She watched him as he spoke and saw him again how he’d appeared in the king of Neroche’s garden, standing perfectly balanced between light and darkness. Perhaps he was not so much a mystery as a man full of profound contradictions.
The sunlight that filtered in from the window was pale from its winter’s arc, but it suited him perfectly, that dark-haired, sea-green eyed man who no doubt had women fighting each other to land in his path the moment he walked into any ballroom. She understood. He’d been shoveling manure—badly—and swearing when she’d first seen him and she’d been tempted to put the back of her hand to her forehead and swoon artfully onto the closest bale of hay.
“Who are you?” she wondered.
“A vile black mage taking a breather from the usual business of wreaking havoc,” he said wearily. “I will return to it with renewed vigor, purpose, and commitment the first chance I have.”
“Where does saving my grandfather fit into all that?”
“Not yourself?”
She shrugged as casually as she could manage. “I can see to myself. I worry about him.”
“I’ll see to him as I promised,” he said, “then the world had best brace for the onslaught of my wrath.”
“As you will, Acair.”
He didn’t move. “That doesn’t terrify you?”
“I’m not afraid of you.”
He let out his breath slowly. “Not even after what you saw in Uachdaran’s cellar?”
She wasn’t sure what she could possibly say that would make any difference. He was who he was, as was she. What she thought she might possess was less a tolerance for difficult things and more an acceptance of things as they were, but perhaps that could remain unsaid.
She considered his map and looked at the coastline he’d drawn. The ruined castle was there, but also that little stretch of land that looked just big enough for what she hardly dared hope for. She reached out and traced her finger along it, finding herself unable to look at him.
She wondered, in a place where she almost couldn’t allow herself to go, if there might be a small piece of unwanted land there where she might build a house with a barn. Nothing like the grand house she sat in presently, of course, but a modest abode with a pair of bedchambers for her and her grandfather. She had the money Mistress Cailleach was keeping for her, after all. Who was to say that in time she might not have enough to purchase it?
She couldn’t look at him, but she rested her finger on that part of his map that indicated a spot north of his house.
“Will you let me buy a bit of this and build a barn there?” she asked carefully.
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“You already know the answer, I imagine.” She looked at him, then. “So, will you?”
“Nay.”
She had to simply wait for a bit until she thought she could speak. “I see.”
“I will build you a barn, though,” he said quietly. “You may fill it with as many ponies as you like.”
“Of course,” she said, hoping she sounded as if she weren’t cursing herself for being disappointed that she might be nothing more than a stable hand to him. “You would need someone to manage the horses.”
“I thought Doghail might be better suited to that, if you think he would be interested. I have other things in mind for you.”
“Do you?” she asked, wishing she’d kept her bloody mouth shut to begin with. “I can’t imagine what.”
He looked at her steadily. “I told you in Uachdaran’s lists how I feel.”
“Oh,” she said, though she was fairly certain there had been no sound behind the word. “I thought that was the last gasp of a man who thought he wasn’t going to see dawn.”
He shrugged. “The truth comes out at odd times.”
If there was color creeping up her cheeks, she thought she might manage to blame it on the brandy. She watched him reach over and cover her hands with his. She looked at her arm that he had healed with a magic so beautiful she was still a bit blinded by it, then at his hands that had wielded that same magic.
“So,” she said slowly, “you don’t want me as a stable hand?”
