“Tell her what?” Olivia’s voice had dropped to almost nothing.
“Give me yer hand at the dancin’ tonight,” Ragnall said instead, his voice rough, “and I will tell ye then. The whole of it. I swear it on whatever ye like.”
“That’s nae an answer.”
“Nay,” he agreed. “It isnae.” He looked back at her, and there was heat in his gaze now, banked and patient and certain, that frightened her worse than the burnt fire on the bank had. “But it’s the one ye’ll get from me with three hundred of our folk waitin’ on the green for their Laird and Lady. Ask me again tonight, Olivia. When the fire’s low. And mind ye are sure ye want to ken the answer, for I willnae be able to take it back once it’s said.”
Then he walked her back to the festival, saying nothing.
Her heart was in worse turmoil than it had been the whole month, the unspoken weight between them having grown so large that she could scarcely see the path around it.
Curse the man. Curse him and his patience and his steady eyes. I came to say me piece and be free of him, and he has gone and made it worse. Ask me again tonight. As if I have the first scrap of sense left to keep from doin’ exactly that.
CHAPTER 30
The games beganafter the noon meal, and Olivia discovered that she had never in her life seen anything like a Highlander determined to prove himself in front of the woman he could not have.
She had not meant to watch him. She had meant to do precisely what she had promised—to walk the festival ground at his side and be seen and be gracious and let both clans grow used to the strange new sight of an Arran and a Crawford standing peaceably in the sun.
She had managed half of it.
She had admired the booths and praised the village women’s baking, allowing a shy Cairn child to press a fistful of wilting heather into her hand. Then the men shed their shirts for the caber toss, and Ragnall stepped up to the large peeled trunk with his sleeves rolled back and his forearms corded, and she completely forgot what gracious was.
Stop it. Stop watchin’ him like a starvin’ woman at a baker’s window. Every soul here can see ye doin’ it, and half of them already think ye bewitched the man. Look at the river. Look at the bannocks. Look at anythin’ on God’s green earth that isnae the way his back moves when he… Oh, daenae.
He hefted the caber upright, all sixteen feet of it balanced against his shoulder, took three running strides, and threw. The great trunk turned end over end and landed dead center, and a roar erupted from both banks, Cairn and Blythe together, because a caber thrown that well was a feat no matter whose blood threw it.
“He’s showin’ off,” Anne observed, materializing at Olivia’s elbow with a Scotch pie in each hand. “For you. It’s quite shameless. I find I rather like him.”
“He isnae showin’ off. He’s the Laird. He has to compete; it’s expected of him.”
“Mm. And the bit just now where he looked straight at ye before he threw?” Anne handed her a pie. “Expected of him as well, was it nae?”
Olivia ate the pie rather than answering, which was a tactical error, because it was a very good pie, and it left her nothing to do with her treacherous eyes but watch her husband win the hammer throw, too.
The afternoon unspooled gold, loud, and astonishing. Tug o’ war, with a Cairn team and a Blythe team hauling each otherthrough a muddy patch by the water until both sides collapsed laughing into the muck, the old hatred drowned for an hour in shared ridiculousness. A foot race won by a Blythe shepherd so fleet that even the Cairn folk cheered him on.
Maisie held court on a cushioned chair beneath an awning, pretending to doze and waking sharply to fleece passing clansmen of their coin at a game of chance she very plainly understood far better than they did. And everywhere, underfoot and overjoyed, was Tattie, who had decided the festival had been built for his benefit alone, and went from trestle to trestle, accepting tribute with the dignity of a visiting king.
Then they brought out the archery targets, and something in Olivia woke up.
She had been skilled with a bow once. Before her mother gently took her by the wrist and led her away from the training yard toward the embroidery and gardens, and all the soft, small cages a girl was meant to be grateful for. Her hands remembered, even if the rest of her had been taught to forget, and she stood watching the men loose their arrows with an ache in her fingers she had not felt in years.
“Ye want to try,” said a low voice at her shoulder. Ragnall. He was close, and warm, and smelled of clean sweat and river water and the unique scent of him she had spent a month failing to forget. “I can see it on yer face, lassie. Ye’re a poor liar; I’ve told ye so.”
“Women daenae shoot at the games.”
“Cairn women do as they please. It’s a great failin’ in our breedin’.” The scar tugged at his scarred lip. “Go on. Put one in the gold and watch yer braither’s councilmen swallow their tongues. I daenae think there’s a pleasure on this earth ye’d enjoy more.”
She should not have. It was unladylike and improper and exactly the wrong way for a peace-weaving lady to behave, and the festival ground had gone watchful, and her brother’s solemn councilmen were watching, and somewhere among them, though she did not yet know it, a patient hand was watching too.
She took the bow.
A hush fell over the festival ground as she stepped up to the line, an enemy bride in a borrowed plaid lifting a Cairn bow with the easy familiarity her hands had never truly forgotten. She felt Ragnall go still behind her. She felt the glen hold its breath.
She nocked the arrow and drew, and the old strength came back into her shoulder like a friend long missed. She looked down the shaft at the distant gold and let herself, for one bright reckless moment, be exactly who she was.
She loosed the arrow.
