His eyes darkened. “I hoped you would.”
The words unsettled her so abruptly she nearly pressed too hard. She lowered her gaze and kept her hands careful. “That was bold.”
“I had already bled for your land. It seemed reasonable to ask for your patience in dressing it.”
“You have an unfortunate gift for making insolence sound sober.”
“Is that what this is?”
“No.” She tied off one bandage and reached for another. “This is wounded and tired and in need of correction.”
“From you?”
She looked up sharply.
He should not have asked that in such a low voice.
“I warned you,” she said.
“And I have not yet had the basin thrown over my head.”
“Do not tempt me.”
“I would not dare.”
Warmth lived between them now. Low. Dangerous. Nothing like the brittle sparring they had once thrown at each other like shields.
To bind the upper wound properly, she had to move between his knees and brace one hand lightly against his shoulder while she wound linen around his arm. The moment she realized what the position made of them, it was too late to withdraw without looking foolish.
He knew it too. He did not move.
She felt the heat of him through the torn linen of his tunic. The contained strength beneath her palm. His breath altered once, only once, then steadied again.
She tied the knot with absurd care. When she lifted her eyes, he was watching her mouth. She swallowed and drew back half a step. Not enough to make it a retreat. “You nearly got yourself killed,” she said, because she needed words.
“No.”
“No?”
“No.” His gaze held hers. “I nearly killed the man who rushed me while I was watching the others.”
The field came back in a vivid rush: his body in motion, fierce and exact, steel flashing in wet light. What had unsettled her was not savagery. It was how little of him was wasted in the act. “You fight as if there is no room in you for hesitation,” she said.
Something changed in his face. “There was once less room for it than there should have been.” He looked away.
The candle flame quivered. Outside, someone called for more water. The castle breathed around them, but the room felt suspended.
Aingeal studied him: dark lashes, jaw tight, beard roughening across his face. What rose in her was not pity. It was a deep, urgent wanting to understand. To lay a hand against whatever locked place lived inside him and ask for entrance.
He spoke first. “There are things that visit me in the quiet.”
Her breath caught. A true thing. Not all of it. Not nearly. But more than he had given before. She could press. Demand. Pry the shadow open. Instead, she heard herself ask, “And do they leave?”
His mouth curved in something that was not a smile. “No.”
There were things that visited her in quiet too. A hillside. Wet earth. Máire’s face, flushed with anger and hurt. The terriblespeed with which hands could become weapons when pride and longing turned cruel. God had forgiven her. Father Cillian had told her so.
Absolution had not erased guilt. It had only taught her to live beside it. She almost told him that. The words rose, trembled, stopped. Instead, she smoothed the edge of the bandage where it crossed his skin.
