But Frida’s face was serious. “Nay. Mirrie and I did not make the move here to continue our lives as pampered misses. We have only a few servants and there are no ladies’ maids at Ember Hall.” She indicated her unadorned hair. “We fend for ourselves. ’Tis small payment for living amidst such beauty and peace.”
Her quiet words touched him. “That is the kind of life you seek? A peaceful one?”
“Aye. Anyone who doesn’t is a fool.”
Frida’s tone had turned sharp and Callum’s eyes widened with surprise. But a red bloom of blood on the fabric wrapped around her arm reminded him of the task ahead.
“I will fetch your salve.” He bowed his head in farewell and slipped from the chamber, his heart beating more normally as he put distance between himself and Frida.
God’s bones.She affected him just as much now as she had two years previous. More, mayhap, for her girlish gaiety had been replaced by a calm resolve which reached out to his troubled soul.
Aye, his soul was troubled because of the war wreaked upon his home and family by English nobles exactly like the de Nevilles. Whenever Callum closed his eyes, he saw againthe bloody devastation of Kielder Castle. Heard the crying of children blend with the impotent raging of his father.
“Curse the English,” the old man had raged, forgetting in his delirium that he had wedded an English bride; that his only son was half English, born and raised south of the border. “Curse them all.”
And gazing upon the horrors around him, Callum had agreed.
Which was why he had come to Ember Hall. To take his revenge on a powerful English knight. Not to fetch and carry for an English lady, however enticing her cornflower blue eyes.
However much she had become lodged in his mind.
Callum paused on the gallery, his elbows resting on the smooth oak banister overlooking the great hall below. The fire flickered in the grate, the dog snoring gently beside it. He thought again how this was a place of peace. ’Twas impossible to reconcile the mission he had embarked upon with the reality of life in Ember Hall.
His thoughts circled back to their usual place—the fact that there was no powerful knight currently in residence. Though he had pledged to his men that they would await the return of Tristan de Neville, Callum had no idea if his former friend had any plans to visit. He must ascertain the facts. Gregor would not be fooled for long.
And what if Tristanwason his way? What then?
Callum breathed deeply. He had been in this position once before, and subsequently failed in his duties to the Bruce. But those times had been different. Back then, Kielder Castle had stood strong and proud. Children played happily in the lanes. Villagers worked the fields and fed their families, little realising the fate awaiting them.
He had not been so angry then. Nor had so much to avenge.
His hands clenched into fists when he recalled what Jonah had said as he sat by the fire below. At the time, Callum’s attention had been mostly on Frida. He could scarce continue with the act of normality for want of celebrating her presence; her verylife. But e’en so, Jonah’s words had pierced his haze.
Tristan had just returned from Scotland.
Did that mean that Tristan de Neville, the man he had once spared, had played a part in the storming of Kielder Castle?
Wouldn’t he have recognised him, if that were the case?
Callum had fought long and hard on the battlements during that terrible siege, his blade slicing into his enemies as he gave his all to protect his home and his father’s people. But once it was clear they were over-powered, he had given the order to retreat. Instead of greeting the invaders with his sword, Callum’s attentions had turned to protecting those who still lived. Boys like Arlo. Men and women, some older than his father, who had lost everything. Nay, Tristan de Neville could have ridden through the main gates and hung his standard from the battlements without drawing Callum’s eye to him. Callum had been occupied with leading his people to sanctuary in a cave by the river by then. He would not have known.
His throat constricted at the idea; his pulse pounding harder than it had in the orchard when Frida fell upon him, her long skirts entwined in his legs. But even as the familiar swell of rage ascended, Callum worked to dispel it.
Scotland was a big country.
And lives had been lost on both sides of the border when wiser men than he jumped to false conclusions.
Right now, Callum’s best course of action was to remain at Ember Hall; to gather information and plot a course forwards.
Whether Tristan had plundered Kielder Castle or not, Callum could not abandon Frida.
Releasing his fists, Callum tuned back into the present moment. He had dallied overly long. The last thing he wanted, despite Frida’s assurances, was to be apprehended by a disapproving housemaid.
The gallery was lit with soft light from a circular window. He found the door to Frida’s chamber and turned the handle easily. The fragrance of lavender spilled out as he opened the panel, soothing his troubled thoughts. This was Frida’s private sanctuary. He felt as if he were somewhere almost sacred. His family chapel at Kielder evoked less reverence in his heart than her neatly-made bed, heaped high with cushions and topped with a practical nightrail of pale green.
Closing his eyes against a vision of Frida wearing that very garment, Callum walked softly into the chamber, noting the rugs on the floor and the highly-polished, if modest, wooden furniture. A round table flanked by two chairs waited by an unlit fire and a long trunk rested by the foot of the bed. The window seat was also piled high with cushions. It was impossible for him to approach without first admiring the view, and second picturing Frida curled up here, gazing out into a darkening sky—perhaps with him joining her.
Callum had long since closed his heart to notions of love and marriage. But the domestic scene unfolding in his mind’s eye was so compelling, he felt a short stab of grief that it could never be.
