Page 146 of Laird of Flint
Now it was a temporary refuge.
Remote enough to ensure their safety.
Close enough to her father’s castle if anything should go wrong.
It also served once more as a cozy trysting place when, as Hew liked to jest, they wished to “relive their carefree youth.”
In the several weeks since they’d hidden here, they’d swept out the byre and repaired the gaps with rough woven wattle, covering it all with camouflaging branches. They’d furnished their makeshift cottage with stumps and reed mats. Made a soft pallet of moss. Built shelves for the hens to roost in at night and hung fragrant herbs to dry in the corners.
Every day, Carenza collected the hens’ eggs, picked greens and berries from the forest, and fished for trout in the nearby stream. When they needed other supplies, Hew crept out at night to the homes of nearby crofters, leaving behind ample coin for the clothing, food, and tools he gleaned.He’d brought home embroidery thread, and Carenza had embroidered the leine she’d promised him with flames around the wrists.
She’d never imagined she could be so happy, living in rags in a ruined byre. But after the father married them, she would have followed Hew anywhere. And the fact he’d led her back to a familiar place where she’d be close to her clan—and the animals she loved—meant the world to her.
They still had to conceal their whereabouts, of course. After Hew left Darragh, he’d immediately written—to the Rivenloch clan, to Gellir, to her father—assuring everyone Carenza was safe and telling them she’d been happily reunited with her lover.
But no one knew the identity of that lover. Hew’s whereabouts were unknown, and by all accounts, he’d still broken the law. Any of the parties, including the parents and the king, might reasonably demand satisfaction and exact retribution for Hew’s devilry.
So they hid together in the least likely place. Right under her father’s nose.
Despite their proximity to Dunlop, clan news was hard to come by since they couldn’t interact with anyone. Everyone knew Carenza, so she didn’t dare stray from the byre. And a warrior of Hew’s size would be memorable, even in disguise, so he had to keep to the shadows.
It was hard not to grow impatient for the end of their exile.But they had to wait until Sister Eve arrived. She was the only person who knew where they were. The only person who could let them know when it was safe for them to emerge.
“Do ye expect we’ll hear from the sister soon?” Carenza asked, dusting the grain from her hands and rubbing a palm absently over her swelling belly.
“I hope so,” Hew said as he twisted the branches together. “’Tis been weeks.”
“Maybe she lost her way.” The byrewasquite secluded.
“I doubt it. Sister Eve could find her way out of a labyrinth.”
“Ye don’t think somethin’ bad has—”
Their conversation was cut short by a distant rustling from the woods, growing closer.
They responded with practiced haste.
Hew knocked over the stump, sheathed his knife, and shoved the wattle panel into a gap in the byre.
Carenza spread the grain about with her foot, startling the hens, and unhooked the pair of fresh trout she’d strung up at the entrance of the byre.
The brush-rattling grew louder.
With a swift glance to be sure they’d retrieved everything, they ducked in to the byre. Carenza slid the wattle panel across the doorway. Hew pulled down the concealing branches.
Then they waited.
Carenza held her breath as the tramping abruptly stopped.
Someone hissed loudly from across the glen. “Psst! Hew!”
Hew peered through the gap in the wattle.
“’Tis her,” he whispered, sliding back the door panel.
Carenza hardly recognized the nun as she came racing breathlessly across the glen.
She wasn’t wearing her habit. Instead, she wore a rather sumptuous gown of crimson velvet, as fine as any Carenza had ever owned.
