Halvard rubbed a hand over his face. “Fine, I overreacted.”
Sten clapped a hand on his shoulder. “Good, that’s a start. Ye’ll speak tae th’ lass then?”
“Aye,” Halvard muttered.
Before Sten could press him further, Thomas Redfern approached looking as if he had been chased by death, or even perhaps caught.
The envoy paused before them, posture crisp despite his deathly parlor.
“My laird,” he bowed. “Sten.”
“Envoy,” Halvard replied.
“I’ve come down to inform you both,” Thomas said. “That I shall remain on Raasay until your next clan meeting. My departure must be delayed.”
Halvard frowned. “Because of yer health?”
“Partly,” Thomas’s eyes flicked toward the path Elsie had just taken. “Partly because certain, let’s say, tensions remain unresolved. Harcourt’s movements also trouble me. I’ve heard the men talking.”
“He troubles us all.” Halvard’s brows drew together.
Thomas nodded once. “Then it’s settled. I shall stay.”
“Make sure ye see our healer, ye are nae lookin’ well,” Halvar added.
The envoy nodded, and with a final incline of his head, turned back toward the keep, his precise steps echoing across the courtyard.
When he disappeared inside, Sten let out a slow whistle. “If even th’ envoy thinks ye two need time tae sort yer mess, then God help us.”
Halvard rose abruptly. “I’ll deal wi’ it.”
“Meanin’ ye’ll talk tae th’ lass?”
“Meanin’,” Halvard spat out. “I’ll try nay tae roar at her again.”
Sten snorted. “Progress then.”
Halvard turned back toward the keep. A conversation waited, one he knew was hard but necessary. And he dreaded it almost as much as he dreaded the distance he had forced between them.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Elsie did not enter the great hall for supper. The thought of playing nice and sitting beside her “husband” after that spectacle in the training yard made her stomach twist. Instead, she had found her way to his library. She chose an oversized and extremely comfortable armchair close to the window. Candlelight pooled warm over her and the pages of a book she had chosen at random from one of the shelves. A well-worn volume of fables.
She could not focus on a single word.
Her eyes traced back and forth over the pages, but her mind kept replaying Halvard’s growl, the way he had stalked forward like a territorial wolf, the flash of jealousy in his pale eyes, and his chest. His bare chest.
Worse of all, the confusing spark she had felt taking it all in.
“Idiot,” she muttered to herself, flipping a page with a violent flick of her wrist. “Highland brute is what he is. Arrogant, ill-tempered, insufferable brute.”
The insults did nothing to calm her.
Eventually when the candles burned low, she returned upstairs to ‘their’ chamber. “She was still annoyed and flustered, determined not to say another word to him unless it was absolutely necessary.
She opened the door and stopped.
On the small table beside the bed sat a plate covered in a linen cloth. Something warm drifted up from beneath that cloth. It was a sweet, yeasty smell, and one that to her was entirely unmistakable.
