leaning over her, his expression fiercely concerned. Or so it seemed. She ignored the voice in her head, knowing it was him calling to her. She turned her head away.
He touched her ear, telling her he wanted to say something.
She refused to look at him. “I fell down the stairs.”
He tugged her chin, oh so gently, so she had to meet his gaze. “Do not worry. I am not angry for you walking down the steps alone.”
She did not need his assurances. “It was not my fault. There was something on the steps. It rolled under my shoes and I lost my footing.”
“Do not feel you have to make excuses.” Talorc shook his head. “Lachlan was right, though it pains me to admit it. The stairs are not safe for a family. I will have a rail installed.”
She ignored his reassurance for the important issue at hand. “There was something on the stairs. I felt it under my shoe.”
“There wasn’t. I found you moments after you fell and nothing was there.”
“You found me?”
“Osgard did at first, perhaps a second or two before me, and for all his bluster, he was most concerned.”
Talorc frowned and turned his head to glare at someone behind him.
Guaire returned his laird’s frown with equanimity. “Osgard has proven time and again that he does not accept our new lady. He knows of her habit to come down the stairs before anyone else in the morning. He is usually the first in the great hall. He could easily have put pebbles on the steps and cleaned them up before you arrived to discover your wife’s fallen body.”
Abigail did not like the possibility that someone in their clan had tried to hurt her, but she knew
His glower was twice as ferocious as Talorc’s as he stared at Guaire. “You dare accuse our laird’s advisor of an act that amounts to treason? He is a loyal Chrechte.”
“And because he is Chrechte, he is above reproach, but because I am merely
The dangerous stillness that came over Talorc and Niall indicated something Guaire had said made them more than angry. It made them dangerous.
Abigail played her friend’s words back through her mind and understanding dawned. Guaire had referred to himself as human, not a Highlander, which implied he knew the true difference between the Chrechte and the rest of their clan. And neither Niall nor Talorc had known he was aware of their true nature.
The glare he turned on the two bigger warriors was sulfuric. “Do you think I am blind? I live here with you all.”
“That is enough,” Talorc bit out with a sideways glance at Abigail.
Guaire’s look turned to one of contempt. “By all means, keep your wife, your
“Leave,” Talorc ordered.
“No!” Abigail cried. “He is my friend.”
“You countermand my order?” Talorc asked dangerously.
“You withhold enough from me; you will not keep my dearest friend.”
“What do I keep from you?” he asked, so clearly certain his secret was safe he was genuinely confused.
That only made her angrier. And as Emily knew, when Abigail got angry, she went silent, not louder. “It is not worth discussing.”
He stared at her, clearly nonplussed. “Abigail . . .”
She glared back at him, as mute as she was deaf.
“I have duties to attend to,” Guaire said in an obvious bid to end the stalemate between laird and lady. “You need your rest.”
Abigail smiled her thanks for his concern. Then she gave Talorc and Niall her meanest look. “You will not hurt him.”
Niall jerked back as if hit. “I would not. He is my . . . fellow soldier. I would protect him always.”
Guaire looked about as convinced of that as she was of Talorc’s love, which was to say, not at all.
“Abigail, what the hell is going on with you?” her husband demanded.
“Mayhap my fall addled my brains,” she said with unadulterated sarcasm.
Talorc actually looked relieved by the explanation.
She and Guaire shared a look of pure understanding before the redheaded soldier left the room.
“I would rest,” Abigail said, looking at neither her husband nor his loyal soldier.
He brushed her cheek as Emily often did to get her attention. She let her gaze rest on him only because she knew she would not get rid of him if she did not.
“First you will drink some tea I had Una prepare from the recipes in my mother’s healing journal.”
With her luck, the tea would be poisoned. “No.”
“I insist.”
“Una hates me.” Someone had left pebbles, or something, on the stairs. If not Osgard, then maybe the widow.
“I will not drink or eat anything she makes. And don’t bother lying to me and pretending someone else did the preparations if it is her. I can read a face as well as lips and I’ll know you aren’t being honest.”
“I would not lie,” Talorc said, anger finally kindling in his gaze.
Abigail refused to dignify his ridiculous assertion with an answer. Of course he would lie. Or at least withhold the truth.
When she did not break the silence between them, Talorc turned to Niall and instructed, “Have one of the undercooks prepare the tisane.”
Niall returned ten minutes later with a steaming cup. Abigail had not spoken and had managed to ignore her husband by the simple expedient of closing her eyes and shutting him out.
Talorc was patient with her ill humor and solicitous over that day and the next, but Abigail kept him at a distance. The fact that she had the worst headache of her life made maintaining her cranky attitude easy. Even Sybil’s constant harping had never made Abigail’s head pound so.
Guaire came to visit Abigail twice a day, but they were never left alone, which propriety might dictate, but she didn’t like because it wasn’t her virtue Talorc, Niall and Barr were protecting. It was their secrets.
The third morning, Abigail insisted on going to the great hall to break her fast with Talorc and the other soldiers.
Una expressed her concern for Abigail’s health, but Abigail was in no mood to play happy families with the widow after her cold treatment and attempts to undermine Abigail’s authority with the other clan members who served in the tower. She simply pretended not to notice the woman speaking to her.
The red that covered Una’s cheeks said she knew Abigail had not answered on purpose, but she did not attempt to speak to her laird’s wife again.
“What was that all about?” Guaire asked while Talorc and Barr were busy planning their day with the soldiers. “I thought you were trying to win her over.”
“I’ve given up.” For now anyway. “I just don’t have the good humor to deal with her right now.”
“She had her hopes of ending her widowed status with Talorc before the king’s edict.”
That might explain Una’s initial coldness, but it did not excuse it. “She said she had been housekeeper for three years. If Talorc had been interested, he would have shown it before now.”
“No doubt.” Guaire frowned, looking sad and defeated. “She’s set her sights on a different warrior now.”
“Niall?” Abigail asked intuitively.
“Yes.”
Abigail squeezed his hand in silent commiseration.
Guaire’s eyes widened and then he mouthed a thank-you before squeezing her hand back.
