Tearloch and Monroe both turned to him as if the man had lost his wits entirely. The former glowered at him briefly before stalking away.
“Are ye daft?” Monroe asked, clouting Leland on the back of the head with force. “What fool would tell the king such a thing? Do ye think she’ll be anxious to announce it? Or perhaps ye’re thinkin’ ye might drop a word in his royal ear?”
Leland scowled and rubbed his head, then nodded to Tearloch and strode away, but not before promising Monroe, with a lift of his brow, that he would answer that blow.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
The next sennight was so uneventful it seemed possible, to Tearloch, that Duncan Keith might have been the cause of all the trouble with the king’s sister. She went willingly where she was asked. She stayed meekly where she was put. When Tearloch could not readily locate her, she could usually be found in the kitchens, either helping the women there or sitting in front of a fire, sewing.
He reckoned she must be a novice, and a slow novice at that, since she always held the same white square of linen, stitching around the edges. Or so he thought.
On the seventh evening since Duncan and Jamie took their leave, the meal was interrupted when a pretty lass entered the hall in search of her laird. When she was led to his table and invited to address him, she burst into tears. Immediately, ten or more squares of white linen were offered to the young woman by his eager knights. Their gallantry stopped her tears abruptly, and she smiled as she glanced around at her keen benefactors. When she accepted Frazier’s offer, they sighed in disappointment and returned to their seats.
After Tearloch listened to the girl’s tale and sent a more than willing Frazier to sort out her problem, he looked alongboth sides of the long table and saw that each man was stuffing a white cloth back up his sleeve. They grinned and chuckled goodheartedly as each realized they had been given the same gift. Then as one, the group turned to look at Tearloch’s sleeve and seemed both surprised and pleased they saw nothing there.
Tearloch called Mary to him. “Bring her to me, if ye please.”
He knew why she did what she did—she wanted to prove to the people of Lochahearn, and to that wee laddie and his new sister, that she meant them no harm, that she was not the enemy they feared her to be.
As usual, Kenna had found one reason or another not to sit at table with Tearloch and his captains. Someone always needed her aid in the kitchen, or she would confess she had already taken her meal and was not hungry.
With the door to his bedchamber repaired, he had invited her to join him again, but she declined, claiming that his old rooms suited her, and she’d suffered no nightmares while sleeping alone. Whether it was true or not, he would be quite the brute if he insisted she join him now.
But once they were married, once her worries ended, she would be his in truth and would share his bed forever more.
Kenna hurried out from the kitchens, another white linen square in her hands. She was just biting off a stray thread as she reached the table. Tearloch smiled up at her and gestured for her to sit next to him. Reluctantly, she sat where Jamie typically sat, across from him.
“Why have ye shared these cloths with my men?”
His directness took her back. She looked down the long table and saw that each knight did indeed have a hint of white protruding from his sleeve. Many of them pointed or tugged on them to prove they wore them.
Turning back to Tearloch, she asked, “Was someone weeping?”
“Aye, a young woman.”
Kenna turned back to scan the faces at the long table. “And whose did she accept?”
“Frazier’s,” they all said with a slight hint of disgust.
“But it works,” Monroe added, and sent her a wink.
“What works?” Tearloch sought to seem only slightly interested in the private jest she shared with his men and not him.
“Well, I have been a difficult captive, and I thought to make amends.”
Tearloch was taken aback by the denials that rose from the group. Blatant falsehoods, all, but it was Kenna who called them out for it.
“Ye lie. Ye all lie and ye know it,” she chided them with a smile. Then to Tearloch, she explained that as a peace offering, she had made them all kerchiefs with which they could catch a maiden’s eye.
“And how do kerchiefs catch a lady’s eye?” Tearloch demanded.
She shrugged. “Offering a weeping lass a kerchief is a truly gallant gesture. And a gallant gesture is never forgotten.”
Tearloch eyed the kerchief in her hands and wondered if she might finally offer one to him.
She followed his gaze and raised it so he could see the finely sewn edges. “This one is for Duncan. If he ever comes back,” she said quietly.
Tearloch gave her a wink. “I sent for them. He and Jamie will return on the morrow. Must I wait at the end of the line and follow Jamie? Why have ye not served yer laird and master first?”
