“Learned at my mother’s knee.” She took the reins herself, then passed them with instructions to the boy who came hurrying out from the stables.
When she’d finished, she looked up at Cian. “Are you in a mood?”
“Always.”
“I should have said a difficult mood, but the answer might be always to that as well. If you’re not, more than usual, I’d hoped you’d have a meal with me. In private. I’d hoped you’d stay with me tonight.”
“And if I am in a difficult mood?”
“Then a meal and some wine might sweeten it enough for you to lie with me, and stay with me. Or, we can argue over the food, then go to bed.”
“I’d have to have taken a spill from the horse and damaged my brain to turn down that offer.”
“Good. I’m hungry.”
And furious, he thought with some amusement. “Why don’t you get the lecture out of your system. It’s liable to give you indigestion.”
“I don’t have a lecture, and if I did, it’s not what would suit me.” She walked—regally, he thought—across the courtyard. “What I’d like is to give you a good, strong kick in the ass for taking a chance like that. But…”
She drew a long breath, then a second as they entered the castle. “I know what it is to need to get away, to just go for a bit. How it feels you’ll rip apart from the pressure inside if you don’t. I can go into a book and be quiet in my mind again. You needed the ride, the speed of it. And, I think, there are times you just need the dark.”
He said nothing until they’d come to the door of her room. “I don’t know how you can understand me that way.”
“I’ve made a study of you.” Now she smiled a little, looking up and into his eyes. “I’m a good study. And added to it, you’re inside my heart now. You’re inside me, so I know.”
“I haven’t earned you,” he said quietly. “That occurs to me now. I haven’t earned you.”
“I’m not a wage or a prize. I wouldn’t care to be earned.” She opened the door to her sitting room.
She’d had the fire lit, and the candles. The cold supper and the good wine were already laid out, with flowers from one of the hothouses.
“You’ve gone to some trouble.” He shut the door behind them. “Thank you.”
“It was for me, but I’m glad you like it. I wanted a night, just one, where it would be only the two of us. As if none of this was happening. Where we could sit and talk and eat. And where I might drink just a little too much wine.”
She laid down her bow and quiver, unhooked her sword. “One night when we don’t talk of battles and weapons and strategy. You’d tell me you love me. You wouldn’t even have to say it, because I’d see it when you looked at me.”
“I do love you. I looked back at the castle, and saw the glow in the windows from these candles. That’s how I think of you. A steady glow.”
She stepped toward him, took his face in her hands. “And if I think of you as the night, it’s the mystery of it, and the thrill. I’ll never be afraid of the dark again, because I’ve seen into it.”
He kissed her brow, her temples, then her lips. “Let me pour you the first glass of too much wine.”
She sat at the little table and watched him. This was her lover, she thought. This strange and compelling man who carried wars inside him. And she’d have this night with him, the whole of it, and a few hours of peace for them both.
She chose food for his plate, knowing it was a wifely gesture. She’d have that as well, this one night. When he sat across from her, she lifted her glass to his. “Sláinte.”
“Sláinte.”
“Will you tell me the places you’ve seen? Where you’ve traveled? I want to go there in my mind. I studied the maps in your library in Ireland. Your world is so big. Tell me the wonderful things you’ve seen.”
He took her to Italy during the Renaissance, and Japan in the time of samurai, to Alaska during the gold rush, to Amazon jungles and to African plains.
He tried to paint quick snapshots with words, so she could see the variety, the contrasts, the changes. He could all but see her mind opening to take it in. She asked dozens of questions, particularly when something he related expanded or contradicted what she’d read when in his library.
“I’ve wondered what lies beyond the sea.” She propped her chin on her fist as he poured more wine. “Other lands, other cultures. It seems that if we were once a part of Ireland, that there may be parts of Italy and America, Russia, all those wondrous places here, in this world, too. One day…I’d like to see an elephant.”
“An elephant.”