Page 59 of The Merciless Laird
He stood there longer than he needed to.
"She's good fer ye," Torvald said. The voice was quiet, a soft probe into a tender place.
"Aye, well." Ivar's eyes stayed on the window. "Dinnae go writing songs about it."
"The men have noticed."
“She threw flour at me."
"Aye." Torvald's mouth moved. "That's what I mean."
Ivar said nothing to that.
The amber light held in the window, and he stood there looking at it longer than the looking required, and something underneath the dry answer he'd given was considerably less dry than the answer.
"I didnae intend fer it," he said quietly. "Any of it." The confession was a whisper in the wind.
Torvald said nothing.
"She's…" He stopped. His jaw tightened. Tried again. "I went looking fer her this mornin’ because she wasnae in the bed, and fer the three minutes it took me tae find her I was scared." He stopped again. Looked at the water. "I dinnae like that. Whatthose three minutes felt like. I cared more than I should have." His hands were clenched at his sides, his knuckles white.
Torvald was quiet for a long moment.
"Nay," he said. "I imagine ye dinnae like what it felt like." The steward’s voice was steady, a grounding force.
Ivar thought about flour on her jaw and a laugh that had come out startled and real, and himself standing there watching it like a man who had forgotten such a thing was possible. The warmth of it was terrifying.
"I didnae intend fer it," he said. Quiet, to the cliff edge, to the dark water below. He felt the weight of his own admission, a new, heavy responsibility.
Torvald was quiet for a moment. Then he said: "I ken."
"It complicates things."
"Most things worth havin' are complicated." Torvald looked at him, his gaze wise and unblinking.
Ivar looked at him sideways.
"MacDougall. The King. The sheet. All of it is already too much on her." He felt a surge of fierce, protective anger. "She's nae what I expected," Ivar said.
"Nay," Torvald agreed. "She isnae."
"She's more." He looked back at the water. The word was a quiet, profound realization.
Ivar looked at the window again. The candles still burning. Her in there and the laugh he'd watched come out of her like something she hadn't known she still had. He felt his breath hitch in his throat.
He thought about her eyes in the kitchen. Steady, direct, looking back at him without flinching. He thought about her eyes in the kitchen. Steady, direct. She hadn't flinched.
They walked back down to the keep in silence, and Ivar went upstairs and opened the door quietly. The air in the chamber was warm and smelled of wax.
She was in bed with the covers pulled up and a book open in her lap. She looked up when he came in and her eyes found his immediately, a quiet question in them.
"Naething," he said. "A boat offshore. We found naething." He moved across the room, his voice a low rumble.
She held his gaze for a moment, reading him the way she read everything. Quickly, thoroughly, filing what she found. Then she nodded and returned to her book.
He stood there one beat longer than the answer required.
He crossed to the chair and took off his cloak. He sat down. The wood creaked under his weight, something familiar, solid against the unfamiliar that had been happening all night inside his chest.
