“I think maybe I’ll lie down a spell,” he said.
“Shall I come with you?”
“Nay.” He scrubbed his palms over his face, avoiding her gaze. “I’m really tired.”
She tried to ignore the rush of disappointment. “Perhaps I’ll go sit with Hamish a while.”
“That would be kind. It’s a difficult day for him.”
He began to leave, but she snagged him by the sleeve. “It’s a difficult day for you, too, Trick.”
When he shrugged and pulled away, she let him go.
FORTY-ONE
“HOW IS HE doing, dearie?”
Startling from a doze when Hamish’s old friend Rhona came into the room, Kendra bolted upright on her chair. “He slept the whole hour I was here.” For the hundredth time since she’d entered the chamber, her gaze darted to the bed and she was relieved to see Hamish still breathing.
Rhona touched a hand to her shoulder. “I thank you for sitting with him. It was a welcome respite.”
“I can stay longer.”
“Nay, you run along now,” she said, settling to her embroidery. “Down at the draidgie, all the young people are telling ghost stories.”
Kendra slowly rose. “If you’re sure, then.” At Rhona’s nod, she slipped out the door and closed it quietly behind her.
She didn’t want to hear ghost stories—this bleak castle gave her shivers as it was. Deciding to check on her husband, she made her way up the dozens of winding stone stairs.
He wasn’t in their chamber.
Someone had made their bed after they’d left, and it was clearly undisturbed. He hadn’t come up to rest at all. Disappointed that he’d apparently fibbed to get away from her, she wandered to the room’s only window, deep in an alcove set into the wall. Resting her palms on the cold stone sill, she leaned out and looked up at the sky.
Gray, to match her mood. The clouds were moving swiftly; rain was on the way. A blackbird fluttered from the heavens and down to the garden below, spreading its wings to make a graceful landing on a stone bench.
Right next to a figure clad in a bright red kilt.
He was hunched over something in his lap. Something white. Paper. The man who’d told her he never wrote anything was outside scribbling up a storm.
She hurried downstairs, huffing and puffing by the time she reached the bottom, and headed for the door.
Niall caught her on her way out. “Why such a rush, lass? Is something amiss?”
“N-no.” Of course nothing was amiss—in the midst of catching her breath, Kendra wondered for a moment just exactly what she’d been rushing out to do. Yell at Trick for not taking a nap? Or for pouring his heart out on paper? He was a grown man, entitled to do as he pleased, especially on a disturbing day like this one.
She forced a smile for her brother-in-law. “Nothing is wrong. I thought I’d just go out and take some air.”
The bagpiper was warming up discordantly, and a fiddler was busy tuning. “The dancing is about to begin,” Niall told her.
She looked around, noticing the tables and chairs had been pushed against the walls. “There’s really going to be dancing?”
“Aye, there is. Mam would have expected us to celebrate her life rather than the death that ended it.” The musicians launched into a jaunty tune, and Niall made an incongruously solemn bow. “Are you dancin’?”
She could see that he was trying very hard to keep what he considered to be the proper draidgie outlook, although she was sure he ached deep inside. Her heart went out to him. No matter that dancing today seemed wrong to her, she dropped a curtsy and gave him the answer he was expecting.
“Are you asking?”
With a laugh that reminded her of Trick’s, he twirled her into the center of the room.
The dance was performed by four couples in a circle, and it took all of Kendra’s concentration to follow it. Halfway through the complicated pattern, she was already breathless and realized she had little time to think on her troubles, and neither did Niall.
Perhaps dancing on a day like this wasn’t such a bad idea, after all.
When the tune ended, he took her by the elbow to draw her from the floor. “My father wants to talk to you and your husband,” he said conversationally.
Surprised she hadn’t lost it, she resettled the shawl on her shoulders. “He’s sleeping.”
“Patrick?”
“No, Hamish. Trick is out in the garden.”
“Ah, then it was him you were rushing out to see.” The music started again, and couples began forming a double line down the middle of the chamber. “Why do you call him Trick?” Niall asked.
“A childhood name. His father called him that.”
“But Mam didn’t.” He sighed. “So much I don’t know about my brother.”
“He doesn’t know you, either. But he’d like to, I’m sure.”
He gave her a sad, gentle smile. “He won’t be staying long enough to get to know me.”
“Not this time. But he’ll be back. I’ll make certain of it.”
“Now, that I don’t doubt.” The laugh rang out again. “I saw you two kissing earlier, and I’d wager you could make him do anything.”
She felt her face heat. She’d never thought of herself as a girl who could persuade with kisses. With words, yes—having been raised a Chase, she could argue with the best of them. But she’d never been much of a flirt, let alone a seductress.
Pleased at the thought, she grinned. “Thank you for the dance, Niall.”
“My pleasure.” The second dance was ending, but another would start soon. “Will you do me the honor again?”
“Maybe later. I’ve a man to meet in the garden.” And hopefully persuade to open up to her…with kisses, if necessary.
FORTY-TWO
“TRICK.”
Her voice was gentle, but he startled anyway, quickly flipping the paper
