“The truth was worse,” she sighed. “He meant to sell her body. He denied it, saying that he only wanted her to learn a trade. I kent the maither was telling the truth because she begged me nae to let him take her, so I told him I would buy the child from him.”
Neil’s mouth fell open. “Ye what?”
“I offered him money,” she said. “It was what he wanted in the first place, so I thought I would make it easy for him.”
“Ye offered to buy?—”
“Do ye want to listen to the story or nae?”
Neil scoffed. “Aye. Me apologies.”
“He agreed too fast. Asked for more. Asked for goats as well. I asked yer braither to fetch everything he had asked for,” Kristen continued.
“Lachlan must have thought ye have lost yer mind.”
“Aye, he did, but he fetched them anyway. We paid the man. Then I told him if he ever came back, I would have him beheaded in public.” Her tone did not change. It did not need to. “The guards threw him out, and I took the lass back to her maither.”
Neil tried to picture the courtyard, rain on the flags, his wife’s small figure at the gate with a child behind her skirts. Heat that had nothing to do with anger spread through his chest.
“Did he return?”
“Nay,” she replied. “But the maither did. Two days later, she brought a dog. Said the dog would keep me company. Said she kent what it felt like to have an absent husband.” She made a faint sound that might have been a laugh. “She set the dog at me feet and said her name was Maggie. Fierce and loyal. Maggie looked at me like she had picked me herself.”
Neil exhaled. “Ah, so that is where the dog came from. I have always wondered.”
“Did ye wonder because ye were curious, or because Maggie doesnae like ye?”
Neil frowned in the dark. “I like to think she does.”
“She has just started warming up to ye. When ye arrived, she could have bitten yer head clean off.”
Neil laughed, but the sound was quickly drowned out by a roar of thunder. For a moment, he felt nothing but warmth and contentment in the pit of his stomach.
“When Finn and Anna arrived a few months later,” Kristen murmured, “Maggie took one look at them and decided they were puppies. She followed them from cradle to fireplace and back again. She takes bread from Finn’s hand and never lets him drop it. She sleeps by Anna’s feet so the lass doesnae roll away. That is why she’s me shadow. Before the bairns came, she was sent to make sure I wasnae alone.”
Neil let the words sink in.
The shutters rattled as the wind shifted. The next roll of thunder felt farther off, less sharp. He could feel the mattress under him now. He could feel the weight of the blanket and the warmth of her knee against his thigh.
“Thank ye,” he said.
“For what?”
“For talking. For distracting me.”
“Oh well, I wouldnae have been able to sleep either way. This may surprise ye, but I care about ye.”
He moved closer. Even in the dark, he could tell she was watching him with that steady look that made him feel seen and bare at once. “I daenae ken what to do with care.”
“We do the same thing we do with thunder,” she said. “We practice.” Her thumb moved once more over his knuckles. “Again. In and Out.”
He did as she asked. The urge to rise and pace the room faded. The need to hold a blade dulled in the back of his mind, and his hands relaxed.
Kristen settled back down, her head near his shoulder, her breath brushing his skin.
“Tell me more,” he demanded, surprising himself.
“Of what?”
