Page 10

Chapter

Ten

“ N ay, I will not discuss it further.”

Avelina and her brother had been arguing since he attacked Niall. And aye, she agreed Niall may have deserved it for provoking Ewan, but if her brother had not approached them as if she’d done something wrong, perhaps Niall would not have found it necessary to come to her defense.

And he had done so, the thought of which Avelina could not get from her head.

As they passed the verdant green mountains—unfamiliar territory she had never thought to ride on as they’d crossed the border onto Duncraig land earlier—she watched him ride.

Waiting for those times, he turned back to look at her.

They were few, but when he did, Avelina’s heart leapt.

As it did when she thought of what he’d said.

If I had the opportunity, there is naught I’d wish for more than to kiss you, Lina.

She’d thought of nothing else. Well, perhaps except her brother’s reaction.

Her clan’s reaction to what they would see as a betrayal.

Except, Avelina had begun to think beyond a kiss.

To the ramifications of falling for the son of the man who’d killed her father in battle.

Yet, Niall had not said he wished to marry her, for goodness sakes.

Nor would she ever consider such a thing.

’Twas but a simple kiss. If there was a way for it to happen, would she do it?

Aye, she would.

“There.” Niall turned his mount back toward them. His attention was on the dots that Avelina could see now in the distance. Her brother and Fergus sat up straighter in their saddles, as did she. “Come,” her brother said, spurring his mount forward.

Their two riding parties sped toward the hill where, as they approached, the cattle were easy enough to see.

As Niall had said, there were more than twenty, though Avelina could not discern to whom they belonged.

Sure enough, however, as the others dismounted, with the cattle quite alone grazing in the fields before them, it did not take long for confirmation.

Her brother inspected just two of the cattle before turning to Fergus and speaking rapidly to him. Avelina couldn’t hear what they spoke of from this distance, but she could imagine.

She’d been about to dismount when Niall appeared out of nowhere below her. Though she did not need his assistance, Avelina accepted it for the simple fact that she wished to touch his hand. Whether he aided her for that reason, or simply to be courteous, she neither knew nor cared.

The touch was precisely as she imagined it would be. His hand, as firm as anyone’s. But it was the way he looked at her that made the moment so much more than simply a gallant knight assisting a lady from her mount.

“My brother will not be pleased,” she said as her feet touched the ground. “Added to the fact that the cattle are clearly ours.”

Unfortunately, he dropped her hand as they walked slowly toward the others. Ewan and Fergus were arguing. Niall’s brother stood off to the side, his arms crossed, his lips tugged upward in the slightest of smiles.

“I dinnae think Fergus believed you.”

“Nay,” Niall said, her brother and Fergus’s conversation now clear. “He did not.”

“Never on their own,” Ewan was saying now. “Who or why?”

It was the question she’d been pondering as well. Who would have led cattle to this spot? To Avelina, the answer as to “why” was an obvious one.

Suddenly everyone seemed to be talking at once. Discussing how the cattle got to this spot. Where they would have come from and who may have aided them. They also discussed how to get them back.

In the end, it was decided she and Fergus would return home, where a party would be fetched to retrieve the cattle, and Ewan would travel to the chief of Clan Tannochbrae, over whose land the cattle must have been led to arrive here.

Fergus was reluctant to leave his chief’s side but, remarkably, since Niall and his brother insisted on joining Ewan, he finally agreed.

“I am coming with you,” Avelina declared to Ewan as they began to set out already, even having just arrived. Fergus would be forced to sleep under the stars, but if they left immediately, Ewan believed they could reach Tannochbrae Manor by nightfall.

“Nay, you are not.”

It seemed she had been arguing with her brother since Niall arrived at their home. But there was no help for it. She simply refused to be separated from Niall yet.

“I am,” she said, returning to her horse and mounting as the others did.

When she rode up to her brother, Avelina stuck out her chin and dared her brother to defy her.

She tried to conjure a time when she’d wanted something within her power to achieve and failed.

Avelina could not think of such a time. Her brother knew it well.

And she wanted to be with Niall Duncraig.

’Twas absurd. Illogical. Not at all characteristic of her, since losing herself over a man was not Avelina’s style.

And yet, despite her strength and resolve, something about him had crept into her soul.

A quality she could not name but had quickly made him the focus of her thoughts.

Denying it was as futile as pretending to her brother there was any reason she wished to accompany him to Tannochbrae Manor but the opportunity to be with Niall.

For the first time since her brother attempted to waylay her, she looked at Niall.

’Twas rare to see him smiling, and he did just that.

As if her defiance of her brother pleased him, and why shouldn’t it?

Ewan was Niall’s greatest enemy and the reason she should not wish to be with him.

The reason she should cease thinking of kissing him.

But as their eyes locked, Avelina knew with certainty she’d do neither of those things.

In fact, the opposite was true.

Then they began to move. The next phase of their journey, begun.