Reign of Shadows - Deborah Chester [31]
“Still growing,” she said. “You’re head and shoulders above Old Farns now. I’ll vow you’re hungry enough to eat the walls.”
Caelan smiled, nodding. “I could eat everything in your kitchen.”
She laughed. “There’s venison stew and fresh baked bread and cheese made this summer and apples baked for a pie and even browly cakes with seed tops, if a certain miss has kept out of them.”
“Lea,” Caelan said, his gaze yearning toward the house, which stood square and plain, lights shining golden at its windows. “Is she up?”
“Up?” Anya said with a snort. “I’d like to see her stay in bed, with you expected home at any hour.”
“Caelan! Caelan!”
A little voice was shrieking his name. Lea came bursting from the door, dashing past her father and the others, her arms outstretched for one person only.
She barreled into his legs and clung tight. “Caelan, Caelan,” she said over and over.
His heart squeezed tight. Caelan crouched down and hugged her until he thought she might break. Her blonde curls smelled of rosemary and lavender, fresh from her bath. She was small and sweet and tender. He loved her so much he ached with the joy of holding her in his arms again.
“I missed you, little one,” he whispered.
“Missed you more!” she shot right back.
Laughing, he stood up and swung her high in the air, making her squeal. Only then did he realize she’d come running outside into the snow in her nightgown and houserobe, thin cloth slippers on her feet.
“Silly girl,” he said, pretending to scold her. “You’ll freeze into an icicle out here.”
Still tossing and tickling her, he carried her into the house, where the warmth was like an oven, wonderful and fragrant with the smells of food and cleanliness. Caelan paused on the threshold only to briefly dip his fingers into the basin of Harmony that was set in a wall niche; then he was inside with Lea squirming merrily in his arms, squealing with mock protest as he kissed and tickled her.
Their happy voices made the walls ring, and from the corner of his eye he saw Beva wince. Anger stirred in Caelan, but he ignored it right then, wanting nothing to spoil this moment with Lea.
Finally he set her down, but she continued to cling to him, still giggling, her face round and alight with an inner joy that could not be quelled.
Caelan was relieved that even his father had not yet quenched her merriment.
“I have a surprise for you,” she said. “Want to see it now?”
“Caelan, you will bathe and warm those feet,” Beva said sternly. “Anya has prepared your room.”
“Yes, Father.”
Lea was still tugging on his sleeve. “Come and see it now.”
“In a minute,” Caelan told her. “I’m chilled through. You don’t want me to catch cold, do you?”
She pouted and stamped her little foot. “If you have a bath, it will take forever. Then you will be hungry, and you will eat forever. No one will let me wait that long. Come now before I have to go to bed.”
“All right,” he said, laughing. “I’ll come now.”
Grinning, she pulled him across the room by his sleeve.
As they reached the doorway, Beva straightened from the fire where he had been pulling off his boots. “Lea,” he said, “will I get no home-greeting from you this night?”
She paused, her forehead wrinkling in dismay. In a flash, she ran to him and hugged him tight. “I’m glad you’re home. Father. I’m glad you brought Caelan back to us. Goodnight.”
Beva touched her golden curls briefly. “Goodnight, little one.”
Then she was back, taking Caelan’s hand and jumping up and down as she led him out. Her chatter was nonstop and only made him laugh. He did not look back at his father as they left. Beva had only his own coldness to blame if she gave him no more greeting than that.
Her sleeping room was a small, plain cube like all the others in the house. But Lea had stamped it with her own personality, filling it with hanks of flower bouquets picked last fall