Bold (The Handfasting) - By Becca St. John Page 0,14
my people, our people.”
There were no tears this time. Normally, when she visited Ian’s grave, emotions brimmed and spilled. Perhaps she was getting used to his absence.
“Do you know what it is he thinks? Can you watch, from wherever you are? Can you see what’s happening?” Maggie looked up at the sky, before studying the sway of trees that surrounded the graveyard. She’d often wondered if Ian watched.
When he was alive, she would have known what he was thinking without saying a word. The loss, an emptiness that could not be filled.
“You would laugh, you know.” Could hear her even if she couldn’t hear him. “Our warriors told tales and the Bold was daft enough to listen. They turned-around all I ever did to grieve them, until you would think I was the bravest and wisest of women. Really, they did!
“Do you remember the time I threw the rock and hit that Englishman dead on? Och, the look on Nigel’s face. He slung me over his shoulder, as if I had caused the battle, carried me past every warrior on the battlements, through all the soldiers in the yard and into the crowd of the Great Hall. He dumped me. Like no more than a sack of oats, he tossed me at our mother’s feet.
“Aye, you were there. You laughed till your sides split, but it wasn’t funny.” Maggie would never forget how Nigel had stormed, “keep her out of our way.”
She was no warrior.
God willing, the Bold would never know the depth of embarrassment flung at her when he asked about the packets.
A silly impulse and a sleepless night produced them. No more than ten years old, she had imagined being lauded for those little pouches. One for each warrior before he left for battle. They were to serve as a symbol of all they fought for.
They brought no more than absent pats on the head and embarrassed chuckles. Every ounce of her pride had been gobbled up from that day to this, for she didn't know how to stop it. What she did for one, she had to do for the others or it would be a sign of favoritism. A Highlander would take great insult on such a slight.
“What would The MacKay think if he knew the truth of it?” She asked as though her brother could answer.
The wind kicked up. Maggie's sigh rode on it.
“If you were here, Ian, you’d protect me, you’d sit by my side and keep the MacKay at a distance. Och, and the way he makes a body feel!” Maggie fought for words to explain and fisted her belly as though to press away the flutters within. “Ian, be grateful that you’ll never have to feel the way he made me feel. You can't lose it.”
A swift look over her shoulder, toward the keep, was reminder enough that she needed to head back.
“Do you think I could be missing the meal?” She sighed against the hope, her eyes focused on the gray slabs of stone that made up her home.
A movement, near the last tree of the orchard, caught her eye. Two soldiers stood there, watching her with steady interest. In the meager light she could not tell for certain, but she thought they were MacKays.
Ian’s resting place pulled her once more. “What am I to do?” She rose and dusted the dirt from her plaid. “Who can I get to sit with me if not you?” She studied his grave. “It’s not like I have any great suitors to . . ." she paused, her head high, as if to catch a sound. "Ian, I have it. Hamish. Hamish will sit with me, and then The MacKay will know that my affections are taken and . . .”
She glanced over her shoulder to see the two men still watching her.
“They’ll be leaving soon.” She comforted her brother, for he’d fret for her otherwise. “And Hamish will be there for me, even if for naught but friendship. We have been friends for such a long time.”
Her head snapped back to Ian's grave. For the first time, since she'd lost him, there was an inkling of thought traitorous enough not to be her own.
“Don’t you dare, brother!” She wagged her finger at the heather upon the grave as it swayed with a fresh breeze. She could almost see her brother brushing his hand over it, as he argued with her. “Don’t you dare start putting opinions in my head now. If I want