Page 27 of Love Beyond Time
I watched as Mary laughed, her entire belly moving with each chuckle, causing me to smile in return.
It had been two weeks since I’d been released from the dungeon and, while the first few days after my imprisonment found me under Eoin’s constant watch, Mary quickly picked up on the problem and suggested that I ask Eoin if I could spend my afternoons with her so that she could teach me how to cook. While it was highly unusual for the laird’s wife to spend her time in the kitchen, I knew he was tired of babysitting me, and he consented easily. Since then, I’d spent a large portion of every day either training with Mary so that I could learn family history and cultural customs, or digging through the mountains of books in Morna’s spell room.
While I was enjoying my lessons with Mary immensely, the search to find a spell that would get me home was an entirely different story. The small room was crowded with books, journals, records, most of which had absolutely nothing to do with spells. Morna’s records and diaries I could read, but the majority of her spell books were in Gaelic, which I did not know. I was slowly having to search through everything written in English first, all while sorting through the things in Gaelic that looked relevant and setting them aside to deal with later.
I was busy thinking of my game plan for the next few hours, which I would spend sifting through the rooms’ contents, when Mary stopped chuckling and spoke once more.
“Ye have noticed that he doesna seem as angry anymore, haven’t ye? He’s slowly warming to ye, a little more each day.”
Her words surprised me. Sure, Eoin no longer seemed angry in the way in which he carried himself when he was around me, and his eyes didn’t look as dark, but ‘warming’? I hadn’t seen anything to make me think that. “What do you mean, ‘warming’? I wouldn’t say that exactly.”
“Oh, that’s because ye doona know him the way I do, dearie. He doesna warm to people as easily as his brother does. He guards himself closely, he knows that ye have the power to break his heart. But, Old Mary’s known him his entire life, and I see the way he looks at ye. He cares for ye, even if he willna let himself know it.”
“I think you’re wrong, Mary. He’s never done a thing to make me think he’s anything but repulsed by me. But even if you’re right, it’s best that he doesn’t let himself start to care. I’ll be gone from here before too long.”
Knowing that today’s family history lesson was at an end, I stepped inside the doorway and made my way over to the pile of my modern clothes, which I’d hidden away to put on only while I worked in the spell room. I looked forward to those hours every day, so that I could put on a bra to strap the girls in place and put on my favorite pair of jeans. It was heaven; or as close as I was going to get to it here.
Seeing that I was preparing to work on the books, Mary stood to leave. “Well, dearie, I see that ye are about to slip on those awful shreds of cloth ye seem to care so much about, so I’ll leave ye to yer work and come back to get ye before the evening meal. But, I’ll no lie to ye, Eoin’s already allowed himself to care. If ye open yer eyes up, ye will be able to see it as well.”
With that she turned and left the basement, and I sat down to get to work.
* * *
Eoin made his way down to the dining hall for the evening meal and stopped abruptly when he caught a glimpse of his reflection in a piece of armory which hung on the wall. He was surprised to see that the corners of his mouth were pulled up, so that they resembled something of a smile. He tried to relax his face, so that that his mouth fell back into where it usually stayed, but he found that his lips didn’t want to stay put.
Confused, he turned away from the reflection and continued to make his way down the hall, all the while wondering why he was so pleased and excited at the idea of eating. It hit him when he walked into the dining hall to see Blaire seated in her usual place.
It wasn’t the prospect of food that excited him. After spending the entire afternoon alone, he was going to get to see Blaire.
He’d done his best to stay angry at her and resolve himself to the fact that their marriage was always going to be one of convenience, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to stay angry at her forever. It was getting harder each day for him to ignore his feelings.
When he’d walked in on Arran kissing her in the hallway, he thought he’d seen two lovers stealing a precious moment alone when he wasn’t around. But after spending a fortnight watching the two of them around each other, he thought that perhaps Arran had been telling him the truth. Every meal, he watched as the two of them sat across from each other, but there were no knowing glances, no palpable tension that he could pick up on. In fact, they never spoke to each other. All conversations took place entirely between Blaire and himself.
And what great conversations they were! He’d never been around a lass that seemed so interested in his stories. She asked questions and listened eagerly, as if savoring everything new she learned about him. Oftentimes he would say something and a look of pure surprise or slight confusion would cross her face, and he immediately saw a glimpse of the ornery child he’d known growing up.
But, she was no longer that child. She was a woman, no denying that, and looked to him more beautiful each time he saw her.
He loved the odd way in which she spoke. Sometimes she said strange words, and her accent often slipped into an odd mixture of Scottish and something he’d never heard. He wondered if she’d spent a lot of time around a foreign nurse growing up, whose influence had shaped the way she said her words. He loved the disjointed sound of it and found himself wanting to listen to it all day.
As he sat down diagonally from her at the large table and looked up at her bright, dimpled smile, he decided it was pointless to remain angry for the sake of his wounded pride. Tonight, he would take the lass somewhere special. Mayhap they both could take a step toward shaping their marriage into what a marriage should be.
Chapter 16
Maybe Mary was right. The thought crossed my mind several times throughout the evening meal. Halfway through whatever strange meat sat before me—I’d stopped asking after about three days—I’d glanced up to see him staring at me in a way that sent an unfamiliar shiver down the back of my neck. At one point, he’d even reached over and squeezed my hand in the middle of one of his stories. The touch was so unexpected, I nearly spit up my food.
He seemed to be in an especially good mood, and it wasn’t until he stopped talking, as if waiting for me to answer a question, that I realized I hadn’t been listening at all.
“I’m sorry. What did ye ask me?” My cheeks suddenly warmed.
“Would ye allow me to take ye somewhere this evening? I’d like to show ye something.” He smiled kindly, and it was shocking to me how his eyes changed depending on his mood. I smiled, unable to hide my flattery at the question. Regardless of how much I wanted to get home, I loved talking to him, and I couldn’t repress the pleasant hum that settled in my stomach at the thought of being alone with him. “I would love to.”
“Aye?” He asked the question as if surprised by my response, but smiled as he stood and offered me his hand.
“Aye.” I extended my hand in his direction, and as he took it I saw Arran rise from the other side of the table and quickly leave the room.
* * *
It didn’t matter that he was drunk. Arran had stayed that way for weeks. He still knew something odd was happening with Blaire. Something had changed between them, and it had nothing to do with the fact that Eoin had caught them in the hallway.
