Page 28 of So Close To Heaven
Then, as if scorched, he snatched his hand back.
The wonder drained from him, leaving a hollowness that hurt worse than any blow. What was he doing? What madness had seized him, to share such joy with her? It was absurd—worsethan that!. It felt like betrayal. His wife’s face rose in his mind, pale and still as the day he’d lost her, and shame slammed hard into his chest.
He curled his hand into a fist. He should not have touched Ivy, should not have allowed himself even a breath of that fleeting intimacy. She was a stranger who spoke of impossible things, a woman who unsettled him at every turn in their too-short acquaintance, and yet—he had felt... joy.
The knowledge burned.
Ivy’s smile faltered at his abrupt withdrawal. He was peripherally aware of Tàmhas’s questioning frown.
For a heartbeat she looked bewildered, her hand still resting protectively on her belly. Then the brightness in her eyes dimmed, as though she’d remembered herself, remembered him, recalled their harsh exchange of words. Her mouth pressed into a small, resigned line, and she looked down at the hand over her belly.
He could not bear her eyes on him—not when they gave rise to the guilt. Gwen’s face haunted him still, pale and fading as he made the choice that saved neither her nor their bairn. That failure lay heavy in his bones, and to feel even a flicker of warmth now, in another woman’s gaze, seemed a betrayal. He turned sharply, shoulders rigid, and strode away.
***
The army rode out three days later, leaving the charred priory behind. Nothing more could be done there, it was decided, and no word of the missing nuns had surfaced despite their constant searching. Ivy had managed—through stubborn persuasion of Kendrick and Ewan and no small amount of pleading looks—to secure her own mount. The mare was a rangy bay, not the mostelegant horse she’d ever seen, but Ivy was absurdly proud of the independence it offered her.
They followed a narrow, rocky trail northward, scouts reporting that a smaller troop of English had passed through ahead of them. Always just out of reach, the enemy seemed to taunt them with tracks and cold fire pits, as if they were shadows rather than men. Each evening, Alaric’s force made camp, only to rise at dawn and press on again, the chase stretching day after day.
Ivy found herself riding often beside Ewan, the young soldier with the easy grin. He never said much about himself, but he had a knack for making her feel less like a burden and more like part of the company. When the trail grew steep and treacherous, he would angle his horse near hers, ready to steady her if need be, though she managed well enough. She suspected he was smitten, though he kept it tucked neatly away.
“You’ve a knack for riding,” Ewan said one afternoon as their horses picked their way along a forested ridge.
Ivy smirked, his tone suggesting he’d have thought she might have been an inept rider. “I’m full of surprises, right?”
His answering grin was boyish, almost shy. “Aye, ye are.”
“Actually, I’ve been riding horses since I was a kid. I was raised on a farm, mostly. My grandfather bought me my first pony and taught me how to ride.”
She liked Ewan—his straightforwardness, his eagerness—but she had no heart to give, not while David’s rejection was so recent. And honestly, now while Alaric MacKinlay loomed in her thoughts at every turn. It had been nearly a week since that strange, intimate moment in the priory when Alaric’s hand had rested against her belly, when he had felt the baby shift. She had almost imagined, in that strange, unguarded moment, that something had softened in him. But then he’d recoiled, and since then he had kept a deliberate distance. He spoke to heronly when necessity demanded, his voice cool, his expression guarded. The sharpness of his behavior stung, though she hadn’t expected it to—hadn’t even realized, until that instant, that she’d been holding on to some fragile, unspoken hope.
Hope for what, exactly, she could not have said. That he might soften toward her? That he might look at her with something other than suspicion and restraint? It was absurd—she scarcely knew him, and what she did know painted him as proud, stubborn, infuriating. And yet, his rejection had revealed something she had not been willing to consider until now: shehadbeen intrigued by him, perhaps had even been a little captivated. Perhaps she’d even been waiting for some sign that the connection she felt in his presence was not hers alone. Instead, the way he’d dismissed her—spurned her, really, several times now—had sadly advised that he harbored no similar desire.
It bothered her more than she cared to admit.
At night, Ivy used the plaid, wool blanket—breacan, she’d since learned it was properly called—and slept near the fire with the others, often sandwiched between or around Kendrick, Blair, and Ewan. She found herself strangely comforted by the press of bodies around her, the soft murmur of men snoring; she felt safe and secure. The meals this week had been simple but sustaining, broth thickened with oats, a heel of bread, sometimes dried meat or cheese if the quartermaster doled it out. She ate what she was offered, grateful, though the child within her seemed to grow hungrier by the day.
One evening, when the sky turned purple with dusk, she sat with Ewan at the fire, chewing a strip of salted venison. He leaned close enough for his shoulder to brush hers, his voice pitched low as if sharing a secret.
“Ye’re strong, Ivy. Many a lass in yer state would no’ walk half so far, much less ride with us.”
Ivy smiled faintly at the praise. “Here’s hoping I can continue to keep up.”
The pace was grueling, but more so for the long hours in the saddle. Most of the time this army trudged in long, weary lines, but mostly the pace was set to a slow walk, in deference to the foot soldiers, she supposed, hardly unsafe for either her pregnancy or the baby. Yet, she worried almost hourly if the jostling might harm the baby, if the strain could bring early labor.
Back home she would never have dreamed of riding at this stage. At this point in her third trimester, she’d imagined herself knee deep in baby books, swollen ankles, doctor appointments, and painting the nursery—and definitely not slogging across the Scottish Highlands on horseback. She’d read warnings about long walks, about heavy lifting, about car rides that lasted too many hours. Yet here she was, bouncing over uneven ground with no doctor to consult, no sterile hospital waiting at the end of the road.
And yet, what choice did she have? There were no Airbnbs, no Ubers, no schooled modern doctors waiting to ease her nerves. This was it—the warm breacan at night, a strip of venison by day, and a horse whose gait she prayed would not shake her child loose.
Often her hand drifted to her belly, part soothing, part bracing, as she begged the baby to stay strong, though she couldn’t begin to imagine how things might be any safer by the time it came, how her fear might be lessened so long as she remained lost in time.
Her gaze flicked across the camp to where Alaric sat apart, sharpening his blade in the flicker of firelight. He didn’t look up, not once, but she felt the weight of his presence as surely as if he bored holes into her with his stare.
And though she tried to focus on the warmth of the fire, the food in her belly, and the kindness of the boy beside her, and many others over the last week, it was Alaric’s distance that made it so that she still didn’t feel quite comfortable among these MacKinlays.
Chapter Eight
The road narrowed to little more than a rutted track, threading its way through heather-covered slopes until, quite suddenly, it spilled into a cluster of stone and timber cottages crouched close to the banks of a burn. The late-afternoon sky was the color of pewter, heavy clouds pressing low, and in the gray light the village looked almost painted in shades of ash and earth. She’d smelled it before she saw much of it. Thin curls of peat smoke rose from squat chimneys, stinging her nose with their woodsy tang, mingling with the sour reek of animal dung and the mouthwatering drift of something roasted that sent her stomach growling.
