Page 26

The word fell into the silent hall like a stone. Iona turned her back on the housekeeper before her face could betray her.

“Morag,” she said.

The girl straightened on the bench, smirking. “My lady?”

“Put down that linen. Ye’ll go to the kitchen and scour the pots, every one of them, till ye can see yer face in the bottoms.” Iona let her eyes rest on that pointed chin. “Ye had time this morning to laugh at sheets. Ye’ll have time for pots.”

A red flush went up Morag’s neck. For one long, sweet moment Iona thought she had won.

Then the yard door banged open behind her, and cold air came in across the floor, and she knew the step before she turned.

Alasdair came into the hall with a fair, broad-shouldered man at his back, both of them wind-reddened and smelling of horses. The fair one grinned at the brooms and the linen and Iona with her palm held out, and showed a chipped front tooth.

“Gavin Ross, my lady,” he said, and sketched her a bow. “Captain of the laird’s men. Since nobody in this keep has thought to tell ye.”

Iona inclined her head to him. “Captain Ross,” she said. “I’m glad somebody has.”

Alasdair stopped inside the door, and his eyes went straight to his wife in the middle of the floor.

“My laird,” Agnes said, and the relief in her voice made Iona’s stomach turn over. “The lady is asking for my keys.”

“Is she?” Alasdair said.

He came down the hall without hurrying. He stopped close enough that she had to tip her head back to hold his eyes, those cold grey eyes, and the smile came up at one corner of his mouth.

“Ye told me a wife keeps yer keys,” Iona said. “I’m yer wife. Tell her.”

“I told ye a wife keeps them if she can get them off Agnes.” He glanced at the housekeeper’s belt and back. “It doesnae look as if ye’ve managed.”

“I’m asking ye in front of them,” she said. “As ye stood in the yard and asked them to treat me as their lady. Are ye going back on yer own word, MacVey? Or are ye feart of what they’ll say if ye let yer wife win one?”

His smile went out like a snuffed candle.

For a heartbeat she thought he would strike her. He leaned down instead, so close she felt his breath on her mouth.

“Dare me in my own hall, lass,” Alasdair said quietly, “and ye’d best be ready to lose in it.”

He straightened. “This is my keep,” he told the whole hall. “And these are my rules. Agnes keeps the keys. Morag carries the linen. And nobody gives orders in my hall but me.”

“Then what am I?” Iona said.

He looked her up and down, slow, in front of all of them.

“From what I hear, ye’re a lass who carried her gowns back up to the tower before breakfast.” His voice carried to every corner. “A wife who willnae stay one night in my chamber doesnae get to order my household about by dinner. Come down out of yer tower first. Then we’ll talk about keys.”

Morag laughed.

It burst out of her high and sharp, and she clapped her hand over her mouth too late. Agnes’s mouth went tight and smug.

The heat came up Iona’s throat so fast that the hall swam. She did not lift a hand to him. She stepped in instead, until her skirts brushed his boots, and let him see exactly how much she hated him.

He did not step back. He was so close she could feel the heat coming off him, and her breast rose and fell a breath from his chest. Under all her rage something low in her belly pulled tight, and she hated it, and she hated him more for it.

“Ye couldnae even stay the night,” she said, low enough for him alone. “What frightens ye, MacVey? A Dunmore in yer bed?”

“If I’d stayed in that bed, lass,” Alasdair said, and not low at all, “neither one of us would have slept.”

Morag snorted into her palm.