Page 58 of So Close To Heaven
“Those are Braxton-Hicks contractions,” Claire said, her tone both confident and a little teasing. “Practice rounds, if you will. Annoying, but harmless. You’re not going into labor. Not yet.”
Ivy let out a shaky laugh, still clutching her stomach but loosening her grip. “Well, that’s just fabulous news.”
Claire chuckled, shaking her head and then sobered, as if a thought had come to her. “Maybe,” she began, now thebreathless one, “if what you say is true, maybe I was—brought here? Sent here?—for a reason.”
Ivy stared at her, her mouth falling open, wondering if it might be true.
Chapter Sixteen
The weeks bled together in rain and mud, and blood and steel. The MacKinlay and Kerr armies grew weary of the endless chase, the sustained harrying of the English column along the spine of the Great Glen. They struck where they could—ambushes from the ridges, night raids that cut down stragglers, quick strikes at the tail of the English force on two more occasions. For every man they felled, for every patrol they left broken in the heather, another hundred English marched on. In the end, despite their efforts, the invaders reached Urquhart.
Still, it was not defeat. The enemy moved slower, thinner, bloodied, their numbers reduced and their tempers frayed. But Alaric counted it no victory either. Small gains in a war that never seemed to end. With no other English presence pressing from the south, and with weeks of mud-soaked miles behind them, he and Ciaran at last turned their men to Caeravorn. Alaric gave some thought of returning home himself. He’d not seen Braalach since late winter.
Relief warred with impatience. Alaric found himself restless, near feral, driving his company harder than was wise, his mind fixed on Caeravorn. Not merely the keep, of course, but Ivy. The harrying of the English had served more than only the necessary and obvious purpose, but while they’d engaged the enemy as often as they had, he’d been spared worry over Ivy. But now, with her time so near, concern for her gnawed at him with every mile. He could not, would not, be elsewhere when the babe came—some bone-deep truth told him he must be there.
The march back was no easy matter. Rain had slicked the crags and turned the narrow paths into sucking mire, so that horses stumbled and men muttered beneath their breath. Tempers flared as sodden cloaks and plaids twisted and clung,and boots filled with water. More than once the company was forced to halt while a cart axle snapped in the ruts or a wounded man slid from the litter. A regular cacophony of groans filled the night when they camped, low, broken sounds of men who might never see Caeravorn’s walls again. Each dawn they rose stiffer, wearier, trudging on through dripping pines and misted glens until even the strongest looked hollow-eyed.
Twenty-four days after they had departed Caeravorn, the keep came into view at last, its gray towers looming stark and dramatic through the mist. The portcullis rattled upward, the gate groaning wide as a handful of voices called down in welcome. Two score men rode through the arch with Ciaran at their head, the bulk of the armies already scattered in and around the village. Alaric was bone-weary, every muscle aching, yet strung taut with expectation.
And then his heart near stopped.
Ivy—heavily burdened with child now, her dark hair braided back in a careless plait, her skirts hitched higher than modesty would allow—stood in the bailey, struggling with a basket of firewood slung against her hip. Of all the cursed things!
No comfort was it that her troubled hazel eyes searched the riders anxiously—perhaps for him—for she looked pale and strained, a vision that struck him harder than any English blade might have.
Lost amid a throng of riders, Alaric was off his horse in a heartbeat, boots striking the stones, unseen yet by the one pair of eyes he sought. “Ivy!” His roar cracked across the bailey like a whip. He strode just as sharply, while horses and men seemed to part before him as if a hand had come down to move them. Then she found him. Across the swirl of men and horses, their gazes locked—hers wide with surprise, his fierce with alarm. In that instant her expression shifted, softening as relief chased theworry from her face, as if the long weeks apart had fallen away in a breath.
“Are ye daft? D’ye ken the weight of that basket?” He asked as he closed the distance between them. “What in God’s name are ye doing?”
She startled, smiling while her eyes filled with tears. The basket slipped against her hip and she set it down. “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Alaric. You don’t have to yell. Your face already booms like thunder.”
He stopped dead, glowering, and she had the audacity to laugh at him. A bright, exasperating laugh that cut straight through to him, like sunlight through the clouds.
Around them, men dismounted, servants bustled out from the keep, all of Caeravorn stirring at their laird’s return. Mathar, brushing road dust from his hair, cast a sidelong glance as he passed them, muttering, just loud enough for Alaric and Ivy to hear, “God help us, look at the eyes they’re making at each other.” No other would ever dare to speak to him with such insolence.
Alaric ignored him. His gaze never left Ivy.
She met it unflinching, as if she’d been waiting all these weeks to see him—mayhap she’d watched for him to come over the rise, mayhap had counted the days, offered prayers for him alone. He’d imagined this, just this, seeing her again, had thought he’d have hauled her into his arms—the very idea seemed both natural and necessary, to make known what had been whispering in him for weeks then had become a roar he could no longer silence while he’d been parted from her.
Instead, he found himself saying, almost casually, “I kent I should be here when the babe was born.”
Her lips parted, and then slowly curved, not in mirth but in something softer, joyous. Her eyes held his, hazel warmed with a light he had not seen before, as though those simplewords had reached some quiet, frightened corner of her she had kept hidden. Relief and joy mingled there, unspoken but unmistakable, her face transformed.
“Alaric,” she breathed.
Her smile and tears broke in the same instant, and she flung herself against his chest, arms tight about his neck. Alaric crushed her to him, heedless of the eyes upon them, and kissed her hard. The weeks apart, the weight of battle, the sheer relief of finding her alive and well—all of it poured into that kiss, fierce and hungry, until at last it slowed, softened, deepened.
When he drew back, breath still rough, his thumb lingered against her cheek.
“Dinna lift heavy things, Ivy,” he said, the words low, almost pleading.
Her lashes fluttered, her tears giving way to a quiet, knowing smile. “Okay, Alaric.”
***
Ivy leaned into Alaric’s arm as they crossed the bailey, her cheeks and lips still warm from his kiss, her steps quickened by the strength of his stride. She tried to look composed—they’d just put on a rather shameless display in front of his men—but she couldn’t quite stop smiling.
Claire had come outside and stood waiting near the keep’s door, pressed almost against the stone as though she meant to vanish into it. It struck Ivy as odd. Claire was not timid by nature—if anything, she carried herself with more assurance than Ivy ever had. Yet now her hands twisted restlessly in her skirts, a faint crease marked her brow, and she seemed intent on making herself smaller, less seen. Perhaps it was only the change of company, Ivy thought; the keep had been quiet with most of the men gone, and the sudden return of armored soldiers andthe noise of horses might have unsettled her. Or perhaps, Ivy realized, her eyes widening, to Claire it was more jarring proof of what she had not yet managed to fully accept—that they were not in some elaborate dream or cruel trick, but truly here, in the fourteenth century.
