She set herself to care for that shell and prayed Mam would come back to herself. She worked hard to do all she could around the hut and out in the settlement, volunteering to do laundry for others or help drag away the ruined rubble from the huts. She waited, like everyone else, for attack. At night she longed to sit once more holding Ardahl’s hand.
She never did, and kept well clear of him.
Ardahl healed. Since she’d watched Conall recover from similar injuries more than once, she knew what to look for. She treated Ardahl’s wounds when they looked dirty and he did not wish to trouble the healers.
It frightened her how much she enjoyed touching him during those moments, smoothing her fingers over freckled skin. Sitting near enough to catch his scent. To glance up and encounter the expression in his eyes.
What did that expression mean? So guarded was it, she never could quite tell.
He could not possibly desire her. He had given no real sign, and anyway, he was as good as her brother, and that made it forbidden. Did it not?
When he returned to training, she made excuses to pass by the field just so she could stand and watch him at work. Shameful, aye, but she owned it. She was never the only young woman who so indulged herself for a glimpse of some particular man. She encountered friends there.
She encountered Brasha.
A tall and very beautiful lass, Brasha was. When they encountered each other there beside the wall, Liadan expected Brasha to say something about Conall. She had been seeing him for the last half year of his life—on and off at first, and then so frequently that Liadan had begun to wonder if they wouldmarry. She remembered being a little uneasy about it, for though Brasha was popular, Liadan had never taken to her. The lass had an edge. She talked about people, even her friends, behind their backs and sometimes had a sly look in her eyes. She had never once come by the hut to commiserate with them after Conall’s death. She’d shown little enough grief, apart from that terrible scene when she’d thrown herself on Conall’s body at his graveside, despite how long the two had been seeing each other.
And she said nothing of it now. Instead, with her two particular friends, she hung about the training field, gossiping and giggling. As if naught was wrong in her world.
It was not difficult to determine whom she watched, either. That was why Liadan had to be so careful with her own interest—people saw and talked of where a woman’s eyes turned. What a piece of crack it would be to report that Liadan MacAert lusted after her brother’s killer.
Even if she did.
She could see that Brasha watched one especially tall, fair-haired figure move about the field. Cathair. And although the warrior in question rarely spared any attention for the women at the wall of the field, acting as if they were beneath him, he did flick a glance once or twice toward Brasha.
It made Liadan uneasy enough that she brought it up with Ardahl the next time she had an opportunity.
She had given Flanna permission to go and visit with Lasair, and Mam sat quiet on Conall’s bed when Ardahl arrived home, which as good as left the two of them alone.
When Ardahl ducked into the hut and laid his weapons beside the door, Liadan said, “Come sit wi’ me. I have the supper ready.”
He shot her a look and as quickly glanced away. “Aye, mistress. I am filthy. Let me go wash first.”
She didn’t mind him filthy, she decided, with his hair half come loose from the plait he wore for practice and a gleam on his skin. She liked him clean also, when he came back in with his hair wet and smelling of the soap she made. When he sat down by the fire, she experienced a flash of rare satisfaction. She liked him here with her, whatever his condition.
“How goes the practice?” she began.
“Better. I am nearly recovered, so I believe.”
She’d been able to see that when she watched him, though she did not say so. Had he noticed her there by the wall? Had he thought her there only to speak with her friends?
He shook his head. “I cannot manage to convince Master Dornach. He refuses to let me expend myself. ’Tis almost as if he is saving me.”
For the next battle, no doubt. The next raid. “D’ye believe Dacha will strike again?”
“Unless Fearghal decides to strike first, it seems inevitable.”
“Waiting is an agony.”
“’Tis hard, indeed.”
He ate in silence a few moments while she marshaled her thoughts.
“Tell me, Master Ardahl, what d’ye think o’ Brasha MacGowd?”
Surprised, he lifted his gaze back to her. He took his time answering. “She and Conall were seeing each other, there before the end.”
“Aye, so.”
