Page 14 of So Close To Heaven
Mathar nodded once, satisfied with the answer but scarcely fooled by the evasion.
“Will you never forgive yourself?” he asked after a pause.
It wasn’t the first time Mathar had asked him this, it probably wouldn’t be the last. Alaric replied as he sometimes had in the past, when he bothered to reply at all. “Would you be able to?”
Mathar didn’t respond. He gave a small grunt of understanding, shifting in the saddle and letting the moment settle before he nodded grimly and rode a bit ahead, surely to advise the scouts and the fore-guard of their change of direction.
Alaric shifted slightly, once again adjusting his hold on the sleeping woman, willing his thoughts to silence. One woman wouldn’t change the course of war; this small detour wouldn’t—couldn’t possibly—affect the outcome.
More pertinently, she wasn’t Gwen. And this wasn’t then, seven years ago.
And still, as his horse picked its path through the darkening wood, and as the army soon faced the dark sky of the east, Alaric couldn’t help but feel the press of fate at his back, as if a hand was guiding him down a road he hadn’t meant to take.
It was nearly half an hour later, long past the burnished gold of dusk, when he felt her wake. Not with a start or jolt, but a slow stirring. Alaric glanced down, already aware of the way her breath had changed, no longer the deep, even rhythm of sleep, but lighter, more restless.
She blinked and pulled away from his chest, turning and raising her face to him.
The moon had climbed above the trees, casting a cool gleam across the forest floor. He caught only a glimpse of the silver light reflected in her eyes before she faced forward again.
“Yer awake, then,” he said quietly. “Do ye ken where ye are?”
“Still riding,” she murmured, her voice low and scratchy. She shifted her weight, then stilled again quickly, perhaps remembering her position—cradled against his chest, his arm around her, his hand settled over the swell of her stomach. A sigh was felt more than heard. “And having no more idea where we are now than I did earlier when you...discovered me.”
He gave a slow nod. “What’s yer name, lass?”
“Ivy. Ivy Mitchell.”
A curious name, a plant in English if he recalled correctly. His brows pulled together slightly, but before he might have questioned her about this, she said, “I know yours. Kendrick enlightened me,” she clarified. “Right after... after the fight, or actually, after you left me with them—Kendrick, Blair, and Ewan.”
She was seated side-saddle and thus her back was not square to his chest. She was angled just enough that a simple glance down revealed a quarter view of her face, an upper view of part of her profile. Her brows were knit. Even in the dark, she was pale. She looked less breakable than she had earlier, but still worn, like a ribbon thinned by wind and weather.
“He called you laird,” she said.
“Aye.”
She swallowed, then gave a stiff nod, as though unsure what to do with that information. She curled her fingers slightly against the breacan, brushing the thick wool mindlessly.
“So you’re... in charge of this army?”
“Aye.”
“And your mission is what? Were you chasing those English from earlier? Or did you happen upon them?”
Curious about questions regarding a topic that should be of no interest to a mere woman, Alaric frowned and answered carefully. “We were lucky, came upon tracks, and gave pursuit.”
“And you—and your army—killed all those Englishmen? All those dead bodies I saw?”
“Aye.”
“Were...were they particularlybador dangerous Englishmen? Or do you simply believe that the only good Englishmen are dead Englishmen?”
“What is it ye’re meaning to ken?” He asked, his frown intact.
She drew in a large breath and released it, only a wee bit shakily. “I’m just trying to figure out if there’s actually a war going on, or if you’re some kind of vigilante or...I don’t know, like a rogue knight, who rides around looking for a fight.”
His brows pulled closer together in a tight, displeased line. Aye, the name suited her—quiet at first glance, but clinging, persistent. Ivy. Not thorny, no—but she had a way of curling into the cracks of a man’s guard before he even noticed.
“We are at war,” he reminded her. “A war that’s nae likely to end soon.”
