“And ye have been up all night, too, I’d wager.”
He conceded the point. “I have.”
She put her shoe onto the ground by the bed and went to remove the other one. “Was the battle at Coldstream terrible?”
He shrugged, leaning against the door jamb and crossing his big arms. “Any battle is terrible,” he said. “You would know that.”
He was referring back to the first time they’d met. “It is never a pleasant thing,” she said. “Tell me something. Did ye ever tell anyone that I tended ye back at Etal?”
He shook his head. “Nay,” he said. “I simply told my men that it was an angel of mercy. I’m not sure how they would have taken it knowing a Scots, the very people we were fighting, had tended me.”
“And I never told anyone for the same reason,” she said. “It was bad enough that my kin believed I caused the battle. Had they known I’d tended an English knight, they would have run me through.”
He couldn’t tell if she was jesting or not. “That seems a little extreme,” he said. “They wouldn’t have really done that, would they?”
Her warm expression faded. “I would never have believed it before,” she said. “But since the battle at Etal, things have… changed.”
“How?”
She shrugged, setting her other shoe on the ground. “I told ye that they blamed me for everything,” she said quietly. “People who I thought were my friends began shunning me. Men who had been loyal tae my father for years began tae speak of him as if he were no longer the chieftain they trusted. And my father’s younger brother’s sons began tae speak ill of him, trying tae turn men against him.”
War was looking at her seriously. “Did those men try to usurp him?”
“Nay,” she said. “Just talk. But bad talk.”
“And he sent you here because of it?”
“Aye.”
“Does de Wolfe know this?”
She nodded. “Aye,” she said. “I told him. He told my father that he would support him in the case of an uprising, but it has been quiet since I left. My father is a good man– I am sure he has been able to overcome those who have mistrusted him.”
War wasn’t so sure, but he didn’t say so. Rebellious factions within clans weren’t usually easily pacified because it had more to do with simply one factor, in this case, a clan chief’s daughter starting a war. More than likely, whatever movement against her father probably had to do with power or greed or envy.
It could be anything.
All War knew was that she was never going back.
“Let us hope wisdom and reason prevail,” he said after a moment. “But you’ve been happy at Castle Questing?”
“Very happy.”
His gaze lingered on her, clearly with something on his mind. “You’ll be happier at Bamburgh,” he said. “Your time at CastleQuesting is only temporary, my lady. When I go on this tour with de Wolfe, I will ask him if I may court you.”
“Are ye going tae wait that long?”
He could hear the hope in her voice and it gave him joy because it reflected the hope in his heart, too.
“Mayhap not,” he said. “Mayhap I’ll ask him tonight, before we depart on our tour. I suppose I do not want to wait that long, either.”
Her cheeks flushed a sweet shade of red and that lightened his heart all the more. He still could hardly believe this glorious creature was interested in him. More than interested–accepting. Warm, open, and curious. Everything about her connected with him on so many levels. He was coming to think that meeting in the thicket near the river hadn’t been coincidence– it had been fate. He was meant to be with her and she with him.
He couldn’t wait to start the rest of their lives, together.
“But after ye ask him and after yer tour with the allies, ye must return?” she asked, interrupting his reflections. “For how long?”
“Not long, I hope,” he said. “It is true that I must return to Bamburgh for a time once we are finished, but I swear that I will return as soon as I can to Castle Questing. And you.”
