Page 77 of Laird of Steel
Chapter 13
As Gellir carefully set Merraid’s words to the page, he couldn’t help but feel unworthy of her talents. Her gift was astonishing. Never had he heard words of such honor and eloquence. To think they had come from a maidservant…
“Can you read that back to me?” she asked as she ran a fingertip along the curved edge of the grinding wheel.
He nodded. “Dear heart, I fear mere words cannot express The measure of the love I would confess. Each passing hour, deprived of your sweet smile I languish here in woebegone exile.”
“Is that all right?”
Gellir grunted. He wasn’t sure he was languishing. But he supposed it couldn’t hurt to make his bride think so.
“My soul despairs,” she said, giving the wheel a spin and watching it whirl, “to know ye suffer so.”
His quill hesitated over the parchment. Despairs? That seemed even stronger than languishing. He raised dubious brows. But in the end, he faithfully reproduced her verse. He only hoped the gushing missive wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands.
“Next?” he asked.
The wheel slowed to a halt. “I curse the devil’s deed that laid ye low.”
He wrote, then paused, debating whether to capitalize “devil.” In the end, he decided it was probablyadevil, nottheDevil. “Laid…you…low.”
“And pray ye take my strength to help ye heal…”
He nodded in approval. Strength was good. Much better than despair. Or languishing. “Help…you…heal.”
She leaned back against the grinding wheel, closing her eyes and hugging herself. “That I may soon my own true love reveal.”
For a moment, he couldn’t tear his gaze away. Merraid looked so beautiful. So vulnerable. So damned desirable. His loins stirred, threatening to reveal his own true love all too boldly.
He dipped the quill, almost knocking over the vial of ink. “Shite.”
Her eyes opened. He righted the vial. But now he’d completely forgotten her words.
“Sorry,” he said. “Again?”
“That I may soon…my own true love…reveal.”
“Right.”
He managed to finish the line while she sauntered toward the door, stopping here and there to straighten a targe on the wall.
“More?”
“They say that absence makes the heart grow fond,” she continued. “That trust and patience form the strongest bond.”
“Wait. Slower, I pray you,” he pleaded. His hand was beginning to cramp. “They say that absence… makes the heart…grow fond…”
“That trust and patience…” she repeated.
He copied down the words. “Form the tightest bond?”
“Strongest bond.”
“Strongest…bond.”
He looked up. Merraid stood in profile against the flickering flame of the wall sconce. Golden light haloed her bright hair as tendrils escaped her shortened braid, making her look like an angel of fire. He wondered if the same unsteady blaze burned inside her body.
“But I grow restless in our time apart,” she said.
