Coll, the harper, told a lengthy and winding tale about one of their long-ago ancestors, Adair MacMurtray, it was, who had come out of Ireland and stayed to help grow this settlement. Thebard’s music skipped and danced, emphasizing the words, and the chorus went, “A warrior he was who fought for love. I will find ye always, so he vowed, below or above.”
A life lived for the sake of love, Deathan thought. Could aught be finer? But what sort of man might deserve a love so strong? Surely not an overlooked second son.
Surely not him.
Darlei raised her silvery eyes again and found him, fastened upon him. Connected with him in a way that founded fire deep within, stoked it in his belly and sent it through him in a flood.
He wanted her.
Not so strange. Whatever Rohr seemed to think, she was beautiful, with her strong, graceful body and those proud, somehow canny features. He was not in the habit of desiring women—he had no time for it. In this instance, he had no choice. The desire just came.
She was to be his brother’s wife. His sister, as good as. If ever anything in life could be wrong, it was that.
Frustration crawled up his throat and near choked him. It seemed an old, familiar sensation.
He needed to get away out of this, escape the spell of the music. Despite the rain and despite the way he felt when Princess Darlei looked at him.
He should step outside, let the cold rain wash him down. Perhaps quench this fire.
Yet he stood where he was until Coll’s tale ended, the sweetness of the final notes fair piercing his heart. Not until then did he drag his gaze away from the young woman at the high table and watch the servants begin to circle the hall again, refilling cups one last time.
With the entertainment done, the evening would soon end. Princess Darlei would withdraw to her room.
To her bed.
By all that was holy in the heavens, what was he to do with this desire?
Sure enough, Da was rising at his place, making a speech about what an honor it had been having their Caledonian neighbors share this day in friendship.
King Caerdoc looked gratified. Rohr looked pained. Darlei looked carefully blank.
“In three days,” Da concluded, “we shall hold a wedding that will heal old wounds and begin a new age in our land.”
Three days. Three days only did Deathan have to approach her, speak to her, get to know her.
Before she became his brother’s wife.
Chapter Fifteen
“Well, and daughter,have you resigned yourself to this marriage? Young Rohr—he has much to recommend him, does he not?” Father asked.
Darlei turned from her seat in front of the glass—a large, very grand glass placed in her chamber to no doubt impress her—and looked at him.
He’d come to her room early while Orle still helped her dress, and seemed most terribly uneasy. He could not keep still and kept stealing hard glances at her.
She had not slept well, troubled by odd dreams. Last night’s music had played through her mind, stirring up echoes of other songs. She’d almost felt as if her own fingers danced upon the harp strings.
Foolishness. She was a woman who rode ponies and shot arrows, not one who played delicate music.
She’d also dreamed of…a man. Nay, he was not Deathan MacMurtray—a bit surprising, since he had been so bright in her mind. Another man this had been, with a mane of long brown hair and green-specked gray eyes.
She wondered suddenly if Deathan’s eyes had specks of green in them, up close. Up very close.
“What do you think of the bridegroom?” she asked Father instead of answering his question.
Orle’s hands, busy upon her hair, froze.
Father stopped pacing around the room. “As I say, he is not so bad. Could be worse.”
