Chapter Six
Morning in Raven’s Berry arrived not with stillness but with motion.
Wind rattled the glass lightly. Somewhere below, a pot clanged. Voices rose in Gaelic from the bailey. The keep seemed to awaken all at once, like a living thing stretching into day.
Claire stood at her window and watched dawn move over the Highlands.
The loch below had changed entirely from the evening before.
Yesterday it had glimmered. Today it brooded, dark under a sweep of clouds, while pale shafts of light spilled through breaks in the sky onto distant hills.
Beyond the glen, pines climbed toward higher ground where crags stood black against the morning.
Every hour made this land different.
Nothing repeated itself.
Perhaps that explained why she could not loosen its hold upon her.
Maddy arrived with a tray and practical opinions. She installed breakfast, informed Claire lingering in bed would not improve matters, and bullied two maids into bringing a gown better suited to Highland cold.
By the time Claire descended to the great hall, she had armed herself with dignity and a sharpened tongue.
The hall itself surprised her anew. In daylight, the tapestries glowed with rich color—stags amid pine, knotwork curling like ivy, battle scenes stitched in deep greens and rusts.
Weapons hung along the wall, dented and she worried the dark stain edging them was dried blood.
Long tables stood scrubbed and clean. At one end, children were already stealing bits of bread under the noses of distracted mothers.
This was not a place ruled by silence.
Lachlan stood near the hearth, speaking with an older warrior whose beard had gone mostly white. He turned as though he had felt her enter. The force of his attention struck her instantly.
He crossed toward her. “Did ye sleep?”
“A little.”
“Then Scotland has shown mercy.”
Curious, Claire tipped her head. “Is that common?”
“Nay.”
She glanced toward the tables where men and women alike took their morning meal. “Your people seem untroubled by my presence.”
He shrugged. “They trust my judgment.”
“That must be useful.”
“It is, when English ladies arrive intent on dueling everyone with conversation.”
She nearly laughed into her bread.
“Have you ever considered,” she said, “if you answered plainly, I might have less need to prod?”
He tipped his head in consideration of her question. A measure of her caution softened. And her eyes lightened with shards of silver. Admiration, perhaps? “Aye. I rejected the notion.”
Something warm passed between them before either knew what to do with it.
He gestured toward the open doors. “Walk with me.”
Outside, the air struck brisk and bright. They crossed the bailey where women hung laundry in the wind and boys lugged kindling larger than common sense permitted. Beyond the inner wall, a path curved toward a rise overlooking the loch.
Claire gathered her cloak more tightly and matched his stride.
“Do you always abduct women before breakfast?” she asked.
“Only on feast days.”
She stopped short, eyed the man. “You are jesting.”
He glanced her way and flashed a grin. “Aye. Ye looked horrified.”
To keep her sanity, she ignored the grin, how the quickness of it shined in his eyes. “You are an alarming man.”
“Ye continue to walk beside me.”
The remark landed with inconvenient truth, because she did.
And part of her wanted to know why.
And why she found herself waiting for his smile before she realized she was doing it.
# # #
The morning wind off the water kept him clear-headed.
At least ’twas the hope.
The path above the keep overlooked the loch and the glen beyond, where mist drifted in torn ribbons over the rushes. Farther west, cliffs rose in layered gray, and beyond them came the faint salt edge of sea wind. On certain days one could smell storms before they formed.
Today he smelled trouble walking at his side in blue wool and quiet intelligence.
Claire watched everything. The slope of the path. The guard posts. The men at the fishing jetty below. She missed little.
“Ye’re measuring escape routes,” he said.
She did not deny it. “I prefer to know my options.”
“Grand,” he retorted, unable to keep the sardonic tone from the word.
She stuttered to a stop and turned her blue gaze upon him. Damn, those eyes of her clear as the summer sky with a frankness saved from the brawest of warriors. “You approve?”
He continued forward. “A woman should always know the ground beneath her feet.”
The approval in his voice unsettled her more than criticism ever could.
No man in England had ever spoken to her as though competence in a woman were something admirable.
They walked a few steps more. Then she said, “You say many things I would expect from no man I have known.”
Lachlan kept his face turned toward the water. “Then the men ye’ve known were fools.”
Her silence beside him deepened. Not offended. Thinking.
’Twas the trouble with Lady Claire Ashford. She was not easily flattered, frightened, or dismissed.
He could feel the pull of her even in silence.
Like weather gathering.