“Ye have noticed that he doesna seem as angry anymore, haven’t ye? He’s slowly warming to ye, a little more each day.”
Her words surprised me. Sure, Eoin no longer seemed angry in the way in which he carried himself when he was around me, and his eyes didn’t look as dark, but ‘warming’? I hadn’t seen anything to make me think that. “What do you mean, ‘warming’? I wouldn’t say that exactly.”
“Oh, that’s because ye doona know him the way I do, dearie. He doesna warm to people as easily as his brother does. He guards himself closely, he knows that ye have the power to break his heart. But, Old Mary’s known him his entire life, and I see the way he looks at ye. He cares for ye, even if he willna let himself know it.”
“I think you’re wrong, Mary. He’s never done a thing to make me think he’s anything but repulsed by me. But even if you’re right, it’s best that he doesn’t let himself start to care. I’ll be gone from here before too long.”
Knowing that today’s family history lesson was at an end, I stepped inside the doorway and made my way over to the pile of my modern clothes, which I’d hidden away to put on only while I worked in the spell room. I looked forward to those hours every day, so that I could put on a bra to strap the girls in place and put on my favorite pair of jeans. It was heaven; or as close as I was going to get to it here.
Seeing that I was preparing to work on the books, Mary stood to leave. “Well, dearie, I see that ye are about to slip on those awful shreds of cloth ye seem to care so much about, so I’ll leave ye to yer work and come back to get ye before the evening meal. But, I’ll no lie to ye, Eoin’s already allowed himself to care. If ye open yer eyes up, ye will be able to see it as well.”
With that she turned and left the basement, and I sat down to get to work.
*
Eoin made his way down to the dining hall for the evening meal and stopped abruptly when he caught a glimpse of his reflection in a piece of armory which hung on the wall. He was surprised to see that the corners of his mouth were pulled up, so that they resembled something of a smile. He tried to relax his face, so that that his mouth fell back into where it usually stayed, but he found that his lips didn’t want to stay put.
Confused, he turned away from the reflection and continued to make his way down the hall, all the while wondering why he was so pleased and excited at the idea of eating. It hit him when he walked into the dining hall to see Blaire seated in her usual place.
It wasn’t the prospect of food that excited him. After spending the entire afternoon alone, he was going to get to see Blaire.
He’d done his best to stay angry at her and resolve himself to the fact that their marriage was always going to be one of convenience, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to stay angry at her forever. It was getting harder each day for him to ignore his feelings.
When he’d walked in on Arran kissing her in the hallway, he thought he’d seen two lovers stealing a precious moment alone when he wasn’t around. But after spending a fortnight watching the two of them around each other, he thought that perhaps Arran had been telling him the truth. Every meal, he watched as the two of them sat across from each other, but there were no knowing glances, no palpable tension that he could pick up on. In fact, they never spoke to each other. All conversations took place entirely between Blaire and himself.
And what great conversations they were! He’d never been around a lass that seemed so interested in his stories. She asked questions and listened eagerly, as if savoring everything new she learned about him. Oftentimes he would say something and a look of pure surprise or slight confusion would cross her face, and he immediately saw a glimpse of the ornery child he’d known growing up.
But, she was no longer that child. She was a woman, no denying that, and looked to him more beautiful each time he saw her.
He loved the odd way in which she spoke. Sometimes she said strange words, and her accent often slipped into an odd mixture of Scottish and something he’d never heard. He wondered if she’d spent a lot of time around a foreign nurse growing up, whose influence had shaped the way she said her words. He loved the disjointed sound of it and found himself wanting to listen to it all day.
As he sat down diagonally from her at the large table and looked up at her bright, dimpled smile, he decided it was pointless to remain angry for the sake of his wounded pride. Tonight, he would take the lass somewhere special. Mayhap they both could take a step toward shaping their marriage into what a marriage should be.
Chapter 16