“There could be.”
“Five silver pieces to whoever lands first at Cill Cliethe,” Conan said, all too eager to join in the fun.
“You’ve got yourself a wager,” Sitric agreed, sitting back and taking a long drink of ale.
“You seem to be accumulating those, Diarmid,” Dallan chuckled.
He wasn’t wrong. “You’ve got to find the fun in life,” Diarmid responded.
“I couldn’t agree more.” Sitric raised his horn in approval. “What other wagers have you? I feel I’ve missed some of the fun.”
Diarmid stilled. He’d not considered his wager terribly important with regard to Cara, but he also hadn’t mentioned it to her. Not deliberately, of course. It simply hadn’t come up in the course of conversation. He had no idea what she’d think of it.
“On our way to Dyflin, Finn and I challenged Diarmid to go an entire fortnight without bedding a woman,” Dallan explained. “To my knowledge he’s managed to do so, somehow.”
Perhaps she’d not care at all. It wasn’t as though he’d done anything that affected her directly. Diarmid dared a glance her way.
She glared back at him. Diarmid could almost watch as she rebuilt those icy walls, block by frozen block.
Perhaps he’d not be smoothing things over with her after all.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Cara was self-awareenough to realize that the wager was not a gross indiscretion. She could, quite reasonably, see how it had never been mentioned before. Indeed, logically, it really had naught to do with her.
Cara knew all of these things.
But how she felt was another matter entirely.
Was that why he’d not bedded any women since he met her? Was that why he’d been so interested in her, because he was starved for attention? Was that why he’d then managed to reign in his pursuit of her, so that he wouldn’t lose this infantile wager?
Cara didn’t want to jump to conclusions. She wanted to speak with Diarmid, to hear the answers to her questions directly from him. When she looked back to the table, the knucklebones were already out, Conan grabbing them to play his trick.
And like that, her patience snapped. Cara couldn’t fathom sitting here, playing games, pretending nothing was wrong while she waited to find time alone with Diarmid.
“I’m feeling more tired than usual,” she proclaimed, rising from the bench and stepping away from the table. “I’m going to turn in for the night, so that I can rise in time to see you all off in the morn.”
Diarmid looked up at her, flashing her a soft smile. “Don’t let it bother you if you oversleep,” he teased. “I think at least one of us will.”
“Someonealwaysoversleeps,” Dallan agreed.
Conan and Diarmid both burst into laughter. “Says the fellow we had to drag out of his cot to the last battle,” Conan said.
“Sleep well,” Sitric told her, picking up the knucklebones when Conan set them back down.
Cara passed a good hour or more reading before she sneaked from her room to Diarmid’s. She had to wear her hooded cloak, as so many stood between Cara and her destination. Though it meant she needed to hide her appearance, it also meant she’d look more suspicious climbing in his window instead of walking through his door.
She entered the guest hall, her face as deep in her hood as she could manage, and wandered through the press of bodies to Diarmid’s door.
To find him waiting for her.
“What are you doing?” she cried, knowing not a soul would hear her over the bawdy songs being butchered outside the door. “Sitric is going to get suspicious if we leave at the same time!”
“Aye, he may,” Diarmid agreed, “at which point I’d tell him the truth, as we discussed. But,” he added when she opened her mouth to argue, “I’ve only just left, so it wasn’t even close to the same time.”
“Still,” she muttered, “you’re always the last to leave. He’ll think it odd.”
“I told him his longships were too great a challenge for me,” he said, laughing. “What nonsense.” Diarmid stood, reaching out to her. “I couldn’t wait all night to speak with you.”
