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Katarina would have gone as well, but the baby had been ill, and Katarina had not wanted to leave her.
Her heart stirred as it always did when she saw her husband, even, apparently, from a distance of a mile. Cries went up all along the walls, “The Lord of Rardove is returned!”
Katarina shifted the baby in her arms—little Lizzie made a tiny sound of irritation, then curled back to sleep. Katarina swung her arm back and forth, waving.
From across the valley, Aodh’s arm lifted in reply.
“He is home, Lizzie,” she whispered to the baby, tucking the blanket around the tiny chin.
Lizzie opened her eyes at the sound of her mother’s voice. Piercing blue, they stared up at her. Whether they would remain blue, no one yet knew—Lizzie was barely half a year old—but her brother’s had. Five years old and wrestling with the older boys in the training yards, while the men took their afternoon break, Finn’s eyes seemed determined to remain as blue as his father’s. Finn also had Aodh’s temperament: easygoing with everyone but his sister, self-assured, intent on getting his way. In everything.
Their middle child, Aine, had Katarina’s eyes. Dark brown, they would peer up at you with great, soulful depths, as the four year old explained the motivations for her most recent exploits, such as why she’d had to punch her older brother in the face after he’d stolen her princess doll.
Princesses, she informed them earnestly, could not be stolen. They must be wooed.
Katarina and Aodh exchanged a silent glance over the tops of the children’s heads. Then he’d grinned.
Young Finn had rushed at his sister then, and a brief but energetic tussle had ensued, until Aodh had dragged them apart, dangling them from his powerful hands like kittens.
Yes, indeed, these were the children of Rardove.
Katarina was so abidingly happy, some days it almost took her breath away.
Not that every moment was blissful; far from it. Crops sometimes failed, the sheep sometimes took ill, and cattle raids still occurred. She and Aodh still stood toe to toe at times, opposed on matters of rule or home. Sometimes she backed down, occasionally he did, but they always settled their differences in bed afterward. Or against a wall. Once, on a table in the hall when everyone was at a picnic, and more than a few times, up against the battlement walls on the western side of the castle as the sun was going down, all the guardsmen ordered away, for few military dangers pressed upon Rardove anymore, not since Aodh had come home.
Lizzie began kicking her legs irritably. Cormac showed up on the wall beside her and looked down at the fretful bundle swaddled in soft wool in Katarina’s arms.
“I could take her for you, my lady,” he offered, longing in his voice.
“Oh, I…” She glanced over the wall at the men riding across the valley. “Aodh will want to see her. It has been a month.”
“Susanna would dearly love to have her awhile.” Cormac and she had yet to bear a child.
Katarina promptly handed Lizzie over. The baby was a charmer—another of Aodh’s gifts—for her face expanded into a smile when she saw Cormac’s red-bearded face. She gurgled happily at him.
He was already speaking in low, nonsense words as he took her in his burly arms. He seemed to forget about Katarina entirely as he strode off, head bent, cooing to the clearly delighted Lizzie.
Her charge so well tended, Katarina went to meet Aodh.
He rode in as he had done all those years ago, on his grey horse, at the head of a small army, and she felt precisely as she had then, too. As if he was the only man present.
The troop entered the inner bailey to warm cries of welcome. Aodh swung off his horse and tossed his reins to Dickon, now sixteen years old and still utterly devoted to his master. Aodh clapped him on the back with a brief word, then strode to Katarina.
Just as he had done, all those years ago.
She felt as if she were floating, just as she had then. Surely the feeling would pass soon.
She’d been telling herself that for six years.
He stripped off his gloves as he drew up in front of her and, without a pause, bent his head to drop a swift kiss on her lips.
It was a properly decorous kiss, no tongue or teeth or all the other things Aodh so liked to put into a kiss, which was as it should be, considering they were in a crowded bailey filled with dismounting men and women and servants hurrying to greet them.
No one could see his hands under the cloak, sliding boldly up her ribs, his thumbs skimming over her breasts.
“I missed you,” she said, returning his decorous kiss, while her body arched to his touch.
“I can see.” He brushed his thumbs over her hardened nipples.
