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They slowed their pace. “Maisie,” he said, needing to be sure she understood. “I would very much like to kiss you again. Right this moment, in fact. But . . .” He paused.

“But you will be gone from the Red Stag soon enough,” she finished.

“Aye.”

“And have much else to consider besides an entanglement with an innkeeper.”

Even though her words were true, hearing her say so did not please him. He was about to tell her so when she finished.

“And I have a vow to keep.”

Her vow.

“Our kiss dinnae dissuade you from it?”

Her bitter laugh, so at odds with the woman he had begun to know, unsettled him.

“I will never take another husband,” she said emphatically. “Never.”

Kieran would point out marriage vows were not needed to share a kiss, but he chose to remain silent. He’d been with widows before, but Kieran had never bedded a virgin nor ever intended to, besides his future wife. But Maisie was different.

Very different.

She was not the sort of woman to bed and leave.

“No more kisses,” he said, knowing It was a good plan.

“No more kisses,” she agreed as the inn came into view. With a final glance up at him through her thick lashes, Maisie smiled one final time. But this was a different sort of smile. A sad one, as if knowing was almost worse than not knowing.

It mattered little.

What was done, was done. And he’d not will it back even if he could. Even if knowing Maisie’s lips beneath his own were not going to make his stay at the Red Stag any easier.

In fact, quite the opposite.

9

Chapter

For three days, his routine was the same.

Up and out of the inn before dawn, returning at sundown and remaining in the hall until the last patron was gone. As promised, there were no more kisses. In fact, Maisie had not spoken to Kieran except for a “Good Morn” or “Good Den” and a few other words. She asked if he’d made any progress, and Kieran said he had not. Otherwise, she treated him as any other patron.

Except, he was not any other patron.

He watched her. Protected her. When one regular became unruly two nights before, it was Kieran who stepped in to calm the man. The girls began to notice his presence, calling him “scíath,” and each of them had, at one time or another, commented on his pleasing looks and protective ways.

Aye, he was handsome. Very much so. Their kiss had kept her awake each eve much past the time when she should have closed her eyes. Maisie knew well the consequences of lack of sleep. Those evenings when circumstances prevented it, she had difficulty the next day. And yet, when she tried to close her eyes, to let sleep find her, it was his face she could see. His lips she could almost feel.

Being in his arms had felt good.

Safe.

Tonight, something was different. He came into the hall, and instead of immediately taking the same seat in the corner of the room, he spoke with one of her girls and disappeared. Curious, she approached Margaret, the miller’s daughter who had come to them just before Baldwin took ill. A meek girl of ten and five, she was one of the best workers at the inn. When Maisie had told her parents so, they’d been so pleased that the compliment had nearly gone awry. Perhaps, her father had said, she should return to the village to work for him.

Maisie had been forced to increase the amount of coin she paid the girl, though she did not mind as Margaret worked harder than most.

“The Scíath,” she asked. “You spoke to him.”