Vivienne clasped her hands before her as they strode from the keep to prevent from gnawing on her nails. Though she had been alone with Kieran many times before now, his casual comment about once being a farmer had thrown her off-kilter.

Despite all the intimacies they’d indulged in, she realized that she knew very little about her gruff, irreverent Highland bodyguard. She was embarrassed to admit that she’d never asked him about himself or his past.

“The estate is small enough to walk—unless you would prefer to ride,” she said, hesitating.

“Walking is good.”

She gestured toward the rise they’d crested on their way in. “I’ll show you the bird’s eye view from there, and then we can walk the edges.”

They mounted the hill in silence while Vivienne fought to untangle her tongue.

“I never knew you were a farmer,” she finally blurted, wincing at her lack of tact.

He rolled one muscular shoulder. “It was a long time ago. It doesnae seem relevant to my role as yer bodyguard.”

“True,” she said, “but nor is what we did last night.”

“I thought we agreed no’ to discuss that.”

He had her there. “Oui, but if we are to remain in each other’s company for the foreseeable future, don’t you think we ought to get to know one another better? In a strictly proper context, of course,” she added hastily, feeling her face warm.

He grunted, and she wasn’t sure if it meant assent or disagreement, but at last he spoke. “What do ye wish to ken?”

He was like a vast, shrouded wilderness before her. Where to begin?

“How long were you a farmer?”

“I grew up in a family of farmers,” he replied. “It was always in my blood. We had a small plot in the Highlands—a hard way to make a go of it, but we always managed to get by.”

His voice dropped as he continued. “When my parents died, I took over the land.”

“Then how did you become one of Robert the Bruce’s warriors?”

They’d reached the top of the rise and he halted, his eyes carefully avoiding hers by scanning the landscape before them. “I realized I was wasting my time tucked away in my wee corner of the Highlands. Look at me.”

She didn’t need his encouragement. Her gaze swept over the corded muscles in his shoulders and arms, the hard plane of his torso, and the powerful legs showing beneath his belted plaid.

“I’ve always been built like an ox,” he went on. “Working the land made me strong, but there was naught to keep me tied to that place anymore. So I joined the Bruce’s army and began fighting my way up the ranks. Ten years of hard work has brought me into his inner circle.”

It was an impressive feat, one she should congratulate him on, but something he’d said a moment before kept nagging at her. “What do you mean there was nothing to tie you to your farm? Was it not a connection to your family even after they’d passed?”

He stiffened, a wary wall seeming to drop around him. “Why would I wish for a constant reminder that they are gone? I dinnae have a family anymore.”

It was clearly not a topic he wished to discuss further, so she hastily changed the subject. She pointed to the west. “That is our estate boundary,” she said, tracing a line with her finger. “That stream there is part of our lands. And the forested area is ours as well, though it has been overrun.”

In fact, everything had been overrun. The fields spreading beneath them were weed-infested and wild looking. The woods bled into the croplands, and even from here she could see that the stables and other out-buildings behind the keep were sagging with disrepair.

“I meant what I said to yer father,” Kieran murmured as they began their descent and cut westward. “Farming isnae an easy task. But how did the estate fall into such disrepair?”

 “It didn’t use to be like this,” she said. “When I was a child, the fields were all tended and the land productive. It has always been a modest holding, but the soil was good and the tenants hard-working.”

A tight lump rose to her throat, but Vivienne swallowed it. She’d wanted him to open up more to her. It seemed only fair that she do the same in return.

“When I was fifteen, my mother grew ill. My father and I both devoted a great deal of time tending to her—which meant he began neglecting the estate. Though I tried to take my mother’s care on by myself, I simply couldn’t do it all alone.”

Vivienne’s mind drifted back to those last painful, drawn-out days of her mother’s life. She hadn’t been the easiest or warmest of women, but she was protective of and loving toward Vivienne, wanting the best for her only child. She’d believed Vivienne was destined for more than a quiet life in this sleepy corner of France.

“That was when the trouble began. We had a cold spring that stunted the crops, then one of the tenant families died of a fever. When I was sixteen, my mother died. My father’s eyesight was already failing by then, and there was simply too much to handle. The few tenants that remained moved to the nearby village when it became clear that my father couldn’t maintain the estate by himself. I did my best to look after my father, but he simply couldn’t manage it all any longer. And then—”

Her voice caught. It was hard enough to speak of her mother’s death and her father’s deterioration. She could not bring herself to tell the worst of it, to reveal the depth of her shame and her near-complete ruin.

“And then when I was seventeen, I went to court,” she said, hoping he didn’t notice her heartbeat of hesitation.

He frowned, but his gaze continued to scan the overgrown fields they walked through. “So ye just left him?”

“Non,” she replied, sharper than she’d intended. She drew a deep breath to calm her nerves. “I didn’t want to leave him alone—he needed a great deal of help—but he insisted that I go. In fact, I learned years later that he organized the opportunity.”

“Oh?”

“You see, the King and Queen were passing through Amiens on a grand tour of the countryside. Knowing that a position at court would open many doors for me, he arranged for us to be in Amiens to pay homage to the King and Queen during their visit. When it was my father’s turn to be presented and pay homage, he brought me with him, insisting that I guide him due to his failing eyesight, and speak for him, though of course nothing was wrong with his voice.”

“And let me guess,” Kieran said, shooting her a knowing look out of the corner of his eye. “The Queen was so taken by yer beauty and grace that she wished to have ye as one of her ladies-in-waiting.”

She felt her cheeks heat, but this time out of pleasure rather than embarrassment. “It was a little more complicated than that, and involved several more meetings, but oui, the Queen took a liking to me and invited me to court.”

“Yer father must have been pleased.”

“Oui, for he hoped I would be able to find a husband and lead the grand, extravagant life my mother always wanted for me. I, however, didn’t wish to leave him. But I knew such an opportunity would not present itself again. It was a chance to right my mistakes.”

She felt his gaze on her and turned to find his eyes sharp and penetrating. Luckily, he did not ask her to elaborate.

Vivienne hastened her steps as they approached the stream, pretending to need a drink. “And being at court has allowed me to help my father in a different way,” she said airily over her shoulder as she knelt and cupped water into her hands.

Kieran crouched beside her, taking a long drink as well. “I imagine the distance makes it harder than ye are making it seem,” he commented evenly.

“The Queen gives her ladies an allowance,” Vivienne replied. “I send Papa the coins, and anything else of value that I think might help him. And Madame Claudette is an immense help.”

“Has she always been the chatelaine?”

“Oh, non,” she answered quickly. “I hired at least a half a dozen before finding her. The others were…”

She felt her mouth tighten. Some had been cruel to her father, refusing to help him in the tasks he struggled with due to his loss of vision. Others had simply taken her coins and left.

“Madame Claudette came from the nearby village three or four years ago and has been a Godsend ever since. Whenever the Queen is traveling with the King to the north, she brings me with her and allows me to check on things. But now that Claudette is here, I don’t have to worry as much.”

He rose slowly from the streambank, taking her hand to help her to her feet. All the while, he stared at her with those cool, assessing eyes.

At last, she couldn’t take it anymore. “Mon Dieu, what? Do I have mud on my face, or has a bird dropped excrement on my head?”

To her shock, he actually laughed. The sound was low and rich just like his voice, and it instantly shot a warm, tingling awareness through her.

“Nay, lass,” he said with another chuckle. “Ye dinnae have mud on yer face or bird shite in yer hair.”

“Then what? I know you do not enjoy my company, so what can you find so amusing?”

He sobered, his features falling into their usual serious lines, yet his eyes clouded with some unreadable emotion. “Ye have that wrong. I dinnae mind ye or yer company. And at that moment I was struck by how mistaken I’ve been about ye.”

Her heart suddenly leapt into her throat. He didn’t mind her? Not exactly words that should set her pulse jumping, but there it was. “Oh?” she breathed. “What have you mistaken about me, then?”

“Here I was taking ye for a frosty, spoiled chit, only to learn that this whole time…” His words dried up and he waved vaguely as if to encompass all she’d just told him.

He suddenly shifted his gaze and cleared his throat, visibly uncomfortable at the way their conversation had veered toward sentimentality.

“I could fix that, ye ken,” he said, pointing toward the long-dilapidated waterwheel that sat a stone’s throw upstream. He strode toward it, Vivienne trailing behind him.

“Oh aye,” he said, more to himself than to her as he eyed one of the broken wooden blades. “And this land could be brought back into productivity with a wee bit of sweat and effort.” He muttered a curse. “But we dinnae have time for all that. We will leave on the morrow. I willnae put yer father at risk by staying longer.”

Vivienne’s stomach sank. She already got so little time with her father, and now she would be hiding out in Scotland for who knew how long. But she agreed with Kieran that they could not linger and risk bringing danger to his door.

She nodded, and they continued on in silence.