Shabib would protest,James thought, smiling. Protest heavily. Claim his vow to his dead wife as the reason for why he could not find love, or at least a willing woman, again. But no God, not even Shabib’s Allah, wanted a man to live a life consumed by vengeance. Shabib’s soul, much like James’s, was at stake, and James would not suffer his friend to such a fate.
If he could find a woman to be the balm to Shabib’s own broken soul, then by God, both his and Shabib’s, James would make sure she ended up in Shabib’s arms.
Aday later, as theyprepared to leave for the meeting with the English emissary, James came around the side of the stables, covered in a layer of horsehair and hay, only to jerk back out of sight.
Shabib walked the side of the keep toward the bailey, the quiet Frenchwoman by his side. Shabib carried a basket over his arm, but his face, glowing bronze, peered down at the diminutive woman.
Once they reached the edge of the Bailey, where several men and woman labored with stock, worked hides, or sharpened their broadswords, the Frenchwoman reclaimed her basket with a tender hand. She took a moment to turn her refined face and sparkling eyes to the stoic Shabib, whose face belied a softer emotion.
James grinned to himself. Oh, the man who’d lectured James regarding the value of a wife but hesitated to find a way to mend his own heart now appeared enamored by this woman. His grin widened as he peered around the stables again.
The Frenchwoman had departed Shabib’s side, and his friend approached with, was that a smile on his face?
James strolled around the corner of the stables and leaned casually against the dark wooden wall, pretending to be interested in hissgian-dubhdagger.Shabib slowed as he neared James.
“Weel, my old friend. Look what has caught your interest.”
“James,” Shabib said sharply. “You should have more respect for Lena.”
A bold look of awe marked James’s face. “Lena, is it?”
Shabib’s eyes narrowed at the jest. “You overstep. It is nothing as you assume. She is kin to one of the MacMillan women. I was only offering a sympathetic ear to a woman who, like me, has left her home and finds herself fighting a war for people she’s come to call her own.”
Another tease rose to James’s lips, but he silenced it as Shabib’s words permeated his brain.
“Ye call me your own?” James asked.
Shabib dipped his head respectfully. “You are the only family I have now, James. You have been since France. I followed you to this far reach of the world, didn’t I? I consider you my brother.”
James swallowed the lump that formed in his throat. He wasn’t one for emotions — much less comfortable discussing them than Shabib was.
“Ye are a shoulder for Lena to lean on then?” James asked, refocusing their conversation on Shabib’s present interest in the Frenchwoman.
“Yes.”
James clapped his friend, nay, his brother, on his back and walked with him to the stables.
“Well, I know ye dinna want to hear it, but ye need someone to ground ye, just as I did. Perchance this woman, Lena, is a start. The MacMillan laird says she is no’ yet claimed.”
“I’ve had my loves, James,” Shabib said in a tight voice. “My scars run far too deep to find another.”
“The world, the heart, I dinna believe works like that. ‘Tis no’ like bread, where once the pieces are gone, they’re gone. With affairs of the heart, it can only increase. And would your wife want ye to live in solitude for the rest of your days?”
Referencing Shabib’s slain wife again was a risk — the man never spoke of her unless it was absolutely necessary. And from the grim look in Shabib’s face, a risk indeed.
“Dinna look at me like that. Ye know I speak the truth. A harsh truth, but a truth nonetheless.”
They stopped at the doorway to the stables and Shabib had regained his stoic temperament. “An odd sentiment, coming from you, Black Douglas, but one I am pleased ye have found,” he intoned before leaving James to the horses.
