Page 90 of Hold Fast

The next morning, Una woke long before the sun. She had come to bed late and found the chamber empty. At some point, Ewan had returned. She had a hazy half-memory of him climbing into the bed and shifting so close to her that she could feel his warmth.

“Can we talk, Una?” he had whispered.

She had adjusted the blanket higher over her shoulder and grumbled that they would talk in the morning.

It was nearly morning now, and Ewan lay on his back, one hand over his chest, the other tucked behind his head. He snored softly, his face relaxed in sleep in a way she hadn’t ever seen it when he was awake.

She slipped silently from the bed and dressed. It was the last day of the handfast, and her heart was heavy. The night had passed in a slow fit as Una’s mind turned over and over what to do. She still didn’t have an answer.

She knew Ewan was only trying to protect her. She also knew that his fear of losing her was making him unable to see reason. But she couldn’t live like that. She shouldn’t have to. And yet, walking away wasn’t nearly so easy a prospect as she would have thought a year ago. The truth was that, somewhere along the way, she had fallen in love with him. Horribly, irrationally, inconveniently in love with him.

They needed to talk. They needed to sit across from one another and each speak their piece and find a way tomakepeace between them. Because shedidn’twant to leave. Not really. She loved her life here. She loved the MacDonalds and the keep and Fiona and Fenella and Mathan and Calman and everyone else she had come to know.

She could go to the Stewarts. Perhaps sheshould. She had an obligation, and not just to herself and her bairn, but also to Blair. She had tried multiple times to broach the subject of sending for her friend, but every time, Ewan put it off with an excuse. It wasn’t the right time. He couldn’t spare the men. He needed to think about it.

Perhaps she had been naive in thinking it would be so easy to secret an enemy away. It’s why she hadn’t actually told Ewanwhoher friend was. Perhaps that was a mistake. Ewan might have welcomed him with gladness as a means to spite Malcolm Cameron. Or he might turn him away outright and leave Blair vulnerable to the greater world, which was not kind to loners.

Aye, they needed to talk. About the restrictions, about the rules, about listening to her expertise, about Ewan needing to talk to someone—anyone—about his worry so that the panic didn’t live alone in his brain, consuming him alive. And she would talk about Blair by name and impress upon Ewan the importance of sending for him. She would demand that they make a plantogether.

But before she could talk to Ewan about any of that, she needed to clear her head. She needed to gather more herbs and roots to replenish her supply before the ground became too hard and the baby was born. Digging and gathering were perfect activities for thinking, and she got some of her best ideas while doing so. She would go to the woods, she would do her work, and by the time she returned, she would have a plan of action for how to approach Ewan.

Una tucked her dagger into her boot and wrapped her plaid. The corridors were empty, and wasn’t that a marvel. Perhaps the men were changing shifts, thinking it a safe time to do so since she usually wasn’t up and about so early.

She ducked into the stable to check on Greer, who was sleeping in a pile with her puppies and Mathan. They hardly looked like puppies anymore, a tangle of long limbs and tails in the straw. Una smiled as she fondled Greer’s ears. Greer made to follow her, but Una shook her head.

“I’ll be back soon to visit with you, mo cridhe,” Una said, scratching Greer’s ears one more time before standing clumsily to leave, her belly making her feel ungainly and slow.

Hugging the wall and keeping to the shadows, Una crept to the gate, which had just been opened for the flow of people that came and went from the keep and its walls during the day. Stealth was not easy for a woman so close to delivering, but the stars aligned and she slipped through the gate and past the wall without being noticed. She hugged the curtain wall, lest the watch see her, until she could cut across the field to the forest.

A light frost had fallen in the night, making the ground sparkle in the dying moonlight. As she approached the forest, the sun broke over the horizon, sending spears of light piercing through the changing trees. She remembered riding through this wood more than a year ago, wrapped in Ewan’s plaid. So much had changed.

Una sank to her knees and began breaking the earth with her digging stick, harvesting valerian roots and dusting them off. Her back ached, and she sat back on her heels to rub it. The morning was cold and clear, the forest quieter than usual. She needed to gather wild garlic now. She used the tree beside her for support as she stood, brushing the dead leaves from her gown.

She picked her way slowly through the forest, going deeper and deeper into the wood, farther from the keep. She’d come this far before and knew her way home. The babe was still, as she usually was when Una walked.

The keep would be awake by now, and Una knew Ewan had probably discovered her absence. If not yet, then soon, and then he’d be after her with every available man. Perhaps it had been selfish of her to slip away, but she needed the space to think, something she could not do with an entourage. What was more, there was no better proof of her fitness to be independent than returning safely afterbeingindependent. She wasn’t going to fall or be kicked by a horse. She wasn’t going to be anything but careful.

The garlic grew wild and abundant, and Una smiled at the bounty as she knelt and began digging, listening to the wind gently whistling through the barren trees. Further, water ruffled through a burn, not yet frozen, whispering against the rocks as it passed.

And then a twig snapped.

Had it been a man? A stag? Fear rose in her belly. But then she remembered that Ewan had men patrolling the lands surrounding the keep. No doubt it was one of his men. Who else would come this close?

She remembered her sgian dubh hidden in her boot and had bent to grab it when out of the dawn mist stepped a tall, looming shadow of a man. His face was obscured by a long, unkempt beard and shaggy hair that hung to his chest. But she would still know him anywhere.

“Blair?” she gaped, shocked beyond words.

His eyes darted around him, and he reached her in two long strides.

“Una, what the hell are you doing out here?” Blair said in a low growl. “Jesu, you’ve got to hide. Now.”

“Hide? Why would I need to hide? And what the hell areyoudoing here?”

“There isnae time,” he insisted, grabbing her by the upper arm and dragging her toward a fallen tree. “They must nae see you.”

“Who, Blair? What in God’s name is going on?”

“Keep your voice down,” he said, his teeth clenched and his eyes wild. “If you have any sense at all, you’ll get down now and nae make a sound.”