“Ewan and I were first betrothed as children,” she said after a moment’s consideration.
“You were?” Vaila blinked in surprise.
“Aye. Da bade me keep it a secret. A matter of caution, he called it, after what had happened to Graeme. So I knew since I was… oh, perhaps eight or so years old? But we didn’t say anything to anyone until it was time for us to actually be wed.”
“When you were fifteen.” Vaila said it with a note of censure in her tone.
Before today, Ailsa might have agreed with her. Fifteenhadbeen too young. The way things had turned out had been evidence enough of that. But after today, after seeing her father’s corpse after he choked to death on his own blood…
She understood his caution differently now.
“When I was fifteen,” she agreed. “I came here, expecting to see the Ewan I’d known as a child. But he was…” She gave a humorless laugh. “Well, compared to him now, he was still a child. But at the time, he seemed like a man, and it made me feel like I was just a foolish girl. And the idea of marrying him felt like… it felt like a prison. I just couldn’t do it.”
“But Ewan tried to force you.” It was half a question. Dear, loyal Vaila. Determined to be on Ailsa’s side, no matter what.
“He tried to convince me,” Ailsa corrected. “His point was, as I recall it, that if we were going to be married eventually, there was no reason it oughtn’t happen right away. He offered to be,” she blushed, “married in name only for a while, if I wasn’t ready for, ahem, other aspects of marriage.”
Vaila quirked an eyebrow. “Are you trying to protect my innocent ears, Ailsa? Need I remind you that I spend my days training with the men? I have heard much more than you can imagine.”
“As your elder sister, I should disapprove of that, but I am too tired to fret over it at the moment,” Ailsa told her. “But then I suppose I needn’t ask if you catch my meaning.”
“Indeed, you do not,” Vaila confirmed. “Though, I must say, that sounds rather…”
“Decent of him?” Ailsa supplied. Vaila nodded. “Yes, I suppose it was, not that I could see it at the time. All I saw was the snare closing around me. And so I told him I would not marry him.”
“Never. Not ever,” Vaila said, echoing Ewan’s words from earlier.
“Just so.”
“Ailsa? Vaila?” The elder two Donaghey sisters turned at the sound of Davina’s voice. She was standing in the doorway in a borrowed dressing gown. Eilidh was wrapped directly in the quilt from her bed.
“Hi, sweets,” Ailsa said, immediately scooting over to make room for her sisters. “Could you not sleep?”
“We just wanted to be with you,” Eilidh murmured, clearly still half-asleep. She snuggled up against Vaila’s side. Davina sat next to Ailsa. Though Eilidh was tired enough that she seemed to drift directly back into slumber, Davina’s eyes were bright and alert.
“What were you talking about?” she asked.
Vaila grinned a wicked grin. “Ailsa was just telling me about howdecentEwan Buchanan is.”
At her sister’s mocking tone, Ailsa kicked her gently with a stockinged foot. Vaila caught it, entirely unrepentant.
Davina leaned her head dreamily against a pillow. “Heisrather handsome,” she observed.
“Not you, too!” Ailsa protested.
“I never said he was handsome,” Vaila pointed out. “So, who is thistoo? Could it be thatyoufind your betrothed handsome, Ailsa Donaghey?”
Ailsa did not feel there was anything to be gained by responding to this and thus remained silent.
Davina, as it turned out, did not need any further encouragement.
“And Laird Buchanan seems very fair, too,” she mused. “And, of course, a father’s character does not necessarily say anything about his son’s, but if Da liked them both—Laird Buchanan as a friend and Ewan as a husband for you—maybe he is a good choice, Ailsa.”
Ailsa pressed the back of her wrist against her forehead. No doubt she looked ridiculously melodramatic, but she felt she was entitled to just a bit of absurdity today.
“The problem isn’t that he’s a bad choice,” she said. “He-he’s a good man.”
“Then what’s the problem?” Davina asked.
