CHAPTER EIGHT #2
The word struck her before she could defend against it.
Our.
It lodged within her with unsettling force, as though it had been placed there deliberately.
She felt the instinctive resistance in herself, the refusal to accept what had not yet been decided and yet beneath it, there was the undeniable awareness that the word had been spoken as if it were already true. Grizel felt her composure waver, just for a moment.
It was intolerable.
“All right, I shall prepare,” she said, more quickly than she intended.
She left him then, descending below deck with a steadiness she did not wholly feel, too aware of his gaze following her until she passed from sight.
The castle received him without ceremony, as usual.
Malcolm crossed the threshold with Grizel a step behind him, the great doors closing against the sea-wind with a heavy finality that seemed to divide one part of his life from another. The hall lay as he had left it: broad, spare, governed more by use than by show.
Except, now, he did not enter alone.
Tavish, his brother, fixed his attention on them at once.
He had been leaning against the long table, one boot set upon the bench, speaking to one of the men in a manner that suggested the ease of familiarity. That manner vanished the instant his gaze landed on Malcolm, he straightened abruptly and shifted his attention to the figure behind him.
His expression changed from curious to delighted and amused in an instant. .
“What,” Tavish exclaimed with perfect clarity, “is this?”
Malcolm did not slow.
“This,” he returned, “is Lady Grizel Calder.”
Tavish’s gaze moved between them again, slower this time, assessing. “Aye, I can see she is a lady. I meant, why is the lady here?”
Malcolm looked back at her, which was a mistake.
Her hair was still half-loosened from the wind, and her eyes were too bright from a mix of exhaustion and defiance.
She looked nothing like peace, nothing like convenience.
In fact, she looked like trouble, like courage…
she looked like someone he had already begun to think of as his to protect.
“She is me future bride.”
Silence followed him for the space of two steps. Then, Tavish laughed. Unrestrained and full of incredulous delight, it was the laughter of a man discovering the world to be far more entertaining than he had been led to believe.
“Yer what?”
“Me future bride,” Malcolm echoed.
“Ye went tae Oban for supplies,” Tavish mused, pushing himself away from the table and falling into step beside him, “and returned with a wife?”
“Nae yet.”
“Ah,” Tavish nodded gravely. “Then I am reassured. Ye have merely begun collecting one.”
Malcolm felt Grizel’s presence more sharply behind him, he dared not look, but he was aware of the stillness that followed Tavish’s words and the slight tightening of air that came whenever she felt herself the subject rather than the speaker.
Tavish glanced back at her, openly curious now, while his expression brightened with mischief and interest. “Ye must forgive him, Lady Calder. He has always had a peculiar way of announcing important matters as if they were naething more than the weather.”
“I have noticed,” she replied.
Malcolm heard the control in her voice and the edge beneath it.
Tavish grinned. “Have ye? Then ye have had a more thorough introduction than most.”
“That will dae,” Malcolm warned.
Tavish lifted both hands in mock surrender. “What? I have said naething.”
“Ye rarely need tae.”
“And yet I manage it so well.”
Malcolm did not answer. He continued across the hall, with the matter already settled in his mind, regardless of how much amusement it afforded his brother. Tavish’s laughter followed for another moment, then subsided into something quieter, though no less entertained.
“Ye are serious,” Tavish concluded.
Malcolm did not break stride. “Aye.”
There was a change in Tavish then, which revealed itself not in his humor, which remained, but in the weight beneath it. He looked again at Grizel, more carefully this time, as if attempting to reconcile the notion with the woman herself.
“And… she agrees tae this?”
Grizel answered before Malcolm could. “I have nae yet been officially asked.”
Tavish’s brows rose. “Well, that is a promising beginning.”
“It will suffice,” Malcolm repeated.
Tavish seemed to be considering whether to continue the matter or enjoy it more thoroughly later. Wisdom, for once, prevailed. He fell half a step behind, though the glint in his eye promised future interference.
Malcolm stopped near the inner passage. “Eilidh.”
The name carried. A moment later, she appeared. She came without haste, but without delay either.
“Me laird.”
Malcolm inclined his head slightly toward Grizel. “See tae Lady Grizel.”
Eilidh assessed the situation with just a brief glance. She took in the travel-worn cloak, the careful posture that suggested injury, and the pride that had not been left behind with whatever life the woman had fled.
“Aye,” she nodded, then turned to Grizel. “Please, follow me, me Lady.”
Grizel cast him a glance, but there was no question and no hesitation. A moment later, she was walking down the corridor. Malcom turned back toward the hall. Tavish had not moved far.
“Brother,” Tavish said lightly, “ye cannae expect me tae let this pass without inquiry.”
Malcolm inhaled deeply, though it brought no relief. “Ye may attempt restraint for once.”
“I have never been kent for it.”
“True.”
Tavish smiled. “At the very least, ye might tell me how one acquires a bride between sunrise and supper, or thereabouts.”
Malcolm paused.
“She came aboard,” he informed him simply. “She remains.”
Tavish stared at him. Then he laughed again, softer this time, more to himself than to the room.
“Aye,” he agreed. “Of course she does.”
Malcolm left him. He heard Eilidh’s quiet voice addressing Grizel in murmurs of guidance and welcome. Tavish’s low amusement lingered at the edge of the hall, as persistent as it was inevitable.
The castle had not altered. The hall stood as it always had. The fire burned. The men resumed their movement.
Only now, Malcolm thought, as he stepped further into his own domain, there was a new presence within it, one he had not sought, one he had not dismissed and one, he suspected, that would not pass through these walls as easily as she had entered them.