Page 98

On the road, against the three men who’d come out of the bracken, she’d watched him take a man’s hand off at the wrist without hesitation. It had been quick. It had been terrible. It had been over almost before she understood it had begun.

This was nothing like that.

It was also nothing like seeing him train.

In the training yard, there was a kind of joy to the way he fought. Freya had watched him more mornings than she’d ever admit, half hidden behind the curtain in the nursery.

Back then, he’d strip down to his shirt, sleeves shoved to the elbows, and take on two or three of his men at once. He would grin and laugh when they landed a blow and laugh harder when they didn’t. He’d call out their mistakes, cuff the young lads on the ear, and pull them back up out of the mud with a grin.

Even sweating and filthy, he looked at ease. It was as if the sword were an extension of his arm. The yard was the one place in the world where he didn’t have to think.

Freya used to smile as she watched him before she remembered she was not supposed to be falling for him. Once, he’d glanced up and caught her at the window. She had ducked away so fast that she knocked her basket of thread to the floor.

It had woken up the babies, who had immediately started crying. Brigid had covered her mouth with her hand before moving towards the babies, barely able to stifle her laughter.

“It’s nae that funny,” Freya muttered.

“Oh, it is,” Brigid teased. She leaned over to scoop Archer up into her arms, bouncing him against her shoulder. “Ye nearly went out the window after that basket.”

“Nay, I didnae!”

“Ye did. I saw yer whole face go red as a berry!” Brigid’s eyes were sparkling. “And all because the Laird looked up at the window.”

Freya bent to gather the scattered thread, grateful for an excuse to hide her cheeks. “He didnae see me.”

“Oh, me Lady, he saw ye. He stopped mid-swing and let young Rory knock him clean on his backside.”

Freya froze with a spool in her hand. “He would never.”

“Aye, he did. Go and look if ye daenae believe me. He’s still sitting in the mud, grinning like a fool.”

Freya didn’t look. She wouldn’t give Brigid the satisfaction.

She lasted perhaps three breaths before she decided to peek over the sill. Evander was indeed sprawled in the muck with Rory standing over him.

The lad looked terrified at what he’d done, but Evander was laughing, head thrown back, as if it were the best joke in the world.

“Ye see?” Brigid said softly behind her. “The man’s daft for ye.”

Freya let the curtain fall. “He’s daft, I’ll grant ye that.”

“Daft for ye,” Brigid insisted. She shifted Archer to her other shoulder. “Mark me words, me Lady. A man doesnae fall in the mud for a lass he doesnae care for.”

“He fell because Rory hit him.”

“He fell because he was looking at ye instead of Rory.” Brigid grinned. “Twelve years a warrior, and undone by one glance at a window.”

Freya threw a spool of thread at her. Brigid caught it neatly with her free hand.

“I’ll be telling the whole kitchen by supper,” she said.

“Ye wouldnae dare.”

“Watch me.”

This was not training.

The first clash of steel against steel rang through the nursery like a bell. Freya pressed herself against the wall behind the door, the rag doll crushed against her chest, and couldn’t look away.