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The bare stone walls were being made into a pageantry of color, fluttering scenes of hunts and sea battles marching along all forty feet of the hall. Swords and armor were being hung, pennants and shields, testaments to the warrior prowess of the new, outlaw lord of Rardove.
He sat at the near end of the hall, at one of the common tables, a boot kicked out, an elbow bent on the table, regarding the two armed men who sat opposite him. Aodh sat with what seemed to be a mixture of patience and boredom.
The two men, his barrage of a captain and another, red-bearded one, appeared rather more interested. In fact, they looked earnest. Intent. Angry.
His captain, blond hair sweaty on his temples, leaned forward and said in an angry voice, “It serves naught.” His words carried like light; they went everywhere.
Behind her, she heard Walter stumbling down the stairs. “My lady, you cannot do this.”
But here she was, doing this.
Aodh moved his gaze away from his earnest, angry councilors and swung across the room, to her.
“It serves something,” he said lightly, looking at her.
Something opened inside her, a ray of brightness. Aodh got to his feet. Behind him, his companions scrambled to theirs as well.
“Aodh,” warned the tall one in a low voice. “Do not be rash.”
Why, the same accusations were being hurled at each of them. They were peas in a pod.
She took a step forward.
“My lady,” Walter all but hissed behind her.
She felt as if she were floating forward.
“Aodh, Christ’s mercy, listen—”
“Katarina, you cannot—”
Both their advisors frantically trying to stop a union neither of them could possibly want.
It made her smile. Aodh Mac Con smiled back in slow, wordless reply.
Everything faded to the buzzing of bees as the Irish rebel, with his calm, devastating confidence, smiled at her over all their heads.
I do not follow many rules.
“Yes,” she said, silencing them, the way a rock tied to a rope drags everything down into the river.
For a moment, no one spoke. Then, “Christ on the goddamned cross.” Walter’s vicious mutter broke the brittle, shocked silence.
The silence of their small enclave spread through the hall, rippling out as more and more people turned to look at the lady and the rebel, watching at each other across the room. Smiling.
“Leave us,” Aodh ordered, and held out his hand to her.
Everyone stared for one more long, horrified moment, then, in stunned waves, they turned and all but stumbled off. The entire hall emptied, an exodus of silent, gaping people.
Katarina had no idea how long it took, she knew only that Aodh kept his hand out to her the whole time.
And as if it were the simplest thing in the world, she reached out and laid her hand in his.
Chapter Thirteen
AODH TOOK her hand as if it were made of glass and led her to the dais, handed her down into the chair to the right of the lord’s seat, then dragged out the heavy lord’s chair and sat.
She’d repaired the damage that wind and coup had rent on her hair, even pinned a veil overtop, and was as graceful and composed as ever, except…her breath. Light as gossamer and broken like glass, it was her tell, her secret revealed.
