“Thank you,” she replied, almost absently, adjusting her ankle on the footstool.
Alistair frowned. Her words felt . . .blasé.
For not the first time, he wondered if something was wrong. It was as if the more he wooed her—the kinder his actions—the sadder she became.
Was she melancholy, in truth? The Chris of his memory had never suffered from a depression of spirit. But perhaps she had over the intervening years, particularly given the twin losses of husband and father and the financial instability their deaths had brought.
Regardless of its source, Chris’s sadness weighed on him. Was there some piece of this puzzle that he was missing?
He thought of it as he watched her stare listlessly out the window. Her stark expression remained with him as he troweled away the remaining dirt blocking the tunnel, revealing a path to the chambered cairn beyond.
Chris was clearly eager to return to the excavation site. Refusing crutches, she began limping across the great hall, testing her ankle for how much weight it could sustain.
A week after her injury, Alistair arrived at her bedchamber to find her bed tousled and empty.
No Chris to be seen.
Mmmm.
He knew where he would find her.
12
The men had been busy in the week since her injury.
Chrissi stood in the center of the chambered cairn, a flickering candle in her hand. Her ankle had loudly protested the crawl through the long entrance tunnel, but she simply could not remain in the castle a moment longer.
Not with Alis hovering so solicitously.
Not with her own heart slowly cracking in her chest.
Not with the pain of their past racing toward her like a runaway locomotive.
Losing herself in work seemed the wisest course.
Lifting her lantern, she studied what Alis had uncovered.
Corbel-vaulted, the chamber rose to well over fifteen feet in the center, but the sides were sloped and low. Square holes were cut into the perimeter at regular intervals, suggesting niches or side chambers. The weight of the turf overhead and the tight fit of the stones ensured that, unlike the entrance tunnel, this part of the cairn remained free of mud and debris.
Setting the lantern atop a jutting stone, she bent to brush dirt from one of the possible niches, regretting that she had not thought to place her trowel in her pocket.
A noise and dimming of the daylight from the tunnel had her turning her head.
Alis emerged from the entrance, stooped and crouching.
Of course he would run her to ground. Alistair Maclagan watched over those in his care.
The cracks in her heart trembled.
“I thought I might find ye here, lass,” his voice reverberated around the small chamber.
He stood, crossing to join her, rimmed in sunlight from behind and flickering lamplight in front.
How odd, Chrissi mused. The chamber had felt large enough just moments before. But now . . . it suffocated her, the walls too close and confining. Alis saturated the space, the potency of his large body setting hers to vibrating.
Enough.
How could she continue to play this doomed dance?
