Page 33 of Here in Your Arms
Rose stiffened, heat flaring in her chest.As if this was her fault!
She shot back, “Maybe you should concern yourself less with where I go and more with what your men are doing. Clearly, heeding their commander’s directive isnotwhat they’re doing.”
“I will handle my men,” he clipped. “But if ye ken ye can walk unguarded without consequence, ye’re a fool. Do I now have to be watchful of ye as well?”
Her pulse, annoyingly, skipped. Christ, that was the last thing she needed or wanted. “I didn’t ask for your protection.”
Tiernan’s jaw flexed, but his voice was softer than she expected when he replied. “Ye have it all the same.” He hooked his thumb toward the keep. “Go on inside ere ye attract any more unwanted attention.”
With a quiet, controlled huff, and then thinning her lips, Rose marched around him and did as he ordered.
What a jerk!
Chapter Eight
“You have to get me out of here,” Rose whispered furiously, gripping Emmy’s arm as she found her in the corridor near their chambers. “I can’t take another second of Leana’s—her hovering, her fussing—she just tried to comb my hair, Emmy.With Margaret’s comb.”
Emmy barely stifled a laugh, her lips twitching. “Oh, geez. I’m sorry, Rose.”
“I can’t take it,” Rose muttered. “She barely left my side all morning. She watched me eat like I might choke. And then the questions—God, the questions. Asking me if I remember things from my youth—Margaret’s youth. If I recall the old willow that used to stand near the river, the one she swears I used to play beneath. If I still favor sweet oatcakes over honeyed ones. If I remember the summer spent on Skye, the year before I—Margaret,” she growled, “was sent away—wherever. She asked about the locket I used to wear,” she continued, “and when I told her I didn’t know what she was talking about, that I wasn’t Margaret, she just smiled like she was humoring a child and said, ‘It will come back to you in time.’”
“She means well,” Emmy said, but her expression suggested even she didn’t believe that.
“She means to drive me insane.”
“She’s obviously struggling with her daughter’s death.”
As if Rose needed to be reminded. “I understand that. But beyond annoying and really sad, it’s beginning to get creepy.”
Emmy made a face that clearly sympathized with Rose’s circumstance regarding Leana. “Go. Get lost somewhere. I’ll run interference.”
“Thank you.”
Emmy nodded and motioned toward the far side of the corridor. “Use the back stairs to the back door near the kitchen. But don’t go beyond the gates.”
Rose made a vague sound of agreement, already slipping away, her heart lightening with every step. She just needed air, needed space, needed a moment where no one looked at her like a ghost or an omen—something she’d tried to have last night, without success.
She wouldn’t go far. Just enough to breathe.
The corridor was dim, the uneven stone beneath her feet cool as she hurried toward the rear stairs. She rounded a corner, flattening herself against the wall as two servants passed, their chatter easy and unburdened—so unlike the hushed, heavy silences that fell whenever she entered a room. She pressed on, descending the stairs quickly, her skirts catching on the steps until she remembered to lift them out of the way. A single twist through another passage, and she’d reached the small back door leading to the bailey.
The moment she stepped outside, the steady, rhythmic thudding of fabric against wood filled the air, accompanied by a beat-driven chant.
Instantly, Rose recognized the sound as a waulking song.
Rose had read an entire book on the practice once—some deep dive during a college seminar on Scottish traditions. She remembered the descriptions of the long wooden tables, the thick, damp wool being passed between many hands, the rhythmic beating to shrink and soften the fibers. The songs, always sung in call-and-response, helped the women keep time, making the labor easier.
And here it was, happening before her, as she’d never seen but exactly as she had imagined.
A dozen women sat at a long table, their sleeves rolled high, hands striking the cloth in unison. The lead singer’s voice rangout, rich and sure, calling the first line in old Gaelic. The others answered in harmony, the melody rising and falling like the sea, the thud of fabric against wood keeping perfect rhythm.
For a moment, Rose almost forgot herself, hypnotized by the music, sounds from another world.
Then the song faltered.
Not all at once, but unevenly, one faltering and dropping out and then another. Some of the women kept singing, some kept working, their hands never pausing. But some, several older ones with sharp eyes, went still.
Rose felt their gazes like pinpricks on her skin. The singing thinned further, voices hesitating, until, finally, it faded entirely. Then the whispering began.
