She shook her head. “Not really,” she said. “The de Reyne family of Ashington is a distant cousin and there were times we visited them, but we were never close.”
“There are also de Reynes at Throston Castle.”
“I know,” she said. “But, again, distant cousins. I think I’ve met them once.”
He stood up wearily, completely nude. “You needn’t fear lonely gatherings any longer,” he said. “From now on, you will have more family than you can count.”
“I look forward to it.”
He stood there, glancing around the chamber. “Speaking of looking,” he said, “where are my breeches?”
Those horrible patchwork breeches. Mattie moved away from the window, going over to a small table that had been moved into the chamber so she could store her things, and picked up the infamous breeches.
“Here,” she said. “I noticed that they were tearing in places, so I wanted to sew them up before they fell apart and you were accused of indecency.”
He grinned, reaching out for them and feeling that they were also damp. “You washed them?” he said incredulously.
Mattie nodded. “A little,” she said. “I tried to remove some of the dirt and stains, but it is difficult without proper washing facilities.”
He was inspecting the stitching she’d done, reinforcing the seams, when he suddenly came to something on the waistband. Brow furrowed, he peered closely at it, realizing that it was writing.
Queenie.
He smiled broadly.
“What is this?” he said, lifting it to show her. “Are you signing your work now, like an artist?”
She grinned. “Nay,” she said. “It is so you will take me with you to every battle, or at least every battle where you wear those breeches. It is so I can watch over you, even when I am not by your side. It is so you will remember whom to return to.”
The conversation took an abrupt turn, from light and humorous to serious, all in an instant. The smile faded from his face as he looked at the stitching once again, spelling out his nickname for her. Emotions he’d never experienced before washed over him, those of delight and joy and even sadness. Sadness that now he did have someone to return to and he was aware of a feeling of fear that there might be a day when he didn’t return to her. Surely, she must have felt that fear too, or she wouldn’t have put her name on those dirty breeches.
“Oh… Queenie,” he said, lowering the breeches and going to her, wrapping her up in his powerful embrace. “I will always return to you, sweetheart, I swear it. You needn’t worry.”
Mattie was holding him tightly, feeling his big, warm body in her arms, the skin of his chest against her right cheek. “You do not know that,” she said. “I saw the battle yesterday. I saw the wounded in the hall. I knew there was a chance you might be one of them, or worse. But I realized something else, too.”
“What?”
“That it was foolish of me to clean the great hall,” she said. “It is foolish of me to want to turn this place into something other than what it is.”
“What do you mean?”
In his arms, she sighed faintly. “I cannot turn it into what Hensingham is,” she said. “My family home is not a warring castle. It is one of grace and teaching and our days are full of making it a lovely place that a woman would be proud of. But Gleann na Fola isn’t like that. You tried to tell me, but I did not listen. Now, I’ve seen for myself. It would be like trying to turn you into a priest. Some things are better left the way they are.”
He snorted softly, a smile rippling across his face. “You were not foolish to clean the hall,” he assured her. “It needed it. It was not a place for decent people until you worked your magic on it. I am very proud of you.”
She looked up at him. “Are you?” she said. “I am trying very hard to be the kind of wife you should have.”
His smile was gentle as he cupped her face between his two enormous hands. “Youarethe kind of wife I should have,” he murmured. “Everything about you is the wife I need and should have. You are the bravest woman I know. I watched you with the wounded. I saw how wonderful you were with them. If there was any doubt in my mind that our marriage was the right thing to do, watching you gag while you tried to stitch a wound erased any uncertainty I have ever had. You cannot know how much I admire you, Queenie. Or how much I feel for you.”
She went from being flattered and reassured to being surprised by his last sentence. “What do you feel?” she asked.
“What doyoufeel?”
“I asked you first.”
He grinned, coyly. “I think I like you.”
“I think I like you, too.”
