12
Things were going from bad to worse for Gavin. The day had started out with such high hopes. He’d spent long enough keeping his feelings to himself. It was time to tell Heather just how he felt.
He had no choice. She was becoming a distraction from his ability to focus on the siege. He kept finding his mind wandering off to how she looked when she slept.
It was the way her lips turned up at the corner, like she was smiling in her dreams. That and the peaceful way she lay. He wanted more than anything to join her in bed. Of course he didn’t. It would not be proper.
It often felt strange to think what was and wasn’t allowed. He was not supposed to be alone with her lest her reputation be impugned. He was certainly not supposed to kiss a woman unless they became engaged.
Peasants might court more freely, marrying only when a local priest was needed to solemnize an affair that might have been carrying on for years. That was more due to the lack of time to spare for a Christian marriage ceremony than for any pagan or sinful reason.
He was a laird. He could not be seen to break the rules, not if he expected others to obey the rules and laws the clan had laid down over the centuries. He had been able to resist kissing her again. That was something.
He pondered over it while he looked at her sleeping. He could kill any number of men and nobody would bat an eyelid or raise a harsh word against him but if he were to slip into that bed next to her and wrap his arms around her to keep her safe, that would send him straight to hell. It was not fair.
A fortnight spent in her company had been long enough to tell him what he’d known from the very start, if he was honest with himself. He did not want to lose her. He had no idea where she’d come from, other than she was not telling him the truth about it.
She just kept saying she was from far away. She didn’t look like she was lying when she said it but there was a shifting movement of her eyes whenever they talked about it. She was definitely hiding something from him and he was determined to find out what that was.
He shared more of his past with her than he had with anyone else. Why was that? He had no idea, it just felt right to tell her things. She was the easiest person to talk to that he’d ever met.
The one thing he didn’t talk to her about was Keir. He didn’t share his plan about that man with anyone. He had his suspicions that Keir had been responsible for Susanne’s death. After interviewing many of the castle inhabitants he was left with his suspicions heightened.
Nobody had seen a thing and Keir’s protestations of innocence had seemed just a little too forced. He had noticed a scent of lemon when he attended to Susanne’s body and that scent only attached itself to one whom dealt in lemon balm.
Keir had worked in the apothecary for years and though he often smelled of various herbs, it was the lemon balm that was the most pungent. When he brought it up, Keir had continued to protest his innocence.
“Most likely someone took from the stores to try and make me look guilty, my laird.”
Gavin didn’t push the matter. Instead, he decided to bide his time. A chance to test Keir would come soon enough. Until then, he would be vigilant, and that would be enough.
The night before the attack that changed everything, he sat with his back to Heather’s bedchamber door, watching her chest slowly rise and fall. He would take her to mass in the morning and after that he would find some quiet spot where they could talk.
He would tell her the truth, that he was falling for her, that she was all he could think about, that he wanted nothing more than to spend the rest of his life with her.
She looked so beautiful in the glowing flames of the fire, the oranges and yellows perfectly complementing her soft skin. Her lips were pointed up toward the ceiling. He ached to kiss them again, to see if they were as soft and warm as he remembered.
Tomorrow he would tell her how he felt and then he would get the truth out of her. As to what happened after that? He knew what he hoped for. Whether the reality matched it, he would have to wait and see.
He awoke first the next morning, going first to check on Natalie. She had suffered quite the injury playing in the stores.
That was just one of many problems. Susanne no longer being around to keep an eye on the little ones. Keir was supposed to be tending to the girl in the infirmary but he was not around when Gavin walked in just after sunrise that morning.
Natalie was asleep, the wound packed with a lemon balm poultice, a fresh cloth tied around it to hold the balm in place. He sniffed the wound. No smell of rotting. Hopefully it would heal soon enough. “My laird,” Keir said, walking in from the courtyard, carrying a pile of firewood. “You are up early.”
“Rebind that,” Gavin replied, pointing at the wound. “Fresh lemon balm in there, understood?”
Keir nodded. “Of course.”
Gavin left, calling into the kitchen to fetch breakfast for Heather, looking forward to spending a little more time alone with her after mass. He carried a few apples and a jug of ale up to her bedchamber, his heart warmed by the sight of her sitting up and yawning in bed. Then they headed to the chapel.
He did not expect his chance to test Keir to come during the mass. When he heard that they were out of lemon balm, he knew it was his chance. When Keir left the sallyport he intended to sneak after him and find out exactly where he went.
Would he fetch lemon balm and return? Or would he try and join the outlaws in which case an arrow to his throat would be all the justice a man like that deserved.
All of Gavin’s plans were thrown by the attack. He had barely made it to the courtyard when he was called up to the battlements. Just in time too as he was able to get the first decent check of their numbers.
At least five hundred out there. Most of them were outlaws but they were being controlled by Frazer men. Discipline had improved.
