features. God’s own jest, this faultless lady was his wife.
She had been right about one thing. Tav must have been caught up in the devil’s own fever to have wished her such a fate. Alan knew if he lived to be one hundred, performed all manner of charity, gave up all his sinful ways and prayed every hour on the hour, he would never deserve her. Not that he was likely to do all that. He was what he was. But even Tavish had not been good enough for Honor and had been quick to admit it.
Sadly, Alan closed his eyes and denied himself the pleasure of regarding her tranquil beauty. He would not impose himself on her, he decided firmly. Not ever. Such a gentle one as she must not be sullied by his rough touch.
He would husband her in his own way, then. With his life would he protect her. With all the wits he possessed he would try to amuse her and keep her content. He could guide her through life’s trials and train up her son to be an honorable man. All this he would do and gladly, he vowed fervently to himself. “But I will not touch her wi’ lust,” he whispered vehemently. “I will not!”
Next he knew, it was morning. Alan woke without the usual need to assess where he was. Long months of lying on a different spot each night engendered that in a man. This day he opened his eyes to a place that must be home. Alan had felt a peace creep through his very bones the moment he set foot inside Byelough Keep. So Tavish must have felt, he thought with a twinge of the guilt that had made itself a part of him the moment he set eyes on the lady Honor.
His heart had opened and enfolded the woman and this place immediately, before he ever heard the words Tavish had written to Honor. Even had his friend not bequeathed him the right to claim both, Alan knew he would have stayed on in some capacity. Mayhaps steward, guard, or crofter. Anything. He seriously doubted he could have made himself leave had the lady ordered it so.
For a long moment, he lay there, eyes closed, savoring the warmth of the small body curled next to his. Behind his lids, pictures of her teased him, Honor angry, Honor surprised, Honor smiling as she laid his hand against her middle, so generously offering to share her joy in the child.
Her sweet scent clung to the pillows, comforting his weary soul even as the down-stuffed linen cradled his head. The cadence of her soft breathing barely broke the silence of the dawn. A man should not ask for more than this, he thought. This perfect golden moment would he keep and hold forever.
She stirred and stretched, uttering a small groan. Alan lay still, watching her beneath his lashes. In the weak light from the window, he could see little more than the outline of her form. Still he did not move when she carefully rolled to her edge of the bed and stood with some effort. Without her usual grace, one hand pressed against her back, she moved behind the screen that partially blocked his view of the bathing tub.
He counted the sounds, most of which he identified. Intimate sounds he felt no right to as yet. Sounds a husband would hear as his wife readied herself for her day. There now, the soft splash of water poured from pitcher to bowl. The squeezing of a soaked cloth into it. A louder breath, just short of a sigh. Rustling fabric as she dressed herself. Alan smiled. Here was home.
Patiently he waited, feigning sleep so as not to betray his fascination, until she emerged to locate her comb. It lay on the table near the bed. Only when she took it up and began to draw it through her long, dark tresses, did he pretend to wake.
“Good morn,” he muttered. She only jumped a little. “You rise early,” he commented as he sat up and ran his hand over his face, stopping at his mouth to stifle a yawn.
“There’s much to be done,” she said a little breathlessly. When she began to fight a stubborn snarl in her hair, he reached out and stilled her hand.
“Allow me,” he said, taking the comb from her. “Come closer, then,” he ordered. When she did, he took over the grooming of the silky mass, loving the way it slid through his fingers and trailed over his wrists. “Bonny hair.”
“My thanks,” she murmured, and drew away. She twisted the length into a coil and secured it with combs. To his disappointment, she then covered most of it with a simple linen headrail and secured that with a silver circlet.
“Will you take me to Tavish’s grave now?” she asked, all formal. Her lady of the keep voice, he supposed.
“When there’s light enough,” he agreed. “’Tis not far.”
She avoided his gaze. “I shall await you below. We will break our fast first, of course. By the time we finish, the day will be on us.”
“Of course,” he agreed, smiling at her. “Have someone hitch a cart.”
“I shall ride,” she said as she started for the door.
“Is that wise, my lady?” he asked, concerned that she seemed to move more awkwardly than she had done the eve before.
She nodded. “If we are set upon along the way, I would rather be on a mount than dragged behind one in a chase.”
“No one would dare,” Alan assured her. “I will go well armed.”
“All the same, sir, I shall ride!” she declared firmly and did not stay to argue the matter.
For all her soft sweetness, Alan suspected the woman he had wed possessed a strong will of her own and was not above exercising it.
Her behavior on learning of Tavish’s death proved she was no weakling. He could still feel the slap on his cheek and envision her railing about angrily. But wasn’t that all to the good? She had spirit, his Honor. His. Well, she was, he argued with his conscience. By law, she was his now, even if Tavish did still hold her heart.
Even that spoke well of her, that loyalty, that ability to love even past the grave. Alan longed for someone to love him that way. He even dared hope that Honor might do so, should he somehow become worthy of her. She was a treasure, that woman.
Most women faced with news of a husband’s death would have taken to their beds and become inconsolable. If not for loss of their beloved, then for loss of a strong arm to protect them. That reaction might yet happen once Honor realized the full impact of Tavish’s death. Mayhaps this very day.
But thank God, she had borne her grief with such strength thus far. At least her courageous forbearance, however temporary, had allowed them to get on with what must be, the business of their necessary marriage and the change of command at Byelough.
When shock wore away and Honor finally allowed the mourning to take hold of her, Alan would be in a position to give solace. No longer would he be the stranger bearing wretched tidings of her true love’s death. He would be her friend, and foster father to her child.
That assuaged his guilt over wanting her heart for himself. At least a little.
Chapter Five
“Fitting weather for this,” Honor murmured as Alan lifted her to the rain-wet saddle. She centered her weight as best she could and suppressed a tired sigh. Sharing her bed with this stranger last night had done nothing to aid her ability to sleep. Now she must ride the short way to the gravesite and say her prayers over the husband who had left her. The husband who had loved her. Honor shifted forward, her back aching like a sore tooth.
Sir Alan handed
