Shona did not speak, but simply sent a questioning glance to Audrey. The blond woman gave an infinitesimal nod, telling Shona all was well.
Thomas patted her on the shoulder. “We will waken you in the morning when they rise, if you are still sleeping.”
He spoke quietly, his mouth very near her ear.
She nodded, sending them both a grateful smile before going back into the hall. Caelis stood there, glowering at Thomas as Shona pulled the door closed behind her.
She turned to face the man she was quickly coming to view as her nemesis. “I cannot imagine what you find so objectionable about young Thomas, but he will grow into a fine warrior with great honor one day. You will stop glaring at him so.”
“He is already a man.”
“He is but nineteen.” Which admittedly was three years past the generally acknowledged advent into manhood, but Thomas was still so young. Despite his own experiences to the contrary, he saw the world through eyes that believed in man’s goodness and inherent honor.
“He is almost a child.” Though she knew he would not thank her for saying so.
“He is too familiar with you.”
“He is my friend.”
Caelis appeared unmoved. “So he claimed earlier.”
Chapter 5
The Chrechte are stronger than humans but not superior to them. They are brethren as the Faol are brethren to the Paindeal and the Éan.
—CAHIR TRADITIONS
The tone of Caelis’s voice implied he was no happier about her friendship with Thomas than he was about the youth’s supposed familiarity with her.
Shona gave a mental shrug. Caelis’s feelings were of little import to her. “It is true.”
She considered Audrey and Thomas the siblings her parents had never been blessed to provide her. Shona had never looked on them as servants as her husband and the rest of the household did.
“Does every male friend you have whisper words into your ears as a lover would do?”
“You are daft. Thomas is no more lover-like than…than a fish. He and Audrey are my dearest friends.” Shona’s only true friends, if she wanted to be honest about it.
Shona had allowed none but those two to breach the walls she’d built around her heart after this man’s betrayal and her parents’ rejection because of it. She’d felt the twins’ helplessness in the face of their fates being chosen for them by an uncaring father because it was so like her own.
Her father had cared, but he’d been equally certain he knew what was best, and forcing her into marriage with the baron had been at the top of that list.
“I owe them both a debt of honor for watching over you and the children.”
He’d said something like that before. It made no more sense to her now than it had earlier.
But she would make no attempt to disabuse him of the notion. If he felt some obligation to Audrey and Thomas, perhaps he would be more apt to help them find safety, if not Shona herself.
“I am going back to bed.” She turned to retrace her steps to her room.
“You are still tired?” he asked, keeping pace with her.
“No.” In fact, she was not, but she wasn’t about to wander the passageways of the sleeping keep, either.
“Then perhaps we can talk?” Caelis asked, sounding less demanding than she’d ever heard him.
Shona stopped at her door, looking up at the only male visage that had ever stirred desire in her.
Even now, after everything, her need for him was a low rumble in her belly. She’d been sure that part of her was dead, but one day in his company and she knew it was not. She wanted him as much as she ever had, but she would not have him.
Forcing the visceral need aside, she asked with no small amount of unbelief, “You wish to discuss the issues between us now, in the wee hours?”
“Aye.”
“’Tis hardly appropriate behavior.” She shook her head. Not to deny him, but in wonder at his audacity.
“I do not concern myself with what is proper.”
“You never did.” But she’d thought he had the honor to make improper behavior right.
He had not.
“There was a time when you would have laughed at this English sense of propriety you seek to hide behind now.”
“I learned why proper behavior has its place.” As protection from what had happened to her, for one thing.
“Please, Shona. Hear me out.”
Honestly? She felt no inclination to do so, but she needed information on what Caelis planned to do now that he’d discovered he had a son. If he’d denied Eadan, all would be so simple. She would have gone to Balmoral Island as planned and thrown herself on the mercy of family relations—however tenuous.
But now Shona feared losing her son to his father as much as her flight from England had been spurred by her terror of losing Eadan to Percival’s evil machinations.
“You will not take my son from me,” she promised Caelis as she pushed the door to her chamber open.
“That is not my intention.”
She turned to face him, still on the threshold, not letting him into the room. “You mocked me once with words that did not match your actions; this time I will not be so easily fooled.”
“Let me explain,” Caelis said again, more plea than demand.
It was so unusual to hear the strong warrior speak thus, she found herself nodding and stepping back to allow him into the bedchamber.
There was a low boxlike chest against one wall and Shona used it to sit on, ignoring the very existence of the bed and hoping Caelis would do so as well.
She would have gone to the great hall, but she wanted someone to overhear her shame even less than she desired to be caught in a compromising position with Caelis.
“I find it odd you were sleeping outside my door,” she said as Caelis paced the room but did not start this grand explanation he had alluded to.
“I was not sleeping.”
“What were you doing then?”
“Guarding you.” Caelis stopped in front of her. “Fighting my need to come inside.”
She almost laughed. “You would have me believe that after you tossed me aside six years ago, your passions for me burn so bright they keep you up at night on vigil outside my room?”
’Twas ludicrous. If he’d been as afflicted by desire for her as she was him, he never would have repudiated her.
“Aye.”
“I am not that naïve.” Did he think he had to lie to her to gain access to his son?
Why did he even want Eadan now, when Caelis had been so quick before to reject even the possibility she was pregnant?
Her thoughts whirled in her head like the most complicated court dance.
“Just stubborn.” He sighed, running his hand over his face. “I do not remember you being so stubborn with me.”
Because she’d wanted to give into him and that was her own shame to bear. At least he’d known her truly enough to realize it was in her nature to be obdurate with others.
When she didn’t dignify his words with a reply, he sighed again, looking quite put out. “I have been without physical comfort for six years. You married another.”
“First, I have absolutely no reason to believe you. And I don’t,” she inserted for good measure. “Second, you cannot call what transpired between the baron and myself comfort.”
Not when the old man’s very touch made Shona’s skin crawl and he’d used her as the whore her mother had called her upon discovering Shona was with child with no suitor, much less husband, in sight.