Page 84 of Taming the Eagle

Sucking in a deep breath, and then another, she tried to forget her father’s words. However, they dogged each step.

Roman whore.

Aye, that’s how everyone here saw her.

Teeth clenched, Fenella strode down the walkway toward the lakeshore. A cluster of tightly packed dwellings stretched out over the waters of Lochan Uaine—a small loch that nestled in a valley amongst the mighty Cairngorm range. Above the mountains, the vast domed peak, Ben Macdui, rose high against the pale morning sky. It no longer glistened white, for spring was upon them and Bealtunn approached.

Lochan Uaine was a sheltered, safe spot, a place for her people to rally and build their strength once more. Fenella had hoped to heal here, yet with each passing day, her discontent and restlessness grew. It didn’t help that she was now an outsider among her own people.

Leaving the walkway, she crossed to an enclosure where her family’s goat waited. On the way, she looked to where a crowd gathered on the shore of the loch this morning. Folk were bartering over livestock and produce, their voices traveling across the still water.

Fenella viewed them with a jaundiced eye, noting that there were indeed many men among the throng. However, the Reaper would claim her before she took a husband at her father’s behest.

And what will you do instead?

Fenella’s chest tightened.

That was the problem. These days, she was wracked by indecision. All her life, her future had been decided for her by men. It was both exhilarating and frightening to be able to choose her own path—and it had paralyzed her.

She spotted Eogan amongst the crowd then. Her brother swaggered through the milling men and women, flanked by two friends. As she looked on, he stopped to flirt with a girl selling live fowl.

Feeling someone’s gaze upon him, Eogan glanced up, meeting Fenella’s eye.

She smiled and raised a hand in greeting, hoping that her brother would abandon his flirting and friends and come over to talk to her.

However, he merely flashed her a distracted smile and focused once more on the young woman. Eogan appeared to murmur something to her, and the girl laughed, the merry sound drifting across the crowd.

A sigh gusted out of Fenella. Turning from the crowd, she ducked into the enclosure. The goat bleated in greeting, and she let it nibble her hand as she pulled up a stool to begin milking.

No one besides her mother had any time for her these days. Sometimes she caught Mona watching her, an unusually probing expression upon her face. She was obviously curious about her daughter and her time at Ardoch, yet she was too timid to question her.

Sighing, Fenella rested her forehead against the goat’s warm belly, closing her eyes.

After leaving Ardoch, she’d thought the ache in her chest would eventually ease.

But it hadn’t.

Thoughts of the man she’d left behind plagued her whenever she had a moment alone. She wondered how he was faring. Such thoughts were a knife to the belly, yet she couldn’t prevent them.

They followed her everywhere.

How would Bricius react if he knew the truth—that his daughter actually cared for the Roman who’d taken her as his slave—and that he’d let her go?

Heaving another sigh, Fenella opened her eyes. She then started to milk the goat, the rhythmic squirts of milk into the pail easing her tension a little. She enjoyed this chore, for it got her out of the dark, smoky roundhouse, and away from her father’s censure.

However, the task was over all too soon.

It was the full flush of spring, and the goat had yielded half a bucket of milk, most of which she would turn into curd cheese to go with tomorrow’s noon meal.

Letting herself out of the enclosure, Fenella headed back toward the walkway. She walked slower this time, dreading her return home.

Aye, she had to leave—and it would have to be soon. Otherwise, she’d blacken her father’s eye, and there would be consequences.

She moved through the edge of the crowd, and had almost reached the loch’s shore, when a man’s voice hailed her. “Fenella!”

Surprised that one of the villagers was actually calling to her, she turned.

But when her gaze alighted upon the tall man with long red-brown hair and moss-green eyes striding toward her, Fenella went rigid.