Chapter Seventeen Home Again
Chapter Seventeen
Home Again
Through the ride, Evander refused to let go of Alice.
The village was quiet now. Peggy trotted behind them, occasionally attempting to stop for grass, but Calum did not stop for her. She had to race after them all again.
Alice glanced back at Peggy, watching the mare’s futile little bursts of speed.
For a brief moment, she nearly laughed. It was such a small, ordinary thing.
A horse wanting grass and then having to chase them.
It almost let her forget the storm still churning beneath her ribs.
Almost. The warmth of Evander’s chest against her back was slowly weakening her resolve, softening edges she had spent weeks sharpening to keep him away.
Do not let him undo you so easily.
Even as she thought that, her body betrayed her by settling against him despite every promise she had made to herself.
Alice did her best not to lean into Evander, but it was hard when he was warm, secure, and his smell was surrounding her for the first time in weeks.
She closed her eyes, sinking back into the feelings she had denied herself for the last several weeks.
Evander was doing the same, clinging to her, breathing in the smell of her hair whenever they went over a bump in the road.
It was everything he had not realized he had missed.
He had not let him think over these past days and weeks about how much he had craved this.
The simple and unremarkable intimacy of being close to her.
He had told himself, endlessly, that being away from her was better.
But now, here, with her weight against him and her hair catching the moonlight, he could not for the life of him remember why he had wanted so much distance between them.
Eventually, the keep came into view. Someone shouted as they arrived, and suddenly servants ran out into the courtyard.
The courtyard erupted into motion the moment they came through the gate.
A stable lad ran forward to catch Calum’s bridle, nearly tripping over his own feet in a hurry.
Kitchen girls abandoned their tasks to crane their necks out the windows to see the commotion.
Molly was the first to reach them She was wringing her hands, as though she meant to reach up and take Alice from the horse herself.
“We were so worried!” Molly cried out as Evander helped Alice off Calum.
Catriona was close behind her, breathless, her cap askew from running.
“Wherever did ye go, m’Lady?” Catriona asked, pushing forward. She looked between Alice and Evander, as if she were trying to read the story of what happened from their expressions alone.
“I just went to the loch,” Alice said calmly. “I just needed time alone.”
“Without tellin’ any of us?” Siobhan asked. She had appeared behind Catriona, her arms crossed and eyes narrowed.
“Keith knew where I was,” Alice said. All the people around them slowly turned toward Keith who was standing at the door of the keep.
“I said she was where the laird had promised he would take her,” Keith said with a shrug. Molly pinched the bridge of her nose, Catriona looked ready to faint, and Siobhan was ready to murder Keith. He saw their looks and slowly stepped back into the keep.
“Ye are all fools if ye think I shall apologize fer bein’ right,” Keith called from the doorway, before Siobhan’s glare finally drove him fully inside, muttering about ungrateful people and thankless meddling.
Molly shook her head, although the corner of her mouth twitched despite herself.
Catriona busied her hands by smoothing her apron, still glancing nervously at Alice, like she was worried her lady would disappear again.
“We shall want the whole story later,” Catriona said. Even as she said that though, Evander had pulled himself and Alice off his horse, and was too focused on the task ahead of him.
“There is nae time for this,” Evander grumbled, taking Alice’s hand and leading her up the stairs and toward his chambers.
Alice had to almost run with the speed he was walking.
The corridor blurred past them. Tapestries.
Sconces. The familiar turn where the stone grew colder near the north wall.
Evander did not slow. Alice could feel the tension radiating off of him, like a spring that was coiled and near to snapping.
For all the bluster at the loch, all his shouting, there was something terrified underneath it.
She barely had time to catch her breath between one hallway and the next.
The keep blurred past them in fragments.
Evander shoved his door open, the wood smashing into the wall. He finally let go of Alice’s hand, walking toward the drawer with the letters inside of it. He pulled the whole thing out of the structure and threw it onto the bed.
“There,” he said. “There is ye proof. Ye wish tae ken about the broken man ye have married? Take yer pick. Read tae yer heart’s content.”
Alice hesitated before walking toward the drawer of letters.
Some of the letters were old, others looked recent.
She frowned, rifling through them all, before she found one near the bottom.
She pulled it out, looking at the weathered paper, the faded ink, and the broken wax seal.
Her fingers trembled slightly as she unfolded it, some small part of her warning her that whatever was in these pages would not be unread once she had seen them.
She glanced over at Evander who was standing rigidly by the gutted set of drawers.
His jaw was set, his eyes fixed on the drawer on the bed.
Alice turned back to look at the letter in her hands and then unfolded it.
Dearest Evander,
I know you don’t wish to hear from me, but I wish for you to know Fiona and I are safe. We are in the lowlands.
I am sorry for the way this all ended. You deserved better from us.
Domnall
Alice frowned, reading the letter again and again.
“This is from your brother,” she whispered. “But-but he is not dead. It sounds like he left,” she added, before picking up another letter. This one seemed older, the ink faded nearly to brown, the folds worn from handling.
Evander,
I know you will now answer this either, but I mean to keep writing all the same.
Fiona says I am a fool for it. That this is what we deserve for what we have done.
Mayhap it is. Mayhap I am. But you are my brother still, whatever has passed between us, and I cannot make myself believe that will not matter to you forever.
I think of the keep often. I think of you standing at the gate the night we left. The way you looked at us. We deserved it. I know that well. But, still, I hope someday you will write back. Even if just to tell me to stop bothering you.
Domnall
Alice frowned as she read that, her hands tightening on the fragile and old parchment. She swallowed hard and took out another one. Newer. The ink still black.
Evander,
It has been several months since Fiona and I left, and I am glad to tell you that we shall be having a bairn soon.
I wish you could be here with us.
Domnall
“But…” Alice said, looking up at Evander. “Didn’t you kill your brother?”
The words hung between them. Alice felt her stomach sink as she realized how cruel it sounded to accuse her husband of such a thing outloud. She watched his face crumble at the question before he forced himself to stand taller again.
“I wish I had,” Evander huffed.
“What happened?” Alice asked. He hesitated and then sighed.
“I was in love with a girl. Fiona. She was sweet, and I believed that she loved me the same way I loved her. My brother was the laird at the time. I began brinin’ Fiona around so he could meet her.
” He ran a hand through his hair. “I remember the first night the three of us sat together in this verra keep,” he continued, his eyes distant.
“Fional laughed at somethin’ my brother said.
I remember thinkin’ how glad I was that they got on.
I thought I had found somethin’ rare, a woman I loved, and a brother who loved her too, in his own way, as kin.
I didnae see it then for what it was. I was too happy tae see it.
That was my first mistake. Instead of being cordial, like a good brother, he began payin’ more and more attention to her.
I dinnae think that it was anythin’ more than curiosity.
I was glad that they were so happy, and I thought they had a strong, platonic relationship,” he explained, sitting on the edge of the bed. He looked up at Alice.
“I was wrong,” he said. “There were signs, I ken that now. The way he would find reasons tae seek her out when I wasnae there. The way she would grow quiet when his name came up. I told myself it was nothin’.
I wanted it tae be nothin’. I only found out that I was wrong when I came to my brother’s chambers one night and… ”
Alice watched him as he winced and looked away from her.
“You found them together?” Alice whispered, putting the information together in her mind. Evander nodded and sighed.
“They had apparently been seein’ each other behind my back,” he said. “I had no idea. I believed that Fiona would always be loyal tae me. My brother had always been a good man, and he had never shown that he could be so cruel and disloyal.”
Alice nodded slowly and held his hand. He looked over at her, his eyes shimmering.
“I dinnae believe what was happening,” he explained.
“I flew into a rage, believin’ my brother had hurt her.
She stopped me, and confessed. In that moment, I dinnae ken how to move past what they had done, and I screamed at them.
My brother wanted tae leave, but I pushed him back.
We fought. I…” His voice left him and he put his head into his hands.
“Fiona had tae pull me off. She knew I would nae harm her. I ran out of the room. That was the last time I saw them. My brother decided it would be better if they left, running away from me, the clan, and their responsibilities.”