Chapter 14
Ayleshire was crowded, the inn filled to the rafters with people, most of whom had come to the village for the horse fair.
James stood in the tavern, the object of a few curious stares.
But no one ventured a comment about the state of his face.
Nor were there eyes filled with hatred staring back at him.
He was hampered in his task because he’d never seen the man who attacked him in the daylight.
He might be talking to Drummond and never recognize him.
His discussion with the innkeeper yielded nothing in the way of information.
“Have you seen a man recuperating from a knife wound?”
“A knife wound?” The innkeeper scratched his grizzled chin as he thought about the question.
“Well, now, I cannot say I have. But I’ve got every room rented, and even the attic is being shared by twenty or so men. The villagers are making a pretty penny for themselves offering a bed and a meal. The man you seek might well be staying with one of them.”
“Are they all here for Lethson?”
“No, for the horse fair. If I were you, I’d go to the fair. It’s the first event of the Lethson celebrations. You’re bound to find the man you seek there.”
James nodded, deciding to do just that.
A few moments later, Riona emerged from the meeting room, a dazed look on her face.
“You look miserable,” he said gently when she joined him. “Did you receive your task?”
“Yes, but what about you? Did you find Drummond?” She looked less worried about Drummond than the duties she’d been given.
“No. It’s been recommended that I attend the horse fair.”
“Will you?”
“If Drummond doesn’t appear before then.”
“Can you spare the time from your duty?”
He sent her a sideways glance as an unspoken rebuke for her curiosity.
“Tell me this, if you can do nothing else. Is your task something that would worry me if I knew?”
He studied her. “No, I don’t think it would.” She would, he thought, simply solve the mystery of the thefts and then handle the problem of what to do about the thief.
“Very well, then,” she said. “I shall not ask any further, but when you can, will you tell me?”
“I can agree to those terms,” he said, touched by her loyalty to her family and Tyemorn. “But tell me what the elders said.”
“I have two duties. The first is not onerous. I have to gather birch branches for all the village doors. The second, however, has me troubled.”
He remained silent, waiting.
“I have to bake a cake.”
They left the inn and began walking back to Tyemorn. The path she took, however, was not the same as the one that led them to Ayleshire. He wondered if she were taking him to the Roman wall after all.
“I’m not a very good baker,” she explained. “It isn’t that I don’t measure everything correctly, because I do. But something always seems to go wrong. There is either not enough salt or there’s too much honey. I would much prefer to gather the branches and leave the baking to someone else.”
“When does this monumental chore need to be done?”
“Which one, the branches or the cake?”
“The branches,” he said, one corner of his lip turning up.
“Next week.”
“I’ll help you with the branches.”
“Are you certain you won’t help with the cake? I truly need more assistance with that task,” she teased.
She bent, picking up a twig lying across the path, and began swishing it back and forth in front of her.
The sky was darkening to the west, but he didn’t urge her back to Tyemorn, being as complicit in this truancy as she.
They followed a ridge surrounding the village like the lip of an overturned bowl.
The wind increased, marking its presence through the tall grass and carrying with it the scent of rain.
Each was content to remain silent. Not once did Riona look over at him, lost as she was in her thoughts, and he in consideration of her.
“This is it,” she said a little while later, pointing to a small brick outcropping emerging from the side of the hill.
“The villagers say that the wall used to surround Ayleshire hundreds of years ago. Now there’s not much left.
” She led the way through the bracken, glancing over at him to ensure he was following.
“We’ve had visitors from as far away as France come to look at the wall, take measurements and ask questions, but they also take a few stones home to remind them of their journey. A pity, since it is so old.”
The wall came barely to his knees, and was constructed of bricks rounded by age and weather.
“I realize it doesn’t look like much.” She brushed a few bricks clean of thickly growing moss.
“On the contrary,” he said. “It reminds me of walls I’ve seen before. Ancient ruins in Italy.”
She laid her hand on the top of the wall. “It must have been taller at one time and more impressive. But I don’t know where it begins or why it was built.”
“Or what it was meant to keep out? Or keep in?”
“Exactly,” she said, smiling at him.
A moment of perfect accord as each looked at the other.
She leaned against the wall as storm clouds raced above them, blowing gusts of heated wind and dust. Impatiently, she tugged at her hair, making him want to grab it between his hands and hold it away from her face to give her some respite for a moment.
“We should go back,” Riona said, but she turned her face into the wind and closed her eyes.
At that moment, she appeared part of the elements herself.
An errant gust billowed her skirt behind her.
She smiled, pressing her hands against the fabric to keep it in place.
Her hair, loosed of its restraint, flew about her head, tendrils brushing against her cheeks.
He didn’t want to leave her, James realized abruptly. Until she wed he wanted every moment she could spare, every instant in which to learn what she thought or believed. What amused her? What saddened her?
“We should go back,” he repeated. Her words, but his thoughts hiding behind them.
She turned her head and looked at him, her glance even and steady.
Rain began, falling so lightly that they remained motionless beside the ancient wall. What had it witnessed in all that time? More than one couple standing here, surely. Had a woman tempted a man here a century ago? Two? Had a man ever fought a battle with his honor as he did now?
She was silent, and he wanted to warn her that she was so at her peril. He might begin to believe all manner of things if she did not refute them. That her conscience warred as his did. That her mind was fixed not so much on Harold as on him.
For her safety and his sense of decency, he should encourage her to speech.
Talk to me of Harold. Or Edinburgh. But do not, I beseech you, continue to look at me with those eyes that mirror the sky above us. Do not look as if you might weep at any moment.
The rain began to fall more heavily. Reaching out, he gripped her hand, pulling her to the outcrop of rock and earth that formed a natural shelter.
Lightning flashed on a nearby hill and thunder rolled, echoing on itself until it sounded as if two storms raged above them. The ground trembled in response, as if nature’s fury was a lover and the earth itself a receptive partner.
She was to be married. Worse, she guarded the image of her beloved as if he were sacred, refusing to talk of Harold, as if, in doing so, she might sully his name.
“How many days until your wedding?” he asked her abruptly.
Riona glanced up, her smile fading as she stared at him. She shouldn’t have been so lovely in her threadbare dress. The sun had pinked her cheeks, and health sparkled in her eyes.
“Does it matter?” she asked instantly.
“Perhaps not,” he said, wishing he had not asked.
“It isn’t a love match, James,” she said. Words that made him glance at her again, hold her gaze with his. “Rather, it’s one of obligation.”
What sort of man was he to be pleased to see regret in a soft, gray-eyed gaze, or feel his heart leap at the mournful tone of her announcement.
“What sort of obligation?” His voice sounded relaxed, betraying none of his inner thoughts. He’d learned the trait in the midst of biting gales and deadly ice storms. When everything around him solicited his fear he grew the calmest.
Riona’s words had been as powerful as a typhoon. It isn’t a love match.
She turned away, facing toward the woods in the distance. “Is it important? I must marry him.”
“Why?” he said, taking a few steps closer to her. “Is it a familial duty? A betrothal from childhood?”
She shook her head. But still, she would not look at him.
“Why, Riona?”
Finally, she turned and faced him. The two of them stood sheltered beneath an outcropping of shale, an isolated place. Almost an island for as much as anyone could see them. They were together, and dangerously close.
His conscience bid him move back, away. But he didn’t, only stretched out his hands to her, gripping her sleeves.
“Please do not ask me, James.” Her voice was thick with emotion, and he was startled to see her eyes swimming with tears.
“What is it?”
She shook her head, and one errant tear fell. But instead of taking a leisurely path down her cheek it was swiped away quickly by her hand. An angry gesture, as revealing of her irritation as the thinning of her lips.
He wanted to kiss them until they were full again. Soft and pillowy, slightly parted in wonder. He studied her mouth for long moments as if witnessing the deed, both participant and voyeur.
Slowly, James lowered his head, too close for propriety, too dangerous a position for decency’s sake. His honor shouted at him, and he ignored the warning. He flirted with disaster, sailing on the edge of the wind, full-bellied sails unfurled.
Say my name, he commanded her silently. Summon me with a sound. Just a word, that’s all, and I’ll cover your lips with mine. I’ll give in to the temptation that has dogged my steps all these interminable days.
But she remained silent, but for a deep sigh.