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Caelan came close and wrapped his large hands around the bars. Her hand reached through the bars and rested right over his pounding heart. The hard thuds under her hand made her throat tight. With her eyes on his, she slid her hand down, her fingertips lightly tracing over his rise and fall of his stomach. His eyes were darkening and the air was so tight she struggled to breathe.
He took her hand, placed it on his stubbled cheek and kissed her inner wrist. “I wish I was strong enough to break these bars.”
She pulled away and handed him the cider. Resting her forehead on the cold bars she said, “I am looking for the tunnel but I have not found anything yet.”
Caelan paused in drinking, “That’s fine, lass, I am sure ye’ll find somethin’ soon.”
His eyes were still dark and burning and she had to shift her gaze from him. “Could you tell me about your home?”
He cocked his head to the side and the corner of his eyes crinkled, “Are ye kenning to come with me, then?”
Folding her coat under her, Adelaine sat and twisted her body to rest on her side near the bars. Caelan did the same, only on the opposite side of the bars. As he sat, he looked toward the tiny window and she followed his gaze. The snow was falling again, straight and steady with the consistency of heavy sheets. “Yer going to be here a while, lass. If ye go out in this snowfall, ye’ll likely freeze to death.”
“I must be somewhere so why not here?” she said as the corners of her mouth turned up. “I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be than here.”
“Not even in a warm room with a fire and blankets?” he teased with a lopsided smile. “I ken I’d trade me left arm for that now.”
“I’m offended,” she mocked glared. “Is my presence worth so little to you?”
His expression softened and his eyes were heavy-lidded. “Adelaine, yer presence is worth more than gold to me, ne’er doubt that.”
Soft desire rested between them and though she wanted to feel his touch, she had come with another goal in mind. “I’ve never been out of England. What is your home like this time of year?”
“It should be under snow by now, aye,” Caelan replied, his tone deeply wistful. “The loch would be iced over and fires would be roaring in every room in me castle.”
She listened to him speaking with tender emotion about his home. He told her about the castle, made of rock from the nearby mountains, and perched on the hill over a large loch. His words helped her clearly picture how green and lush the woods were, filled with deer and boars in the spring.
He told her about the summertime rains filling the loch where the children would play and the fruit-laden trees they would climb. He described how the reds and oranges of the autumn sun would linger in the sky, changing the waters below from blue into a mix of bright colors. His words about the thick white blankets of snow that winter had her picturing a white wonderland that she wanted to see.
“I wish I was back there now,” he said, eyes stuck on the little window. “Me mother, she has a sickness in her knees and I would always make her a salve to ease the pain. I daenae ken how she’s faring now.”
Sadness for him made her insides feel hollow. “I’m so sorry.”
When he did look back at her, she could see his pain and grief deep in his expressive green eyes. They were dark and troubled, and again, she wished these bars would disappear so s
he could comfort him.
“Is there anything I can do?”
His jaw firmed and his eyes glimmered with determination. “Aye, find me a way out of this prison.”
Nodding, she stood and so did he. Reaching again to touch his face. She knew if she gave him the way out, she would be cast as a traitor but he did not deserve death for something he had not done.
Over time, I might get my father’s approval back but you can’t be resurrected.
She smiled at the touch of the soft down of his growing beard. “I will.”
Walking away pained her. She could imagine an older woman, bedridden with pain in her body and worry in her heart for her missing son and felt guilty. She needed to get Caelan out of his prison, away from all this and back home where he belonged.
Stepping out unto the front she looked to the guard with her face schooled into a look of distress and pain. “Still nothing from him.”
The guard’s face was mostly inscrutable, but his eyes were slightly narrowed. “That is disappointing.”
Nodding, she walked off in the light fall of flakes, she felt the man’s eyes on her. The hairs on the back of her neck rose in anxiety. Something was not right, but she did not know what it was yet. She entered the manor and stopped to brush the flakes off her shoulders and stomped the melting ice off her shoes. Feeling a sudden craving for warm soup, she stopped a nearby maid and asked her to request soup from Mrs. Hertha.
The maid curtsied, “Yes, My Lady.”
She thanked her and went off to her rooms, tugging the mantle off and removing her hooded cloak. Martha was absent from her room but that was all right, the maid did have more duties to tend to. She spotted a sealed scroll on her table and went to take it up. The seal was not one she was familiar with but she broke it anyway.
