Chapter 30 #2
“And now I’m swaying. That’s practically resting.” Katherine turned to look at him over her shoulder. “Liam, I am with child, nae made of glass.”
“I’m aware.”
“Then stop hovering.”
“I’m nae hovering. I’m standing. In this spot. Near ye.” Liam unfolded his arms and refolded them. “In case.”
“In case of what?”
“In case ye start dancing again.”
Katherine turned back to the musician and increased her tempo guidance. Liam stayed exactly where he was. Magnus suspected that would be normalcy for them for the foreseeable future.
Mrs. McAulay breezed past them with a tray of cups, distributing them with one hand while wiping her eyes with the other. She then stopped and laughed at something one of the village women said. It was a full laugh, her head thrown back, the sound coming out unguarded.
Magnus noticed it because it was rather uncommon behavior for her.
He was going to have to go onto the floor at some point; he understood this much. He was building his emotional stamina toward it.
Agnes found him first. She appeared at his elbow so suddenly that he nearly upended his cup. She stood beside him, looking at the dancers with her arms folded, and said, “I danced twice.”
“I saw.”
“Mrs. McAulay cried when I did the turn correctly.”
“She does that.”
Agnes nodded, accepting this as a common fact. Then she looked up at him. “I’m going to have more sheep than ye someday.”
Magnus looked down at her. “Is that so?”
“Aye. And more cattle. And possibly more horses, but Father says I should be realistic about horses until I have me own land.” She tilted her head. “When I have me own land, I’ll have more horses too.”
“Ye’ll need good grazing ground.”
“I ken. I’ve been thinking about it.” She said it with profound seriousness. “Elspeth says the southern pastures here have the best grass because they face the sun longest. I’m going to look for ground that faces the same way.”
Magnus looked across the hall to where Elspeth was talking with two village women near the far table, her green gown catching the warm candlelight, the ribbon running color through her hair.
“She’s right about the pastures,” he said.
“I ken. She’s usually right.” Agnes unfolded her arms, refolded them, and looked back at the dancers. “Ye should dance with her.”
“I’m aware.”
Agnes looked up at him, her face wearing Liam’s patience. She was his miniature. “She looked for ye when the reel started,” she said, then walked away toward the hearth.
Magnus set his cup down on the nearest surface and crossed the hall decidedly.
Elspeth saw him coming. She turned from the village women toward him, and by the time he reached her, she had already said something to the women that sent them back toward the dancers with knowing smiles on their faces.
He held out his hand. She looked at it, then at him.
“Nay counting?”
“Nay.”
“Nay battle maneuvers?”
“Nay.”
“Nay treating me like a piece of furniture ye’re worried about dropping?”
“I make nay promises about the last one.” He kept his hand out. “Are ye coming or nae?”
She took his hand.
The reel was fast, and he did not count once.
His hand found her waist and recognized it; they stepped into the music together.
She laughed with delightful surprise when he turned her with unexpected speed; he did not mind the sound at all.
He minded it so little that he turned her again to hear it.
“Show-off,” she teased, coming back to him.
“I’m dancing, nae showing off.”
“Ye turned me twice on the same step.”
His hand settled more firmly on her waist, the move raising her eyebrow, but she did not pull back. They finished the reel with her laughing and him watching her laugh, and when the music paused between sets, neither of them stepped back.
He was vaguely aware that people were watching.
He realized he did not care. He had spent thirteen years managing what the clan saw and did not see of him, and what he was currently doing was standing on his own floor after his own wedding, holding his wife.
Any man who took issue with that was welcome to bring it to Duncan.
The musicians started on a slower tune. Elspeth settled into his arms, resting her free hand against his chest, and they turned slowly while the hall moved around them.
Magnus looked at her face. She was taking in the room: the dancers; Mrs. McAulay laughing again; Duncan having apparently found a second widow to tell the same story to; Agnes standing with Liam near the hearth, looking at the musician with her head tilted.
Then her eyes came back to him. She caught him looking at her, but did not look away.
“What?” she prompted.
“Nothin’.”
“Magnus, ye told me ye loved me while bleeding onto a hunting lodge floor.”
“I told ye while I was standing. I was perfectly upright.”
She tipped her head back and laughed, full and unguarded.
He felt the laugh vibrating through his hand on her waist and thought about thirteen years of halls that had echoed empty, and walls he’d built one stone at a time, and the night he’d come home to ash, and all the years between that night and this floor and this woman in his arms laughing at him in green silk with a ribbon in her hair.
He could not find better memories before that. He briefly tried to remember the specific shape of the hall without her in it and found he could not fix on it.
Elspeth’s laughter settled, and when she saw the expression on his face, her eyes softened. She pressed her forehead against his. There, in the middle of the floor, with everyone in their world apparently present and accounted for.
“I cannae remember wanting princes,” she said.
His arms closed around her protectively.
“Good,” he murmured against her skin.