“I do,” he told her in turn.
“Do ye suppose we—ye and I—might ha’ known each other before?”
He seemed to catch his breath for an instant before his lips—those mobile, beautiful lips—curved in a funny, canny little smile. He ran his fingers down the strings, producing a shower of bright notes. “I think we might.”
“As friends?”As lovers.
He said nothing.
Katrin sat up in the grass. “Let us go sailing.”
“Eh?” Seldom did she surprise him. She did so now.
“As Darlei and Deathan did, in your tale. As Bradana and Adairdid, for all that.”
“To Ireland?” Now it was his eyes that smiled.
“Aye, why not? ’Twill be a rare adventure.”
He dragged his gaze from her and looked toward the sea, as if considering it.
Say aye,she bade him silently. Because out there upon the sea, away from everything that anchored her life, she could kiss him even as Darlei and Deathan had kissed for the first time.
“Say aye,” she pressed aloud.
“Can I e’er deny ye anything?”
Chapter Eighteen
Finlay wanted tosmile. He wanted to dance. Chief Anders’s staid daughter, so it seemed, seldom did anything unconsidered or impulsive. That much became obvious when Katrin, towing Finlay behind her, went down to the shore and demanded a boat from the men who were at work there.
They stared at her as if she had grown two heads. “A boat, mistress? Now?”
“Aye, so.” She became impatient, did Finlay’s princess, eager to be obeyed. “Is it so much to ask?”
It appeared so. The men dithered and suggested someone should clear the loan with the chief, which half enraged her. She pointed to a small tub at hand, overturned on the shingle. “That one will do.”
“Aye, mistress.”
The men gazed at Finlay questioningly. “Are ye puttin’ out wi’ Mistress Katrin, master? Mistress, are ye taking the harper?” one asked.
“I am.”
Finlay met the puzzled gazes of the men, keeping a lid on his emotions.
“Pray, right that boat for me and find some oars.”
In the experience of these men, Mistress Katrin rarely gave orders. She gave instructions and suggestions. She made requests using her father’s authority. No one ever questioned that. So now they scrambled to obey.
Though sailing off for no reason with the harper seemed uncommonly strange.
Katrin looked at Finlay. “Can ye row? If no’, I am perfectly capable.”
Aye, so she was, his independent lass.
He said, unable now to hide his amusement, “I can row.”
They had stopped by the keep on their way down from the rowan grove so he could stow his harp and she could change her shoes. Naught else to be done.
