“Aye, I would mind,” Constantine said through his teeth. “Are ye rested now? Should we continue our lesson, then, whelp?”
Lachlan cast him a loving grin. “That willna be necessary, Lochiel. I will consider her—”
“—my guest, whose favor ye willna try to win.”
“Aye,” Lachlan agreed and looked at his boots.
Constantine gave him one last look of disgust and then sheathed his sword and left the courtyard.
His lady. He almost laughed but then a shadow driftedacross his eyes. What was he doing that made Bethia and his men—because while Lachlan was going on into territory that could have gotten him trounced, Fionn was smiling—believe he fancied Miss Drummond? He’d left her alone for the afternoon, had he not? It was not as if he kept her by his side an instant longer than he needed to.
Unbidden thoughts of his guest filled his head as he strode back inside the castle. Was she resting? Had Joan tended to her needs this time or had Hugh—
Before he realized where he was heading, he stopped on the stairs. Why was he about to check and make certain Hugh was not with his la—guest. What did he care? He had not cared when Hugh spent time with Alison. Why would he care about a strange lass who was on the run? Had she run? Was she still here? She spoke often of leaving for some convent God knew where. He was too busy fighting in the courtyard to notice if she had slipped out. He thought her departure would be welcome because he no longer had to worry about her. But he found himself taking the stairs two at a time.
When he stepped onto the second landing, he looked around for Hugh. His steward was nowhere to be found.
Continuing to the door of her chambers, images of her wrapped themselves around his head. Her with her eyes bloodshot and the tip of her nose red from crying, or her holding a prickly thistle to her nose as if it were the most delicate of all the flowers.
He swallowed and knocked. A few moments passed. Enough to make his heart stall and his legs ache to kick the door down. If she had left, he would—what? What would he do?
The door opened, keeping him from finding out. When he saw her freckled face and curious gray gaze, he couldn’t think of anything but how relieved he was that she was still there.
“Lochiel?” she urged when he said nothing. “Is something troubling ye?”
Aye! He wanted to tell her. Aye, something was troubling him, allright. What was he doing at her door, wanting to smile like a halfwit that she had not run away?
“Are ye hungry?”
She offered him a smile as hesitant as his own and nodded. He turned and began to walk away and then looked over his shoulder at her. “Are ye comin’?”
She hurried to catch up and kept pace at his side. After a moment she turned slightly to look up at him.
“I was happy to find Joan tending to me. It was kind of ye to allow her a second chance.”
“She has ye to thank fer that,” he let her know. “I dinna usually hand out second chances.”
He felt her eyes on him and chanced a glance her way.
Her smile softened, making his belly flip and flutter as if it had just come to life. He turned away, and in doing so, noticed the folks coming to and fro in the halls. All their gazes lingered on him and his guest. He moved a step or two away from her, lest they imagine the preposterous.
She would never be more to him than his guest. His wife and bairn were gone from him but five short years—short according to her parents and to Bethia. How long was an acceptable time for him to mourn his family? And once the grieving eased, how long would the guilt take to fade? Would it ever?
Was killing more important to ye than being present at yer wife’s deathbed?Alison’s mother cried out when he had finally come home.
We buried our daughter and granddaughter without ye!her father had practically growled at him.Ye will have no part in where they rest.
His closest cousins had thought Alison’s parents were too harsh.
Ye were her husband and the babe’s father, after all,Lewis complained.
It isna that ye didna want to come home!Fionn agreed.The choice wasna yers.
Constantine could have argued that no matter what, he should have been here with hisdying wife. She—
“Chief?” Miss Drummond’s soft voice pulled him from his thoughts of Alison. “After we eat, and ye teach me how to fight, would ye show me where ye bathed this morn?”
“Bathed?”
