“Watching ye? Nay, of course not. I simply didn’t want to give ye a fright.” He paused, wincing. “Which I did anyway, I suppose.”
Senga pressed her lips together, glancing away. “Why are ye here, Noah?”
A very good question,he thought bleakly.
Aloud, he said, “I wanted to make sure ye were alright. After that business with the horse.”
She cleared her throat, still not meeting his eye. That bothered him, somehow. Why wouldn’t she look at him? Was she ashamed? Guilty? Angry? It was impossible to tell.
At one time I knew exactly what she was thinking and feeling from simply one glance.That memory was not a pleasant one, and Noah did his best to put it aside.
“Why are ye so afraid of the stables, Senga?” Noah blurted out at last.
She looked up at him properly like that, eyes wide. He almostfeltit when her gaze locked with his. What a strange sensation! Ripples went through his whole body, his chest tightening.
After all these years of telling myself that she means nothing to me anymore,Noah thought in resignation,and here I am, undone by a look.
“How can ye ask me that?” she managed at last.
He shrugged. “I thought ye had good memories of the stables. Ye and me… But then again, it’s nae place for a lady. I was wrong, I suppose. And I was wrong to come here, too. This place…” He gestured vaguely at the infirmary. “This is yer place, just as the battlefield is mine. I just wanted to be sure that ye were safe, and ye are. That’s all I needed to know.”
It was time to get out. Time to put some distance between them, at long last. Noah turned to go, heart thudding. There was a shuffle behind him, and he felt Senga’s work-roughened fingers close around his wrist. The touch shot through his arm as though flames were licking along it.
He glanced over his shoulder, heart pounding so hard he could almost taste it.
“Wait,” Senga said, a moment too late. “Noah…”
“The past is in the past,” he interrupted. “Where it should be. I believe that the past ought to stay where it is, and digging it up does no good.”
She clenched her jaw. “A lot has changed between us, eh?”
He looked away. “Let’s not do this, lass.”
“Nay, wait. Ye believe I hesitated to go into the stables because I looked down on ye. Ye must have thought that I believed I was too good for ye. Ye should know that it’s not true.”
He gently pulled his arm out of her grip.
“What do ye want, Senga?” he managed, an edge coming out in his voice. “Do ye want to soothe yer conscience?”
“Why should I need to soothe it? I did what was necessary.”
He gave a harsh laugh, glancing away. “The thing is I can tell that ye really believe that. I’ll not argue with ye, but if ye are looking to make peace with the stable boy ye left behind, it’s far too late. He does not exist anymore.”
Part of me wishes he did,chimed in a voice at the back of Noah’s mind,so that we could be the same again.
He didn’t like the thought. It came from nowhere and sounded worryingly like the truth. Now wasn’t the time for the truth, though, and anyway he’d long since learned that the truth was subjective.
“Ye seem fond of killing yerself off,” Senga remarked, lifting an eyebrow. “This part of ye is gone, this version of yerself is dead, and so on. Death comes to us all, lad. No need to hasten it.”
He rolled his eyes. “Ye always were too sharp for me.”
Perhaps there was scorn in his voice. He hadn’t meant to put it there. Either way, Senga’s eyes flashed, and she took a step forward, pointing at him.
“I waited. I waited foryears,” she hissed. “All of that time, I waited forye.”
He blinked down at her. “What for?”
She gave an angry exclamation. “There is no talking to ye, lad. Do ye not understand? I wasted years of my life waiting for ye, and when I saw ye, ye… ye acted like I was nothing. They told me ye were dead, Noah!”
