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“Out with it, mate,” Fin prompted. “What’s on that tiny pea-sized mind of yers?”
He drummed his fingers on the tabletop, seeming to be debating with himself whether or not he should say anything more. But then he gave himself a nod and looked Fin in the eye.
“She’s a noblewoman, Fin.”
“Aye. I ken that.”
Hollis looked at Fin as if his implication should be obvious to him. It wasn’t, and Fin just stared at him blankly. Hollis sighed.
“It means she cannae be yers,” he said bluntly. “Her bleedin’ brother’ll have promised her tae somebody else. Another Ainglish nobleman. That isnae ye.”
“Ye think I daenae ken that?”
Hollis leaned forward, pinning Fin to his seat with his gaze. “Dae ye? I mean, dae ye really ken that?”
Fin grumbled under his breath. He knew the way these things worked. He knew Ivy would be married away to some noble lord who bid the highest on her hand. Sold like a common cow or goat. In his mind, he knew that Ivy could never truly be his. Not unless they were able to do away with Castor.
But in his heart, he wanted more. So much more. He desired to make Ivy his and to have her by his side. He longed for her presence. Yearned to be with her. In his heart, she was his, and he was hers, and no rank or title of nobility was going to change that. Nor did he intend for it to keep him from her.
“Dae ye love her?” Hollis asked.
It was a question Fin had posed to himself many times over already. And he still didn’t have an answer to that question. He could not put how he felt about her into any sort of coherent sentence.
“I daenae ken if it’s love,” Fin admitted. “But me feelin’s are strong. Stronger than they’ve ever been for a lass before.”
“That right?”
Fin nodded. “Aye.”
A sharp rapping sounded at the office door, and a moment later, it swung inward. Henry, the Captain of the Duke’s Guard, strode in. He stopped before Fin’s desk, standing at attention, a stern look upon his face.
“What’s it, Cap’n Carson?”
“A woman has come to the gates, and she will only speak to you,” he replied, his voice tight. “She says she carries a message for you from the Lady Welton.”
His words sent an immediate jolt through Fin. He sat up straighter and pushed his goblet away. That Ivy did not come, herself, to deliver a message worried him. That she would send somebody in weather as foul as what lay beyond the keep’s windows worried him more.
“Send her in please, Cap’n.”
He nodded. “Right away, My Lord.”
“I’m nae a Lord,” Fin argued.
The Captain, though, had already turned and was striding to the office door. He gestured to somebody in the hall, and Fin got to his feet when a tall, thin figured shrouded beneath the hood of her cloak stepped into the room. Hollis followed suit, and Fin caught sight of the Captain ducking out of the room. Before he could invite the Englishman to stay, he closed the door behind him, leaving Fin and Hollis alone with their mysterious visitor.
She raised her hands and pushed the hood back, and Fin was surprised to find himself face to face with Ivy’s handmaiden, Mira. She looked at him with wide eyes in a pale face framed by dark, wet locks.
“Christ, Mira,” Fin said as he rushed around his desk. “Yer soaked through tae the bone. Ye’ll catch yer death like this.”
He quickly took her cloak from her and dropped it onto the stone floor with a wet, sloshing noise. The woman’s dress clung to her like a second skin, and water dripped from her hair, pooling around her feet. Hollis simply stared at her, a strange expression on her face.
“Hollis,” Fin called, snapping his friend out of his stupor.
“Aye,” Hollis replied.
“Go’n fetch Mira some dry clothes and a towel, eh? Bring a fur back with ye too.”
Hollis nodded. “Aye. On me way.”
