Page 42 of Twelfth Knight’s Bride

Ye have to go see her, man. He had to make sure that after their kiss that had rattled her and flooded him with the type of lust that turned a stoic warrior into a beggar for a lass’s affection, that she was all right.

After pushing closed the shutter, he paused, then pulled it open again. A tiny woman upon the hill rising up from the loch moved among the headstones of the cemetery on her hands and knees, clearing each marker of snow and dormant weeds. Bright red-auburn hair hung loose, and a gentle breeze lifted the unruly tendrils. What was she doing?

“Sir Lewis!” James hailed a soldier below in the bailey, one of his skilled archers, who was striding to the well from the barrack, still disheveled from sleep.

“Good morn, my laird!” he called back up.

“Ask the sentry what the Lady Aileana is about so early this morning!”

Sir Lewis glanced to the open portcullis—though from his vantage, he likely couldn’t see her—and shrugged. “She left nay long ago, telling the guards she wished for some fresh air and solitude!”

A walk among the headstones of MacDonalds for solitude? Sakes, if he wanted to find her, he had to go there? He would wait for her to return. Although, by the look of it, she’d only cleared a few headstones and had a row and a half to go. He might be waiting a while, and his apology needed to be swift, not belated.

Nay be a coward, man. Marjorie has been laid to rest for years.

He freshened his teeth with a pinch of mint, chewing on the leaves while he stripped and changed into a fresh tunic that didn’t smell like yesterday’s celebration. After strapping his calves and feet into sturdy boots for hiking, he fastened his leather doublet and drew his mantle down over his shoulder.

The morning meal was still being prepared—the fresh, savory smells permeating the hall from the kitchens—and though his stomach growled to ease the headache he’d brought on himself, he resigned himself to stop at the well on his way out of doors to drink from the bucket and ladle.

His thirst quenched, he strode through the bailey, beneath the portcullis, and across the promontory toward the mainland, rising the path to where he saw Aileana’s tracks diverge into the snow. Sunlight broke in the east and cast shards of bright light through the crystalline trees above them. His heart pounded as the first headstone came into view, but he climbed onward until the stone cross protruding from the roof of the kirk rose above the horizon, too. He glimpsed Aileana’s hair again—a beacon so bright and fiery, it gave her away—and noted her old gown, once more donned.

Slowing, he took in the sight of her working, as if the manual labor eased pain she might be feeling. Pain he’d caused by kissing her and daring to put into words his desire for more? He stopped in his tracks. Aileana faced Marjorie’s headstone, and she’d brushed the snow away from it to read the carved inscription. After a moment, he resumed his climb again, and the crunching of snow beneath his boots caught her attention.

She glanced over her shoulder, her face brightening when she realized it was him, though she didn’t smile; then she quickly turned away, shoving to her feet. But he’d spied the pink cresting her cheeks and nose, making it difficult to determine if she had blushed or if it was simply from the cold.

“Remembering our kiss, lass?” he jested as he came to stand beside her.

A mittened hand came up to cup her cheek. Aye. Blush.

“I’m sorry if I was untoward last night,” he added, crunching up beside her.

She glanced at him at his apology, her face softening and a hint of a conciliatory smile lifting the corner of her mouth. “I’m sorry if I was skittish. I was just overwrought. I worry every day for my folk and felt selfish, indulging as I was.”

“Ye needna’ apologize. I asked ye for a kiss in front of my people to placate them. I didna’ expect ye to want it.”

“Was that all it was, though?” she breathed. “A kiss for their benefit?”

He shook his head and drew a deep breath, running his glove through his hair tied back in an uncombed knot. “’Twas for my benefit, too. I wish it was also for yers, but ye’ve been clear from the beginning ye intend to return home.”

“It was for mine, too,” she whispered, like she were admitting something to herself instead of speaking for him to hear, her hand migrating to palm her belly as if butterflies fluttered within her.

It was what? It was to her benefit? She had enjoyed it? He’d felt that she had, up to the moment she’d stung him with her shame.

His pulse ticked up. He’d felt something in that kiss, and he’d worried all damned night that she’d not felt what he’d thought had passed between them like a river current.

“What are ye doing here?”

She shrugged. “In sooth, as strange as it may sound, I was homesick. Being close to my parents in our cemetery often makes me feel better. I have no family here, but the dead are always welcome listeners.” She held out her skirts and knelt back down to push more pillows away from the remainder of the headstone so that the dormant grass beneath poked through. “I hope ye do nay mind. At Urquhart, I often tend my parents’ graves, and felt compelled to do the same here. Yer cemetery is neglected, James.”

He looked among the rows, from the oldest MacDonalds of Clanranald to the empty space beside Marjorie at the end of the second row meant for him someday. His legacy, denied him by a thread due to his bastardy. All that money would be gone in a matter of days, and it would never be bequeathed to a MacDonald again.

“I havenae come here in years,” he admitted. “’Tis my fault it’s neglected.”

“Why have ye left it so?”

He shook his head and shrugged, squinting into the morning light. “Memories I wish nay to dwell on, I suppose.”

Still kneeling, Aileana brushed a fingertip over Marjorie’s name, tracing the script. “I can tell how much ye looked up to her. Was she like a mither to ye, being so much older?”