Chapter Five
Though she spoke to him during the meal, ‘twas only the formalities expected at the table.Aye. Nay. My thanks.By rote, she accepted his offer of food and drink as the servants circled them, holding out trays and pitchers.
He served her as a man of noble birth would have known to do. Stunned by what that revealed to him, phantom memories swirled through his thoughts and teased him to remember.
A table filled with people.
A powerful man at its center.
A hall filled with men and women, food and ale.
He tried to grab hold of them and peer into their murky depths to find … himself there, but they faded as the morning fog did when the sun appeared. Glancing around this table and this hall, Iain found no one who he’d seen in that vision. The only thing he discovered was that he didn’t belong here.
If that were true, then why had the lady at his side been in his dreams? Why had he seen Ailis there, her face contorted with fear or ethereal with love or glowing in passion? When his damaged body wished to give up its tenuous hold on life over the last months, she had been the only constant thing other than the pain.
The lad working in the stables this morn had let it slip that she’d changed after her mother passed and then again some months ago when she’d suffered some accident. The lad confided that accident was the reason she wore the leather gloves now. Like a madwoman she’d been, he’d offered with a shrug.
Iain pushed the small portion of food he’d placed on his plate around, preferring not to eat with others present. The left side of his face had sustained the worst of the damage and shifting the mask to eat could reveal some of it. Though, he realized, kissing Ailis had not caused it to move at all. With his mouth on hers, he could feel the warmth of her cheek through the fabric.
He tried to converse with Lady Davina, but found his attention drawn back to the woman sitting at his side. In the corridor, he thought she meant to slap him for his rude question about a bastard bairn. Instead, a stricken expression filled her eyes and he knew more than just the answer to his query. He knew that she had loved and lost a man. The loss in her eyes tore into him. He wanted to beg for pardon for his ill-advised, terrible words. Especially those about a bairn.
Just thinking on it made him feel ill. He lifted his cup and drank most of the ale down, hoping it would settle him and his stomach. Turning to the vigilant servants behind the table, he used that movement to lean closer to her so no one else would hear his words.
“I pray yer pardon, my lady,” he whispered as he held the cup out to the servant. “My words were ill-advised at best and my accusation was something I regret. I didna mean to cause ye pain.”
Her body stiffened as she heard his words of apology and then gave him the slightest nod of acceptance. The lady wouldn’t meet his gaze and he didn’t blame her. Still, she seemed a bit more at ease as the meal progressed.
Iain glanced at those gathered for this meal and saw the older man The MacKinnon was trying to betroth to his daughter. At ease, it seemed, at one of the other tables giving no sign of leaving … or giving up his claim on the lady. The chieftain’s plan became clear to him. Iain was simply his way of forcing his daughter to accept his choice of husband.
A wise and canny move on the man’s part, when Iain thought on it. Bring in a completely unacceptable choice and she would have tochoosethe one he wanted her to pick. Something his own father would have appreciated and done. Iain blinked as the image of an older man grew stronger and clearer in his mind. His father?
“Are ye well?” Her voice broke into his confusion. She touched his arm gently but lifted her hand as soon as he stared at it. “Ye stilled. I feared ye had stopped breathing.”
Iain drew in a ragged breath and nodded at her. “Aye, I am well, my lady. Just a momentary lapse of attention while thinking on something.”
“Did ye eat earlier?” she asked, leaning closer. “Ye dinna seem hungry and I ken ye prefer to take your meals alone.”
Iain stared at her face, searching her green eyes and placid expression for … something. “I didna.”
With a nod of her head, she called a servant and whispered some instructions to the girl. Once the girl had scampered off to the kitchens, Ailis turned back to him and smiled. Indeed, he could lose his breath at the sight of it.
She intrigued him. She certainly dazzled him. She confused him. But, the main feeling that filled him when he looked at her was a deep sense of connection. Of something lost and now found. And a need to protect her. He wanted to ask if she knew him, but could not reveal the worst of himself to her in order to find out. For, if he had been attacked and left for dead, being unknown was his best defense until he found his own identity and the one, or those, responsible for his condition.
“Food will be waiting in yer chamber,” she said.
Iain marveled at the easy way she’d handled his quandary. And at the way she’d noticed it was a thing to be solved. “My thanks, lady.”
She was a woman used to handling the running of a keep such as this one. A woman like her would have been raised to do so from her childhood on, but she would be expected to run her husband’s household and not her father’s. Glancing at both women seated there, Iain thought he could guess at the reason for the discord between father and daughter: Lady Davina.
Ailis became prickly and irritated by everything the lady, her stepmother, suggested. Every encounter between them that he’d witnessed was the same. Iain sensed no ill will from the laird’s wife. Yet, The MacKinnon’s daughter responded as though her words were insults or unreasonable orders. Studying them, Iain realized they must be the same age.
Had Ailis taken a disliking to her new stepmother because of her age? Or because this young woman supplanted her own place within her father’s house? That seemed the most likely explanation. And now, the young woman ruled the household and her husband. Ailis disapproved heartily from the appearance of it all. Was it simple jealousy at the heart of her behavior?
But, there was another thing he must be missing, for Ailis wasn’t mean-spirited. If she were, she would have no care for his eating or starving. And, though she’d struck at him with words, he could see the regret in her eyes when she had.
Nay, Ailis was not a vicious, unfeeling person. As the chieftain rose, holding out his hand to his wife, Ailis’ expression betrayed the truth of the matter to him. From the briefest flash in her gaze, he recognized what she felt so intensely.
Pain. Loss. Betrayal.
