Chapter Thirteen #2
The door stood open.
A pulse of alarm shot through her—she knew perfectly well she had shut it behind herself. Never once had she failed to close the door properly. Not once.
Charlie sensed the change in her at once and came directly to her side, staring up at her, trying to read her.
Avery hastened to the doorway and peered inside, finding a young red-haired soldier rifling through the crocks, dried plant bundles, and other items on her shelves, his back to her. Immediately she noticed that several things were out of place there.
She gasped silently and scanned the room before he realized her presence, noticing other things out of place, her pillow for one.
And Morggán’s plaid, the one she’d stripped from his horse before she’d found him, and which she left folded across the foot of her bed this morning, but which was laid now in a sloppy heap across the middle of the bed.
She made a sound of distress, which turned the mac Ruaidhrí man toward her.
Her eyes widened when she saw that he held the precious salt crock in his hands. The lid sat crooked against his palm while one finger was dipped inside. Avery watched in stunned disbelief as he absently touched that finger to his tongue as he stared at her.
For one suspended moment she couldn’t move.
The sight struck her far harder than the disturbed blankets or shelves had.
The crock was nearly empty now. She had guarded what remained for years with a kind of quiet, irrational protectiveness even she’d never quite understood.
Sometimes she checked it merely to reassure herself it still existed, that one small precious thing left behind by the man remained untouched and safe upon the shelf where he had always kept it.
She used it so sparingly that months might pass without removing the lid at all.
And this stranger stood in her house tasting it with some kind of thoughtless entitlement.
The violation of it—the entire scene—struck her hard and fast.
“What are you doing?” she finally managed, a croak in her voice.
The soldier tilted his head at her and then smiled, saying something in rapid Scots.
With blind fury blazing inside her head, she couldn’t comprehend his words. “I said what are you doing in my house?”
He smiled faintly in that foolish way young men sometimes did when they believed themselves charming. He gestured vaguely toward the shelves as though some explanation existed that ought to satisfy her. Again, what words he offered she failed to translate.
“What are you doing?” she demanded.
The soldier blinked at her, seeming just now to comprehend she was not happy. But he’d yet to set down the salt crock or make his exit.
Up close he looked very young, perhaps not much older than herself, with thick red hair escaping beneath a frayed wool cap and freckles scattered heavily across his nose and cheeks.
Still unable to comprehend his nonchalance, Avery held up her hand with some helplessness, this invasion feeling so profound.
His expression changed slightly, though not into alarm or apology. Instead, he gave a crooked half-smile and shrugged as though his trespassing were no big deal, as if wandering into her home and touching her belongings required no permission at all.
The realization ignited her temper all at once.
“This is my house,” she snapped, stepping fully inside now. “Not yours. You have no right to be in here.”
Charlie moved inside as well, and sensing the upheaval in Avery, began to growl at the young man.
At last the soldier seemed to understand she was genuinely angry. Yet instead of leaving immediately, he laughed awkwardly beneath his breath and spoke again in Gaelic, slower this time, one hand lifted placatingly while the other still held her bowl.
Avery could scarcely believe his arrogance, as he seemed to think she would simply allow this because he smiled at her and made light of it.
“Get out,” she said.
He continued talking.
“Out.”
Still half-smiling, he set the crock down at last and spread his hands as though trying to calm her, though whether he apologized or explained himself she could not say—and frankly, it didn’t matter.
And still, he didn’t know enough to leave!
Avery crossed the space between them and grabbed onto his arm, meaning to drag him out of her house.
“Out!”
To her continued amazement, he laughed and wrenched his arm free, moving a bit away from the shelves, but still not out the door.
Frustrated beyond measure, Avery slammed both her hands into his chest. The movement lacked all grace or technique. He outweighed her badly and stumbled more from surprise than force, his hip knocking against the table hard enough to rattle the bowls resting atop it.
Heat flooded her face so fiercely she thought she might burst apart from it. Charlie was barking now, trying to stand between them. Avery continued to try to move him toward the door. He wasn’t moving fast enough for her, and damn him, he was laughing outright now.
Which only enraged her further so that she shoved him again, harder this time, two hands at his back.
“Get. Out.”
She moved him this time, enough that he tripped over the small lip in the ground at the threshold, and rather went flying out into the yard. She followed, wanting him far away, and pushed him again.
“Keep going! Don’t you ever come in my house again!” Tears welled in her eyes, her rage beyond anything she’d ever known.
He half-turned while she shoved again. Her left hand missed him so that she nearly crashed into him.
She was peripherally aware that they had an audience—her shouting likely having done that—and when she smacked at his arm, she saw his expression shift from careless amusement to something uglier, irritation and wounded pride rising hard and fast in its place now that a woman smaller than him had driven him bodily from the house before half the army.