Page 86 of The Guardian
Sìleas rose up on her toes and kissed Duncan’s cheek. “I’ll see ye at the gathering.”
“Careful, lass,” Duncan said. “I don’t want Ian’s dirk in my back.”
“I’ll risk it,” Alex said, opening his arms to her. “Remember, ye promised me a kiss when we were on the boat.”
“What promise—” Before Ian could get the question out, Alex had lifted Sìleas off the ground and kissed her right on the mouth.
No sooner had Ian pried her loose from Alex, than Connor said, “Since we’re leaving early, I’d best get my kiss now as well.”
Connor, wise man, settled for a friendly peck on the cheek.
“I’ve had enough of ye handling my wife,” Ian said, putting his arm around Sìleas and pulling her close.
“But I didn’t get my turn,” Niall said, stepping forward.
“Ye were alone with my wife overnight and lived to tell the tale,” Ian said, lifting his hand to ward off his brother. “Ye’d best be content with that.”
After the men left for the cottage and his parents had settled into quiet conversation near the hearth, Sìleas took Ian aside.
“I want to tell Gòrdan about us,” she said. “It’s not right that he should hear of it from someone else.”
Ian nodded. “All right. I’ll take ye up there in the morning.”
“I’d rather go now and get it over with,” she said. “Do ye mind?”
Ian recalled what his brother said about a long line of men waiting for Sìleas to lose patience with him. If she was in a hurry to tell the first man in that line to stop waiting, well, that was fine with him.
“I’ll walk up with ye and wait outside,” he said. “I don’t want ye out alone.”
A short time later, Ian was leaning against a tree under a moonless sky and watching his wife rap on Gòrdan’s door.
When Gòrdan opened it, a shaft of light fell over Sìleas and across the dark yard. Ian heard their murmured voices as they talked in the doorway.
Then he heard Gòrdan’s mother shouting, “The wicked lass has left her husband for ye, hasn’t she?”
Gòrdan was patient, as always, with his mother.
“Quiet, mam. I can’t explain now,” he called to her, before he stepped outside and shut the door.
The two spoke in quiet voices a while longer, then Sìleas left Gòrdan to walk toward the tree where Ian waited. Ian felt Gòrdan’s eyes on him in the darkness.
“Be good to her,” Gòrdan called out.
“I will.”
Ian held Sìleas’s hand as they walked home along the dark path. He didn’t ask about her conversation with Gòrdan; if she wanted to speak of it, she would.
Before they reached the house, he stopped in the path and turned to her. He brushed back the hair whipping about her face, but it was too dark to see her expression.
“I never meant to shame ye by not coming home,” he said.
“I know ye didn’t,” she said.
But the truth was that he had given her feelings little thought at all, and they both knew it.
“If I had it to do over again, I wouldn’t be such an arse.”
“Are ye sure?” she said with a smile in her voice.
