“You did notcome to the hall for supper,” Bradana said.
Adair shrugged. “I did no’ think I would be welcome.”
“Are ye leaving?” she repeated, since she needed quite desperately to know. She glanced at the sailboat again. The two men had their heads down. For all she could tell, they slept.
“No’ yet.” He gave her a wry smile. “Do no’ get your hopes up. Mistress Bradana.”
She drew a breath. “My hopes—my hopes have naught to do wi’ it.”
A lie. Her hopes were all in a tangle. She hoped he’d stay. Quite possibly never leave these shores.
“We were but playing at draughts to pass the time. Flynn and Nolan, ’tis the third time they have been marooned here. They are sick o’ the place.”
“Ah, I see.” Did she? “Your father must be a persistent kind o’ man.”
“He can be stubborn when he feels he is in the right.”
“And ye? Can ye be stubborn?”
He shook his head. His gray-green eyes met hers, and a sharp thrill passed through her. She wanted to know this man. All of him.
“Walk wi’ me.”
He shot her an inquiring look and left off patting Wen, over whom he made a fuss.
One should not be jealous of one’s own hound.
“Ye have seen very little o’ what we have here, Master Adair, save the forest. Let us go up the shore. Is this very different from Erin?”
“Gey different, aye. We live a short distance from the coast. I have no such views as this.” He gazed out to sea. “We are in the hills surrounded by swaths o’ soft green and a river that marks the boundary o’ our lands.” He gave a grimace. “Much blood has been spilt into that river, in days gone by. Were it no’ for the valor o’ our ancestors, we would have nothing.”
“Ye love it there.” She could hear as much in his voice.
“I do. Mayhap precisely because our ancestors gave so much for it. Their love is my love. Carried in the blood.”
“It must have been hard for ye to leave.”
“I did no’ want to come, and fought my father over it. What can I hope to accomplish that my brothers could not?”
“Kendrick has fought hard here too, and spilt blood to hold this place.”
“I understand that.”
“A word of advice—insulting or questioning his honor will no’ get ye what ye want.”
He stopped walking and faced her. “What will? For I cannot leave till I succeed.”
“Is it what ye want, to go back home to Erin?”
“Itwas.”
Again his eyes met hers, and it felt as if he touched her, touched her the way the man had in that glimpse of vision. A kiss in both palms. Both corners of her mouth, her cheeks, her forehead. She began to tremble.
“Now,” he said softly, “I am no’ sure what I want.”
“Sit wi’ me.”
They had reached a place where large boulders backed the shingle. They sat side by side there, the waves nearly at their feet. Wen lay down within Adair’s reach.
