Page 8

Chapter

Eight

T he very moment they stepped into the keep of Caerlaverock Castle, Ewan pulled Avelina aside.

“You will cease speaking with him, Lina.”

Her brother had attempted to gain her attention during the remainder of their journey, but she and Niall had ridden together. She’d expected this conversation much sooner, but now would do.

“I will speak to whomever I please,” she said, having rehearsed the line earlier. As Niall and his brother spoke to the steward, she continued in a hushed tone, “Including the laird of Duncraig.”

“He is the son of the man who killed our father, Lina. And many others.”

Her jaw dropped. “He is?” She pointed to Niall, whose back was to her.

The hall, which was on the entrance level of the keep, lay before them.

It appeared the evening meal was finished, but the steward escorted both Niall and his brother inside.

For his part, Fergus waited for Ewan and Avelina near the entrance to the mostly empty hall. “That man, you say?”

Her brother was not amused. “Lina,” he warned.

But she would not give him further opportunity to tell her what she knew already.

If there was one man in the world she should not wish to speak with, to have her heart race at the sight of him, to imagine kissing.

. . ’twas the one who looked back even now as his eyes sought hers.

Though they’d spoken of little of consequence as they rode—only facts about each of them that most in their lives likely knew already—Avelina had begun to feel a softening toward Niall. That is, if she’d ever been truly hardened against the man.

“Ewan,” she said back to him in the same tone.

Though they were nearly the same age, the fact that her brother was chief of their clan lent him, at times, more of an authoritarian role over her.

Which, she supposed, was real and not simply her own conjuring.

If Ewan wished, he could have her married.

She was, in fact, under his control. But rarely did he wield that control as chief and not simply as her brother, like he had attempted to do just now.

“I am a grown woman. You know as much and know also how futile your efforts to command me will be.”

His expression hardened. “If I wished it—”

“If you wished it, you could do so. Aye. But you have been there, by my side, for the death of our father. And our mother. And know your strength is my own. Your conviction, my own. And I do believe you trust I am able to make decisions as well as thee.”

She knew it because Ewan had told her, more than once, that he was proud of the woman she was becoming. “Let us go into the hall before our host takes our absence as a slight against him. Though I will admit, I do not see him.”

Avelina had met Laird Caerlaverock on more than once occasion, and he did not seem to be present at the moment. A widower, he’d not yet remarried that Avelina was aware, and only four other Caerlaverock clansmen and two servants seemed to linger in the hall.

Her brother made a sound deep in his throat before relenting. The steward greeted them at the entrance to the hall, and while he and Ewan and Fergus spoke, Avelina looked toward the trestle table where Niall and his brother were seated.

He watched her every move.

Of course, her brother declined to sit with them, though the steward did not seem to think it odd.

Likely he’d been more surprised to see them arrive together than he was to watch as Avelina, Ewan, and Fergus sat at the very opposite end of the hall.

Immediately, servants came to them offering wine or ale and trenchers.

She sat across from Ewan with a perfect view of Niall. A fact he seemed to notice, the corners of his lips tugging upward as Avelina took her seat. Was he aware she sat this way, rather than offering him her back as Ewan did, apurpose?

It seemed, aye, he did.

“If you will look over there throughout the meal, perhaps you should sit next to me,” Ewan said.

“You cannae continue to stare at the lad,” Fergus, who sat beside Ewan, agreed.

Though Fergus was, indeed, older than Niall, he was not so much older as to warrant calling the chief’s son a “lad.”

“Nay?”

“Nay,” he said, turning to Ewan for support.

“I told her as much,” her brother said.

While the two men talked about how she should best behave, Avelina stole another glance Niall’s way. He watched her as if he wished to laugh but didn’t. Unbidden, a smile formed, a joy she could not place coursing through her.

He seemed to be the kind of man who did not smile often, and the sight of him now nearly doing so made Avelina break into a smile of her own.

“Lina!”

She sighed, not wishing to hear her brother scold her throughout the meal.

As such, she tried, and often failed, not to look over Ewan’s shoulder as she ate.

Instead, she thought of the day when the spectators had returned from the king’s horrific decree.

At the time, ’twas simply called “the battle,” but later it became known as the Battle of The Black Friars.

She’d always found it curious that the battle had been held at a monastery, witnessed by the friars, who the king apparently held a strong affinity for but, in her opinion, should have stopped the bloodshed.

Perhaps remembering how much she’d lost that day would remind Avelina why her brother was wroth with her now. And ’twas not that day alone. She, and her brother, too, always believed that her mother’s illness may not have led to her death had she not been also harboring a broken heart.

When she looked up again, Niall’s attention was on his brother.

He’d not participated in the battle, but his father and clansmen had. And they’d taken everything from her and her family. Their clan had barely survived. Ewan, on this one occasion, was right. She should not be smiling at the laird of Duncraig.

“If we find the cattle where he claims,” Fergus was saying, “what do you intend?”

She was curious about Ewan’s answer too.

“They did not get there on their own. ’Tis too far a distance. Which means someone led them there. Who, and for what purpose? We will need to determine that in order to avoid a renewed war between our clans.”

“I cannae think of who might wish to instigate such a war,” Fergus said.

Avelina listened but did not participate in the men’s discussion.

The longer she thought about her behavior that day, the angrier she became at herself.

When the meal was finished, they stood and were escorted from the hall by the steward.

Avelina did not look back once, but as she and her brother were separated, Avelina taken to a different section of the keep, she was surprised to hear the very voice she’d been chastising herself for speaking with.

“Pardon,” Niall said to the maid behind her. “Are you taking her to the Thistle Chamber?”

“Indeed, my lord,” the maid said as all three of them paused in the otherwise empty corridor.

“If you would open it, I know the way and will escort her there in a moment.”

The maid looked between them, but before Avelina could inform her there was no need, she bobbed a quick curtsy. Niall’s commanding presence left little room for anything but obedience, and she hurried away.

“Why do you look at me so differently this eve?” he asked the moment the maid turned the corner.

The corridor was small, Niall standing close enough that if Avelina reached out, she could touch him. Light from the wall torch made his expression easy enough to discern. Concern was etched on his face.

“My brother and Fergus reminded me that you are not a man I should have become so familiar with so quickly. Or at all.”

“And you allow others’ opinions to sway your own so easily?”

“I allow myself to be reminded of what I lost at your clan’s hands.”

“My clan, aye. I cannae deny it. But I was neither in that battle nor would I have wished such an ill to befall you, Lina.”

The words were more softly spoken than she’d heard from him since they met.

“You are a hard man,” she blurted, “are you not?”

His lips pressed together. “I can be, aye.”

“Yet you tread gently with me. Why do you care, Laird Niall of Duncraig, if I should stop gazing your way during the meal? Or remind myself that you are my enemy?”

His eyes bored into her own. “If you must remind yourself we are enemies,” he said, “perhaps. . . we are not.”

“You are the Duncraig’s son. I am the daughter of the man he slayed. Of course, we are enemies.”

“I am naught but a man, and you, a woman, both of us but children during the Battle of The Black Friars.”

Aye, he was a man indeed.

“And still, you do not answer me. Why does it matter to you? In a few days, we will never see each other again.”

He did not answer. Instead, Niall continued to stare at her, but Avelina did not look away. She did attempt to slow the beating of her heart at his continued gaze but otherwise said nothing. Moved not at all.

“It should not,” he said finally, as if admitting something he did not wish to.

“Indeed.” Avelina would have told him he was right, and it should not matter. They should not be speaking now and should probably not speak again at length for the remainder of the trip. And yet, she said none of that. Instead, she watched as he took a step toward her.

She stared mutely as he reached up and clasped a strand of errant hair between his fingers. Tucking it behind her ear, his hand remained there for a bit longer than necessary, as if ’twas unnecessary to fix her hair at all.

Avelina did not move. She wasn’t even sure she continued to breathe.

Of course, you are breathing, you silly girl.

“This,” she said, her voice hardly sounding like her own, “is highly inappropriate. Speaking to each other alone. That, even more so,” she said as his hand finally, and sadly, returned to his side.

“I will leave you then,” he said, but Niall did not make a move to do so.

“Wait.”

He did. The reason she called him back had not needed to be voiced. ’Twas wrong. And aye, highly inappropriate. Yet, ’twas unmistakable too. That Avelina did not want him to leave was as infuriating as the fact that she’d wished for that very thing not long ago.

“Will you speak with me on the morrow? Or do we begin the day as enemies once again?” He asked her to decide. Was Niall simply a Duncraig, one of the most important members of that clan, and the bitterest of MacKinlay enemies? Or was he simply a man whose name held more ill will than she wished?

Fact was, the answer was both.

Would she speak with him on the morrow? Avelina was unsure if she could avoid doing so. Unsure if she wished to avoid it.

Instead of saying any of that, however, she simply said, “I will speak with you.”

For him, that seemed to be enough. “Come. I will show you to your chamber.”

She followed, asking what she’d been curious about earlier. “You’ve stayed here before to know this keep so well.”

“Aye,” he said. “Many times. Caerlaverock is an ally to Clan Duncraig.”

“And to Clan MacKinlay as well.”

Niall stopped and turned. “It seems, then, we’ve at least one thing in common.”

As they looked into each other’s eyes, Avelina observed, “I think it is not the only thing.”

“Aye,” Niall agreed. “I fear you might be right.”

Avelina shared that fear. And with it, the knowledge that it may be too late to turn back from whatever they’d started.