“See?” she said smugly to Ewan’s captain. “I told ye so.”
“Aye,” James said, eyes on Ewan. “I suppose ye did.”
“Let’s go fetch Sgàil, and I’ll show ye how to ride properly,” Vaila said.
James looked as though he might actually expire from the effort of holding his tongue.
“Behave, Vaila,” Ailsa said emphatically.
Vaila shot her sister a sunny smile. “I’ll do what I can.”
“That’s nae a promise!” Ailsa called as Vaila skipped toward where grooms had brought their mounts to them.
Mounts had likewise been prepared for Ailsa and Ewan. Ailsa crossed immediately to her horse, who showed his training in the way he waited without tugging even as his mistress crossed to him. Once she reached for him, however, he bowed his head to let her caress his nose, his adoration clear.
She murmured quietly to the horse, then ran a quick hand over the tack and saddle. It was a gesture born of clear practice. She was apparently satisfied with what she found, for she turned and—with impressively nimble movements, given that she was in skirts—leapt lightly up into the saddle.
“Shall we?” she asked.
He pulled himself up into the saddle on Firth, his own mount.
“Aye,” he agreed. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
It should have beenthe kind of blissful ride that washed everything else from Ailsa’s mind. The wind was cool and crisp, the grounds sloping and green, her horse strong and sure beneath her. The breeze tugged at her hair, stealing tendrils from her plait. Beside her, Ewan looked unspeakably handsome and windswept.
It was this last part that ruined the perfection of the moment, that sent a sour note squirming through her stomach.
And that sour feeling, it was…
Guilt.
She felt guilty. Ewan had been, over the years, quite decent. More decent than he needed to be, in many cases.
And she had been…
An utter louse.
“I… think I owe you an apology,” she said when they paused at the top of one of the hills that dotted the land around Buchanan Keep. It wasn’t as impressive a vista as the cliff overlooking the sea they boasted at Castle Dubh-Ghael, but it was pretty enough, looking down over a valley filled with heather.
Ewan paused so long that Ailsa began to wonder if her words had been snatched away by the wind.
“Do ye, then?” he said mildly.
“Well, I wasnae precisely the spirit of good humor back when…” she trailed off, uncertain how to describe all that had transpired between them.
He was generous, though; he didn’t force her to articulate it.
He was always generous.
Shewasa louse.
“Ye were fifteen years old,” he said. “I cannae say I saw it back then, but ye were terribly young.”
“Aye,” she agreed. That had been the crux of her objection—she hadn’t beenreadyto marry. The idea had felt… impossible. “But still. I could perhaps have been abitgentler about it.”
“But only a bit,” he teased, the ghost of a smile playing about his lips. He wasn’t looking at her; his eyes were fixed on the landscape below.
