Trotting through the castle, Sorcha made quick work of reaching the stables. She hadn’t noticed Oliver slip away. Her focus had been on helping Taryn as she wrestled with the overwhelming guilt that was so clearly gnawing on her. Oliver had shared so much more than Sorcha could have ever hoped for. He had given them information that would be sure to change the tides of the war. But when she had looked back to smile her thanks, he was gone. She only hoped that he hadn’t been able to leave the stables yet.
Yet.
The word sent a pang through her chest. She knew that Oliver’s place was within the walls of his own estate. He had a family, people who trusted him to take care of them. But she couldn’t help the mournful anguish that sprouted inside her whenever she thought of him leaving.
The sight of the stables, new and gleaming from the recent rebuilding, was a beacon of hope for her. She stood at the threshold of the kitchen door, the afternoon’s gentle breeze caressing her face. The sun, having spent the day hidden behind a thick layer of clouds, emerged as she took her first step outside. Her eyes stayed glued to the wide open stable doors. For a long moment, she stayed there, her earlier rush to find Oliver stemmed by the fear of what she would do if she didn’t find him still on Kincaid lands. And the fear of what she would do if she did.
It was not lost on her that in crossing the castle threshold, in making her declaration of trust to her friends, she had crossed a line within her own heart. She meant every word she had said to Aila, Taryn, and the others. If only she could find the courage to tell Oliver those same words now.
There was no movement, no rustling, no shadows traipsing through the stables. Her heart hardly knew what to do with the fact that there was seemingly no sign of anyone trying to make their horse ready for a long journey. But if Oliver wasn’t in the stables now, it meant he had already left. There was no other place within the Kincaid Keep he could be.
Her breath caught in her chest as she tried to gather the courage to cross those few final yards between her and the castle. So focused on seeking a sign of Oliver was she, that the sounds of the birds chirping disappeared to her. She didn’t notice the brilliance of the blue in the sky that appeared after the cloudscleared. Nor did she pay any heed to the gentle babble of the lake water lapping against the shore not far from where she stood.
And when, at last, a figure crossed through the stable aisle, Sorcha felt as though she could breathe again. His gait, the proud set of his shoulders, the noble tilt of his head was recognizable to her, even from this distance, even after only knowing him for a short while.
Sorcha had barely cleared through the opening in the kitchen door before she took off running. She didn’t care if it was improper. She didn’t care if any of her friends were watching from the study windows. Even if she had, she doubted she could have stopped herself from sprinting towards the man who had so completely captured her heart. Barely managing to slow her steps enough to not spook the horses, Sorcha drank in the sight of him.
His coat, a deep blue that made his dark hair carry the same blue tinge, hung off his frame with tailored perfection. In other men, she found such elegant dressing to make them look weak and docile. But the shine of his black boots, the caramel color of his fitted breeches, the clean lines of his coat with the brass buttons holding the lapels open, only served to accentuate Oliver’s masculinity. The fabric seemed barely able to contain his lithe muscles, their movement following his motion like the coat of a panther, dangerous, feral, and powerful.
“There ye are,” she said, breathlessly.
Whether that was from her run to the stables or the whirlwind of emotions that had been stirred inside her, she couldn’t say.
“Here I am,” he answered as he slowly turned away from his horse, already saddled and packed.
All of their earlier ease had vanished somewhere between the river and the war room. Sorcha mourned for the light heartedness she had gotten to witness in Oliver. She wanted toget it back, she just didn’t know how. She doubted it was possible with everything they had hanging over their heads.
“I wanted to say thank ye,” she told him softly, walking up to him as though he were a stranger, feeling wildly out of place.
Oliver’s eyes drifted to the ground before he sniffed once and gave a curt nod.
“It is the least I could do. I can tell Kincaid is a good man. He deserves a chance at happiness.”
“I dinnae just mean what ye did in there. I mean all of it.”
He furrowed a brow at her. Sorcha took another step forward, moving in a moment of boldness as she reached for his fingertips.
“Ye have protected me, bargained for me. Ye have brought me home when there was nay need for ye to accompany me. Ye have risked yer verra life for me, saving me from Dudley’s men. That deserves so much more than a simple ‘thank ye’ but I dinnae ken what else I can offer ye.”
He tightened his grip on her fingers, bringing them up to his lips to press a soft kiss on her knuckles.
“As I recall,” he said smiling over the top of her hand, “it was you who saved me, not the other way around. You had Dudley’s men running for the hills while I lay on the ground like a greenhorn.”
He chuckled, the sound sweet and rich. She wanted to bottle it, to etch it into the very core of her being. For a second, that lightheartedness was back. But then he blinked, and it was gone once again.
“I wish I could do more. I wish I could prove to your family that I am on their side, that I am onyourside.”
“Och, Oliver,” she breathed.
His soft admission, where he revealed this part of himself, part of his vulnerability to her, was the bridge back to the closeness they had shared on their ride to Kincaid Castle. Allsigns of pretense fell away. His golden eyes searched her, worry and regret lingering there. Forgoing all propriety, all sense of modesty or decorum, Sorcha surged forward and threw her arms around Oliver’s neck.
Though her embrace had caught him off guard, he quickly returned the hold. Her shoulder cradled his head for a long moment as he breathed in the smell of her, letting her red hair shield him from the rest of the world.
“I ken,” she whispered so as to not break the tenuous peace of the moment. “Ye would have done anything to stop this.”
He nodded against her, pushing out a single growled word in response.
“Aye.”
