“Aye, and she doesnae know this place any better than most of us, if you dinnae mind me saying, lass,” he remarked, nodding to Annabelle in apology, though she seemed to take little offense. “He wanted me to make sure you didnae take a fall or the like while you were here.”
“Well, you can go back and tell him that I’m perfectly capable of keeping my two feet under me,” she dismissed, waving a hand. “I just wanted to see what plants you had growing here, that’s all.”
She leaned down again, pointedly ignoring Keith. She had only seen him briefly before, in the fiasco with her trunk when it had arrived the evening prior, and she did not feel very warmly towards him. But, she supposed, he was likely only doing what he thought best for the Keep, and she would do well to remember it.
“Ye’re close with the Laird, is that it?” she asked as she scribbled something down in her journal, her hands already dark with charcoal.
Keith nodded. “Aye, m’Lady, you could say that.”
“So, tell me,” she remarked, lifting her eyes to his once more. “Has he always been so maudlin?”
He laughed, the sound seeming to surprise even him. “Aye, I think he’s been that way since the cradle,” he conceded. “Though yer brother’s marriage to that woman didnae help things.”
Innes’ heart dropped. She had been doing her best not to think about the fact that the man who she was now married to had been set entirely on someone else till so recently. He had clearly been sincerely taken with Isobel if he had intended to marry her, and she could not help but feel that slight sting at the thought.
“Yes, well, she seems to have that effect on men,” she remarked, keeping her voice as light as she could.
Keith hesitated for a moment, scratching his jaw. Annabelle busied herself with re-lacing the ties of her dress, clearly doing her best to keep herself out of the conversation.
“He liked her well enough,” Keith admitted, after a long silence, a longer one than she knew what to do with. “But make no mistake, it was a convenient marriage fer him, no’ one of the heart.”
Innes’ ears pricked up. “Is that so?”
“Dinnae mistake all he has done since for heartbreak,” Keith continued, furrowing his brow. “His pride bled, no’ his heart. It would have been a good match. Her coin for his clan. Nothing more to it than that.”
She fiddled with the flower in her hand, staring down at the buds. “And now?”
She barely dared to breathe those words out loud, not sure she wanted to hear the answer to them.
“And now, what?”
“And now, he’s married to me,” she replied, practically daring him to defy her again. “Do you think… do you think that is a matter of the heart?”
Keith smirked slightly. “You truly want to ken what I think?”
She nodded. This man clearly knew the Laird well, and if anyone was going to give her insight on to what was going on inside his head, it would surely be Keith.
“I think that he is standing close to the fire wi’ you, closer than he even knows,” he admitted, shaking his head. “And he has yet to decide whether he’ll step back from it, or whether he’ll put his hand into the flames.”
And, with that, he nodded in Annabelle’s direction and made his way back into the Keep. Perhaps he was worried that he had said too much. But, as far as Innes was concerned, there were still a million more questions to be answered.
Even if she had no idea where she would begin in sifting through them.
Chapter Nine
Lachlan shook the rain from his cloak, running a hand through his hair to dismiss the droplets that had clung to his locks as he had ridden back towards the Keep.
It was cold outside, the dark sky closing in around the walls of the Fraser abode, and he did not expect anyone to be awake by the time he got back. In fact, he had hoped to arrive to silence, a chance to clear his head a little. He’d been out to take care of some errand in the village across the way, managing a dispute in land between a pair of farmers who were both insistent that they had been the first to begin farming on a particular piece of hill. Dull work, but it got him away from the Keep, and, for now, that was all he wanted. Well, it also gave him a chance to stop by a local leatherworker for a small gift, though he had not expected to hand it out so soon.
He had told Keith to keep an eye on Innes while he was out, though he did not expect she would be up to much, given that she had still been in bed when he had left. She must have been exhausted after what had happened the day before, but then, she did not seem exactly like the type to keep to herself, even when she would have been better off doing just that.
But, as he strode towards his chambers, something caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. The flickering of candlelight. And not just a single torch, which might have been carried by a maid passing through the corridors late in the evening. No, there looked to be a handful of them set out in the small dining hall that sat next to the great welcoming space. And, as he made his way towards it, he was surprised to find himself greeted by the very woman who had been on his mind all day.
Innes rose to her feet as he appeared in the doorway, a smile crossing her lips. The table was laid with a modest but filling supper; bread, a few meats, some ale, and some tea. In the middle sat a vase that had been filled with yellow and red flowers, so bright in the soft light they almost looked to be impossible. He let his leather satchel slip from his shoulder, his cloak divested into his arms.
“What did you do all this for?” he asked, cautious. “You spend today torturing Keith, and this is how you wish to ask fer my forgiveness?”
She laughed, raising her eyebrows at him. “A wife cannae ensure that her husband is fed and sated after a long day?” she announced, cocking her head to the side. “Come. Sit. Ye’ve been away all day. You must take some rest.”
