“He can call me anything he likes,” she yielded softly. “Page is fine.”
A moment of silence passed between them while Iain stared down at her with unblinking eyes. “I thought you preferred Suisan,” he said at long last.
Page drew in a breath. “I thought I would,” she replied, holding his gaze, unblinking, as well. “Till just this instant I thought I would.” It occurred to her suddenly that her name was simply that, a name. In a sense, it was a badge of honor for all she’d suffered at her father’s hands. But no more did she feel shamed by it. To the contrary, she felt pride—because she’d endured. Because she was unbroken still. Jesu, but what greater revenge could she have over her misbegotten father than to live, and to live well, to walk with pride? Who could dare pity her when her heart was filled with gladness?
“I’ve decided,” she told them both, a slight smile crooking her lips, “that I like my name, after all.”
Iain’s beautiful lips curved at her declaration. “D’ ye now?”
“Aye,” Page answered flippantly, lifting a brow. “I believe I rather do.” Her heart swelled with a strange elation that she couldn’t quite fathom... and yet it was there... a keen, overwhelming sense of joy that was both unfamiliar and titillating.
Iain’s grin widened, and even in the darkness, Page could see the glimmer of his smile and the amused twinkle in his eyes.
She turned away, feeling strangely elated. “What are they doing?” she asked father and son together.
She watched the clansmen from the corners of her eyes.
“‘Tis for Ranald,” Iain told her, still scrutinizing her. Page turned to peer up at him. Illuminated by the distant firelight, his face was startlingly beautiful with its hard masculine lines. And his youthful features were striking in contrast with the bold silver at his temples. Her heart fluttered within her breast. “Our way of saying goodbye,” he revealed.
Page turned to regard the bonfire with new eyes, and at once focused upon the crudely constructed scaffold near it. Understanding dawned, and her smile at once twisted into a grimace. “Dear God! You plan to burn him!”
“Aye, lass,” Iain answered.
“Sweet Heaven above! Why? Jesu, but ‘tis barbaric!”
He merely chuckled. “Mayhap so.”
“No mayhap about it! Poor Ranald!”
“It canna be helped, Page.”
It was the first time he’d spoken her name, and Page lifted her face to meet his gaze, her heart leaping at the sound of it upon his lips.
“Ye canna bury a man in stone,” he yielded, his tone soft and matter-of-fact. The firelight flickered within his eyes, and the glimmer was both sad and amused at once. “Chreagach Mhor is built upon solid rock. No spade can turn soil so unyielding as this.”
“Oh,” Page replied. He turned again to watch the mourners before the fire. So, too, did Page.
“The stone walls of my home,” he revealed, “were carved from these cliffs so long ago that not even my forefathers could recall whose hands first hewed them. And still they stand.”
He turned to peer over his shoulder at the strange tapered donjon that loomed behind them. Page followed his gaze. “Every last stone remains in place.”
She thought of her father’s endless repairs, and conceded, “’Tis remarkable.”
She was remarkable.
Iain found himself staring, admiring the proud tilt of her head, the stubborn lift of her chin, and the soft curve of her lips. He could scarce conceive that the woman he was seeing was the same woman he had thought to pity. There was naught about her bearing that elicited such a response from him this moment. Naught at all. She seemed taller even—something he’d never quite noticed about her—and he frowned, for she was perchance taller than any woman he’d e’er known.
She found she liked the name, did she? The vixen!
Och, but oddly enough, he found he suddenly liked the name, too.
Her face, illumined by the distant firelight, was aglow with something new... something he couldn’t quite place. Something delightful and heartening.
And his heart... it, too, was filled with something new... something deep and warm and yearning.
Something he dared not fully embrace lest he wake one unspeakable morn to find her expression rife with repulsion. He’d sworn to protect and care for her, aye, but love was an entanglement best eschewed.
chapter 28
The funeral extended well into the night.
In his own manner, every last kinsman present paid last respects to poor Ranald, and then Iain lit a torch from the bonfire and set the pyre to flame. Ranald’s mother stood by, wailing. A few others wept softly. Most stood silent, their faces somber and their eyes melancholy. Among them, a lone piper played his reed, the melody both hypnotic and forlorn—and still a few others danced curiously to his strangely buoyant song.