AllFreeNovel
Share Us
She stood before him, her breath coming in little gasps. Now that her face was cleaner, he could see the blazing anger reddening her cheeks.
‘Don’t take out your temper on me, woman. I come from a parley to find you brawling like a cat in an alley, so I think you owe me an explanation. Tell me what started this fight?’
‘Nothing.’
Will folded his arms. ‘I can stand here all day, and this wind is cold, and you are wet.’
‘I just don’t care for that bitch.’
‘Nor do I, but that is no reason to end up brawling in the muck.’
‘But she said things, Will.’
‘Oh, she pricked your pride, did she? Don’t tell me, she insulted the grand Buchanan name.’
Morna opened her mouth to spit back a retort but paused and then would not meet his eye. ‘Something like that,’ she said, looking away out to sea.
Perhaps he was imagining it, but Morna’s voice seemed ripe with unshed tears. ‘Morna whatever was said is not worth fighting over, is it? You must never show an enemy that they have wounded you.’
‘Is that what she is, Will, an enemy? She said that you wanted her beyond reason once and that you want her still, and it is obvious I don’t please you. Not that I care either way.’
Will smiled and shook his head. ‘How could you let Edana goad you like that? I thought you were cleverer than that, Morna. She wanted a fight, and you gave her one when you should have ignored her, for she hates that more than anything.’
‘You would know, I suppose,’ she replied bitterly. ‘And as you are not best pleased with me, why wouldn’t you go in search of consolation elsewhere?’
‘If I did go in search of it, then it wouldn’t be from that she-wolf,’ he said firmly, wanting to end the conversation before it strayed into dangerous territory. ‘And what makes you think I am not pleased with you.’
‘Everything you say and everything you do.’
‘I could say the same to you,’ he replied. Still, she would not look him in the eye. What was she hiding? Will scuffed the ground at his feet and smiled. ‘I never had two women fight over me before. I think I like it.’
Wiping water out of her eyes, Morna sighed. ‘Well enjoy it, you fool, for it will never happen again.’ She stalked away from him, but he ran in front of her.
‘Morna, the fight, did you win?’ he asked.
‘I would have thought that was obvious.’
Will’s face broke into a beaming smile as he took her face in his hands and kissed her on the forehead. ‘I have never been prouder. Now let us see if the monks have a barrel to clean you up in and then I will find Waldrick, and he will be getting a hard clip around the ear for neglecting his duty.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
The tent was small and billowed in and out noisily in the sea breeze. Waldrick’s too hasty erection of it, in order to service his own, had left them with a noisy, and not altogether secure, shelter for the night.
Dusk was coming on, and the gathering darkness was lit by the glow of campfires all around the kirk. A woman was singing in the shadows, others joining in. It was a cheerful sound, but Morna was beset by loneliness.
She had endured a long bath in a cramped barrel full of tepid water and having her skin and hair scrubbed clean by a woman with dirty hands and sharp fingernails. She now had several scratches to add to those given her by Edana. Later, she had found a quiet spot and spent hours looking out at the flocks of sea birds circling on the headland and the waves kissing the shoreline, lost in thought as her hair dried in the wind.
Will had taken himself off somewhere, so she had sought solitude in the tent. She did not know these people from other clans, be they friend or foe, and Waldrick was keeping his distance, still in a fearful sulk at her for getting him a scolding. The other Bain men she knew only barely, and they had kept their distance. Morna suspected they knew about the fight and that she was the victor, for they had been giving her nods and winks all day. Clan pride was satisfied then, but what about her own?
The tent flap swept open, and Will strode in with a grim look on his face. He had better not be spoiling for a fight, for she was in no mood.
‘Have you got over your temper?’ he said bluntly.
Morna said nothing, so he turned and secured the tent flap.
‘You look clean at least, very bonnie in fact. Your cheeks are pink from the sun,’ he said, softening his face into a smile. How she wished he would not, as it made his face boyish and good-humoured, and when he looked like that it was hard to hate him and impossible not to want him.
‘I sat on the cliffs all afternoon, Will, alone. You were nowhere to be found, of course.’
