What if it wasn’t enough?
She looked up at him sadly. “That is what my brothers said. But it didn’t turn out very well the first time. It was a mistake to marry a man I didn’t love.”
Their eyes held for a long heartbeat before he looked away. She would have given anything at that moment to know what he was thinking. But he’d shut her out, and she could feel him pulling away from her.
She regretted the mention of her marriage to William, but how could they move past the past if he refused to talk about it? If the ghost of his friend was still between them?
He pushed back from the wall. “We should get back. Your army will be looking for you soon.”
She made a face. That army was one of the reasons she felt like she was suffocating and needed air. “I suppose you’re right.”
“Don’t tell me you’ve finally seen the light?”
She gave him a sharp glance. “You are just as bad as they are. If you weren’t so busy hating each other, I think you and Kenneth could be friends. You havemuchin common.”
She was glad he wasn’t eating something, for he might have choked to death. She heard him mutter something about snow in Hades before he said, “So I assume it’s Munro you wish to avoid?” A dangerous glint appeared in his eyes. “Has he done something—”
“He wants to dance with me,” she said glumly.
He looked confused. “As much as I dislike the bast—” he stopped himself—“him, dancing is hardly a reason to avoid a man.”
“He doesn’t just want to dance. I suspect he’s going to ask me to marry him.” She paused. “It’s everything I could want, isn’t it?”
He stilled at her subtle taunt. But it was the tightness of his mouth and the barest hint of a flex beneath his jaw that made her pulse quicken.
“And it’s your response that you are hesitating over?” He was tense. Too tense for a man who didn’t care.
“Nay, I know my response. It’s his reaction that I’m not looking forward to.”
He didn’t bother to hide his relief. It was foolish to read so much into a sigh, but it was what he said next that made hope soar in her chest. “I know a way to distract him.”
“How?”
“Dance with me.”
Her heart swelled. She’d dreamed of having him swing her around a crowded Hall, holding her, touching her, for all the world to see.
And a short while later, when he led her in a reel across the crowded stone floor of the Great Hall of Dingwall Castle before her scowling brother, an amused king, and a furious Donald, it was a dream come true.
For the first time in years, the happiness she sought, the elusive “more” she wanted, seemed a little closer.
The euphoria of the dance sustained Helen through the rest of the day and into the following morning. It was working!
In the days since they’d left Dunrobin, she’d felt a subtle shift in Magnus’s attitude toward her. Rather than avoiding her as he’d done before, he seemed to be seeking ways of being closer to her. She’d felt him watching her. And now, after the conversation yesterday and the dance, she was sure that he was softening toward her.
Their conversation had done something else. It made her realize that part of what had held her back from accepting his proposal all those years ago was fear that she would let him down. Fear that she would never be the kind of lady of the keep that his mother was. That she would never fit into the life that was demanded of her.
So, after breaking her fast, Helen made a concerted effort to spend more time with the other women. But after three hours of sitting around a tapestry in the Countess of Ross’s small solar, sewing and discussing every nuance and angle of the betrothal while trying not to say the wrong thing (she’d barely caught herself from remarking that the only time she enjoyed sewing was when it was necessary to close a wound), the thick stone walls of the small room seemed to be closing in on her again.
The midday meal was a welcome escape, although she was disappointed not to see Magnus in the Hall.
Unfortunately, she was seated on the dais beside the Countess of Ross. The austere Englishwoman was said to have been a beauty thirty years ago when she’d captured the heart of the Scottish earl, but any signs of that beauty had faded into the gray, colorless woman who looked at her with sharp-eyed condescension, as if she could see every one of Helen’s faults. Even without her penchant for saying the wrong thing, Helen doubted she could ever say the right thing around the formidable countess. She hated to so much as open her mouth.
She felt the countess’s gaze on her. “Will you be joining my daughters’ falconing this afternoon, Lady Helen?”
She blanched. In yet another oddity, Helen did not enjoy the popular pursuit of noblemen and women alike. She liked watching the predatory birds dip and soar from afar, but up close…
She shivered. The birds terrified her.
