Chapter Seventeen #2
Sought the pope, to her, sounded unusual—or maybe just plain wrong. Truth was, she wasn’t sure she was a good judge of what would be considered normal and what would not, but she felt pretty confident that people could not so easily gain an audience with the pope.
She ventured a little more. “Do you know him?”
“Aye,” Morggán answered, still watching her with thoughtful attention. “?Twas Wallace himself who made me a knight.”
“You are a knight?”
“I am,” he replied simply, with neither pride nor false modesty, as though it were no more remarkable than saying he could ride a horse.
But a knight was not a... modern thing... was it?
“And... what about the king?” she asked, her voice carefully measured.
“The king?”
“Richard Bruce... right? No, I mean Robert Bruce,” she correctly, the name somehow returning to her.
His brows drew together, not sharply, but enough that he was definitely studying her more closely than before, apparently surprised—or confused—by her questions.
“The Earl of Carrick?” he asked at length. “The Bruce isnae king.”
Avery's stomach flipped inside her. He hadn’t asked who Robert Bruce was. What were the chances that he knew two men, men named William Wallace and Robert Bruce, and that all of them lived in the same century that Avery was born in?
“Some would gladly see it so, mayhap,” Morggán continued after a moment. “There are men who would follow him. But he's nae our king, lass.”
“Okay,” she said, her voice small now, lowering her gaze to the ground between them.
“Avery?” he called her attention. “Something is amiss,” he guessed.
When she looked back up, she forced what she hoped resembled a smile, though it felt stiff upon her face.
“No. I... I'm fine. Or, actually,” she said, drawing a slow breath, “I'm not feeling very well. I'm glad you're all right, but I think I'd like to lie down for a while.”
For several seconds he simply regarded her, saying nothing at all.
His gray eyes moved quietly over her face as though searching for some explanation for her behavior.
Then he closed the small distance between them and took one of her hands in his before laying the other gently against her forehead.
“Nae fever,” he murmured, more to himself than to her.
“No.” She managed a faint shake of her head. “I'm only tired.”
His hand lingered another moment before she caught his wrist and pulled it away and down between them. His touch was too distracting, only adding to the chaos of her brain. She simply couldn’t handle that now.
“Really, I’m fine. I’m just tired.”
The look he gave her was skeptical. “Ye seem troubled by the answers I’ve given to yer questions. If something weighs upon ye, Avery...”
She wanted desperately to ask him outright, What year are we in?
Instead, she heard herself say, far too quickly, “Nothing's wrong.”
His expression altered only slightly, a bit darker now, and she knew he didn’t believe her. But then, he didn’t challenge the lie.
He merely regarded her another long moment before lifting one hand to brush an errant strand of hair behind her ear. Then he bent and pressed a kiss against her forehead.
“Rest, then,” he said quietly. “I'll come by later and see how ye're faring.”
Only after the door had closed behind him did she allow herself to lean heavily against it, pressing trembling fingers against her mouth while the impossible truth she had been resisting for days gathered yet more evidence to terrify her.
***
The very next morning, Avery had only just finished rekindling the fire inside, listening to sounds of the armies readying to depart for the day, when a knock came at her door.
Being that it was the same short set of raps she’d heard last night, she guessed it was Morggán and crossed the room barefoot while twisting her hair into a knot at the back of her head. Holding her hair with one hand, she lifted the latch and pulled open the door with the other.
Morggán stood outside, half turned as though watching or listening to something else but then turning to face her when the door opened. A gray morning fog enveloped the area, nearly shrouding everything beyond him.
“I left my gauntlets,” he said, his eyes searching her face and taking in the hair she’d not yet bound.
Avery turned, stabbing the bone comb into the bun she’d made in her hair, and spotted his gauntlets resting on the stool, wondering how she’d failed to notice them before now.
She collected them and returned to the doorway. “Here you go.”
Morggán took them from her slowly enough that his fingers closed briefly around hers.
Avery looked up sharply and found him watching her with that same concentrated intensity that was always so difficult to endure calmly.
And then, as if her hair and the comb were as rattled by his piercing regard as all the rest of her, the comb—obviously not secured well enough—simply fell out of her hair, dropping the length all down her back and over one shoulder.
Morggán’s eyes darkened immediately. The shift in him was not at all subtle.
His gaze moved over the loosened strands with open fascination before returning to her face again.
Avery had the absurd fleeting impression that the fog itself had thickened around them, narrowing the world down to the doorway and the two of them standing within it, he appearing to have forgotten entirely about the gauntlets.
And then his dark gaze drifted lower, over her lips.
She knew before he touched her what he intended, and her pulse stirred in anticipation.
His hand settled lightly against the side of her neck before he bent and kissed her.
The familiarity of it startled her almost more than the shock of the first kiss had.
It didn’t feel any less hungry or thrilling or perfect, but perhaps a bit more so.
His mouth moved against hers, neither too fast nor too slow but thoroughly, entirely too capable of making her completely unaware of the rest of the world.
When he finally drew back, Avery was breathing unsteadily enough that irritation immediately followed.
“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” she murmured.
Morggán frowned but then lifted one brow, one arm still around her waist. “Ye canna respond as ye do, Avery, and tell me ye dinna like it.”
“I didn’t say I didn’t like it.” Heat rose rapidly into her face, which she ducked, studying her hands on his chest. “I just...” She paused, searching, the words proving more difficult aloud than they had inside her head.
“I don’t want to like you any more than I already do.
” She felt rather than saw the shift that came over him then.
It didn’t feel like softening, but rather as if he were bracing himself.
“You’ll leave eventually,” she continued before she lost courage entirely.
“Or I’ll...” she let that trail off. “Or worse, you’ll be...
” She swallowed and shook her head, also unable to mention aloud his possible death. “I don’t want to become attached.”
For several moments Morggán said nothing at all, but continued to hold her captive with his stare and his arm. Then he closed one large hand gently beneath her chin, lifting her gaze back toward him despite her obvious attempt to avoid it.
“I’m nae your parents,” he said quietly. “Nae any kin of yours, nor the man before me—I willna leave, Avery.”
But maybe I will, her brain responded automatically.
Still, the certainty in his voice struck some painful chord inside her chest because she believed he meant it completely in that moment—Morggán was not a careless man, nor one inclined toward easy promises, she believed—and yet she suspected promises never mattered much against God or fate or simple mortality.
Although Morggán’s hand remained warm against her face and although some desperate, selfish part of her wanted very badly to believe him, Avery merely lowered her eyes again and said quietly, “Not even you can control that.”
“What troubles ye? Yesterday and now today.”
“Nothing,” she said, the denial coming so quickly that she regretted it almost at once, knowing he wouldn’t be able to let it go.
“Nae?”
She forced herself to meet his eyes again, wishing she could meet his gaze with greater confidence and peace, wondering how that would feel—to stand in his arms and hold his piercing gaze, thinking only of his warmth and his touch and his attention.
“There’s just a lot going on here,” she said evasively. “Obviously, I’m not used to it.”
His gray eyes narrowed a bit in speculation before he decided, “Ye are keeping something hidden.”
Her lips quivered until she clamped them and shook her head decisively.
At this, Morggán’s hold loosened, and he stepped back.
She felt the distance immediately and acutely, instantly bemoaning the loss of his arms around her. This was not only a physical withdrawal, she somehow understood.
Trying to salvage...something, she offered, “I don’t know how to...tell you.”
“Jesu, lass,” he snarled, “what could ye possibly mean to say—”
“I don’t know,” she cried.
He watched her, his nostrils flaring a bit. “Ye dinna ken? Or ye simply willna tell me?”
Lips trembling outright now, she confessed. “Both. I truly don’t know, and... I’m afraid to tell you.”
He seethed for several seconds before demanding, “Tell me this much: when first I met ye...” he hesitated, seeming almost unwilling to continue. “Ye told me there was nae husband.”
Avery gasped. “There isn't.”
“And nae man waits somewhere for ye?”
“N-no.”
His gaze never left hers. “Is that truth?”
“Yes!”
He let out a slow breath, though it did little to ease the tension across his shoulders.
“Has another man spoken to ye?”
She blinked. “What?”
“Among my men.” The words clearly pained him. “One of Thain’s? Or is it Eòin—he took an immediate liking to ye.”
Eòin? “Morggán...”
“Lass, I can mend almost any trouble if only I ken what it is—but I canna turn yer heart if ye’ve given it to another. And I willna beg.”
Beg for her heart? She should be so lucky, was her instinctive internal response.