It was not MacNabh come calling, but Roisin.
The woman wore a sour look on her face and had a bundle of garments in her arms. Their bright colors seemed to make her look older by contrast, her complexion turned sallow.
Her dark eyes snapped at Darlei as she pushed her way in.
“MacNabh has sent me. I would no’ be here otherwise, so ye may be certain.” She paused, the clothing clutched to her chest, and drew a breath. “We ha’ had a message. Fro’ the king’s herald.”
“Oh?” Darlei exchanged a swift look with Orle.
“We are on his planned route, though the messenger was no’ able to tell us when His Majesty will arrive. No matter. We maun be ready when he does. Ye”—Roisin raked Darlei with a glance of pure hatred—“maun be presented to him then, and ye canna be wearing any savage Caledonian clothing. Ye being a proper MacNabh woman and all, now.”
Darlei was nothing of the sort, but surprise kept her from saying so.
“I will fit ye for proper dress. These garments are mine that no longer fit me. We shall see wha’ may be done.”
“You?” Darlei managed.
“I was a seamstress once before I caught MacNabh’s eye, and am still a good hand wi’ a needle.”
Incredulity nearly kept Darlei silent. She gazed at Roisin and said, “I do not want you touching me.”
“List to me, mistress. I would as like see ye dead and cold as look at ye, but I am doin’ this for Dunstoch’s sake, none other. Now, strip down.”
Darlei did, down to her chemise and not without embarrassment.
Roisin eyed her disparagingly. “No’ much to ye under that garb, is there? No doubt ye are no’ increasing—yet. I doubt ye’ll be able to gi’ him the son he craves, scrawny as ye be.”
Darlei said nothing.
“Here, come to the window that I may see about this color for ye. Face the light.”
Darlei did so, gazing past the woman in an effort to combat her humiliation, reaching for what little freedom she could see. The afternoon sunlight slanted from the west. She had but a glimpse of green lawn, here at the side of the house away from the yard. And there…
Nay, it could not be.
A man pushed a barrow, one heavily loaded with manure, on an angle that just caught her line of sight. The afternoon sun shone down on him, pricking out copper lights in a mane of dark-blond hair.
She knew him. Knew the way he moved. The bunch of muscles in his arms and back. Her heart knew and her soul did and—
Nay, she must be mad. She must indeed have lost the last of her senses. He could not be here. She had told him she did not want him.
But she had lied, and he knew it. If he knew anything, it was that.
She threw herself at the window, brushing Roisin aside from where she stood trying to use the light. The woman swore and stared in affront.
“Wha’ are ye doing? Ye be a madwoman.”
The man was gone, moved out of the narrow view on offer. Darlei’s heart pounded so hard that she thought for an instant she would pass out.
“Are ye ill?” It was Orle moving forward to Darlei’s side, speaking in their own tongue.
“Yes,” Darlei said. “I do not feel well.”
Orle turned on Roisin, speaking now in her heavily accented Gaelic. “She is ill. You will leave her alone.”
Roisin’s features drooped with offended dislike. “Do no’ speak to me so. Ye upstart! I will no’ be ordered about in my own home.”
“It is her home, is it not? Darlei is the chief’s wife.”
