Chapter 10 The Dead Are Buried With The Past #2
“What about ye? What good memories and good dreams do ye have?”
She didn’t want to ask about his bad dreams. She suspected that his dreams, like hers, were full of darkness and horror. Laird Murray would be in them, eyes dark and full of malice and hatred. Like her escape, she believed that his, too, had been all luck.
Noah was quiet for a long moment, until Senga started to believe that he wasn’t going to answer her.
“Do ye remember our first kiss?” he asked suddenly.
She misstepped, stumbling again.
“Careful,” he murmured, steadying her. “Ye are getting tired. We have a long way to go, and ye mustn’t fall and hurt yerself.”
“I’ll be careful,” Senga stammered. “And the answer is aye, I do remember our first kiss.” She paused, half-smiling.
“I was always going to the stables. I had seen ye, and after ye had saved me from falling from my horse, I found that I thought of ye all the time. All day, in fact. Father left me to my own devices during the daytime, and so long as I did not disturb him and stayed out of his way, he did not care what I did. So, I went to the stables so I could see ye.”
Noah bit his lip, shaking his head. “For the longest time, I did not dare believe that ye were coming to see me.”
“I asked yer advice on what horse I should ride,” Senga interjected. “Ye taught me how to ride. Bit by bit, I grew in confidence.”
“Ye had no need to grow in confidence,” Noah snorted.
“Ye had the confidence of a king himself. I lost track of how many times ye nearly fell from a horse. No, ye did fall from a horse, at least once. Ye only got up, shook out yer skirts, and asked for my help to get back into the saddle so ye could try again.”
“Was I really like that?” Senga gasped. “So fearless?”
“Aye, that’s how I remember it, how I remember ye.”
He paused, turning towards her. She stopped too, looking up at him.
They were a good few paces ahead of the others, who trudged on towards them, heads bowed under the weight of the rain.
Senga, however, turned her face up towards Noah, not caring that the drops pattered against her face, catching on her eyelashes and running down her cheeks like tears.
“I’d thought long and hard about it,” Noah murmured, his gaze fixed on her.
A drop of water hung on the end of the eyelashes on his right eye, glimmering for a moment before releasing and disappearing.
“One doesn’t kiss a laird’s daughter on a whim. In hindsight, I should have been more afraid. But I was like ye then, afraid of nothing.”
“Perhaps it wasn’t good for us,” she murmured. “Fear keeps a person alive, after all.”
“Aye, perhaps so. But fear would have stopped me from kissing ye that afternoon in the stables, and I would not have missed that for the world.”
He reached out, fingers trailing warmly against her cheek as he tucked a strand of wet hair behind her ear.
In an instant, Senga was not a grown woman on a miserable road in the rain, living in danger.
No, she was a gawky teenage girl again, staring adoringly up at a coltish stable lad who smelled of horses and freedom.
“If I had a house and land for horses, would ye come live there with me? One day?” Noah whispered, quoting the words he’d said to her so long ago.
Senga closed her eyes, letting his voice ring in her head.
“Aye,” she responded, her voice hoarse and a little afraid, nothing at all like her eager, earnest answer of years ago. “Aye, I think I would.”
Wordlessly, Noah leaned down and kissed her, his lips slick with rainwater and thrillingly cool. There was no time for anything more, not with their fellow travelers catching up quickly, but when he pulled back, he caught her eye and gave a sad, twisted smile.
“Yer lips are as sweet as I remember. Rain be damned.”
She gave a huff of laughter. “This dream house of yers, then. Could it ever become real?”
The smile faded. “The house and land and room for horses, ye mean?”
“Aye, I do.”
He let his hand drop, glancing away. “I was an idealistic fool, thinking that that was all I needed to offer a lass like ye.”
“A lass like me? What do ye mean? I’m nobody now.”
He shook his head, eyes suddenly distant. “I don’t like to speak of the future. Nor the past. The dead are buried with the past, and it’s bad luck to unearth either of them.”
Senga blinked rainwater out of her eyes, suddenly deflating. “Have I said something wrong?”
He shook his head, water drops flying off from the ends of his hair.
“Wrong? No, no, lass. Forgive me, I just… I’ve been so used to avoiding dreams of my future.
In my opinion, that’s a fair way to disappoint oneself.
Ye can talk of the past and the future all ye like, but the plain fact is that we only have the present.
All we have now is now. And speaking of now, we had better start walking if we are ever to make it back to Keep Grahame in time. I don’t want us to be left behind.”
The moment was gone, then. The rain began to fall more heavily, pattering down and bouncing off the ground. It didn’t make Senga feel any wetter, but she did begin to feel colder, fighting the urge to pull her sodden cloak more tightly around her.
People moved past them, barely sparing them a glimpse. They were only thinking of getting to somewhere dry and warm, with dry clothes and food of some description.
Noah was right—this wasn’t the time to discuss the future, not by a long shot.
“Aye, I think ye are right,” she answered, smiling tightly. “I suppose we should pick up the pace if we want to reach safety by nightfall.”
Noah gave her a sad smile, as if he knew what she was thinking.
“Then let’s go, lassie. Less talking and more walking, that’s what I say.”