Would she ever forge one with Trick?
Not if they didn’t get going. Toying with the stones on her amber bracelet, she looked over at the three carriages—one for themselves should they tire of riding, one for their servants, and one for everyone’s baggage—and knew this journey would be a torturously slow affair. With her husband traveling ahead, blithely unaware of the danger that might lurk at his childhood home.
“Are we not going to leave?” She lifted Pandora’s reins, an impatience in her voice she felt helpless to control. “Trick has two whole days on us—let’s be off.”
TWENTY-NINE
NIGHT WAS falling and Trick was spooning up the last of his soup when his wife blew through the door of the World’s End tavern.
It was storming outside, and the room was dark, and for the barest moment, he wondered if he were seeing things. Heaven knew he’d thought of little else besides Kendra these two weeks past. She’d consumed his thoughts both waking and sleeping.
But she wasn’t a figment of his imagination. She was actually here. He knew that because, had he conjured up his lovely and exasperating wife, he certainly wouldn’t have conjured up her brother and sister-in-law along with her.
He stood, nearly knocking over the small square table. “What on earth are you doing in Edinburgh?”
At the sound of his voice, she turned. Then just stood there, halfway out of her cloak, her mouth hanging open.
“Looking for you,” Jason answered for his uncharacteristically speechless sister, striding forward to shake Trick’s hand. He removed his dripping wide-brimmed hat. “But we had no expectations of catching you. We were planning to bring her to Duncraven tomorrow.”
Aghast, Trick dropped back onto the hard wooden bench. “When did you leave?”
“Two days after your own departure. We were already planning a visit to Leslie, and Kendra talked us into letting her tag along. I can see we made better time than you did. Was your journey unpleasant?”
“It went well.” He just hadn’t been in a particular hurry. The closer he got to Duncraven, the less he looked forward to a reunion with his mother. Half of him was afraid to hope for a reconciliation—afraid she’d disappoint him again. The other half was hoping too much.
“Finding you here is a timely stroke of luck,” Jason added.
Perching her wet cloak on a rack beside Kendra’s, Caithren aimed a coquettish glance over her shoulder. “Does this mean we get our own room at an inn tonight?”
Jason’s green eyes sparkled down at her. “Just like old times, sweet,” he said, referring to their own madcap courtship, conducted mainly on the road.
His wife went on tiptoe to press a kiss to his lips.
“Mmm,” he said, pulling back with a grin. “I’m suddenly starving.”
“You’re always starving,” Cait and Kendra chorused.
“Be that as it may, I’m going to get us something to eat.” He took Cait’s hand and drew her toward the bar.
Kendra slid onto the bench next to Trick.
“How long have they been married?” he asked, moving close.
She smiled. “Almost a year.”
“Newlyweds,” he murmured.
“We’re newlyweds, too,” she reminded him. As though he could have forgotten. He moved closer still.
Unbelievably, she leaned against him.
This wasn’t the Kendra he remembered—the one who always shied away from his advances. To convince himself she really was here, he ran a hand through her dark, rain-dampened hair. It felt as real as it looked. “I still like it this way best.”
She pulled something from her pocket and glanced up at him. “What?”
“Your hair. Loose and streaming down your back. And wet isn’t bad, either.”
She blushed, then removed his hand from her head and put a letter into it. “I came all the way to bring you this. Read it.”
“What could be so important?” Pushing his soup bowl aside, he spread the paper on the table and dragged a candle near. The letter was wrinkled and the ink a wee bit runny, but still readable.
“Dear Patrick Iain,” he said under his breath, then scanned the page and whistled.
“It’s a good thing I brought it, no?”
He nodded thoughtfully. “It could mean nothing. My mother might have asked him to write it just in case I’d decided not to come. A last ditch effort, if you will. But it’s difficult to tell. I’m left to wonder what I’ll be walking into.”
“What we’ll be walking into.”
He nodded again, not at all sure he was happy about that.
But he was happy to have her here tonight. Wondering what could have prompted the change in her demeanor, he tentatively laced his fingers with hers, smiling when she didn’t pull away.
Conversation buzzed around them, mixed with the sounds of eating and drinking. “Do you remember this Mr. Munroe?” she asked.
“Aye. He was a jolly type, always hanging around, it seemed. A very old friend of my mother’s—they grew up together.” His other hand gripped his tankard, and beneath the table, he pressed his thigh against hers. “From what I remember seeing through the eyes of a lad, I wouldn’t be surprised to learn he was sweet on her.”
“Did that not bother your father?”
“He was never home. Still, Father accused my mother of all sorts of things…” Musing, he took a long sip. He didn’t like to think of his mother as an adulteress, no matter what his father had said.
Something brushed his boot, and regardless that Edinburgh was teeming with rats, he’d lay odds it wasn’t one. It was, incredibly, Kendra’s shoe. Looking toward her, he gulped more ale.
A faint smile curved her lips. “Now that your father is dead, what’s become of her home, then?”
The question jarred him back to his senses. “Why, it belongs to me,” he said, surprised at that sudden realization. The truth was, he’d done his fighting best to banish all thoughts of home from his mind. “The castle was her dowry, so it belonged to my father, which means it’s now mine. But I
