Page 51 of The Shape of Silence

“Ye’ll go where I do, lass, with me and mine,” he replied, a trace of impatience threading through his tone despite his efforts to keep it measured. “I’ll take ye to—or see ye brought to—Ard Cael.”

Her gaze settled on their hands, where his still rested over hers, and she swallowed visibly though said nothing.

“Ard Cael is home to the mac Ruaidhrís,” he went on. “ʼTis my home.”

Even before he finished the words she began to shake her head.

“Avery, be sensible,” he repeated.

Her refusal strengthened, the movement of her head more emphatic now, light strands of hair shifting against her cheek.

The stubbornness of it stirred his temper again—or perhaps it stirred something else entirely. Before he might have thought better of it, Morggán lifted his hand from hers and reached for her face, his rough fingers settling along the curve of her cheek.

Avery froze.

Her skin was warm beneath his hand, so bloody soft. Slowly, she lifted her eyes to meet his, the deep blue of them shadowed by uncertainty now rather than defiance.

He had meant only to compel her attention, to force her to listen properly to his arguments for her safety. Yet the instant her gaze locked with his, the intention faltered. Suddenly, the space seemed smaller than it had been a moment before. He became aware—uncomfortably and spectacularly aware—of the closeness between them, of the way the firelight traced the shape of her mouth, of the faint rise and fall of her chest, and even how subtly he had leaned nearer.

Without warning, the thought came to him—he would kiss her. He should kiss her—Jesu, he wanted to know her kiss.

Morggán let out a sharp, frustrated breath through his nose.

What madness was this? Eight days—naught but eight days!—in her company, and already his mind wandered into such foolish territory. Worse still, he had come here intending to persuade her to safety, and if she suspected even for a moment that his urgency had anything to do with his fascination with the shape of her mouth or the tantalizing possibility of her sweet kiss, she would surely harden herself against him entirely.

He forced himself to remove his fingers from her cheek slowly, resisting the urge to jerk them away as though burned. Jaw tight, he rose to his full height and glared down at her, as if she were somehow responsible for the disorder of his thoughts.

“Stubbornness will nae be a shield when the wrong men find ye,” he said, his voice rough with an irritation meant more for himself. He turned to the door, pausing with his hand on the crude handle, but he did not look back. “Secure the latch,” he instructed, his voice flat, and then he left.

Chapter Thirteen

The morning held no urgency, and so Avery chose a task that required patience.

Or perhaps, more truthfully, she had determined upon waking that she would not alter herself simply because an army occupied her forest now.

The decision had settled stubbornly inside her while she’d collected water, having to skirt around more than a dozen men, horses, and tents to reach the stream, and as she brushed her teeth. She would behave exactly as she always had. Army or no, the work remained. Wood still needed hauling, laundry needed doing, and snares still needed to be checked and reset. Life did not stop merely because the world outside had suddenly remembered she existed.

Perhaps if she kept herself busy enough, she would not think overmuch about the strange disappointment that had settled over her, that Morggán had not come, hadn’t sought her out this morning.

Of course, there was no reason why he should. He didn’t need to check in on her—or with her. He owed her nothing, and he hadn’t left anything behind that was his to return and claim. Stopping by just to say good morning didn’t seem to be something he might do.

But still.

From the shelf near the rafters, she took down the small crock wrapped in cloth. Inside lay the fat she had rendered months ago, saved from three rabbits taken in late autumn when they had been at their heaviest. She had cut the pale strips from beneath the hide, melted them slowly in a pot until the clear grease separated from the gristle, then strained it clean. Now it rested in a hard white cake, still faintly scented with smoke. She set it near the hearth to soften. Outside, beneath the lean-to where rain seldom reached, she kept a narrow trough fashioned from a split log. Ash from her fire had been stored there for weeks—hardwood only, the man having once cuffed her lightly on the shoulder for using softwood and calling the result “good enough.” Softwood ash was weak. It would not serve, the man had said. She poured a measure of ash into the trough and settled straw across the bottom, just as she had been shown, then set a wooden bowl beneath the small hole carved near one end. When she carried water from the bucket and poured it slowly over the ash, it seeped downward, darkening as it passed through, and began to drip from the hole in a thin brown thread. Lye. She’d never heard of the word before, not until she’d first learned the process, that ash and water together made something sharp enough to bite the skin. The man had made her touch a drop to her tongue once, just barely. “So you know it,” he had said when she recoiled. “And so you will respect it.”

“Aye, now what’s this then?”

Avery startled slightly and turned.

The kid Eòin stood several yards away near the corner of the house, carrying two empty wooden buckets. He looked faintly sheepish at having startled her but no less curious for it.

“Soap,” she answered after a moment.

His brows rose. “Soap?”

She nodded once and poured water slowly over the ash.

He abandoned entirely whatever task he had originally been about with the buckets and wandered closer at once.