Page 24 of Connal

“You dinnae wish console me?” Connal asked, raising his brows. “The lady refused me. Without hesitation. I’m the laird and she refused me.”

“May I speak as your brother, my lord?” When he nodded the seneschal’s expression turned grim. “For love of our sire, pull your head out from your arse. Valerie Baker, she’s lovely and kind and so brilliant even speaking with her makes my head ache. Any man among the clan or the Finfolk should count his stars fortunate to snare her interest, much less her heart. Now tell me, why should she spare even a glance for a brooding, foul-tempered mute so drowned in melancholy he hardly emerges from his bedchamber once a moon? Even if he calls himself laird.”

He took a step back. “I’m no’ a mute.”

“Since she came, aye, you’ve found your tongue on occasion.” Fletcher folded his arms. “Yet what more do you to secure the lady’s affection? Do you seek her out? Listen to her worries? Do anything which brings her happiness? Do you even ken how Mistress Baker spends her time each day?”

“How, then?” Connal demanded.

Fletcher rose from his stool. “Come with me.”

He followed the seneschal to the west tower, which provided a view of the bay and the forest beyond it. Although his stomach clenched as they mounted the stairs, Connal refused to give in to his mortal weakness.

“Dinnae worry, I shallnae force you stand atop the battlements.” Fletcher stopped, pushed him back against a wall, and then lifted the window covering opposite him.

Through the narrow slit Connal could see the whole of the walking labyrinth, and Valerie, who was following the stone path with slow, thoughtful steps. Although they were too far away for him to make out her expression, the way she held herself appeared very different.

“Since I showed the walk to the lady and explained the labyrinth’s purpose, she goes there each afternoon,” Fletcher told him. “Indeed, she spends the better part of two hours or more walking and thinking. Much preys on her mind, I reckon. Sometimes Jamaran comes and watches her from the cove.”

Connal stiffened. “He wouldnae dare take her from the island against her will.”

“The lad’s no fool. Yet he watches, and I’ll wager soon he’ll speak with the lady. She’s beautiful and lonely, Brother, while he’s a strong, handsome warrior with rank and wealth––and no mate.” The seneschal sighed. “Jamaran may seem a cold, pitiless prick, but ’tis more to him he keeps hidden. Shaw watches the lady as well. As does Duncan, and most of our garrison. She’s a rare beauty.”

“’Tis any man who doesnae desire Valerie?” Connal muttered.

“Aye. Nyall, of course, and me.” Fletcher uttered a sour laugh. “I dinnae desire a wife, nor possess the time to give that gentle lady the care she deserves. Although if someone doesnae soon claim her, I may hand my position over to Shaw.”

The thought of his senior chieftain running the stronghold made Connal wince. “Remain my seneschal, I beg you.”

“Then return the boon of my service and attend that woman before Merrick steals her or declares war against the clan.” He nodded as Connal stared at him. “’Tis coming, Brother, and ’twill end the truce. When that happens…”

He watched Fletcher shaking his head as he walked back down the stairs, but remained where he was to watch Valerie. She had made her way through half of the paths, but had stopped and crouched down to touch the carvings on one of the stones. With the sunlight streaming over her she resembled Eilonwy, his sire’s long lost woodland princess wife, who legends claimed had been the gentlest and kindest of the Fae. Everything Fletcher had said, Connal realized, was truth.

We still have a couple of weeks. Let’s find a way to send me back.

That Valerie had rejected his offer to wed had needled Connal, but now the thought of another claiming her made him angry. Had he not saved her from the sea, and Merrick? Made her welcome at Dun Ard? Surely becoming his wife would be a better life for her than what any other man could offer.

Connal managed to go down the stairs without growing dizzy, and then left the stronghold and made his way to the labyrinth. There he saw Valerie now sitting by the carved stone in the path’s center. Something moved in the trees near the cove beyond the Finfolk’s shell path, which he imagined was Jamaran retreating. Then he saw shadows on a nearby rock cliff move like a black waterfall flowing in the wrong direction, and knew his brother had been there.

Shaw watches the lady as well.

For a moment he was tempted to step aside to permit his senior chieftain the chance to woo Valerie. Shaw’s handsome face and charming ways never failed to steal the heart of any woman. Yet while he frequently bedded willing mortal females around the island, Shaw never allowed anyone into his heart. Then, too, his brother had been twisted in some dreadful fashion during his years with the Pritani bastarts that had enslaved him. Something terrible, Connal sensed, had changed him into something more than merely a dangerous warrior. Wedding Valerie might heal Shaw at long last.

He cannae take her from me.

Connal didn’t understand the sudden and ferocious rush of possessiveness, especially as his heart had remained frozen since Joana’s death. Even now he could freely admit he had no love to offer the lady from the future. Yet some part of him could not bear the prospect of losing her to another.

I neednae love her to wed her.

Staring at the pictographs chiseled in the stones lining the MacMar side of the labyrinth didn’t help Valerie make sense of them. For the first time since puberty she hated her logical mind; if she had an ounce of creativity she might have figured out what falling stars, weirdly-shaped fish and a man covered from head to toe with wavy hair symbolized.

Falling stars are just meteors. Blobfish probably exist somewhere here. Maybe the islanders in ancient times didn’t like haircuts.

Not knowing things annoyed her deeply. She knew Connal hadn’t told her all of the story about Fletcher punching Merrick; he’d chosen his words too carefully. Something was worrying the senior men and the rest of the clan––something worse than the Finfolk king grabbing her and dragging her off. She did understand where she sat on the medieval importance scale; the MacMar barely knew her, and she was a woman, which in medieval times meant lifelong child-bearer and unpaid drudge. Then she recalled how the men had stared at Connal from behind as he walked past them.

This is about the laird and me, but why? Is it because they already knew about the marriage proposal? Do they resent me for forcing him into making one? Or am I endangering him somehow?

Again, she didn’t know, and it frustrated her. Not wanting to give herself another tension headache, she leaned against the stones and traced her fingertips over the etched shapes. Meteors had been falling to earth ever since the planet formed, and primitive people always saw them as omens of some kind. Maybe a few landed on the island, and caused the fish to mutate, and everyone stopped cutting their hair.