It was as much as the man had said to her since they had been introduced. She nodded. “It is a fine morning,” she said. “Do you know where Sir Tate is?”
Wallace raised an eyebrow. “Ah, he is more than a ‘sir’, my lady,” he corrected her. “He is an earl and addressed accordingly.”
She nodded quickly. “Of course, I’d forgotten,” she corrected herself. “Have you seen him this morning?”
“He is outside the walls, my lady. They are having trouble fitting the new gates and he is supervising the installation. I will take you to him if you wish.”
Toby looked to the gaping hole in the wall where the great wooden gates use to be. “I do not wish to distract him,” she said, although it wasn’t the truth. She wanted to see him very much. “It can wait.”
With her gaze lingering on the open gates and the activity surrounding it, she turned for the kitchens that were to the rear of the keep. It took her a moment to realize that Wallace was following her. She looked up at him, a mildly friendly-but-puzzled look on her face. He clasped his hands behind his back and pretended not to notice her curious stare.
“It is a fine day today,” he said, looking up to the billowing clouds above. “A good day for rebuilding.”
It was odd conversation from a man who had thus far gone out of his way to make her feel unwelcome. She was wary of his company.
“I am sure it is,” she didn’t know what else to say. In her arms, the kitten squirmed so she set him down and watched him hop away. “At least it is not raining.”
“Ah, but it will,” Wallace sniffled loudly and continued to look up at the sky. “Come the nooning hour, it will pour. It always does.”
Toby simply nodded, unsure what to say to that. She was increasingly wondering why the man was tailing her. When she went to collect the kitten so he would not get trampled by some nearby horses, she noticed that Wallace continued to follow.
She stopped beating around the bush and faced him. “Is there something you wished to say to me?”
“Say to you? What do you mean?”
“I mean that you have not said more than five words to me since my arrival. Now you are making conversation so I assumed there was something more that you wished to say to me.”
His bushy gray eyebrows lifted, as if surprised by the frankness of her statement. Then he shook his head. “I have nothing to say to you, lady,” he said, but just as swiftly corrected himself. “But I suppose if I was going to say something, it would be to thank you.”
“Thank me? For what?”
“For your help with the wounded during the siege the other day,” he shrugged his big shoulders. “With the recent loss of your sister… well, you surprised me with your courage. That is rare in a woman and I would congratulate you.”
Toby stared at him. He seemed quite gruff with the praise and she couldn’t decide if she was offended or flattered. So she nodded unsteadily and turned away, leaving Wallace standing there, watching her, with a puzzled expression on his face. After a moment, he shrugged again and walked back the way he had come. He still didn’t understand women, not after all these years. He probably never would. He’d given the woman a compliment and she had not seemed pleased with it.
Toby kept on walking, petting the kitten and realizing that Wallace’s statement, though he’d not meant to do so, had unearthed thoughts of Ailsa. As she gazed up into the blue sky and breathed the fresh air, she realized that she missed her sister very much. The loss was still shocking and painful. She was starting to feel some guilt that her growing relationship with Tate had given her momentary reprieve from her grief. She felt some remorse that she wasn’t completely miserable day and night from the loss of Ailsa. The more thoughts of her sister haunted her, the more she found herself hurting for the life cut short.
Toby wandered around the circular keep, realizing when she was very nearly at the doorstep that she had come upon the chapel. She paused a moment, gazing at the rough-hewn door to the tiny sanctuary and feeling tears sting her eyes. Ailsa was in there and so was deep pain. But she had to face it. With the cat in one hand, she pushed open the door and entered the cool, dark room. It was barely big enough to hold more than a dozen people at any given time. Very small lancet slits cut into the outer wall allowed some light to enter, but it was still dark and eerie and smelling of the fresh dirt from Ailsa’s burial. Setting the kitten down near the door, she made her way to the fresh grave near the altar.
As she stared down at the dirt, the tears came. They popped out of her eyes and onto the fresh earth. She knelt down, her hand on the grave, guts aching with grief.
“Oh, Ailsa,” she wept softly. “I wish I could tell you all that has happened since you went away. There is so much to tell. So much you were right about.”
The chapel remained still; no one answered her. Toby sat down next to Ailsa’s grave, now both hands in the soft, cold dirt.
“You asked me once if Dragonblade could marry me,” she whispered, tears coursing over her lips and falling to the floor. “Would you believe me if I told you that he could? I am to become Lady Dragonblade and I cannot even tell you that. I cannot even watch you rejoice about it and then scold you to keep quiet.”
She thought of her sister, skipping around, cheering at the prospect of her sister marrying Tate. Toby closed her eyes miserably, sobbing as visions of a jubilant Ailsa filled her thoughts. Her head was lowered and her eyes closed so that she did not see the chapel door open slightly; a faint stream of sunlight trickling in as Tate entered silently and closed the doorbehind him. Toby did not hear him; all she could hear at the moment was her sorrow.
She sat next to the grave for quite some time, her fingers in the dirt, thinking of her sister and wondering how she was going to get along without her. She was expecting her to burst through the door at any moment or perhaps demand to know, yet again, why she could not marry young Edward. The thought brought a weepy smile to Toby’s lips. She could only imagine her sister as a queen; what a young tyrant they would all have to deal with.
But she could not wallow in agony though she wanted to. She knew that she had to be strong and move forward. The tears were drying and she wiped at her face, removing the last remnants. The kitten meowed, reminding Toby that she had a very small charge that required her attention, and she brushed her hands off as she stood up. It was easier to forget her sorrow when she focused on something else; a little orange ball, at the moment, would have to suffice.
“Are you all right?”
Tate’s soft voice floated upon the cool air and she started, whirling around to face the man who was lingering in the shadows. Their eyes met and he smiled timidly, stepping out into the light. For a moment, they just stared at each other, the air between them filled with unspoken emotion. Then Tate broke the silence.
“Forgive me,” he said quietly. “I did not mean to startle you but I did not want to intrude until you were finished.”
