe back on her feet. The child put himself between them to keep the woman from picking up the bairn again. “Ye lie,” he said, through real tears. “Ye want her dead!”
Kenna straightened, shaken. “Never. I swear it!”
“Aye, ye do. She is…she is a Macpherson.” He began to wail. “And so am I.”
The woman covered her face. Saints only knew what she was thinking. When her hands fell away, her face was wet with tears. Tearloch could only watch as she fell to her knees and took the laddie’s hands in hers.
“I promise you I wish you no harm. I wish your sister no harm. I wish your entire clan no harm.” She pointed to Tearloch. “Do you know this man?”
The laddie nodded. “You know he is a knight, and that knights never break their vows?”
He nodded again.
She waved her fingers at him. “Good, Sir Knight, would you vow to this valiant brother that you will protect them from anyone who means to harm them?”
Tearloch put his fist to his heart. “I vow it.”
The laddie rolled his eyes. “He has to say that. He is—”
“James!” A woman came running. “James!” As she neared, she began to apologize for anything her son might have said.
“He has done naught wrong,” Tearloch assured her. “He was protecting his sister, valiantly too.”
Horrified, the woman scooped up the wee bairn and led the lad away. “Fither was wrong,” he said.
Kenna’s face had paled, though she gave him a brave smile. “May we go back, now?”
He took her hand again and they turned toward the inner gate.
He wished he could explain what just happened, but that would require a truth that he, as yet, could not share with her.
And as he led her up the stairs, he cursed his clan for their distinct lack of talent.
Couldn’t any of them dissemble with a straight face?
Tearloch led her to his former rooms and ushered her inside. Nothing had changed since the last time he’d been at Lochahearn. There was nothing of comfort but the bed. And only the one tapestry. Grown men need few luxuries, after all.
Even the floor was bare.
“I had a fire laid. Ye may stay here until the door is repaired—”
“I may stay here? And where will you stay?”
He cleared his throat. “I need no door. And a woman…does.”
Her disappointment was quickly hidden, but he’d noticed, and he took heart.
She would think of him, then. Miss him even.
And hopefully, it would distract her from the details in her nightmare that he prayed would not repeat.
If she woke in a rage as she had done, there would be no door to keep her from coming at him.
He couldn’t be certain she’d believed a word of his lies. For all he knew, somewhere on her person, she carried the very eating knife he’d handed her.
He bent to light the fire and shook his head. The later the hour, the more he doubted himself, and he was in no mood to test her. She had been through enough today, worst of which was being labeled a monster by a wee laddie.
He would simply trust that the subject of her dreams had been laid to rest.
“Would ye like help with yer bliaut?”
She shook her head.
“Then I shall bid ye a good night.” He turned back at the door. “Put yer worries aside for tonight. With luck, the king will arrive on the morrow and all will be right with the world.”
“A good night, then,” she said. “I will bar the door and stay put.”
He had a guard posted at the end of the hall just the same. “Let me be clear,” he told the man, “ye’re here to protect her. Anything unpleasant happens to her, ye’ll pay dearly.”
The next morning, Tearloch listened at Kenna’s door and decided the safest move was not to wake her. Not because she might be dangerous, but because it was dangerous to step so close to temptation when his willpower was weakening.
Instead, he broke his fast in the early hours and went in search of Duncan, who was not in his room and from the look of it, hadn’t slept there.
He found Monroe in the lists and asked where his lieutenant might be.
“He’s left, Milord,” Monroe said smugly.
“Left? For how long?”
“He said he may not be back fer days. He had some drinkin’ and wenchin’ to do. I believe Jamie went with him.”
Tearloch planted his fists on his hips. “And just what if the king comes today?”
“He said,” Leland inserted himself, “once the king comes and everything is settled, he may just come back.” He and Monroe laughed.
Tearloch was annoyed, but he understood that the two men had reached a tipping point.
Kenna’s casual comment at the table last night had nearly been too much for him to bear as well.
If not for his vow to the king, he would have fallen to her feet and revealed all, just to bury her memories of whatever tortures she might have suffered with a bright hope for the future.
But a vow was a vow. And in her own words, a knight never breaks his vow.
He hailed a servant. “Find a runner, send him to the solar.” To his captains, he said, “I will not wait to see if my first message reached Malcolm. We should have already been warned of his arrival, and every day the king delays, I risk losing the lass in a dozen different ways. And I will not face him with empty hands.”
“Do ye suppose he’ll be unhappy that ye’ve already taken the woman to yer bed?” Leland asked.
Tearloch and Monroe both turned to him as if the man had lost his wits entirely. The former glowered at him briefly before stalking away.
“Are ye daft?” Monroe asked, clouting Leland on the back of the head with force. “What fool would tell the king such a thing? Do ye think she’ll be anxious to announce it? Or perhaps ye’re thinkin’ ye might drop a word in his royal ear?”
Leland scowled and rubbed his head, then nodded to Tearloch and strode away, but not before promising Monroe, with a lift of his brow, that he would answer that blow.