Chapter Twelve #2
The evening wore gradually onward until at last the conversations began thinning into smaller, quieter pockets.
Alasdair finally seemed to run out of steam.
Eòin rose first and stretched broadly before wandering off toward the darker trees.
Finlay followed soon after. At length, Tormod pushed heavily to his feet with a muttered complaint about old bones and foolishly long nights.
“That,” he announced gravely, “is enough o’ Alasdair’s voice for one day.”
“Och, but ye’re a lucky bastard, Captain, and ye’ll see me again in the morn,” Alasdair assured him.
“I pray nightly against it,” Tormod grumbled.
Avery smiled again despite herself.
The older man inclined his head briefly toward her before departing toward the deeper shadows of the forest.
A lull fell over those around the fire still, and Avery glanced toward Morggán beside her.
“I should probably get to bed, too,” she said softly.
His gray eyes shifted immediately toward her, and he nodded. “Aye,” he agreed. “Likely wise.”
Together they rose from their seats near the fire.
Just as Avery glanced around the area for Charlie, squinting past all that was lit by the dying fire, Morggán gave a sharp low whistle between his teeth, whose sound carried cleanly through the trees.
A moment later crashing brush answered somewhere out in the darkness before Charlie came bounding through the forest at full speed, tongue lolling happily from his mouth.
Someone yelped as Charlie didn’t quite clear the hurdle of their outstretched legs.
He didn’t arrive with a skidding halt, but danced around Avery and Morggán, looking expectantly up at them, as if to say, You called me—did you have something for me?
“Well, goodnight,” Avery said to Donnchadh and Alasdair and two other men who remained, whose names she did not know.
Donnchadh bowed a quick nod while Alasdair said through a yawn, “Ye sleep well now, lass. And dinna fash—ye’ll see me again come the morn.”
Avery grinned once more and stepped away.
The distance to the house was short—little more than a slow walk around toward the front through the narrow open space surrounding the hut—yet after hours beside the noise and warmth of the gathering, the quiet settling again around her and Morggán as they walked felt strangely intimate.
The moon hung pale above the trees while the lingering smell of woodsmoke drifted softly through the cool spring air.
Somewhere behind them someone sneezed loudly and then coughed abruptly, though the sound faded quickly.
Avery found herself slowing her step, reluctant somehow for the evening to end entirely. When she realized what she was doing, she moved with greater haste, crossing her arms, rubbing her hands against them, feeling the chill now that they’d stepped away from the fire.
When they reached the door, Morggán paused while Charlie slipped past them both into the house as though exhausted by his social ambitions tonight. Avery pushed the door inward and stepped inside first.
Behind her, Morggán lingered at the threshold a moment before ducking inside as well, though he left the door wide open behind him.
They’d developed a kind of routine—well, maybe it only seemed that they’d simply gone through the same order of things every night since Morggán had come to her house, or at least those he’d been awake.
She still followed the same habits she always had before bed.
One last trip outside before settling in for the night, then back inside to brush her teeth with the small worn twig she kept near the wash basin, before she changed out of the day’s dirtied clothes into the ones she would sleep in and wear again the next morning since she had no pajamas, never had since she’d come here.
Each evening, after Avery returned from outside, Morggán would step back out himself for several minutes.
At first she had assumed it was coincidence.
By the second night she realized it was deliberate.
He gave her time to wash her face, change, settle herself into bed without awkwardness or embarrassment between them.
Each night, by the time he returned, Avery was already beneath the blankets with Charlie sprawled somewhere nearby and the fire reduced to low coals.
Tonight, however, the forest behind the house no longer belonged solely to her.
The realization struck all at once—an army occupied the woods now. Men slept beyond the cookfire among the trees where she had always gone unseen. Avery hesitated awkwardly in the middle of the room before finally glancing toward Morggán.
“Um...” Heat rushed instantly into her face. Oh, God, how mortifying! “I don’t know where I’m supposed to...”
Understanding crossed his face almost immediately.
“The meadow side is clear,” he said simply, sparing her from finishing the sentence aloud. “Go toward the grasslands. Near the edge o’ the trees.”
“Okay, thank you,” she squeaked and slid past him.
When she returned, Morrgan was bent over the small fire, banking it as she normally did every night. He stood a moment after she entered but did not remove himself from the house, so that Avery was a bit perplexed at the change in routine.
She sat down on the edge of her bed and began to unlace her short boots, and when she sent a glance up to him, as he seemed only to be standing there watching her, he said, “I ken I’m well enough now to trouble ye nae more.”
The words gave her a strange unpleasant feeling low in her stomach.
“I’ll make a bed out there wi’ the lads tonight.”
That, she supposed, explained the altered routine. “Oh. Okay.” She lowered her attention again to her boots, tugging one free and setting it aside.
Silence stretched briefly between them until Morggán spoke again.
“We plan to depart soon enough,” he said. “A few days perhaps. Once Thain arrives and the rest of my army is brought in, we’ll determine the English trail and follow that.”
Avery glanced up again.
Morggán’s gaze was no longer on her but lowered vaguely toward the floor between them, one hand resting against the hilt of the dagger at his belt while his thumb moved absently along the worn leather grip.
The movement struck her as oddly restless for a man who otherwise carried himself with such certainty.
Only after a moment did he lift his eyes back to hers. “Avery, I canna leave ye here alone,” he said plainly.
She laid her hands on her thighs and stared up at him. “What do you mean?”
“I canna... abandon ye, nae with so much activity in the district. Alone ye might have been for years, lass, but ?tis nae longer safe. This forest might have been untouched, indifferent for many moons, but that is nae more—ye are nae safe here.”
“But... I can’t just... leave.”
“And why nae?”
“Because this is my house,” she stated with quiet emphasis.
“And when the English overrun it?”
“I’ll go to the hollow, same as we did the other—”
“A hole in the ground is nae a fortress, lass. Nae against men who ken how to hunt.”
“But I’ve been fine here all this time,” she argued flatly.
He had moved farther inside now, and took two more steps around the fire until he stood in front of her.
Avery tipped her head back to maintain his gaze.
“This is my home,” she repeated more quietly.
“But circumstances have changed.”
The frustrating thing was that part of her knew he spoke truth.
The world beyond the forest no longer felt distant and theoretical now that she had seen armies moving through it.
Yet the thought of abandoning the house struck something close to panic inside her all the same.
This was not merely shelter, not just some shack, this was the only fixed thing she possessed, the only thing that was hers.
“I can’t just leave,” she said again, more firmly now.
Morggán exhaled slowly through his nose.
***
“Avery, be sensible.”
His instruction made her shake her head harder, her jaw tightening in what he recognized as a familiar streak of defiance.
Exasperation rose in him then, sharp and unwelcome, though he could not have said precisely at whom it was directed—at her stubbornness, perhaps, though he had come to recognize that stubbornness as simply another of the qualities that defined her.
More truthfully, the irritation turned inward.
A week ago, she had been a stranger who’d stumbled upon him in the forest, a solitary woman living in circumstances that might not have brought disquiet to even a reasonable man.
A week ago, his concern for her safety had been no greater than what any decent man might feel upon discovering such a situation.