LITMIR.BIZ

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fight when the chieftain tells me to, and not because you can’t keep a civil tongue in your head,” Cormag retorted.

      “It’s not your place to chastise my son, nephew,” Seamus said, standing between them. “Now let’s be gone.”

      “We’re not taking leave of the lady?” Lachlann asked. “It’d be only right to say farewell and give her our thanks for her kindness.”

      “We’ll take our leave of her if she comes to bid us farewell,” Seamus answered. “She was too ill to eat with us last night, remember?”

      “Aye, poor thing,” Adair replied. “Probably sickened from whatever that was they served us. Might have been anything under all that sauce.”

      The men started to laugh, until Seamus held up his hand to silence them. “Wheesht. Here comes the man himself.”

      Sir Nicholas strode toward them from the bottom of the curved staircase, carrying himself with the ease of a soldier welcomely divested of heavy chain mail and armor. He was the same height as Adair, and looked as if he could lift ten stone. Some Normans went to fat when they quit going to war or tournaments. Adair doubted this man would.

      “Good day to you, Sir Nicholas,” his father said in French, his tone jovial, although Adair didn’t doubt his father had noted that the man was wearing his sword belt, the bronze hilt of his weapon gleaming in the morning sunlight streaming in through the narrow windows.

      “And to you, Seamus,” the Norman replied, coming to a halt. “I regret I have no priest in residence to say mass today.”

      Despite his words, he didn’t sound the least bit sorry.

      “Oh, well then, I think it’s best, my lord, if we take our leave at once. We mustn’t be in a state of sin when we break the fast.”

      His father wasn’t being any more sincere. He wasn’t a religious man, and the priest of their kirk was notorious for his disagreement with several of the rules of Rome, particularly the one regarding chastity. As for eating before mass, Father Padraig always said God would understand that it was difficult for a man to contemplate anything but his own hunger on an empty belly.

      “If you insist upon leaving, naturally I won’t detain you,” Sir Nicholas said, his expression betraying no hint of dismay or regret, “but I shall be sorry to see you leave without eating and drinking with me once more.”

      “We really must go,” Seamus answered. “Please give our thanks to your lovely sister for her fine hospitality. We hope she’ll soon recover.”

      “I will, and I believe her illness is not overly serious, if wearying. Unfortunately, I doubt she’ll have an opportunity to meet you again. She’s betrothed and will soon be going to Menteith to be married.”

      “Oh?” Seamus said, raising a brow. “To whom?”

      “Hamish Mac Glogan.”

      “That greedy, grasping, lecherous old wretch?” Adair cried in Gaelic to his father, aghast at the thought of Lady Marianne married to Hamish Mac Glogan.

      “Go and help Roban with the horses,” his father said sharply.

      It was a command, not a request. Nevertheless, Adair didn’t move. “You can’t allow this, Father. An alliance between the Normans and that auld lecher. Mac Glogan’s lands are too close to our western border. Between the two of them and the sea, they’ll have us encircled like a snare.”

      “I know where Hamish Mac Glogan’s lands lie, Adair. Leave us!”

      Scowling fiercely, Adair turned on his heel and marched out of the hall.

      

      “WILL YOU NEVER LEARN to think before you speak?” Lachlann demanded as he joined Adair near the stable a few moments later.

      Holding the reins of his white horse, Neas, and Lachlann’s nut-brown gelding, Adair didn’t reply. A little ways off, Roban waited beside their father’s black horse, as well as his own feisty roan.

      The sun shone brightly, and a warm breeze brought the scent of damp earth to their nostrils, along with wet sand, stone and mortar from the growing walls. All around them they could hear the workmen calling to one another, or talking among themselves in the rough tongue of the Sassunach. The mason, a slender fellow who looked as though a strong breeze would blow him away, bustled to and fro, ordering and chiding and complaining as he created this foreign monstrosity on the sacred soil of Alba.

      Lachlann nodded at their father, who marched toward his horse without so much as a glance at his sons. “Father’s in a right foul mood now.”

      “So he should be, but not with me,” Adair answered as he swung into the saddle. “With those scheming Norman bastards and Hamish Mac Glogan. It’s not enough the Normans are stealing our land with the king’s help. Now they’re doing it by marriage.”

      Their father, mounted on his horse, raised his hand to signal his men to head toward the gate. He was at the front of the band, followed by Roban and Cormag and the others, while Adair and Lachlann brought up the rear.

      Adair could feel the animosity in the stares of the Norman’s soldiers, and he glared right back at the thieving foreigners. Let one of them draw his weapon. He’d be feeling the tip of Adair’s dirk at his throat before he took another breath.

      Lachlann gave Adair a warning look. “These aren’t the men who killed Cellach, you know.”

      “I know.”

      “And she died years ago, Adair.”

      It was easy for Lachlann to put Cellach from his mind. He hadn’t been the one who’d found her ravished, broken body.

      Lachlann sighed, and changed the subject. “Sir Nicholas’s sister is certainly lovely. It’s too bad she didn’t come back to the hall, but it was obvious her brother was angry with her for inviting us to stay.”

      He’d been livid, if Adair was any judge. That’s why he’d been worried the Norman had hurt her. He wouldn’t put it past the man to beat his sister. Yet she’d denied it, and he didn’t think she was lying. There’d been no hidden hint of falsehood in her shining eyes. Not then, anyway.

      “I think she liked you, Adair,” Lachlann noted with a smile. “No surprises there, I suppose.”

      “She didn’t like me.” Except, perhaps, to kiss—a notion that rankled.

      “Aye, she did. I saw all the usual signs when she looked at you.”

      “I wouldn’t trust any ‘signs’ she gives, any more than I would her brother.”

      “Then it won’t matter to you that she’s watching us right now.”

      Adair stiffened. “The devil she is.”

      “Aye, she is, from her window in the apartments beside the hall. She’s peeking out as shy as a novice stealing glances at a handsome priest.”

      Adair glanced up and over his shoulder. Lady Marianne was there, standing at the window and watching them. He couldn’t see her face well enough to make out her expression.

      She was probably delighted he was leaving and taking their secret with him. The duplicitous, deceitful, beautiful, passionate…

      Then Sir Nicholas came to stand behind her, looming tall and stern in the shadows behind her, like some sort of judge. Or executioner.

      He could well believe that Lady Marianne had been trying to get away from her brother, no matter what she said.

      Perhaps she’d been fleeing because she didn’t want to marry Hamish Mac Glogan—until he’d stopped her, putting her neck right back in her brother’s noose, as if he were Sir Nicholas’s henchman.

      “Adair!” his father called, gesturing for his son to ride to the head of their party.

      He

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