Page 45 of So Close To Heaven
“Kick ye out?” Ciaran echoed.
She swallowed. “Make me leave.”
“I’ve nae said that even crossed my mind. This one, however,” Ciaran inclined his chin toward Alaric, “seems convinced ye’ll nae be safe.”
Alaric bristled. “Aye, and with guid cause.”
But Ivy turned to him. “Alaric, you can’t. If Laird Kerr doesn’t mind me staying, I want to be here.” She closed the small distance between them, standing close, tipping her face up. Her eyes were wide and imploring. “I talked with the midwife today, Ruth. I feel...so much better about everything now—well, as good as I can, all things considered. Please don’t make me leave.”
“Jesu, Ivy.” His voice cracked against the weight of his fury, contrasted against the pleading look in her eyes. “The man struck ye.”
“It was a misunderstanding,” she insisted softly. “It frightened me, sure, but I don’t hold a grudge.” She turned, to include Ciaran in her explanation. “He thought I was trying to take his children or something when I was only trying to steer them away from the water’s edge. He has every right to protect them.”
Alaric growled, pacing a half step away. “He’ll hold a grudge now, for being punished for striking ye.”
“Punished?” She frowned, looking to Ciaran.
“Aye, lass,” Ciaran said smoothly. “Assault it is. Alaric, nae doubt, will demand retribution.”
“Oh my God, no,” Ivy whispered, horror dawning. “Please, you can’t—”
She moved swiftly now, again toward Alaric, setting her small hand upon his arm. The simple touch stole the force from his rage, her palm warm against his sleeve. “I need to fit in here, Alaric,” she said quietly. “I need to feel comfortable. I’m anxious enough. I don’t want to look over my shoulder, wondering if retaliation is coming.”
“Punishment deters others from—”
“Punishing that man will only makeeveryonehate me,” she cut in, her voice steady as she met his gaze. “Then Iwillbe in danger.”
The logic cut deep, though his blood still boiled.
She turned to Ciaran. “Could you arrange for me to speak with him? I want to apologize for frightening him—”
Alaric threw up his hands. “Jesu,and will ye fatten a goose for him, too? Polish his boots while ye have him?”
“She’s nae wrong,” Ciaran said blandly.
Alaric swung a ferocious scowl on his laird. “Mind yer own bluidy business.”
Smug as he often was, seeming to enjoy Alaric’s rage for some reason—bluidy bampot!—Ciaran folded his arms. “My keep, my business. Also—” he paused, a grin tugging at his lips, “my keep, my rules.”
“Go to hell,” Alaric seethed, heat rising up his neck.
***
Ivy woke to a dull ache in her cheek, the memory of yesterday crowding back before her eyes had even opened. Fingal. That was his name—the father of the children by the loch, the man who had struck her. She winced more at the recollection than the bruise, replaying the strange, tense meeting that had followed, and more embarrassingly, the trouble she’d caused the man.
After no small amount of cajoling on her part, Alaric had finally relented, though he’d grumbled about it at length, and Ciaran had arranged for her to see the man while he was secured in the byre, which Alaric had gruffly explained was one of the communal barns. Ivy had gone in determined, having rehearsed her apology, and yet still stumbling over her words until she was nearly babbling with sincerity. Fingal, however, scarcely seemed to hear a word of it. His angry, watchful eyes never left Alaric, who stood rigidly at her side, sometimes shifting to place his massive frame between them, as though she needed a human shield while the poor man was literally chained to the wall.
“I only meant to help,” she had told the man more than once, her voice raw with earnestness. “I thought your children were in danger.”
Ciaran translated—without inflection, it seemed.
But if her words reached Fingal, he gave no sign. His gaze had followed Alaric like a cornered beast tracking its hunter, and Ivy had finally realized he wasn’t interested in anything she had to say, not with Alaric looming over him so threateningly. Still, she’d done what she’d set out to do. When her apology was done, she insisted the man be released. She wished the entire horrible thing had never happened, and she wanted desperately to put it all behind her.
Now, lying in the soft furs of her borrowed bed, Ivy sighed. Certainly it hadn’t been the smoothest peace-making attempt in history, but at least she’d tried.
She went about her morning much as she had the day before—making discreet use of the empty-once-again chamber pot tucked beneath the bed and then sitting at the small table where a tray had been laid. Oat porridge, a heel of bread, and a wedge of something sharp and crumbly that surely must be cheese. Ivy ate in silence, her brain still whirring. She was slightly miffed that her excitement of yesterday—or rather just a general good feeling she had after leaving the midwife, Ruth—had been ruined by her attempts to be helpful, Fingal’s loose fists, and Alaric’s wild rage.
Ivy couldn’t shake the memory of it. It had blazed through him, immediate and absolute. The force of it should have frightened her, but instead it settled deep in her bones, almost warmly. She’d felt safe, of course, so well protected, but something even more than that—as if nothing on earth, or in any time, would be allowed to touch her so long as Alaric MacKinlay drew breath.
