Page 52 of Promised to the Cursed Laird

"I'd appreciate it."

"I make nae promises."

That surprised a short laugh out of him, and he was glad of her answering smile, both of them standing there a beat too long in the dim, hay-scented light with the ordinary business of saddles and reins forgotten between them.

"The children will be waiting," she said finally, breaking the silence first, shifting the tack higher on her hip. "I told them I'd have proper stirrups sorted for the smallest ones today. Fewer of them falling off means fewer skinned knees for Elspeth tae scold me over."

"Ye've made a habit of this, then. The children."

"I like them," she said simply, already moving past him toward the door, and there was nothing complicated in the way she said it, none of the careful armor she still wore around every larger question between them, only plain, uncomplicated warmth, and he found it did something considerably more dangerous to his chest than any of her sharper remarks had managed.

"I'll walk ye out," he said.

"I didnae ask ye tae."

"I'm offering."

She glanced back at him, weighing that, the corner of her mouth twitching toward a smile she was clearly fighting to hold back. "Suit yerself, MacKinnon."

She swept past him with the tack balanced easy on her hip, and he fell into step behind her, watching the sure, unhurried set of her shoulders as she crossed the yard toward the paddock. He thought, not for the first time that week, that he was in a great deal more trouble than any archer in any tree line had managed to put him in yet.

Neilina had the smallest girl's stirrup adjusted and the boy with the once-crossed reins holding his pony steady at a full walk by the time she noticed Marcas had followed her into the paddock rather than simply watching from the fence.

She said nothing about it. She only handed him a lead rope without comment, the way she might have handed it to Elspeth or the groom, and watched, with no small satisfaction, the flicker of surprise on his face before he took it and fell in beside her.

"Ye're meant tae steady the horse," she said, nodding at the small dun pony shifting under its rider, "nae stand there looking as though I've handed ye a snake."

"I'm laird of this clan. I dinnae generally lead ponies."

"Ye generally chase enemies through burning courtyards, and yet here we are." She moved past him to correct another child's grip. "A pony's considerably less dangerous, whatever yer dignity has tae say about it."

He huffed something that wasn't quite a laugh and took up the lead, and within a quarter hour she'd stopped expecting him to hand the rope back to a groom and slip away.

He'd stayed, correcting a boy's heels, catching a girl before she slid too far sideways in the saddle, his low voice patient in a way she hadn't fully credited him capable of outside of firelit rooms and windswept battlements.

This is a different sort of man than the one who rode intae MacRath's stronghold with a sword in his hand, she thought, watching him crouch to fix a stirrup buckle, unhurried and entirely at ease. Or maybe it isnae different at all. Maybe it's only more of him than I've been permitted tae see yet.

It was the boy with the once-crossed reins who suggested a race. He was flush with pride at having finally mastered a full circuit without incident, and greedy, the way children were, for the next bigger thing.

"Ye should race," he announced, to both of them at once, with the blunt confidence of a child who'd never once considered that adults might decline. " Ye should race tae the far fence and back."

The suggestion was immediately taken up by the other children, and before either of them could object, the groom had brought over two horses already saddled and waiting by the stable yard.

"I dinnae think—" Marcas started.

"I accept," Neilina said, taking the reins and swinging easily into the saddle before he'd finished his sentence, and heard him make a low, disbelieving sound behind her that was half protest and half, unmistakably, delight.

"Ye didnae even let me refuse."

"I ken. That was rather the point." She settled into the saddle, gathering the reins, and threw him a look over her shoulder that she knew perfectly well was closer to a dare than an invitation. "Are ye racing, MacKinnon, or are ye going tae stand there discussing the etiquette of it while I win by default."

He was mounted and beside her before she'd finished the sentence, and the children's cheering went up around them, and for one bright, reckless moment there was nothing else in the world at all…not Cailleach, not the council, not the Accord…only the wide green field and the dare and the fierce pleasure of a challenge she fully intended to win.

"Tae the far fence," she said, "and back. Loser owes the children sweets from the kitchen."

"Ye'll be paying that debt yerself."

"We'll see."