Page 9 of So Close To Heaven (Far From Home #11)

“Have ye pain?” he asked. “Were ye injured in the tumble after all?”

She shook her head, and the loose ends of her russet-gold hair brushed against his chest.

“Then why do ye weep?”

A long moment passed. He felt her chest rise with a deep breath, as though she were trying to steady herself. She gave a small shake of her head again, sharper this time.

“It’s nothing,” she murmured, voice thick. “I’m fine—sorry, I didn’t mean to...”

The words trailed away, and the silence stretched between them, filled only by the muffled sound of hooves on damp earth. He let her be, unwilling to press. But then, after a dozen heartbeats had passed, she spoke again.

“Am I hearing this right?” she asked, her voice smaller now. “That only pain or injury is cause for weeping?”

Alaric stilled at the question.

It had been a long while since he'd sat this close to a woman. Longer still since one had spoken to him in tones that weren’t hushed, deferent, or guarded.

And he couldn’t recall the last time he'd been asked such a question—a question, he sensed immediately, with a trap beneath its surface, like a snare hidden beneath leaves.

A man might step wrong and not know until the teeth clamped shut around his leg.

So he tread carefully.

“If ye say ye’re fine, I’ll nae press,” he said after a moment, carefully evasive. “But I’ve learned folk say such things when they’re anything but.”

She said nothing to this, but did not cry anymore, not that he was aware.

And yet he had to wonder about her odd query, asking the year, and then considered Kendrick’s remark— taken by madness —when he, apparently had told her the year as well.

Alaric scowled over the top of her head.

They rode in silence for the next few miles.

By the time the MacKinlay captain, Mathar MacCraith, eased his horse alongside, Alaric was nearly certain the woman had fallen asleep.

Mathar matched the stallion’s pace and leaned slightly, no doubt checking for himself to determine whether she slept or not, his gaze dipping to the face tucked against Alaric’s chest.

A quiet sound escaped the woman—something between a sigh and a soft hum—but she did not stir. Her lashes lay fanned over pale cheeks, and her brow was finally smooth, her earlier tension eased in sleep.

When Mathar straightened, he gave Alaric a look that needed no translation, though he spoke anyway, his voice low and urgent in the old tongue.

“She’ll not make it another day in the saddle, not in her state.”

Alaric’s eyes remained fixed on the road ahead, though the tension in his jaw betrayed that he was listening. Of course, Mathar’s unflinching indifference, his hard-edged practicality came as no surprise to Alaric.

Mathar continued, as he always did when he thought Alaric too stubborn to hear the captain’s wisdom. “Coire Sionna lies ahead. No more than a half-turn east of the river bend. Barely an hour out of our way. Let the sisters see to her. Let them see her to the main road, to safer lands.”

Alaric protested mildly. “The pass at Caol Glen is more direct than the priory.”

Mathar huffed softly and gave a dry snort. “And yet I cannot see you abandoning the lass even then, certainly when the nearest burgh or house is still miles away. Put her into safe hands and be done with it.”

When Alaric said nothing, only clamped his lips, Mathar pressed with startling insight.

“I saw how you leapt at her when she fell,” he said, his voice quieter, “saw the look in your eyes. She’s not Gwen, lad. This lass, whatever her woe, is not yours to save.”

Alaric’s grip tightened, almost imperceptibly, around the sleeping woman.

He’d already reckoned as much. Knew well enough what had stirred him the moment her body had crumpled from the back of the horse, when he’d gone tearing through the ranks like a man possessed.

It wasn’t Gwen, he knew that, but there was something in the sight of her, lost and fragile, belly full with child, that had struck like a blade between his ribs when he’d witnessed her tumbling off the horse.

For one terrible breath, he’d seen another woman entirely. Though the circumstances were wholly different, worlds apart in context, the memory of it had flashed through his brain.

Just as quickly, the old guilt had resurfaced, not that it was ever far from reach, not that it didn’t plague him with maddening frequency.

He’d made the choice once—wife or child—and had lost both.

The memory of it never dulled, only lingered, deep and bitter.

And maybe that’s what had spurred his reaction before his thoughts had caught up—some cursed piece of him still trying to atone for what couldn’t be undone.

Aye, the lass in his arms wasn’t Gwen. But that hadn’t stopped his blood from turning to ice when she fell.

Mathar’s voice lost its brief gentleness, reminding Alaric of their purpose.

“There’s vengeance to be had, lad. A reckoning.

We’re the last thorn in Edward’s bloody side, and he kens it.

While other men bend the knee and feast under false banners, we bleed in the hills.

That was the pact. That was the oath. Do not forget it now.

It takes precedence over all else, including things that are none of our business and lost causes—even bonny ones. ”

Alaric finally exhaled through his nose, slow and steady. “We’ll take the eastern fork at the river,” he said, his tone clipped. “If the sisters are willing to accept her, then so be it.”

Mathar nodded once, satisfied with the answer but scarcely fooled by the evasion.

“Will you never forgive yourself?” he asked after a pause.

It wasn’t the first time Mathar had asked him this, it probably wouldn’t be the last. Alaric replied as he sometimes had in the past, when he bothered to reply at all. “Would you be able to?”

Mathar didn’t respond. He gave a small grunt of understanding, shifting in the saddle and letting the moment settle before he nodded grimly and rode a bit ahead, surely to advise the scouts and the fore-guard of their change of direction.

Alaric shifted slightly, once again adjusting his hold on the sleeping woman, willing his thoughts to silence. One woman wouldn’t change the course of war; this small detour wouldn’t—couldn’t possibly—affect the outcome.

More pertinently, she wasn’t Gwen. And this wasn’t then, seven years ago.

And still, as his horse picked its path through the darkening wood, and as the army soon faced the dark sky of the east, Alaric couldn’t help but feel the press of fate at his back, as if a hand was guiding him down a road he hadn’t meant to take.

It was nearly half an hour later, long past the burnished gold of dusk, when he felt her wake. Not with a start or jolt, but a slow stirring. Alaric glanced down, already aware of the way her breath had changed, no longer the deep, even rhythm of sleep, but lighter, more restless.

She blinked and pulled away from his chest, turning and raising her face to him.

The moon had climbed above the trees, casting a cool gleam across the forest floor. He caught only a glimpse of the silver light reflected in her eyes before she faced forward again.

“Yer awake, then,” he said quietly. “Do ye ken where ye are?”

“Still riding,” she murmured, her voice low and scratchy.

She shifted her weight, then stilled again quickly, perhaps remembering her position—cradled against his chest, his arm around her, his hand settled over the swell of her stomach.

A sigh was felt more than heard. “And having no more idea where we are now than I did earlier when you...discovered me.”

He gave a slow nod. “What’s yer name, lass?”

“Ivy. Ivy Mitchell.”

A curious name, a plant in English if he recalled correctly.

His brows pulled together slightly, but before he might have questioned her about this, she said, “I know yours. Kendrick enlightened me,” she clarified.

“Right after... after the fight, or actually, after you left me with them—Kendrick, Blair, and Ewan.”

She was seated side-saddle and thus her back was not square to his chest. She was angled just enough that a simple glance down revealed a quarter view of her face, an upper view of part of her profile.

Her brows were knit. Even in the dark, she was pale.

She looked less breakable than she had earlier, but still worn, like a ribbon thinned by wind and weather.

“He called you laird,” she said.

“Aye.”

She swallowed, then gave a stiff nod, as though unsure what to do with that information. She curled her fingers slightly against the breacan, brushing the thick wool mindlessly.

“So you’re... in charge of this army?”

“Aye.”

“And your mission is what? Were you chasing those English from earlier? Or did you happen upon them?”

Curious about questions regarding a topic that should be of no interest to a mere woman, Alaric frowned and answered carefully. “We were lucky, came upon tracks, and gave pursuit.”

“And you—and your army—killed all those Englishmen? All those dead bodies I saw?”

“Aye.”

“Were...were they particularly bad or dangerous Englishmen? Or do you simply believe that the only good Englishmen are dead Englishmen?”

“What is it ye’re meaning to ken?” He asked, his frown intact.

She drew in a large breath and released it, only a wee bit shakily. “I’m just trying to figure out if there’s actually a war going on, or if you’re some kind of vigilante or...I don’t know, like a rogue knight, who rides around looking for a fight.”

His brows pulled closer together in a tight, displeased line. Aye, the name suited her—quiet at first glance, but clinging, persistent. Ivy. Not thorny, no—but she had a way of curling into the cracks of a man’s guard before he even noticed.

“We are at war,” he reminded her. “A war that’s nae likely to end soon.”

“With England?”