He shook his head. Grinning, he finally made his way to meet the envoy and left her to explore on her own. She was glad he seemed to have put some trust in her now, and she intended to do all she could to prove that it was not misplaced. After all, the two of them had come to an understanding last night, even if she had needed to follow him in secret to reach it.
The sunny air warmed her skin as she wandered down towards the market, where stalls were laden with the last of the summer flowers, along with a few dried bouquets for the harvest season still to come.
For a while, she lost herself to the bustle around her, the sound of people bartering and chatting over the stalls. She had no intent of buying anything herself, but she admired the skilled hands that had bound complementary flowers together with twine, the pastels of bluebells and violets soft against the vibrant colors of marigolds and tulips. The mesh of scents in the air seemed so full of life, of possibility, of the seasons still to come, and, as she leaned down to smell one of the bouquets, she could not keep the smile off her face.
“A fine choice, my Lady,” the merchant told her, his eyes twinkling from amongst a crow’s-foot of wrinkles. She straightened up.
“They’re beautiful,” she remarked. “It must be hard raising such marigolds in the temperatures here.”
“Ye’d be surprised,” the man revealed. “Plenty thrives in these parts. Including you, if I may say so, my Lady.”
She laughed, feeling a slight flush rise to her cheeks.
“Donald!” an older woman scolded him as she emerged from beneath the stall. “Dinnae speak to our new Lady in such a fashion.”
“It’s alright,” Innes assured her. “I dinnae mind.”
“Well, if I can add,” the woman told her, bowing her head slightly. “It’s wonderful to see the Laird with such a fine woman at his side. Especially one with such an affinity fer flowers!”
They talked about the blooms for a while longer, and she drifted on to the next stall, their words dancing around her mind. She could never have expected that she would find such kindness here, such acceptance.
Just then movement caught her eye somewhere in the corner of her vision.
The stalls were so crowded with people that, for a moment, she thought she must have imagined the recognition, but when she lifted her head, something in her chest tensed.
A woman standing amongst the rush of people, her hood drawn low—and on such a beautiful day, there was no reason for her to disguise herself unless there was reason to fear being recognized. Innes could not make out much about her, the enormous cloak seemingly intended to obscure every detail that might have identified her—not so much as a strand of hair broke loose from beneath it.
But still, there was something about the way she stood that made Innes’ blood run cold. There was something about her that she recognized, but she would rather not entertain the possibility. No, this must have been someone else, someone who had simply come to attend the flower market, someone who?—
Suddenly, a hand closed on her shoulder, and she nearly leapt out of her skin. Whipping around, she let out a breath of relief when she realized that it was just Lachlan, a smile on his face as he greeted her.
“Managed to stay out of trouble, eh?” he asked her playfully.
She nodded, doing her best to brush off the sudden rush of suspicion that had consumed her for a moment.
“Well, you deserve a reward fer that.”
He held aloft a bouquet of flowers, the very same one that she had been admiring earlier; bluebells and violets, the delicate blues and purples practically glowing in the sunlight. She laughed as she took it from him, raising her eyebrows.
“Did you see me admiring these?”
“I might have.”
“How long have you been watching me, exactly?”
“Long enough to see how my subjects look at you,” he murmured, lifting a hand to her cheek and skimming his thumb against her face. “With respect. Admiration, even.”
She leaned forward to plant a grateful kiss on his cheek. Not just for the flowers, but his kind words, too. Every day that passed, it felt like she was rooting herself into this role more and more; as his wife, as the Lady of this clan, as a woman who deserved the respect of the people she was meant to represent.
“Come,” he remarked, slipping his hand into hers. “Tell me more about these flowers.”
As he led her towards one of the stalls, she followed behind but cast one last look over her shoulder to see if the cloaked woman was still nearby. But, as quickly as she seemed to have appeared, she had vanished.
Perhaps she had been nothing more than a figment of her imagination. With her hand in his, it was easy to believe that she had been nothing more than fiction.
Even if, somewhere, at the back of her mind, something warned her it was closer to fact than she’d have cared to contend with.
Chapter Sixteen
