She looked at him from the corner of her eye. “As fine as could be expected with a man such as he. He takes liberties with his words, Da.”
“Aye, I feared he would. He understood yer refusal of all the younger men in the town as a sign he had a chance with ye.”
Finley stopped. “More like he had nae the courage before he was near the only unmarried man left.”
“Heisthe only unmarried man left, Fin.”
Finley pressed her lips together. “Good. Perhaps now I’ll nae longer have the fine pestering me.”
Rory Carson lifted one gray brow. “Ye think because you gave Eachann Todde a swim they’ll nae longer expect ye to marry at all?”
Finley tried to keep her eyes from widening, but was obviously unsuccessful, judging by her father’s rueful look. “You know.”
“Sure, I do.” He began walking again, and Finley fell into step with him. “As do the rest of the elders. You’re nae a wee girl any longer, Fin. Yer mother and I have indulged you overlong, and the fine have in turn indulged your mother and me. But I’ll nae be able to take care of the farm much longer on my own.”
“I can take care of the farm just fine for the three of us,” Finley said with a frown. “I might not have been the son you hoped for, but there is naught I canna do that requires a man. Did I nae help you build this very wall with my own hands? Stone by stone?”
“You know I’ve never regretted that you were nae a lad,” her father chastised, stopping beside the boundary she’d mentioned. “We always wished for more bairns, aye, but it wasna to be. And, sure, I love you enough for ten children.”
“Then why can’t I simply carry on here on my own, taking care of you and Mam?”
Rory sighed and filled the first trough with his bucket. “It’s too much for a…it’s just too much.”
“For a woman, you mean? Dorcas manages her own plot,” Finley said, handing her bucket to her father and then lifting her chin. “And I’m younger and stronger than she.”
“Dorcas is a widow, and you know as well as I that she goes in with the others in winter. She keeps nae stock.”
“I’d be a widow soon, too, were I forced to marry Eachann Todde,” Finley muttered.
“Well, ye may well be forced to marry someone,” Rory said, no trace of jest in his voice as he stacked the empty wooden buckets and set them on the wall. “Ye’ve had your pick and yet ye’ve nae chosen. ’Tis past time for you to settle and start your own family for the town.”
The shock of it put Finley to silence for a moment. “Da—”
“You’ll be spared this night, though,” Rory cut her off. “There’s been a visitor.”
Her heart was pounding in her chest even before she picked up the fork and began throwing the last of the limp, pale winter hay into the pen for the shaggy, thin cows. “The English knight,” Finley said, relieved to have the topic of conversation moved from her own failings. “I saw him.”
Rory paused, the pail of meager scraps poised in his hands. “You could tell from where he hailed by his looks, could ye?”
Finley threw herself into the chore. “He asked the way to the town. That’s all.” She waited in silence while, behind her, her father fed the sow, heavy with the litter she would soon bear. When Finley had given the cows as much as she dared, she turned around. “Well? What did he want?”
Rory shrugged.
“Something to do with the treaty, you reckon?” she pressed, hanging up the fork. “He’d already been to Town Blair?”
Her father looked up at her with exasperation clear on his face. “Only asked the way to town, did he? What else did you get up to at the bridge, Fin?”
Finley wanted to bite off her own tongue, thinking of the brawny Blair clansman who had held her behind the tree.
“Saw Murdoch and the others heading that way,” she said with a shrug of her own, and the explanation sounded weak even to her own ears.
To her surprise, he didn’t press her. “Aye, well, I’m certain we’ll all know the more of it come the morrow.” He turned over the pail against the shed wall and held out his arm, which Finley gladly ducked under, grasping his left hand with both her own as it hung over her shoulder. He pressed a kiss to her temple.
“Let’s go home, me gel.”
And Finley was glad, for it was the only place she ever wanted to go.
* * * *
