Susan King - [Celtic Nights 03] (11 page)

When Lachlann opened the door and waited for Eva to pass through, she grabbed up her plaid shawl and went outside with him. Solas bounded out and away, disappearing like a wraith, while Grainne stayed in the house. Lachlann walked the garron over the meadow to the stable, Eva strolling beside him.

"How is it you came home so sudden in the night? Are you well? Your face is scarred—you were wounded in the war."

"I am fine, Eva," he murmured.

"Are you a knight now?"

"I am."

"When did you leave France?"

"A few months ago."

Despite his terseness, she plunged onward. "A knight and a landholder? How did you fare in France? Have you been in Scotland long?" She knew she chattered, and could not help it. Still stunned by his arrival, she suddenly craved the reassurance of their old friendship, if it could be reclaimed.

"Ho," he said, half laughing. "I was never as fast at answering your questions as you were at asking them. I am well enough. I came back alive." He walked beside her without looking her way. "I am a knight, but not a landholder yet. France was... a harsh place. I returned to Scotland last summer and stayed in Perth."

"My cousins Parian and William came back last winter, and told me about their sojourn in France. They said the war was difficult for everyone—French, Scots, English."

"It was. Why are you here instead of Innisfarna? And where is..." He paused. "Where is your husband?"

She halted in the stable yard. "I cannot stay at Innisfarna just now. And Colin is not my husband—yet," she said bluntly. "We... we are betrothed now. He has been in France also."

"Ah," he murmured, looking away from her. "When is the wedding?"

She hesitated, wishing she did not have to answer, but he turned to look at her. "Whenever he returns to Argyll."

"Ah," he said again, nodding slowly.

"Colin is an ambassador to France. Did you see him there? My cousins said you were a guard in the French court."

"I never saw him, but there are thousands of Scots in France these days. I was at court only a short while. After that I rode with... a special company. If you are not at Innisfarna, who is? There are horses in the stable," he remarked abruptly. "Whose are they?"

"The king installed a garrison there, and I refuse to stay at the castle, one woman among so many men. The soldiers came here just before my father—" Her voice wavered.

"I heard." His voice gentled. "I am sorry, Eva."

She drew a shaky breath. "There is food and water stored in the stable. Bring your horse this way."

He led the garron inside and Eva followed. While he found an empty stall, she went down the aisle and lifted one of the large buckets of water placed there. Lachlann came toward her.

"Let me take that," he said. "It is heavy for you."

"It is no trouble," she said, but he took the bucket. "I am accustomed to hard work. Since I have been here, I have been not only fetching water but hoeing the garden, tending livestock, cooking and brewing, weaving baskets and mats, even cutting peat."

He carried the bucket into the stall and emptied it into a low trough for the horse to drink. "I expected to find you the spoiled wife of a wealthy man, not doing the work of a farmer's wife."

She bristled. "Spoiled? You know me better than that!"

"Do I?" he murmured. His gaze met hers, held it. Then he turned away to remove the horse's saddle.

Her cheeks heated again. "I will go back to the house and prepare you something to eat," she said stiffly. "Tomorrow I will find another place to stay."

He set the saddle down. "Why would you do that?"

"We can hardly stay here together!"

"I will not toss you out. It is your house, after all." He began to brush the horse's back. "I will sleep in the smithy after I clean it up tomorrow. And I may not stay at Balnagovan for long."

Disappointment plummeted through her. Hoping to hear more of his plans, she waited, but he silently tended to the horse. She studied his gleaming armor, the good leather harnesses for the horse, the carved and padded wooden saddle, the scabbarded sword and other weapons.

"That is fine gear for a Highlander," she said. "My cousins said you did well in France. They said you rode with the Maid who tried to save her country. We heard of her even here," she added, letting her curiosity show, hoping to learn more.

"I rode as one of her Scots guard. There were seven of us assigned to watch her back."

"Did you earn accolades and rewards for your deeds there?"

He slid her a glare and said nothing, bending to lift one of the horse's back feet to examine the hoof. His hands were knowing, his voice quiet as he murmured to the animal. Eva watched, her thoughts tumbling, but one question burned within her.

"Do you have a wife?" Her heart thumped hard.

"I do not." He did not look up.

His reticence frustrated her. "Why did you come back here so sudden and covert, armed like a king's man?"

He straightened. "You were ever a curious girl, with a nimble tongue for talking. I see it has not changed much."

"Not much," she said testily. "And you were ever given to secrets. I see that has not changed either."

"No secrets worth digging out. I simply came home."

"I think you intend to do more than smithing." She folded her arms expectantly.

"I have a letter for Simon," he said as he settled a blanket over the horse's back. "From the king himself."

She gasped. "Did you come to arrest him? You will not find him easily."

"I am a messenger," he murmured. "Only that." He glanced up. "Eva, it is late. Tomorrow you can tell me where to find your brother. For now, all I want is a bed. Just for tonight, I would like to sleep in the house."

Her heart bounded again, but she looked at him calmly. "Mairi's bed will do for you."

"Of course," he said. "Did you think I meant with you?"

She sucked in a breath sharply. Yearning, loneliness, disappointment swamped her. He was not the tender, loving man who haunted her dreams; he was cool, snappish, reserved, nearly a stranger. She had no reason to expect anything different from him, after so long.

She whirled and fled the stable.

* * *

Lachlann greeted the eager, panting dogs on his return to the house, and glanced at Eva, who was stirring the kettle over the hearth. Her cheeks were bright. He wondered if that was the fire, or if his arrival had set her world askew. Perhaps only his own world seemed tilted awry.

He began to divest his cuirass, unbuckling the leather straps at his waist, reaching up to unfasten the straps at his shoulders. Eva came toward him.

"Let me help," she said. Accepting wordlessly, he leaned down. Her hand brushed his neck, and her breath swept his cheek. When the back and breast pieces were separated, he laid them aside and unlaced his quilted jacket, joined to mail sleeves and collar. Eva lifted the heavy garment and laid it on a stool.

Lachlann stood shirtless in trews of dark wool, and the worn boots that had taken him every step of the way through France and home again. He felt the gentle slide of Eva's gaze as she studied his chest and abdomen, thickly dusted with black hair, and his shoulder and sides, creased with new scars.

"Oh, Lachlann," she murmured in sympathy. She touched the long pink crescent that marred his left side, above the drawstring waist of his trews. The memory of that injury—taken when Jehanne had been captured at Compiegne—was more raw than the healed cut itself. Her fingers conveyed compassion, and his heart turned within him. "This was a serious wound," she said.

"It was nothing," he said tersely. "Done with."

She handed him a shirt and a folded plaid, which he recognized as his own. He had not dressed like a Highland man since leaving for France. He pulled the shirt over his head, and Eva straightened the shoulders for him.

"You are a fine page," he said. "The shirt will do for now. I will wear the plaid tomorrow." He went to the table and sat. Eva set a bowl of steaming porridge before him and poured ale into a wooden cup. How strange and ironic, he thought, that Eva instead of his foster mother filled the familiar old cup for him.

He tasted the oats. "Excellent. Hot, salty, and sweet, and nicely thick. You have learned to cook." He smiled at her.

"I always could," she said stiffly. "You just never knew."

"I was teasing. It is good to eat Highland oats again. They cannot be had in France, and even in Perth they are not as good as in the Highlands. I am grateful for the meal, and I apologize for dragging you from your bed in the dark of night."

She blushed, a rosy glow. His tone had been too intimate, he thought. He wanted to stay reserved and distant, but talking with her felt natural, as satisfying as water for thirst. He had known her nearly all his life—had seen her take her first toddling steps, while he and her brothers cheered—and he was deeply glad to see her again.

And he knew for certain now that he had never stopped loving her, though he had tried. Scowling a little, he turned back to his meal, but kept glancing at her while she attended some chore at the hearth.

She had always been a lovely creature: whimsical, graceful, yet tough too. Time had clarified her into a beauty, though more somber than he remembered. Her mouth and small nose were still mischievous, her lips more sensual. The stubborn line of her jaw echoed her straight, dark brows, above winsome gray-green eyes. Alluring but innocent, he thought, a face that made a man want to look again, want to remember, want to linger.

She smiled, quick and shy. He looked away.

A moment later, he tasted the drink tentatively, unwilling to risk an ale haze. But it was the stuff he had tasted all his life, which had never made him drunk. "Fine ale," he approved. "Light and a little sweet. Did you brew it yourself?"

"I did. Mairi taught me. Is it sweeter than you like?" She sat across from him.

"It is good. French ale is strong and lusty and bitter, and the stuff in Perth is so strong that one full goblet can strip a man's stomach and spin his head. Nothing as delicate as this."

"It is the heather. Mairi showed me how to gather the best heather bells to add to the barley malt, with some honey."

He nodded, finished the oats, and glanced around the house. The stone walls needed a coat of limewash, and the earthen floor was covered with woven reed mats, newly made. The thatch roof smelled clean and grassy, as if it had been freshened recently. Rafters of smoke-darkened wood were hung with cooking utensils and storage baskets. Many of the baskets looked new as well.

At one end of the room, the stone hearth, which served as a partition and had always been his foster mother's pride, was swept clean. The glowing peats gave off a sweetish, musty odor, and smoke tunneled efficiently into a good drawing chimney. He and Finlay had built the fireplace together years ago, replacing the earlier hearth, a circle of stones.

He glanced at the familiar furnishings and looked again at the snug bed in the far wall, made cozy with a fur robe. His mind conjured Eva sleeping there. He glanced away. "You keep the house well," he said. "It is just as I remember it."

She shrugged. "Better to be busy than lonely."

"Lonely?" He narrowed his eyes.

"It is so quiet here now. I take care of the house and the animals, and I see Alpin often, though I do not go to the castle anymore. Sometimes I see Simon, or Mairi, or the priest—Father Alasdair is at the chapel only a day or two a month now; he serves four parishes since ours is so small. I see Margaret too, though her children keep her busy. There was always so much to do here... before so much changed."

"Lives change, Eva," he murmured. "We have changed. Tell me about Margaret. She is married?"

"She married Angus Lamont, the carpenter. They have two little ones now."

He smiled. "I am glad for all of them."

"You will see them soon, no doubt. They live not far from here. Otherwise, there are few left in this glen. Many MacArthurs settled here when my father married my mother, but they are gone now—thanks to the king." Her voice caught.

He felt a swift pull like a taut thread between them, and he wanted to comfort her. But she stood and turned toward the fire. "I heard what happened, and I am sorry, Eva. Iain MacArthur deserved better."

She nodded. "I was sad, and angry at first. Now I think I am resigned to it." In profile he could see that her eyes were glossy with tears, but her chin was set stubbornly.

He approached her. "I lost Finlay not long before I left here. Grief has an edge that dulls with time," he said quietly.

"My father's death was unjust, and my kinsmen have suffered, too. The edge of my grief is very sharp."

"Eva, I am sorry I was not here for you... for all of you."

She sucked in a breath. "My brother Donal is still imprisoned. Our only hope now is that Colin will secure his release and the clan's pardon. Colin promised he would try."

Her anticipation of her betrothed's help felt like a dousing of icy water. Lachlann reminded himself that Eva did not need him—nor did he need her. "I am sure all of this will sort itself out in time. I wish you well of it," he said.