Chapter Nine

 

 

 

Mairin shifted in the suddenly uncomfortable silence. She’d been traveling with Niall for a sennight already. Why was it only just now that she became acutely aware of the way he filled the small space? He seemed attuned to her every move and thought, as if he could see right through to her rapidly beating heart.

Something she didn’t fully understand hung in the air around them—a tension, or mayhap a promise of something yet to come.

She cleared her throat in an attempt to banish her sudden nerves. “Ye handled that well.”

Niall cocked his russet head. “What?” he ask cautiously.

She waved at the door to indicate the inn beyond. “Gwen and the others. Saying we were married. In love.”

He turned away, busying himself with inspecting the pitcher and basin on the table. “I should have mentioned that before springing it on you. Apologies.”

“But it worked, didnae it? No’ a single question or suspicious look.”

“Aye, that was the goal.”

“They seemed to love the idea of an Englishman and a Scotswoman overcoming the odds in wedded bliss,” she continued with a faint snort. “Can ye imagine that?” She made her voice thick with incredulity, yet she glanced down to find herself nervously fiddling with her fingernails.

Finished with his inspection, Niall leaned back on the edge of the table. He gave her an assessing look. “I come from these parts, you know.”

Mairin blinked in surprise at the non sequitur. “Oh?”

“Aye, I grew up in the Borderlands. Trellham Keep is less than a day’s ride southeast from here, I’d wager,” he went on.

“I…I didnae ken that,” she said faintly. She’d never imagined he’d been raised so close to Scotland. But then again, she’d never asked him aught about his life, either.

“Of course, we thought of ourselves as English, my family and I. And Trellham was built on what was considered English soil. Well—” he flashed her a lopsided grin “—most of the time. Things shift with the wind in this region.”

Despite herself, she found that she wanted to know more. “Did Trellham change hands often when ye were a lad?”

He lifted one shoulder. “There were skirmishes, aye. And Trellham’s village was filled with an even mix of those who thought of themselves as English, Scottish, and a portion who claimed they were something else entirely—Borderlanders. But it wasn’t until a few years back, when the Bruce sent Finn Sutherland to protect my older sister Rosamond, that there seemed to be a true and lasting shift.”

Niall stared into the dancing fire for a moment before continuing. “King Edward ignored the Borderlands for years, leaving his own people to fend for themselves against the reivers and attacks. By the time the Bruce extended an offer of protection, my father was more than eager to accept—for our people’s future. We’d been beaten down and war-torn for so many years that we practically wept with joy at the prospect of peace.”

 “Is…is that why ye are loyal to the Bruce and Scotland now?”

He returned his gaze to her then, his lips pursed and his eyes considering. “Aye, that was part of it. The Bruce gave us peace, security, and a sense of purpose when Edward had abandoned us to the ravages of war.”

Mairin had always been suspicious of the idea that an Englishman could turn his back on his home country and truly embrace Scotland’s cause for freedom. But now, knowing the reason for Niall’s change in loyalty, she felt foolish for assuming so much about him.

“That is how I knew what Gwen and the others in the common room would want to hear,” Niall continued. “The war between England and Scotland has gone on longer than anyone can seem to remember. And those in the middle have borne the worst of it. But we all still need hope—hope that not only will the conflict end someday, but that when it does, we will be able to heal from it.” One corner of his mouth lifted. “I suppose that is why they so readily embraced the idea that we were happily wed.”

Mairin chewed on that for a moment. “It seems odd,” she began slowly. “We’ve trained side by side for nigh on four years now, and yet, I ken verra little about ye.”

Niall’s blue eyes flashed with something Mairin couldn’t quite parse, something warm and intense. “Aye, I suspect there is much we could still learn about each other.”

A wave of awareness prickled her skin and sent a warm knot into the pit of her stomach. Blessedly, she was saved from having to untangle her confusing reaction, for a soft rap sounded on the door.

Niall moved first, his body tensing as he eased open the door an inch. But then his shoulders relaxed and he bent to pick something up.

True to her word, Gwen had left a tray of steaming meat pies and bread, along with two mugs of ale, outside the door. Niall set the tray on the table, then retrieved their saddlebags, which the stable lad had already placed there for them as well.

They ate in silence, yet a thought kept tugging in the back of Mairin’s mind. As she swallowed her last bite of bread, she turned to him with a frown.

“But ye are still English.” At his blink of confusion, Mairin silently cursed herself for her bluntness. “What I mean is…there is something I dinnae understand.”

“Aye?”

“Yer home, Trellham Keep, was built on English soil. It was once an English stronghold, but today it is controlled by the Bruce. The land upon which it sits is now Scotland’s.”

He nodded, lifting his coppery brows as he waited for her to continue.

Mairin gnawed on her lower lip for a moment, choosing her words. “But it isnae so easy with people. As ye said, some villagers at Trellham consider themselves English, and some Scottish, and some Borderlanders, no matter who holds the land. And ye…” She cast him a tentative look. “Ye are still English, even though yer home is the Bruce’s now.”

“And I’m still English, even though I’ve dedicated my life to Scotland’s cause, you mean?” he finished, saying the words she couldn’t quite bring herself to speak.

It was wrong of her to question his loyalty like this, she knew. Wrong to make him explain himself just because of his country of origin, yet her deep-seated distrust wouldn’t be easily quelled.

“You are right,” he continued, surprising her. “I am still English, no matter what I do.” His features hardened as he spoke, yet sadness lingered in his eyes. “I cannot change that.”

Mairin suddenly wished she hadn’t brought up the topic, for it obviously pained him.

In many ways, he’d had a harder go of it in the training camp than even she had. Aye, she was the only woman, the youngest and least experienced when it came to fighting. She’d had to overcome the men’s fussing over her, the way they treated her as if she were made of porcelain, or like she was a wee sister to all of them.

But at least she’d been able to show them that she was capable by excelling in her training. Niall had excelled too, yet he could never escape his birth in the eyes of the others. He was always met with a faint air of suspicion, as if naught he did would ever be above question.

And she had been the worst of all of them. She’d been the one to start calling him “English,” as if that were his defining characteristic. She’d been the one to draw lines between them for no other reason than his country of origin.

Now she kicked herself for bringing attention to that fact yet again. For the first time, she’d been learning something deeper about him, but then she’d gone and sullied it by erecting a wall between them once more.

In an attempt to salvage what was left of their delicate conversation, she latched on to something he’d mentioned earlier. “Ye said before that the Bruce coming to Trellham’s aid was only part of the reason ye gave him yer allegiance. What was the rest of it?”

Niall leaned back in his chair, his soft lips set in their usual serious line, but his eyes glittering with fierceness. “The Bruce gave the people of Trellham hope, aye, which was enough to earn my loyalty. But more than that, he gave me hope. I was…” His russet brows drew down in thought. “I was like a bull charging at naught before I joined the cause, full of energy and the will to do right, but with no direction and no skill. I knew what I wanted, but not how to get there. And he gave me a way.”

“And…” Mairin swallowed, riveted by his intensity. “And what did ye want?”

“Not to feel helpless in the face of evil anymore.”

His words hit her so hard that the air rushed from her lungs.

“I ken exactly what ye mean,” she breathed.

His eyes, burning a bright, deep blue, fixed on her. “You do?”

A ripple of warmth washed over her skin. “Aye,” she went on in a rush. “Before, I was filled with anger, with drive, but didnae ken what to do with it. It wasnae until I began learning to defend myself that the powerlessness started to turn into something else—a direction, a purpose.”

Her first few months at the training camp, Mairin had hardly been able to leave the safe familiarity of her small, dark room at the back of the hut she’d shared with Logan. The sounds, light, and sensations of the outside world were terrifyingly overwhelming after spending six long years in the isolation of her own mind.

“Aye,” Niall replied, his voice warming. “I remember when Helena began teaching you.”

Mairin’s head snapped up. He’d noticed that?

When Helena, Logan’s future wife, had arrived unexpectedly at the camp, she’d taught Mairin a few defensive maneuvers to help her overcome her debilitating fear of being captured and imprisoned again. Those techniques had been an anchor in the storm battering Mairin from within. They made her feel strong for the first time in her life. Capable.

After that first taste of power over herself and her surroundings, Mairin had wanted more.

But not even Logan had known what Helena and Mairin had been getting up to at first. And after, when he’d found out, none of them had told the others. Niall must have paid her far more attention than she’d ever realized.

“Ye…ye noticed?”

“Aye, I did,” he replied quietly. “How could I not? It was as if a fire had been lit inside you.”

Heat rose to her face, but not from embarrassment. Nay, this feeling was entirely different.

“Training with the others at camp gave me the direction I needed,” she went on hastily. “A reason no’ to be afraid anymore.”

“It was the same for me,” Niall said. “Until I joined the Corps, I’d been powerless against those who sought to harm me and my family.”

A shadow crossed his eyes as he spoke. Some deeper hurt was buried there, but from the way his mouth flattened, he didn’t wish to speak of it.

It seemed they both had memories and wounds they wished to keep locked away.

Mairin fumbled for a way to lighten the sudden dark cloud hanging over them. “Ye, powerless? A strapping, braw man?”

At her words, his gaze snapped to hers. She could have bitten her tongue. What was she thinking, blurting out such embarrassing things when they were alone, and pretending to be husband and wife, no less?

To her shock, his smoldering eyes lingered on her as he murmured, “You might be surprised at what can bring a grown man to his knees.”

He ripped his gaze away then and stood abruptly. “We ought to turn in for the night. The fresh snow will make tomorrow’s ride difficult.”

Mairin nodded, working to gather her frayed wits. But then her gaze landed on the cot, just big enough for two, and her thoughts scattered once again.

“You can take the bed,” Niall said quickly.

Mairin began to protest, but Niall ignored her. He built up the fire with a few logs, then settled on the floor in front of it, wrapping himself in his cloak.

With naught else to do but follow his lead, she moved to the bed. She stepped out of her boots, but then she cast him a look out of the corner of her eye. He lay on his side facing the fire, giving her his back.

Her cowardice at the prospect of undressing with him so near almost got the better of her. Yet the thought of sleeping in her scratchy wool dress, which she’d already been wearing for several days, convinced her.

She’d only had the opportunity to wash and change once in the last sennight. Her watch had been nearly complete, and Niall was sound asleep, so in the pre-dawn hours, she’d found a swift, frigid stream and had hastily used a rag and a nub of soap to scrub her skin beneath her chemise before scrambling, shivering and goose-fleshed, into fresh clothes.

If she could steal a spare moment of privacy, she’d eagerly use the pitcher and basin on the table to do the same tomorrow morn. But first, she had to overcome her shyness and remove her dress for the night.

With her eyes glued to Niall’s back to assure herself that he couldn’t see her, she tugged at the dress’s laces. When they loosened, she hurriedly shimmied out of the wool and tossed it on the foot of the bed with her cloak. Though Niall hadn’t moved, she dove beneath the bedcovers and yanked them up to her chin.

Even though she still wore her chemise and was buried under the covers, she felt as though she were naked—with Niall only a few feet away.

She bit her lip and squeezed her eyes shut to chase away the sensation, but the memory of his piercing blue eyes made her skin prickle until at last sleep claimed her.