He caught her wrist gently. “Davina.”
“Aye?”
“If ye ever doubt again why I chose this marriage,” he said softly, “ye need only ask.”
She met his gaze without hesitation. “I think I shall enjoy discovering the answer without asking at all.”
His answering smile promised that she would.
Baird Kincaid had never trusted silence. It crept along the corridors of the keep in the days that followed, settling into corners and stretching between conversations.
The shipment was late. Not disastrously so, but late enough to scrape at his patience like grit beneath a blade.
“Say it again,” he said.
Kenny did not look up from the ledger. “Still nay riders from the east road.”
Baird’s jaw tightened. “And the western path?”
“Clear,” Kenny replied. “Empty, same as yesterday.”
Baird exhaled through his nose. “Useless.”
Kenny finally glanced up. “It’s only two days past the estimate.”
“Two days is enough,” Baird said sharply. “Enough fer sabotage.”
Kenny closed the ledger with deliberate calm. “Aye. And enough time fer ye tae wear a trench in the floor if ye keep pacing.”
Baird stopped short. “I dinnae pace.”
“Ye stalk,” Kenny corrected. “Like a bear denied its supper.”
Baird shot him a look. “Careful.”
Kenny smiled faintly. “Yer wife sent me.”
That halted him more effectively than any rebuke.
“She did, did she?” Baird asked. “Tae check up on me?”
“Tae understand ye,” Kenny replied. “Which, if ye ask me, is a far more dangerous task.”
Baird turned toward the window, with his hands clasped behind his back. The courtyard lay quiet below and deceptively peaceful.
“This shipment is nae a luxury,” he said. “If it daesnae arrive?—”
“It will” Kenny said gently. “Ye ken that. I ken that. So daes Lady Davina.”
Baird snorted. “She knows more than she ought.”
“She listens,” Kenny said. “And ye talk in yer sleep.”
Baird froze. “I dinnae.”
A knock on the door interrupted them before Kenny could provide proof otherwise.
“Enter,” Baird called out.
