Page 69 of The Guardian
Sìleas sat up in the bed and glared down at the dark shape on the floor. “And how would ye know this, Niall MacDonald?”
“Well… Dina did it for me,” he said.
Sìleas’s mouth fell open. How dare Dina work her wiles on Niall? He was a boy still—despite being over six feet tall.
And Dina’s tendency to shed her clothes did not explain how the MacDonald Crystal ended up around her neck.
“Are ye expecting me to believe nothing happened in that kitchen?” she snapped. “Is that what happened when Dina took her clothes off for you, Niall? Nothing?”
Niall’s silence confirmed his guilt.
“Your mother would be ashamed of ye.” Sìleas lay back down and punched her pillow a few times to fluff it.
“I am not a married man,” Niall said. “And what I do with a willing woman is no concern of my mother’s.”
“Hmmph. I’m disgusted with the lot of ye,” she said, turning her back on him and pulling the blanket up to her ears.
The noise from the tavern below was all that interrupted the long silence between them, until, finally, Niall spoke again.
“If I had a wife like you, Sìl, I wouldn’t have taken what Dina offered.” Niall paused. “That’s why I keep thinking that maybe Ian didn’t do anything he shouldn’t have. Maybe ye ought to give him a chance to tell ye what happened.”
Sìleas tossed and turned on the narrow cot half the night, slapping at the bugs in the straw mattress and thinking of what Niall had said. She had such an abiding weakness for Ian MacDonald that she could almost believe anything that would absolve him.
When she felt her resolve begin to fade, she made herself remember seeing Ian in all his naked glory, his cock standing at the ready, and Dina right behind him without a stitch on—except for the pouch with Sìleas’s crystal hanging between her breasts.
Every time she managed to set aside her thoughts about Ian and Dina, she tossed and turned, worrying about meeting the queen. Was she on a fool’s errand, bringing her problem to the queen? Ach, but she was tired of men deciding what to do with her. A woman was bound to be more concerned with her than with her castle.
Even if the queen chose not to help her, what harm could there be in asking?
When Sìleas got tired of slapping at the bugs and chasing her thoughts in endless circles, she got up and lay on the hard floor a little ways from Niall. She was grateful to him for staying with her and respecting her decision, even if what she did seemed foolish to him.
By annulling her marriage to Ian, she would also sever her formal tie with Niall. That was one more loss, and a hard one. She lay listening to him breathing, knowing Niall would always be the brother of her heart. She hoped he felt the same and that she would not lose him as well.
CHAPTER 23
Sìleas paced the tiny room above the tavern, regretting with every turn that she had let Niall talk her into waiting here while he delivered her letter to the castle. At the sound of a knock, she picked up her dirk from the bed and put her ear to the door.
“Sìleas, let me in.”
It was Niall, so she slid the bolt back. “I was worried half to death. What took ye so long?”
“Don’t ye look fine, now,” Niall said, taking in her gown.
“Tell me what happened,” she said. “Will the queen see me?”
“The guards laughed at me when I told them I would wait for the queen’s answer,” Niall said, as he dropped onto the cot. “But an hour later, they gave me the message that the queen will see us this morning.”
Sìleas’s stomach suddenly felt as if she had eaten a pound of lead instead of watery porridge for breakfast. She was actually going to see the queen.
“I’ve no mirror,” she said. “Can ye help me with my hair?”
Niall’s eyes went wide, but he dutifully took the pins from her hand. After she twisted her wild waves into a coil at the back of her head, he stood behind her and attempted to pin it in place. Niall could shoot a straight arrow, but he turned out to be all thumbs when it came to hair.
“I’ll just tie it back with my ribbon,” she said when it kept falling loose after three attempts. After she finished, she turned in a circle. “Do ye think this will do for court?”
“You’re sure to be the loveliest lass there,” Niall said, giving her a wide smile.
As they walked up the steep hill through the town to the castle, unease crept up Sìleas’s spine and slowed her steps. No wonder Payton said the baby king would be safe in Stirling Castle. The gatehouse, which projected out from the curtain wall to form the castle’s fortified entrance, was enormous. Sìleas’s gaze traveled from the gatehouse’s four round towers to the equally massive square towers at the corners of the wall that faced the town.
