Page 5 of Highlander’s Haunted Past

“Ye ken that I heard ye speak in the chapel. I know ye are capable. Some would argue that ye spoke quite well, even. Better than half of those men out there,” Rob said, gesturing to a group of men sloshing down ale while they tried to win the affections of a Gordon serving girl.

Kenna followed his gaze and smiled, dousing his anger with a wave of triumph that was far superior to what he had felt when he had won his first battle.

“Thank ye. Ye set such a high standard, ‘tis a wonder I have risen above. Should it please ye, I could think of some remark about the weather.”

“That would be a fine suggestion if I couldna just go open a window. Tell me something about yerself, then I’ll tell ye something about me. A fine game fer two strangers with nothing else to do,” Rob said, giving her a lopsided smile, the one that turned women to clay in his hands.

Kenna, however, was no normal woman, and she regarded him with nothing more than the smile of a lady trying a bit too hard to be polite.

“I am afraid I have had a wee bit too much wine to come up with some clever bit to offer. Ye shall have to ask a question.” As if to make the point clear, Kenna raised her glass and downed it, gesturing behind her for a refill.

“Fine,” Rob yielded, thinking to himself that he may have preferred her silence while he attempted to think of a question other than the location of the bedchambers.

The silence, while he thought, became awkward once more and he felt her slipping back into the cold distance that had defined the rest of their evening. He looked around the hall and asked the first thing that came to mind.

“Do ye live here?”

Shouldna said a thing if that was the best ye could come up with, Rob thought as Kenna’s smile slipped into bemusement, those blue eyes flickering across his face as if she was waiting for some quip he had yet to deliver.

“Uh, aye, I do. I believe that my living here is the basis of our acquaintance. Now I have a question fer ye.”

“Aye, ask anything,” Rob said eagerly, probably too eagerly, but he was pleased that she was willing to continue the conversation after such a poor start.

“Are ye a fool, or did ye suffer a blow to the head during the siege?”

“Excuse me?”

“Apologies. I am afraid that though we are wed, we have not yet reached a point where I might be so bold. Allow me to ask again: are ye a fool or did ye suffer a blow to the head during the siege, my Laird?”

This time she tried and failed to contain a small laugh.

“Likely the first,” Rob said, returning the smile and trying to ignore the rush of blood headed south as her twinkling laugh resurfaced and she cast him a warm glance through her long, wispy lashes. “Let me try another question.”

“I pray ye do better. Fer both our sakes.”

“Why the black sash? I am not sure that the Queen is pleased with such expressions of mourning during a celebration,” he said, moving his fingers along the black sash that crossed her from shoulder to waist, relishing the favorable trail it granted him passage to. “After all, ye are mourning a traitor.”

Her blue eyes flashed angrily at him, and he immediately regretted the question.

Colors,he told himself. ‘Tis always safe to ask women about colors.

“To a child, a man is a father first and a conviction second. Further, I mourn fer my friends as well,” Kenna told him, her voice as polite as a noblewoman’s ought to be but clearly laced with hostility.

“Yer friends? Were ye all that familiar with yer father’s small garrison of men? Very few were lost,” Rob said while wondering to himself if this lass was the virginal maid he had given her credit for. If not, he hoped that the man who had stolen her kisses before him had managed to fall off the castle’s walls during the siege to save Rob the trouble of killing him later.

“‘Tis not them I speak of. And to answer the second question, no, I had no deep knowledge of any of them,” Kenna said with a frustrated sigh as if she could read Rob’s thoughts and did not care for what she had found there.

“Enlighten me. I am but a fool, after all.” He hoped that his bit of self-deprecation would win back her smile.

“‘Tis only appraise fer me to remark that when ye men choose to play with yer swords, many women lose their lives.”

“Aye, innocent lives are often a cost of war. ‘Tis not something I wish fer. But while many suffer, far more men die fer the causes we men concoct than women.”

“I did not say that the women were dead, my Laird. Only that they lost their lives,” Kenna said with a spark in her eyes, daring him to challenge her.

Rob saw the caution there, too, her eyes flickering across his face, carefully assessing if she had gone too far with him.

“How can this be?” Rob asked, feeling as if he knew where she was headed but encouraging her to go there just the same.