Cold dread churned in Olivia’s gut at the name.Noah. She had never liked the old man, with his soft voice and watchful eyes, and his habit of being in every room where important matters were decided. He had stood at her father’s right hand, then her brother Magnus’s, and had smiled that same cold, gentle smile through every funeral the long feud had brought.
“It’s nae true,” she said, her voice low and fierce.
“What are ye sayin’, Sister? Ye were nearly killed. I cannae ignore that.”
“Lucas, listen to me. The man who came into me room was a Cairn guard, aye, but it wasnae Ragnall who sent him. Ye ken this, did ye nae tell them? Whoever’s tellin’ ye that Cairn tried to murder me is lyin’ to yer face. There’s someone who wants this war, Braither. Someone feedin’ it carefully on both banks ofthe river. And it isnae Ragnall. He’s the one laird in this whole cursed glen who’s tried to put a stop to it.”
Her brother looked at her for a long moment, and a shadow shifted across his tired young face.
“Ye defend him,” he said slowly. “Yer enemy. The man ye were forced to wed. Ye kneel there in the dirt, and ye defend him with fire in yer eyes.” A faint, sad, knowing smile, so like their dead father’s that it caught her under the ribs. “Maither told me how it was with ye. I didnae believe her.”
Olivia’s face flushed to the roots of her hair. “I defend the truth. That’s all there is to it.”
“Ye do,” said her mother.
Both of them turned.
Elspeth had not stopped planting. She pressed in the kale firmly with her thumbs and drew the earth up around it and did not look at either of them.
“Ye defend the truth,” she said. “And the truth is that ye’re in love with him. Ye’ve been in love with him since afore ye came home, and ye’ve been walkin’ around this castle for a month with yer heart in yer mouth, waitin’ for somebody to say it out loud so ye can deny it.” She sat back on her heels. “There. Somebody has said it.”
“Maither.”
“I’m nae finished.” Elspeth wiped her hands slowly on her apron. Her voice had not risen at all, and that was what made it unbearable. “He killed yer faither. I’ll say that once, and then I’ll nae say it again, for I’ve nay wish to spend what’s left of me life sayin’ it. He killed me husband in me own yard, and I saw it through that window there. I daenae expect I’ll ever be free of it, nae for a single day.”
The garden was very quiet.
“I’ve thought about it every hour since ye came home,” she went on. “And what I keep comin’ back to, God forgive me, is that me son did somethin’ so vile I cannae bear to have it said in front of me, and every soul in this glen kens what it was but me, and ye all step around it like a hole in the floor and think I daenae notice ye steppin’.”
Olivia’s blood ran cold.
“Maither, I?—”
“Nay.” Elspeth held up a dirty hand. “Nay. I’m nae askin’. I’ve decided I’m nae askin’, and I’d thank ye to let me keep that, for it’s the only thing I’ve got left to stand on.” She picked up her trowel again. “But daenae ye ever stand in me garden and tell me ye’re defendin’ thetruth, lass. Ye’re defendin’him. Have the courage to ken the difference.”
She bent back to the kale.
“Go to yer festival,” she said. “Both of ye. Go and dance on the river and let them all look at ye. It’s more than yer faither ever did for this clan.”
“Aye. Well.” Lucas got to his feet, and there was a new steadiness in him now, some small strength she had handed him without meaning to. “I’ve held them off, for now. I told them we’d nae spill one more drop of blood till we’d tried the other road first. For I have received word from Cairn this week, as it happens. From the Laird himself.”
He drew a folded letter from inside his coat, and Olivia’s heart stopped clean in her chest at the sight of the black slashing hand scrawled across the face of it.
“He has put a thing to me that nay laird has put to another in a hundred years,” Lucas said. “One festival for both clans. Both banks of the river, together, at the turn of the season. A peace ye can dance to, he calls it. I thought it pure madness when I first read it.” He paused and turned the letter over in his hands. “Now I am nae so certain. Ye ken the man better than any soul at Blythe, Sister. Tell me the truth. Is it a trap? Or is it real?”
Olivia kneeled there in the cold turned earth with her brother’s question hanging over her and her husband’s black handwriting close enough to reach out and touch, and she thought of Ragnall standing at an altar with his great hands shaking, of him telling her that the feud would end on the worst day of her life, of himlying to her face about his heart with his jaw set like a man holding a door shut against a flood.
And she knew the answer with a certainty that frightened her more than any blade ever had.
“It’s real,” she said. “Whatever else the man is, whatever lies he tells himself in the dark, he wants the killin’ stopped more than he wants to draw his next breath. Go to the festival, Lucas. Take the whole clan. Dance on both banks of the cursed river, and let old Noah choke on the sight of it.” Her voice caught and steadied. “I will come with ye.”
Her brother raised one eyebrow. “Will ye, now? And here was I thinkin’ ye’d sworn never to lay eyes on Laird Cairn again so long as ye drew breath.”
“I daenae want to,” Olivia said. “God help me, I daenae. I…” She stopped, looked down at her dirt-blackened hands, and gave up the lie when it was but half out of her mouth. “I have to see him. Just once. I have to stand in front of him one more time and say me piece. And then I will be done with it. I swear to ye, I will.”
It was, she thought, very near the bravest lie she had told since the morning of her wedding.
CHAPTER 28
