Beyond the Highland Mist

Page 16

“Nobody asked me if I cared.”
Grimm blinked, fascinated by the Hawk’s behavior. “All the lasses look on Adam like that.”
“She didn’t even notice me. ’Tis Adam she wants. Who the bloody hell hired that blacksmith anyway?”
Grimm mused into his brew. “Wasn’t Thomas the smithy?”
“Come to think of it, aye.”
“Where’d Thomas go?”
“I don’t know, Grimm. That’s why I asked you.”
“Well, somebody hired Adam.”
“You didn’t?”
“Nay. I thought you did, Hawk.”
“Nay. Maybe he’s Thomas’s brother and Thomas was taken ill.”
Grimm laughed. “Ugly Thomas his brother? Not a chance on that.”
“Get rid of him.”
“Adam?”
“Aye.”
Silence.
Then, “By the saints, Hawk, you can’t be serious! ’Tisna like you to take away a man’s livelihood because of the way a lass looks at him …”
“This lass happens to be my wife.”
“Aye—the very one you didn’t want.”
“I’ve changed my mind.”
“Besides, he’s been keeping Esmerelda quite content, Hawk.”
Sidheach sighed deeply. “There is that.” He paused the length of several jealous heartbeats. “Grimm?”
“Um?”
“Tell him to keep his clothes on while he works. And that’s an order.”
But Hawk couldn’t leave it alone. His mind became aware of where his feet had taken him just as he entered the amber rim of firelight beneath the rowan trees at Adam’s forge.
“Welcome Lord Hawk of Dalkeith-Upon-the-Sea.”
Hawk spun about to come nose to nose with the glistening blacksmith, who had somehow managed to get behind him. Not many men could take the Hawk by surprise, and for an instant Hawk was as fascinated as he was irritated with the smithy.
“I didn’t hire you. Who are you?”
“Adam,” the smithy replied coolly.
“Adam what?”
The smithy pondered, then flashed a puckish smile. “Adam Black.”
“Who hired you?”
“I heard you were in need of a man to tend a forge.”
“Stay away from my wife.” Hawk was startled to hear the words leave his lips. By the saints, he sounded like a jealous husband! He had intended to push the question of who had hired the smithy, but apparently he was no more in control of his words than he had been of his feet; at least not where his new wife was concerned.
Adam laughed wickedly. “I won’t do a thing the lady doesn’t want me to do.”
“You won’t do a thing I don’t want you to do.”
“I heard the lady didn’t want you.”
“She will.”
“And if she doesn’t?”
“All the lasses want me.”
“Funny. I have just the same problem.”
“You’re uncanny rude for a smithy. Who was your laird before?”
“I have known no man worthy to call master.”
“Funny, smithy. I have just the same problem.”
The men stood nose to nose. Steel to steel.
“I can order you from my land,” Hawk said tightly.
“Ah, but then you’d never know if she would choose you or me, would you? And I suspect there is this deep kernel of decency in you, a thing that cries out for old-fashioned mores like fairness and chivalry, honor and justice. Foolish Hawk. All the knights will soon be dead, as dust of dreams passing on time’s fickle fancy.”
“You’re insolent. And as of this moment, you’re unemployed.”
“You’re afraid,” the smithy marveled.
“Afraid?” The Hawk echoed incredulously. This fool smithy dared stand on his land and tell him that he, the legendary Hawk, was afraid? “I fear nothing. Certainly not you.”
“Yes you do. You saw how your wife looked at me. You’re afraid you won’t be able to keep her hands off me.”
A bitter, mocking smile curved Hawk’s lip. He was not a man given to self-deception. He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to keep his wife away from the smithy. It galled him, incensed him, and yet the smithy was also right about his underlying decency. Decency that demanded, as Grimm had suspected, that he not deprive a man of his livelihood because of his own insecurity about his wife. The Hawk suffered the rare handicap of being noble, straight to the core. “Who are you, really?”