“What are you doing outside my room?” she demanded in a whisper, wishing she had not noticed anything appealing about his physical appearance.
He stood with the fluid grace she’d worked hard to forget. “What are you doing rushing around in the wee hours of the morning?” he asked instead of replying.
“Looking for my children.”
“They are sleeping in the room beside yours. Your champions are in there as well, guarding the lad’s and lass’s sleep.” Caelis’s disgruntled tone implied he wasn’t as pleased about that as Shona was.
Her own heart, which had been beating near out of her chest, settled into a more normal rhythm. “Which one?”
He indicated a door to the right with an incline of his head in that direction.
She immediately headed toward it, but Caelis’s arm shot out, his hand closing over her wrist. “Where are you going?”
“To see them.” She spoke slowly as if to a not very bright child.
“You will wake them.”
She didn’t intend to, but ’twas not her greatest consideration at the moment. “I will be quiet.”
“Eadan will hear you.” The certainty in Caelis’s tone implied he somehow already knew about their son’s acute ability to detect sound.
“Nevertheless, I will see them.”
“Why? I have told you they are resting with your friends. Do you not trust Thomas and Audrey to watch over the children?”
“Of course I do, but I only have your word that Eadan and Marjory are behind that door, safe and sleeping peacefully.”
Caelis’s head snapped back as if she’d slapped him with all the fury she’d wanted to six years ago. Back then, she’d been too much in love to do him harm, despite his betrayal.
Now, she would not hesitate.
“You do not trust my word?” he asked with shock too real to be feigned.
She was hit by her own sense of unreality. “You
“Aye.”
“Then you are a bigger fool than I was six years ago.”
“I have told you there were reasons for what happened between us.” And he sounded like he fully expected her to listen to him list them.
“What happened was that you made promises that had no more substance than the morning mist.” And no amount of explaining could change that.
“I meant my words to you when I spoke them.”
That was supposed to matter to her? She jerked her wrist from his hold. “But not later.”
He’d broken his vows and she’d ended up married to an old man whose touch had near to driven her insane. If she had not had her children, Shona would not have survived the last years.
She was sure of it.
She moved away, intent on finding Eadan and Marjory. He did not try to stop her again.
She pushed against the door, but it did not give. If Caelis were indeed telling the truth, then Audrey or Thomas must have dropped the bar into place on the other side. She appreciated her friends’ dedication to safety, but Shona would not return to the guest room without confirming her children’s well-being.
She knocked softly on the door, knowing the siblings slept more lightly than even her son.
Only a few seconds passed before the door swung inward, revealing Thomas’s sleepy countenance.
“You wish to see the little ones,” he guessed.
She nodded.
Thomas stepped back and Shona moved into the room. The candle she carried casting a soft glow over the space, revealing the bedding on the floor where Thomas had obviously been resting. Beyond that was a bed similar to the one Shona had been sleeping in, but this one was a lot more crowded with Audrey in the middle and Eadan and Marjory on either side of her.
Audrey’s eyes were open, but she did not move. Obviously not wanting to disturb the children, she sent Shona a small smile of reassurance. Eadan shifted, making a soft noise, but he didn’t wake, proving just how exhausting the past sennights had been for him.
Shona did not speak, but simply sent a questioning glance to Audrey. The blond woman gave an infinitesimal nod, telling Shona all was well.
Thomas patted her on the shoulder. “We will waken you in the morning when they rise, if you are still sleeping.”
He spoke quietly, his mouth very near her ear.
She nodded, sending them both a grateful smile before going back into the hall. Caelis stood there, glowering at Thomas as Shona pulled the door closed behind her.
She turned to face the man she was quickly coming to view as her nemesis. “I cannot imagine what you find so objectionable about young Thomas, but he will grow into a fine warrior with great honor one day. You will stop glaring at him so.”
“He is already a man.”
“He is but nineteen.” Which admittedly was three years past the generally acknowledged advent into manhood, but Thomas was still so
“He is almost a child.” Though she knew he would not thank her for saying so.
“He is too familiar with you.”
“He is my friend.”
Caelis appeared unmoved. “So he claimed earlier.”
The Chrechte are stronger than humans but not superior to them. They are brethren as the Faol are brethren to the Paindeal and the Ean.
—CAHIR TRADITIONS
Shona gave a mental shrug. Caelis’s feelings were of little import to her. “It is true.”
She considered Audrey and Thomas the siblings her parents had never been blessed to provide her. Shona had never looked on them as servants as her husband and the rest of the household did.
“Does every male
“You are daft. Thomas is no more lover-like than…than a
Shona had allowed none but those two to breach the walls she’d built around her heart after this man’s betrayal and her parents’ rejection because of it. She’d felt the twins’ helplessness in the face of their fates being chosen for them by an uncaring father because it was so like her own.
Her father had cared, but he’d been equally certain he knew what was best, and forcing her into marriage with the baron had been at the top of that list.
“I owe them both a debt of honor for watching over you and the children.”
He’d said something like that before. It made no more sense to her now than it had earlier.
But she would make no attempt to disabuse him of the notion. If he felt some obligation to Audrey and
