“Ah, yes, Imag and Eisibél.” Madison looked skyward. “You might be right about Imag.” She shook her head. “But I don’t think Eisibél will be all that hard to win over. Pretty sure she’s just behaving like her mother expects her to in hopes of her becoming Queen of Leinster.” Her brows flew up. “As to you being meant for Declán? I’d say that’s a given by the way he looks at you.” The corner of her mouth curled up. “Heck, by the way you eye him when you don’t think anyone’s watching.”
Did he look at her a certain way in such a short time? She hadn’t noticed. And if she had, she ignored it because, again, he had been with Siobhán.
“If all that isn’t enough,” Madison gestured at the chamber, “this room looks like something out of one of your childhood sketches.” She eyed the stunning four-poster bed. “Safe to say some of it’s strangely out of place for this time period. Sure, we could call Declán a trend setter, but I don’t know.” She gave Riona a pointed look. “I get the feeling this is all for you. A means to make you feel comfortable. At home.”
She had forgotten about her childhood sketches. Pleasant warmth rolled through her as she thought about them in relation to this place. Were the two somehow connected? Or was it just her fanciful imagination at work? From the great hall to the grand stairs coming up to this chamber, this castle almost seemed like something she had drawn or close to it.
Yet everything felt like something out of a dream, too. Many dreams.Herdreams. Ones that had haunted her for years. That aligned with those chamber doors she had been racing toward.
His chamber doors.
“Yet in the midst of all this elegance,” Madison went on, “every which way you look, there’s a tapestry of outdoors. Trees. Sun. Water. Nature in all its glory.” She admired one they passed as they made their way down the hallway toward the stairs. “It’s almost like Declán brought the outdoors inside for you the best way he knew how.”
Itdidseem that way, didn’t it?
“How do you know it was for me?” she wondered.
“How do younotknow?”
By the time they made it downstairs, seasoned meat and boiled cabbage was being served, and the tension between the three brothers was thicker than ever. Aodh sat brooding in front of the fire with his arms crossed over his chest and Declán and Cian merely eyed each other across the table.
“How goes it?” Madison asked everyone tentatively.
“Other than yetanotherbrother laying with Siobhán, well enough, I suppose,” Aodh grunted, clearly drinking as hard as he brooded.
“I didnotlie with her.” Declán pulled out a chair beside him for Riona. “Please believe me, lass. I didnot.”
“So ye claim, but we both know that’s not true.” Aodh gave Riona a look. “And ye should too.”
Where Madison sat by Cian’s side, Riona opted to stand in front of the fire rather than take the seat Declán offered her. She felt rather than saw that hurt him, but what did he expect? He had obviously confessed to his brothers while she was upstairs and tried to walk it back now.
Rather than join her when she sensed he wanted to, Declán gave her space and asked that food and drink be set on a small table next to her.
“There’s more.” Declán handed a folded piece of weathered paper to Madison. “Not only did I have a vision of Riona going to Raghnall, but I found this beneath the courtyard archway.”
He’d had a vision she would go to Raghnall?
Madison unfolded the paper, and her brows flew up before they whipped together.
“What is it?” Riona asked.
“You tell me because you definitely drew this.”
Madison joined her and revealed what turned out to be a sketch of her and Raghnall standing on one of his castle ramparts together. Their gazes were equally sinister as they threw darkness over the land. Although she had no recollection of drawing anything like this, something about it felt familiar.
“When did I sketch this?” she whispered, trying to find her voice when she looked at Declán. “Howdo you have it? Because it looks old.”
“Old but not that old.” Madison considered the yellowed paper. “I might be wrong, but isn’t this that awful paper they gave us to draw on in elementary school?”
“Oh, shoot, it is, isn’t it?” Considering the conversation they just had upstairs, the ground about dropped out from beneath her when she spied the smudge in the lower right-hand corner. Time had faded it, but she knew it was hers. “It has my signature,” she barely managed, “it’s impossible to see, but I’m sure that’s it.”
“Iforgotabout that.” Madison nodded. “You used to make a point of marking all your pictures in that corner when you were little because someday you were going to become famous and wanted to perfect your trademark, as you called it.”
“A castle,” she whispered, unable to find her voice because she felt more by the moment it tied in with everything happening now. “One that would protect me every bit as much as it did my work.” She shook her head and looked at Madison. “How did I forget about that? Why did I stop putting it on my pictures?”
“I don’t know.” Madison shook her head as well. “I never thought to ask.” Her curious gaze went to Declán. “Yet you found it here beneath that old archway out front?”
“Ta.” He looked from Madison to Riona. “One I will show you both in the morn once the storm has passed. For ‘tis more special than most.”
