"No."Lileas shook her head."There's no point if I dinnae intend to marry him, is there?It seems improper to form a bond with a man I’ll never meet."
The words hit him like physical blows, confirming his worst fears about her complete rejection.
"So hiding away in an abbey is better?"The question came out sharper than intended.
Lileas paused, considering this challenge with thoughtful attention."Perhaps ye have a point there."She glanced at him with a rueful smile."Ye know, ye're very easy to talk to.Most men just grunt and nod when I speak, but ye actually listen to me."
The smile that followed seemed to light up the entire cottage, and Ewan stood deadly still, afraid that any movement might break the spell of the moment.
"So...what do ye think?Can ye create coils precise enough?"She turned to face him fully, her eyes bright with excitement."Is such a thing possible?"
"I..."Ewan hesitated, realizing with growing alarm that he had no idea how to answer her question.He knew little of metalworking beyond the basics, certainly nothing that would qualify him to work on her sophisticated apparatus.
Lileas tilted her head, studying his face with growing confusion as she noticed the uncertainty he was struggling to hide.Something in his expression wasn't quite right.And there was something else about his bearing, his speech patterns, that seemed wrong somehow.
"Wait," she said slowly, her enthusiasm beginning to fade as doubt crept into her voice."Are ye not the new blacksmith?"
Ewan felt the walls of his carefully maintained pretense crumbling around him.
"No, lass," Ewan replied quietly."I'm not."
The warmth drained from her expression, replaced by wariness and something that might have been dread.
"Then who are ye?"The question came out as barely more than a whisper.
Ewan met her eyes directly, his voice dropping to a dark whisper."I am yer betrothed."
For a heartbeat that stretched into eternity, Lileas simply stared at him, her mind struggling to process the words.The man she had been talking to so freely, sharing her work with, feeling attracted to, was the very person she had been hiding from for three months.
Then the full horror of the situation crashed over her like a Highland storm.
"NO!"she shouted, the word torn from her throat with enough force to make the glassware rattle.Without thinking, operating purely on instinct, she grabbed the nearest object: a small copper tube.
She swung it at him with all the force that fear could provide.
Ewan dodged the blow just in time, but the sudden movement caught him off guard and he stumbled backward.His foot caught on one of the many pieces of equipment scattered throughout the cottage, and in his retreat, the back of his head struck one of the larger pipes protruding from the wall with a sickening thud.
He slid down the stone wall like a felled tree, his eyes rolling back as consciousness fled and his body went completely limp.
Lileas stood there, the small copper tube still clutched in her trembling hands, staring in horror at the unconscious form of Laird Ewan MacNeil sprawled on her cottage floor.
Then the full realization of what she had done hit her with devastating force.She dropped the tube and grabbed a damp cloth from her work area.She fell to her knees beside him, gently cradling his head in her lap as carefully as if he were made of the finest glass.
She dabbed at his forehead with the cloth, checking for signs of life while willing him to wake up, her hands shaking so badly she could barely control her movements.
"Please dinnae die," she whispered, her voice breaking."I'm so sorry.I did nae mean to hurt ye.I was just...ye startled me, and ye're supposed to be a terrible man, but ye listened to me, and ye seemed interested in my work, and now I've probably killed ye, and they'll hang me for murdering a laird, and I'll never get to finish my brew."
Even in her panic, her mind was working with methodical precision, trying to find solutions to what seemed like an impossible situation.But for once in her life, all her intelligence seemed inadequate to the situation before her.
***
