Laren set down the cutting implement and when he drew closer, he saw the exhaustion on her face. She’d been working since dawn, just as he had. She rested her hands upon the stone table, but she looked unnaturally pale. “I know she has to go, but I wish she could stay.”
“She’ll be safer.” He came up behind her and rested his hands on her shoulders, trying to reassure her.
Laren didn’t answer but kept her head lowered. It was then that he noticed something wasn’t right with her bearing. She looked shaken, almost unwell.
“What is it?” he asked her.
Without warning, Laren’s knees folded and he caught her before she could fall to the ground.
His heart quickened when she remained limp into his arms. She remained unconscious for only a moment or two and he helped her sit on the bench beside him with her head lowered.
“Take deep breaths,” he ordered. As he rubbed her shoulders, he noticed her pale color. It made him wonder if she was no longer taking care of herself. “Are you ill?”
“No. I’ll be all right.”
Even so, he wasn’t convinced. He leaned back against the table, keeping her in his arms. She didn’t relax and seemed to grow more tense, the longer he held her. At last, she said, “Alex, it’s all right. I was just dizzy for a moment.”
“Has it happened before?”
She lifted her shoulders in a shrug. “It’s nothing to worry about.”
“I don’t like seeing you faint. You could have hit your head.”
Although Ramsay was there most of the time, there were times when she worked alone inside the cavern. “I’ll send Dougal to you in the morning,” he said. “You could finish your work sooner with both him and Ramsay to help.”
She shook her head. “Your brother is more interested in horses and animals than glass. I’ll be fine as I am now.”
But he didn’t agree at all. She was growing more and more tired with every day that she worked. Even this morn, she’d struggled to awaken. Alex helped her to stand up and held his hands around her waist. “You’re working too hard, Laren. I can see how weary you are.”
“I promised to finish the windows for their new kirk by the early summer,” she insisted. “No one else can do the work.”
He didn’t understand her haste, for there seemed to be plenty of time. And despite her protests, he intended to find more people to help her. If nothing else, it would ease his mind to know that she wasn’t working alone.
“You don’t need to bury yourself in glassmaking, Laren,” he said.
“I need to finish it,” she insisted. “A few months more, and I can send the windows to the abbot.”
He didn’t doubt her words. But there was an agitation in her voice, one he hadn’t expected. “Something else is bothering you.”
She rested her hands upon the stone table, revealing her scars. With her eyes closed, she admitted, “Nairna came to me today, asking for advice. She wants a baby.” Laren reached for a piece of cut glass, arranging it in the mosaic that was forming the window. “It doesn’t seem fair that I’ve been blessed with our children, when she would give anything for a single bairn.”
“I’m certain she and Bram will have a family, soon enough.” With the way his brother and Nairna spent all their hours together, he supposed it was only a matter of time.
“Perhaps.”
He moved his hands to her shoulders, feeling the knots of tension in her neck. As he massaged her skin, her hands grew still.
“I brought something for you.” He reached inside his cloak for the gift he’d brought her. Holding it out, he said, “I wanted you to have this.”
Laren held on to the cloth-wrapped package. “What is it?”
“Something you need.”
She sent him a curious look and untied the package, letting the cloth fall open. Inside were three slender brushes. The handles were made of a smooth wood, sanded to a silky finish. The delicate bristled tips could create a fine painted line and he’d bought her the brushes, knowing it would help her paint the faces of the saints.
She set the brushes down on the table and the look on her face was stricken, as if she were about to cry.
“Did I do something wrong?”
