Page 67 of A Constant Blaze

“Fergus of Galloway,” Halla said. “I thought so.”

“Your neighbor, I believe,” Malcolm said to de Brus. “I trust you recognize him?”

*

The bedchamber dooropened and closed, and the still air was instantly infused with a distinctive, unquiet presence. Christian didn’t need to open her eyes to know it was Adam. She smiled as he lay down on the bed, wrapping his person around her curled back.

“Why are you abed at this hour?” he asked. “Are you ill?”

“Oh no,” she said hastily. “Just a little tired.”

“You’re not hiding in here because you’ve had enough of my brother and sister?”

Christian twisted her head around to try to see his face. “Of course not!

“Because Donald has ridden to the border, taking all his men and a few of mine.”

“To keep an eye on him?” Christian asked cynically and, as it turned out, quite rightly.

“Just in case,” Adam said uncomfortably. “It’s difficult to sit back and do nothing. Especially since word has come from Angus that someone is raiding there in our name.”

Christian straightened her straining neck and frowned into the pillow instead. “Is someone trying to break the king’s agreement with your father?”

“I suspect so. Which is why Donald mustn’t make it reality. My fatherwillcome home.”

“With your mother?”

“Yes,” Adam said firmly. “So, you do not mind that Gormflaith stays with us for a while?”

“I am glad to have her. I like her,” Christian assured him. As if in proof, she lifted his hand from her breast and kissed it.Now,she thought.Now is as good a time as there will be.“Adam?”

He mumbled something, nuzzling her neck.

“I would like to tell Gormflaith something, but I need to tell you first.”

“Tell me what?” he asked, clearly more interested in tracing the line of her thigh as far as it would go.

“That we are going to have a baby.”

For a moment, his questing hand simply carried on. Then, as if her words had taken that time to penetrate, he stilled. Very slowly, he withdrew his hand and used it instead to pull her onto her back so that he could see her face. His dark eyes were serious and utterly focused on her. But his lips were trying to smile.

“Truly?” he breathed.

“Are you surprised?” she asked. “You know you have given me no rest since the night you first came to my bed.”

“I knew you were not barren,” he whispered, his turbulent eyes devouring her with a suddenly frightening intensity. “I knew you would give us—me—children.”

Alarmed, she seized his face between her hands. “Adam? Is it the visions?”

“No,” he said, holding on to her hands and kissing her with infinite tenderness. “It’s happiness.”

Chapter Seventeen

There was aninstant, when the voice calling from the hill first woke Fergus, that happiness surged, and he snapped up his head to find the source. It was disorienting, for surely this had happened before, gazing up at a boy, a young man, on a hill, with every expectation of fun and glory…

He jerked himself back to reality with a jolt, shielding his eyes from the awkward blink of sun which shone suddenly from between the thick grey clouds.

“God in heaven, it can’t be,” he whispered.

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