name being called and turned to see Kiergan on the other side of the courtyard.
“Katlyn! Kat!” He was smiling as he jogged toward her, the motion flipping his kilt in interesting ways. She realized she wasn’t the only one of the ladies bustling to and fro in the courtyard to lean to one side to get a better look and quickly snapped upright again.
“There ye are!” he cried, skidding to a stop in front of them, out of breath. “I’ve been looking for ye all morning. Hello, Moira, love.”
The housekeeper tittered, then rolled her eyes. “Good morn, Kier. I was just having the nicest chat with Lady MacKinnon—”
“Please, call me Katlyn,” Kat hurried to interrupt.
“Katlyn then,” the older woman said with a smile. “She was saying the kindest things about Cook and the efficiency of the household.”
“Because I ken they’re all true,” Katlyn said with a nod. “Ye run a fine house!”
“ ’Tis her iron fist,” Kiergan broke in, winking, “and her soft touch.”
“Och, off with ye, laddie!” But Moira was blushing. “I’ll leave the two of ye, since ‘tis clear ye have need of Katlyn.” Her smile told them both she hadn’t missed their familiarity. “And I need to get this basket to the laundresses afore they finish their work for the morning! Goodbye!”
Katlyn lifted her hand to wave goodbye to the cheerful older woman, but Kiergan snagged it and used it to pull her into the shadow of the outer wall. She lifted an amused brow.
“Being mysterious, are we no’?”
He glanced around. “We cannae ken who is watching us at any given moment.”
She chuckled as she pointed. “I think we can. That auld man there has been ogling Moira’s tits since I stopped her, those two lassies are too interested in their dolls to care what we’re doing, and—”
“Bah, I dinnae mean them,” he cried, yanking down her pointing finger, so he was now holding both of her hands.
“Ye mean Davina then?” Kat’s other brow rose. “I left her in our chambers, still abed. She’s no’ sleeping well these nights.”
He stilled, and that’s when she realized he had news.
“What is it, Kiergan?” she whispered, unconsciously leaning toward him. “Did ye learn something?”
And her heart began to pound at what that something might be.
Because she knew his quest to determine why Davina claimed to hate him, after climbing into his bed, wasn’t really a mystery at all. Not for the first time, Katlyn cursed her cowardice at not having used her own name that night.
He glanced left, then right again. “Kat, last night I was on watch, aye? And instead of returning to my room through the great hall, I traveled through the secret passage.”
He was gripping her hands, and his excitement encouraged her own.
“Aye?” she breathed, leaning even closer.
His blue eyes were sparkling. “I saw someone,” he whispered.
Her fingers shifted, twining through his. “Tell me!”
With a nod, he straightened, then backed against the stone wall and tugged her closer. “I’d brought a candle because ‘tis black as the devil’s bollocks in there and after midnight besides. I had just finished climbing the stairs to the bedchamber level when I heard a noise ahead of me, and I stopped.”
She caught her breath. His experience sounded very much like the one she’d had in the passages on the way back from his room when she’d seen the stranger. But she couldn’t tell him that, not without revealing she’d been the one to come to him that night. So she forced herself to breathe and managed a croaked, “Was it one of yer brothers, mayhap?”
Shaking his head, he said in a low voice, “I dinnae ken why my brothers would need to sneak about through the passages now that they’re all married. Malcolm was interested yesterday in the passage, but he’s always interested in everything, and besides, he’d have been asleep with Evelinde, aye?”
She nodded slowly, carefully choosing her words. “That makes sense. Was it one of the servants, mayhap?”
“I called out. I’ll admit my voice shook a bit, but I’m sure he heard me. Instead of answering though, he turned and hurried in the opposite direction.”
Her eyes had gone wide as she leaned closer. A horrible thought had just occurred to her. “The ghost then?” she breathed.
His gaze stayed on her lips. “I dinnae think…” He blinked and glanced up to meet her eyes. But as he explained, his gaze slowly drifted back to her lips. “I was faster than him because I had a light, and he didnae. I