Chapter 18 #2
"When I saw the stain, I thought—"
He did not finish.
Diana lowered her hands.
"I knew you would find the vehicle."
"You didn't know which road we'd take after."
"That is why I left the ribbon for Eliza."
Something changed in his face.
"For Eliza."
"She would know the stitch."
"I nearly went north."
"But you did not."
"Graeme stopped me choosing just to keep moving. Eliza read the sign."
Diana let the léine go and covered the dressing.
"You trusted them."
"After making the task harder than it had to be."
"You are still learning."
"It appears everyone around me has decided to take part in the education."
"It is an ambitious project."
His mouth moved, briefly, before it went back to seriousness.
"Rest more. We'll leave when you're fit."
"And you?"
"There are decisions to make."
"Make them sitting down."
"Another order?"
"An attempt to preserve the work I have already done."
Alistair touched the binding on her hand with his fingertips.
"I'll come back later to see whether you've finished eating."
"That will not be necessary."
"I'll come back all the same."
He was gone before she found an answer.
The hours that followed gave shape to what was left of the day.
Eliza woke a little later, embraced Diana hard enough to make the shoulder object, and denied having done anything sentimental. She helped her wash the blood out of her hair, brought a clean gown, and examined the cut on her hand.
"Graeme still insists that hitting that man with a shovel was reckless," she said.
"Was it?"
"Possibly. But it worked."
"That is usually his defense."
"Don't tell him we have something in common."
Diana examined the two clansmen wounded during the rescue. Neither was in danger. A woman who worked at the lodge prepared food while Dugald arranged the watch and Graeme questioned the prisoners.
Alistair did not come back about the broth.
Diana found him twice on the floor below, always surrounded by men and rough maps. Both times he was sitting. She chose to read that as good sense, though she suspected Dugald had quietly removed every chair from the other rooms.
The dark came early.
After supper the household spread out among the rooms available. The men stayed on the lower floor and in the stable; Eliza was given a room near the back stairs. Diana took the farthest room in the upper corridor, where the door had a bolt and the window opened onto the watched yard.
There was no reason to fear another attack that night. She checked the bolt twice.
Her body was tired, and sleep did not come.
Diana let her hair down, changed the gown for a shift, and stood in front of the hearth watching the wood give to the fire. She thought of Malcolm's hand in her hair, of the shot going into the wall, and of the moment she had seen Alistair come through the gate with blood on the léine.
He had come wounded.
She had left a direction, and he had followed it.
A light knock came at the door.
Diana had the poker in her hand before she asked.
"Who is it?"
"Alistair."
She set the iron down and drew the bolt.
He was alone, in the same clean léine and dark trews. He had a narrow strip of blue silk in his hand.
"I brought the ribbon you left for us," he said.
Diana took it. The blood had dried at one end. The slanted stitch, made with difficulty, still crossed the cloth.
"Eliza understood it."
"Yes."
"I expected her to."
"Did you expect me to believe her?"
Diana looked up.
"I expected you not to choose a road only because you needed to ride."
The honesty reached him without any softening.
"I nearly did exactly that."
"But you stopped."
"Graeme made me stop."
"And you listened to him."
"After I seized him by the léine."
Diana ran her thumb over the silk.
"Learning is rarely elegant."
Alistair looked at the open door behind her.
"I didn't mean to disturb you. I wanted to return the ribbon."
He began to step back.
Diana saw then the way he was holding his right side still.
"The binding is bleeding again."
"No."
"Come in."
"Diana—"
"Come in before I have Dugald confirm it."
Alistair came through the door. She closed it to keep the cold of the corridor out and pointed at the chair by the fire.
"Sit down."
"Is your hand still bleeding?"
"It was only a shallow cut. Only the shoulder hurts."
"That didn't answer."
"You are acquiring some very disagreeable habits."
He sat. Diana fetched the cloths and the small bottle of spirits left on the chest of drawers. When she opened the léine, she found fresh blood at the end of the binding.
"What did you do?"
"I helped move a table."
"Why?"
"It was in the way."
"There were men downstairs."
"They were carrying the prisoners."
Diana undid the knot with more force than it needed.
"You possess an impressive ability for finding tasks incompatible with recovery."
"I wanted everyone settled before dark."
"And you decided to contribute by opening your own wound."
"It hasn't opened yet."
"You continue to use that word optimistically."
She cleaned the skin around the stitching. Alistair watched every movement of her hands.
"When you went back to the wall," he said, "was it because of the river?"
The question arrived without preparation.
Diana kept her eyes on the dressing.
"In part."
"You recognized the scar and remembered the debt?"
"Yes."
"And after that?"
She covered the wound with clean cloth.
"After that there was a wounded man in front of me."
"A stranger?"
"He was no longer entirely one."
"You stayed six days at the shelter."
"There were wounded."
"You went back to Penelope."
Diana finished the knot and left her hands on the binding.
"That had nothing to do with the debt."
"What did it have to do with?"
The nearness made it impossible to pretend the question was only about strategy.
"The clan needed the information."
"And did you?"
She looked up.
"I needed to stop Malcolm destroying what was left."
"For me?"
"For all of them."
Alistair nodded, and the small retreat in his face showed what he would not ask a second time.
Diana held the opening of the léine before he could close it.
"The river made me go back to the wall."
He went still.
"It did not make me stay," she went on. "Nor go back to Inverness. It did not make me kiss you in the chapel."
His breathing went deeper.
"Then why?"
"Because I wanted to."
The words stayed between them.
Under her fingers, still resting on his léine, Diana had the beat of his heart.
"I wanted the kiss," she added. "I wanted you to find me. I wanted to see you come through that gate, knowing perfectly well you should have been at the shelter."
"I nearly came too late."
"You came while I could still fight beside you."
Alistair touched her face.
"I spent the night imagining I would lose you."
The admission came out low, without the firmness he used in front of the men.
Diana put her forehead against his.
"I spent the night trying to get back."
He kissed her.
There was no question asked first and no decision formed. His mouth found hers with the urgency he had held down all day. Diana took hold of his shoulders and answered before prudence could offer a list of reasons to stop.
Alistair drew back only far enough to breathe.
"Your hand."
"It is bandaged."
"Your shoulder."
"It remains attached."
He nearly smiled, and the wanting stayed in his eyes.
"Diana, I don't want this to happen because you were afraid."
"Fear made me want to escape. This is something else."
She kissed him again.
Alistair stood and brought her against him.
His arm went around her waist with the care of a man still measuring his own strength, and the heat of him came through the linen and found her skin through the shift.
The short beard brushed her temple. The smell she had kept from the chapel came back whole: wool, leather, and the cold winter air caught in the cloth.
The cold of the room withdrew to somewhere irrelevant.
The blue ribbon slipped out of her fingers and fell to the floor, and neither of them looked for it.
Their kiss lost its hurry. His mouth went down the line of her jaw to the curve of her neck, and Diana's breathing changed before she decided to allow it.
His hands found the laces of the shift at her back.
They stopped there.
"May I?" Alistair asked.
The voice had lost the command he used in front of the men. What was left in it was a real question, without any certainty of the answer.