Chapter Fourteen
Morggán barely remembered the final stretch of riding back through the forest.
He and Tormod had been discussing the English trail the scouts had discovered northward, whether the force appeared to be merely in a holding pattern or establishing temporary positions along the route, while Donnchadh rode several lengths behind them speaking with the scouts.
The conversation had occupied most of Morggán’s attention until shouting had stolen it away.
By the time they broke fully into the clearing, the scene before him was obviously well gone beyond mere argument.
Avery had been flushed crimson with rage while Charlie barked himself hoarse at her side. Kerr had been staggering backward beneath repeated shoves from both her hands, the fool looking half amused and half bewildered by her fury while soldiers throughout the clearing stood openly watching.
Morggán had frowned, only that, wondering what had transpired, until he caught the gist from Avery’s shouting about Kerr trespassing and then... shite, he couldn’t recall the last time something—anything—had so astounded him so much as Kerr lifting his hand to strike her.
Alasdair and Finlay had already begun moving by then.
Morggán had caught sight of both men sprinting hard toward the hut from opposite directions, while Eòin came tearing across the clearing from a different direction looking equally prepared to throw himself into the matter.
He expected no less from any one of them, and knew a small measure of pride for their defensive reaction.
Even now, guiding Avery silently back toward the house while the camp behind them slowly resumed movement and noise, Morggán felt as if he was yet in the midst of it, the rage inside him still a tangible thing.
He had witnessed men threaten women before in his life.
Any man who lived long enough had. Villages burned.
Raids turned savage. Men drank too much and struck those weaker than themselves.
The world possessed no shortage of ugliness.
But seeing Kerr raise a hand toward Avery had stripped all rationality clean out of him.
Morggán could still picture her standing there in the middle of the clearing with tears upon her cheeks and her finger jammed furiously into Kerr’s chest while she screamed at him about trespassing in her home. And how she’d neither flinched nor backed down when the fool lifted his hand.
Morggán stepped through the doorway and dragged Avery inside with him, leaving the door cracked halfway as was his practice.
He let his gaze move slowly across the room while the last remnants of his temper simmered heavily beneath his skin.
The disturbance itself appeared minor enough by most standards.
Several bowls sat displaced from their usual places.
Herb bundles hung loose where they had clearly been handled carelessly.
Blankets atop the bed had been disturbed—his breacan specifically lay in a messy bundle.
Christ, the fool had entered her house, had walked carelessly through the one place Avery guarded more fiercely than anything else in the world, touching and rearranging things she preserved with near ritual precision.
Jesu, and had she not said to him only last night, “This is all I know. It’s all I have.”
And so he understood immediately that this was no small violation to Avery.
Her home was not merely shelter to her. It was routine and order and familiarity.
A tiny defended corner of the world where every object possessed its place because she alone decided where it belonged.
Morggán had recognized that truth within days of waking beneath her roof.
Avery liked tidiness. She folded blankets with sharp corners, arranged shelves carefully, and maintained routines with almost ritual consistency.
Even preparing meals carried a precise practiced rhythm to it, each movement deliberate and familiar.
Kerr had blundered through that careful order like a drunk wandering through a chapel.
Morggán’s gaze settled upon the salt crock sitting crookedly near the counter’s edge, its lid left carelessly askew beside it, and his jaw flexed again.
“Bastard,” he muttered beneath his breath.
Only then did he realize he still held her hand. Morggán looked down and released her at once.
The moment his hand fell away, she curled her fingers slowly into her palm.
The movement caught strangely at his attention.
She’d stood silent and unmoving at his side since they’d entered, all the while he’d examined Kerr’s damage.
He fleetingly wondered whether she had been waiting for his reaction to the disturbance, or perhaps merely waiting for him to speak first before deciding how she herself ought to feel now that the fury of the moment had passed.
She held his gaze, unblinking. Nothing in her face suggested fear despite the rage she had just witnessed from him outside. Truthfully, she looked more wounded by the trespass itself than by anything that had followed.
That realization pulled some of the last heat from his temper and left behind something heavier.
Morggán exhaled slowly through his nose before dragging one hand across his growing beard. “I’m sorry, Avery,” he said at last, the words roughened still by anger. “I gave clear orders that nae one was to trouble ye or enter this place. The fault sits wi’ me as much as him.”
Avery’s glistening blue eyes widened. “It’s not your fault. You didn’t trespass. You didn’t rummage through my things. And I’m certain you didn’t tell him to do it.”
Morggán shook his head at once and explained to her, “He wears my colors and rides beneath my banner. What my men do reflects upon me whether my hand guided the act or nae.” His gaze moved briefly across the disturbed shelves again before returning to her.
“Well, that’s dumb,” she said, wearing a perplexed frown.
Morggán’s brows lowered, possibly as confused as she appeared. “How’s that?”
Avery wiped beneath one eye with the heel of her hand before gesturing vaguely toward the doorway through which Kerr had been hauled moments earlier.
“He’s his own person,” she said. “You didn’t make him come in here.
You didn’t tell him to touch my things. He chose to do that himself.
” She frowned harder, plainly trying to work through the logic of it.
“You shouldn’t have to... absorb blame because somebody connected to you behaved badly. ”
Morggán regarded her quietly a moment after that, his expression thoughtful now rather than merely puzzled.
“Aye,” he said slowly, “and the blame for the act itself belongs to him. But the shame of it falls wider than one man.” He motioned subtly toward the camp beyond the open door.
“Those men outside follow me. My word governs what is permitted among them. If I fail to keep discipline amongst my own company, then that failure belongs to me whether I swung the fool’s hand or nae. ”
Avery rolled her eyes at this.
Morggán’s mouth quirked a wee bit, but he managed to suppress the grin for her impudence, for her lack of appreciation for the code of conduct he insisted to have from his men. “A laird who claims only the honorable deeds of his men and disowns the shameful ones is nae much of a laird at all.”
Avery shrugged. “If you say so.” With a sigh that wasn’t as forlorn as she appeared, she strode to the bed and picked up his plaid, beginning to fold the overlarge garment in her careful way.
“If ye willna accept my apology for Kerr, Avery, at least believe me when I say I am sorry for what he’s done. I ken how...valuable your privacy and your possessions are.”
She turned her face partly toward him at that, causing the length of her hair to slip over one shoulder in a slow gleaming wave. “I do appreciate that,” she answered softly. “And I do know that you understand it, so thank you.”
The simple sincerity of the words gratified him.
Morggán remained where he stood a moment longer watching her fold the plaid, aware suddenly of how intimate the small scene before him felt after all that fury outside. The hut had grown quiet again save for the crackle of the fire and Charlie’s panting observation of them.
Avery’s fingers moved carefully over the heavy wool, smoothing and turning it with the same deliberate order she brought to every task within this place.
The image of her outside still lingered vividly in his mind.
Morggán had known fierce women before in his life, but Avery’s defense of what belonged to her possessed little performance to it.
She did not posture or threaten or seek admiration.
She had simply stood her ground, strong and sure with the conviction of right versus wrong behind her.
And Christ, he admired her for it even as he was, admittedly, surprised by the vigor of her reaction to Kerr’s intrusion.
With only some half-formed idea in his head, but unable to resist it in this moment, he found himself crossing the small room toward her.
His attention settled first upon her hair, how it swayed so gently across her back with her motions, and then moved to her hands, folding the lengthy fabric in halves again and again and again.
She sensed him nearing—he saw it in the slight slowing of her movements and in the faint rise of her shoulders.
Morggán stopped directly behind her, less than a foot away.
He lifted one hand and touched her hair, drawing a lock between his fingers.
The silky softness of it stirred something low and dangerous within him, something that had possibly been building steadily since the day she dragged him half-dead through the forest and laid him beneath her roof.
He’d wondered more than once if her hair was as silky as it appeared, and he was delighted to know the answer now.