Ian and Lyssa sat by the road to enjoy their bounty…and she finally gathered the courage to say, “Even though we’ve been living by our wits, we’ve managed to eat well.”
He shrugged.
This was going to be harder than she imagined. He gave her no choice but to confront the issue directly. “I didn’t mean to pry.” She took a bit of pie.
He didn’t even look at her. “Yes, you did.”
Her mouth full, she nodded, conceding without words that he was right. She took her time chewing. He was almost done. If she wasn’t more forthcoming, she knew matters would not be settled between them.
And she did not like this distance between them.
“I’m sorry.”
He didn’t speak.
“Are your parents still alive?” she dared to ask.
“No.”
One word. No more.
She studied the crust of the pie in her hand. She broke a piece off. “I suppose I knew that. Otherwise, your sisters would not be with you.”
She knew she should leave the subject there. She couldn’t.
“The beads are lovely.” She didn’t look at him as she said the words. However, she could feel the heat of his silver gaze as, at last, he swung around to look at her. “Do you practice?” she dared to ask.
He didn’t pretend to misunderstand her. “No.”
“Then why do you have the beads?”
“They were my grandfather’s. He gave them to my father, who passed them down to me.”
Lyssa nodded. She ran her thumb along the top of the pastry in her hand. “I’m not very religious.”
She was afraid to look up and see what he was thinking. She feared he’d be even more angry.
His hand tilted her chin up to look at him. The hardness about him had softened.
Tears of relief stung her eyes and she struggled to hold them back, not wanting to embarrass herself.
Still intent and serious, he ran his thumb along the line of her lower lip.
Her heart pounded in her chest so hard, she knew he must hear it. She waited for him to speak, wanting him to open to her, to trust her.
Instead, he made a soft, self-deprecating sound before saying, “Come,Cailín, we need to move on.”
“Cailín? What does that mean?”
“ ‘Girl.’ It’s the Irish for ‘girl.’ ” There was a melancholy about him. He removed his hand and stood. “Come, we must keep going.” He helped her rise.
The wall had been breached between them, but it was not the same.
For the next few hours, they talked in generalities much as they had the previous days, except that she was painfully aware of the change. Lyssa had opened a Pandora’s box, and now it wasn’t the secrets that kept them apart, but the truth.
By dusk, they were both tired. Ian called a halt. “We’ll arrive at Amleth Hall toward midday,” he predicted. “Let’s get a good night’s rest, since we didn’t have one last night.”
His plan was fine with Lyssa. She was exhausted. He found a place for them to camp in a small clearing protected by a thicket a fair distance from the road. After building a small fire, he made a bed for her of pine needles over which he placed her plaid.
