I can manage this. She’s enjoying her newfound power. If I can just…
No answer presented itself. He met her eye squarely only to find steel behind her eyes.
He remembered Una from the Keep. Of course he did. He hadn’t seen much of her, but the Alcorn name had been an important one—before his father had obliterated her people. His father had gloated over it more times than Struan could count. Especially after the humiliation her brother, Kai, put him through by taking his bride.
She’s angry. I know she’s angry. She hates me, and with good reason.
Best not to think of that now. Instead, he gave a tight smile and held out the basket to her.
“I’ve spent a month cooped up in a tiny cell,” he responded. “I want to stretch my legs. I’d like to run.”
Una’s expression wavered. “Run? Where?”
He shrugged. “I don’t much care. Around the convent, maybe?”
She shook her head at once at that. “I can’t let ye do that. It’s nothing personal, but I’m not about to risk ye escaping. No running.”
His heart sank. Was he really going to spend his precious free hour pulling up herbs?
“Let me spar, then. Bring back that fellow who wanted to attack me. Take his weapon and let us fight, hand to hand. How about that?”
Una narrowed her eyes. “I don’t think so. But if ye want to spar, ye can fight me.”
For a beat, Struan was too surprised to respond. She was joking, surely. She had to be joking.
Then he met her unblinking stare and realised with a jolt that there was no joke to be found here.
“I am not about to fight a woman,” Struan managed at last. He was aware that the soldiers behind him had gone quiet, and he could hear them shifting uneasily around.
It appeared that Una had earned their respect. That was interesting. She hadn’t been a warrior when she left the Keep, but she was one now. Clearly, many things had changed for her since she left.
He felt something like respect fluttering inside him. That was an old emotion, wasn’t it? That wasn’t something he’d felt for a while.
She smiled grimly. “I can assure ye that ye will find me equal to ye in every respect.”
“I’m not sure…” a man spoke up, but Una silenced him with an angry gesture.
“Well, Struan, it seems that these are yer choices,” she said coolly, her voice hard and angry. “Spar with me, or pick herbs.”
Struan drew in a breath. “I see. Well, not much of a choice then, is it?”
Una led him to a bare patch of earth, tucked away around the corner of the convent. The soldiers followed unhappily.
The patch of earth seemed as though it was in the process of being developed into another vegetable patch. The ground had been cleared some time ago, but now weeds were growing back, and no seeds had been planted yet.
Una untied her sword from where it hung at her hip and tossed it to one of the men. She fell into a loose grappling stance and met his eye squarely.
“Shall we?”
Struan hesitated. Not for the first time, he noticed that Una wore men’s clothes. That was something that his father had forbidden in the Keep. In all of Dickson land, actually, although some country women probably dressed however they liked. Probably.
Una wore loose woolen trousers, gathered at the waist with a ratty old belt. She wore a loose shirt over it all, which had probably once been white, and tucked it in at the waist. Oddly, the masculine clothes seemed to suit her. She kept her hair tied up and out of the way, although long tendrils escaped and fell down the sides of her face.
She’s pretty,Struan thought, with dawning horror.A distraction.
His father had told him once that women were a distraction. Like all other proclamations from his father, Struan worked hard to remember it, always.
“What’s the matter?” Una spat. “Too afraid to fight me now that I’m out of kitchen garb and trained?”
