“You…you heard me?”
“Aye, woman, your shrieking could have awakened the dead. Everything I’ve said tonight goes doubly for you—and I’ll hold you responsible as well, Kael, if your sister shows disrespect tae my wife ever again.”
“A-aye, Laird, you have my word she willna trouble you or Lady Mackay further.”
Alec didn’t have to dismiss them, Kael grabbing his sister’s arm to hustle her away as other servants began to carry in the food.
Sighing heavily, Alec took his seat beside Rowen, but he didn’t say a word to her while their plates were filled and their cups soon brimming with ale.
She sensed tension in him that hadn’t faded, and it was all she could do to eat and drink with him sitting so close to her and not sparing her a glance.
He focused, instead, upon his meal and ate two platefuls after consuming nothing for three days, though he emptied his cup only once—and it wasn’t Sheena who refilled it for him.
Rowen didn’t see her anywhere in the great hall and imagined her brother had banished her to the kitchen while another maidservant, older and stout as a rain barrel, tended to her and Alec.
Her emotions still reeling, Rowen had little appetite, but she forced herself to eat what was in front of her to have strength for whatever was yet to come that night.
For that reason, too, she only sipped her ale, her thoughts flying back to their wedding feast when she had consumed three cupsful in close succession.
What a drunken spectacle she had made of herself! Now she simply wanted this meal to be over so she could escape to their bedchamber—och, but would she find any refuge there?
Along with Alec’s continued silence, she sensed simmering anger in him that hadn’t diminished, either, which made her fingers tremble as she finally pushed away her plate.
“You are done with your meal, wife?”
Rowen saw that Alec had finished, too, and she nodded, swallowing hard at the tightness of his jaw as he met her eyes.
Gone from those slate blue depths was any lightness, any humor, Rowen regretting more than ever before that she and Errol had entertained the idea of feigning an accident to rid herself of Alec.
He didn’t just hate her now, but despised her…though he had spoken so well of her to his clansmen. Clearly he had accomplished the task of earning her some respect, but now he rose from the table and Rowen stood, too, recognizing that he wished to leave the great hall.
She had only a moment to grab her cloak and murmur to the plump maidservant who had served them to fill a plate for Gaira and take it to her room, before Alec began to steer her past his clansmen.
His grip upon her arm as punishing as before, he shouted a good night that made her jump, which only made him tighten his hold upon her.
As his men echoed in kind with raised ale cups, their mood more boisterous than when she and Alec had entered the great hall, Rowen felt a sense of relief that at least the shunning would stop—for she doubted anyone would defy him.
She had never seen Alec look more in command than when he addressed his kinsmen and then Sheena, though the maidservant’s stiffened shoulders as her brother had led her away didn’t reflect that she’d taken Alec’s stern warning to heart?—
“Go on tae our room. I’ll join you later.”
Alec had escorted her to the tower steps and abruptly released her arm, Rowen staring at him in surprise as he turned away.
“Y-you’re not coming with me?”
“No, I want tae see what your clansman did tae my horse.”
Alec had bit off the words so harshly that she winced, but still she hastened after him as he strode toward the doorway leading out to the bailey.
“I’ll go with you. It’s my fault as much as his?—”
“Och, woman, keep your voice down!” Alec cut her off, wheeling around to glare at her. “Will you undo what I managed tae achieve this night by such an admission?”
Rowen gulped at how grim he looked, but she whirled her cloak around her shoulders and deftly sidestepped him to hurry to the door. “Are you coming, husband?”
She heard a muted curse from him, though he didn’t rush after her to stop her. Instead, he followed her outside into the bailey covered with nearly a foot of snow that glistened in the sputtering light of torches set atop the high walls.
The fluffy flakes had ceased to fall, the night sky clear and brightened by a full moon while the air had grown colder. Rowen drew her cloak more tightly around herself as Alec forged past her toward the stable, his footfalls leaving a path for her to follow…though unintended, she was certain.
