Page 74 of Come the Morning

He glanced her way. “What?”

“Where does the king think I’ve been? If he was unaware that I left the fortress with Daro—”

“He knows that you have been at the Viking camp. With Daro. I told him that you left with my blessing to spend time with your father’s brother before becoming my wife.”

She didn’t reply, thinking that he was a clever man, he had weighed this situation, and he was even capable of being decent at times. He was not the Norman she had expected, no matter what words she used against him.

Nor old or decrepit in any way. Yet his very youth and prowess made her nervous now, and she wished with her whole heart that the wedding might be planned for sometime in the far future. He wanted sons. Most men did. For all the courage she could sometimes display, she was dismayed by the prospect of intimacy. She knew that Anne did far more than chat with her uncle behind the tapestries, but she’d never envisioned such a relationship herself, not even with Ewan. They’d laughed,they’d kissed, they’d lain in the grasses with their heads on one another’s laps, touched, and dreamed. But she’d never felt the stirrings of a great, earthy passion, and had likened her love for Ewan to something finer, like the romantic love of the poets.

She knew so little. He was experienced, a warrior accustomed to battle, different places, many women—and a mistress with whom he had been deeply involved.

“Well?”

She felt color flush her cheeks as she realized he was looking at her.

“Your pardon?” she murmured.

“A ‘thank you’ might be in good order,” he told her.

“Thank you,” she said flatly.

He studied her a moment longer, then urged his horse ahead. She bit into her lower lip, wishing she didn’t become so defensive with him so quickly. It occurred to her that she should be a bit more politic herself. She could still find that she no longer belonged to her homeland.

Yet what of Ewan? What of their hopes, what of their dreams, the vague beauty of a relationship founded in the deepest friendship, respect, love, and belief?

Ewan would live on, remain chieftain of his family, marry elsewhere, and be gentle and kind and all wonderful things with another woman. They would sit before their fire, he would prosper. While she …

While she paid the price to remain lady of her isle. That was the way of it. She had made the choice.

They reached Stirling; the guards hailed them. In the courtyard, she politely allowed her groom to help her down. To her dismay, David came from the castle, every inch the warrior king in his Scottish wool. “Mellyora!” He reached for her hands, taking them in his own. He spoke with the affection of a father, yet she sensed an edge to his voice, and she knew that he had notforgiven her. “You look well and rested. Daro will arrive for the ceremony? It is just two days away now.”

“Aye, sire.”

“And you and Waryk are well met?”

“Oh, aye, well met,” she murmured.

“Then all is well. Ah, and here is Jillian, ready to escort you to your chambers. We’ll have your meal sent, and you can spend the evening resting and readying yourself for the wedding. Father Hedgewick will be your confessor, and will attend you this evening as well. Run along now, my dear. Tomorrow will be a big day for you.”

The king set his hands on her shoulders and kissed her forehead. “Go now.”

She did so, longing to look back and see Waryk’s expression, and what exchange might come next between him and the king. Somehow, she kept from looking back.

At least she would be away from him for a while. She wouldn’t need to argue, to attack, to bite back defensively. She could rest in peace.

Yet she wasn’t to have a chance at the peace she had hoped to achieve.

“Sweet Jesu, child, but you have been reckless!” Jillian told her. “Heedless of consequences—”

“I thought I could win. If I had won, I would have been brave and admirable. But I did not win.”

“You were not brave and admirable because you fought a battle you could not win.”

“I didn’t know that the king meant to disinherit me entirely from my own ancestral lands!”

“Then you should learn to judge your opponents better,” Jillian warned her. Then, looking at her, she sighed softly and put herarms around her, hugging her. “Oh, Mellyora, it will be all right, believe me. I have come to know him, it will be all right …”

She hugged Jillian in return. She didn’t say what she was thinking. She was coming to know him as well. And he had come to know her. And he didn’t like what he knew. And if it weren’t for Ewan, and for the fact that the circumstances had made them such enemies …