“And?”Owen said, glancing at the two of themsitting at his table.
“Alina doubled back and drugged the threeremaining men with a vial of White Milk in their wine and rescuedme,” Roark said, grinning at Alina.“And here we are.”
“That’s quite a story,” the laird said.
Alina pulled the pearl from between herbreasts, unclasped the copper chain, and set it on the table.Shemet and held the laird’s serious, green-eyed gaze with her own.“Would a serving wench have a necklace like this?”she said in theGreen Isles tongue.“Every word we’ve told you is true,” she saidin her Northland tongue.“I swear it on my mother’s eyes,” she saidin her mother’s native Rus.“I swear it on my great-grandmother’sgrave,” she said in the desert tongue.
Laird Owen sat back, cocked his head, andturned to the greybeard who’d brought them here, and who’d beenstanding at his laird’s and lady’s backs the whole time.“Did youunderstand any of that, Niels?”Owen asked.
“The first part,” Niels answered.“She saidthat every word they told you was true in the Northern tongue.Therest of it?”He shrugged.
Alina eyed the hawk-nosed Niels.“From whatpart of the Northlands do you hail?”she asked in their Northerntongue.
“From the western mountains,” he answered inkind.“Twenty and five years ago.”
“My paternal grandfather, King Anders, wouldhave been recently deceased,” she said, “and my great-uncle,Alviss, newly named king.”
“Yes,” Niels said.“I’d heard of them, andthe family’s troubles.Something about a cursed throne.”
“The only curse was my great-uncle Fenrir andhis yellow beards,” she said.“It was he who tried to have myfather and mother murdered.Roger and his brother Donald were twoof Fenrir’s yellow beards.”
Niles looked to his laird and dipped hishead.
“What do you want of us?”Laird Owen askedthem.
“Help finding a ship to sail Alina home,”Roark said.“Shelter and protection until she sails.”
“Only her?”
“I’ve asked him to sail back with me,” Alinatold them.“Roark means to stay to try to make things right betweenhis family and Roger’s.”
“I see.”Owen looked from Roark to Alina.“Your father won’t seek revenge on this Roger?”
“Revenge?”Alina shook her head.“No.I dothink he’ll seek justice.He is a king who’s sailed much of thisworld.He’ll take the laws and politics of this land into accountno matter what he chooses to do.”
Laird Owen sat back, his expression one ofcontemplation.Then he placed both hands palms on the table.“You’re both welcome to stay here under my protection while I sorta few things out,” he told them.“In the meantime, I suggest weagree on a story about who you are and why you’re here that willkeep your true identities secret from all but the five of us inthis room.”
***
Alina returned to her guest chambers from thebathhouse dressed in her old, but relatively clean long tunic andapron to find a mossy green long tunic and darker green apron laidout on the bed.“Thank you, Lady Siusan,” she said to the room.
She stared down at the bed and flopped downon it.It was big, soft, and clean, and she would be sleeping in italone, as much to keep to the propriety of their host’s home as tomaintain the story that would explain to the rest of the householdhow and why she and Roark were there.An empty pit formed in herbelly when she thought of never sleeping cocooned in Roark’sembrace again.Of never feeling his hands and mouth roaming overher bare skin, never making love with him again.
Rolling onto her side, she stared at theclosed door to her room and grinned.Roark’s room was next to hers.Surely, they could manage sneaking in and out of each other’srooms, each other’s beds while here, whether that be for one nightor ten.
She stood and doffed her old coarsely wovenlong tunic and dressed in the soft, finely woven long tunic andapron on the bed.Her hair was still damp from the bath, and shefelt a stone lighter with the dirt and grime washed out of it.
She found a comb and brush on the dressingtable and set to work on the knots and tangles, remembering howRoark would comb her hair with his fingers, rubbing delightfulcircles with his fingertips into her scalp, and other places.Squirming on her seat, she concentrated on plaiting her hair in onelong braid, pulled on a pair of soft, kidskin boots that were atthe foot of the bed, and opened the door to find Roark standingoutside of it, his hand raised as if about to knock.His warm smilemelting Alina’s already overheated body.
“You look beautiful,” he told her, offeringher his arm.“Not as beautiful as you did in the green worm weaveyou wore on Spring’s Eve, but green is definitely your color.”
Alina gave him a sideways grin and ran herhand up and down the sleeve of the dove-grey tunic he was wearingalong with dark grey linen breeches hugging his muscular thighs.“Grey is definitely your color,” she said.“It brings out your raineyes.”
“Speaking of eyes.”Roark stopped at the topof the stairs and smiled into hers.“I told you once they sawyours, they’d know you were a MacLeod.”
Alina laughed as light and free as she hadn’tbeen since the first day of spring.“I didn’t even have to sing‘Somebody’ for them.”
“Good.”The smile in Roark’s eyes went fromteasing to scorching.“I find I don’t want you singing ‘Somebody’to anyone but me, my lady owl.”
