Ailsa crossed to stand next to Ewan and this, too, filled him with pride. She trusted him to defend her. He would earn that trust if it took him every day of his life.
“I do recall that,” she said acidly, “as I believed that it resulted in your death.”
Donaghey flinched, just the tiniest bit. Ewan resisted a satisfied grin. His bride was no wilting flower who would let herself be trampled—elder brother or no.
And Ewan would not forgive anyone who had hurt Ailsa, not for any reason.
“I was injured,” he said. “And Da… It worried him. So he sent me away to Clan Fraser so that I could learn battle without being killed before I knew how to defend myself. I dinnae ken if he knew Gordon was the threat in particular, or if it was just the general threat indicated by the strike against me. But he wanted me to know how to protect the clan.”
“And so he let us all think you were dead?” This question, asked with a little tremor in it, came from Eilidh, who had been the least comfortable with this newfound brother. All four sisters had leapt upon him, eager to hug him, but Eilidh had done so only after looking to Vaila for guidance. She also seemed themost cautious to trust Donaghey’s sudden return into their lives. Ewan supposed she remembered him the least of the four. That had to account for it.
Donaghey merely inclined his head.
“That’s cruel,” Davina said, taking her younger sister’s hand in hers, the gesture an act of solidarity.
Ewan watched Donaghey notice it, the way these lines were being drawn right before him. The way Ailsa had moved to stand with her husband, the way the sisters were coming together. Vaila, the smudge of blood still on her neck, was watching her eldest sister for cues. James, in turn, stood behind her, a silent sentinel.
Donaghey might be their kinsman, but he wasn’t one of them, not yet.
“Perhaps,” Donaghey allowed. “But strategic.”
Ailsa’s jaw worked. She was apparently dissatisfied with this answer, which meant that Ewan was, too.
”Did Mama know?” Ewan was slightly surprised that this more emotional question came from Vaila. “Did she die thinking you were dead, too? Thinking that her only son had been murdered, when it was all really a ploy?”
A slight bobbing of his throat was the only sign that Donaghey gave that this question affected him. He didn’t look at Vaila as he answered.
“I dinnae ken,” he admitted quietly.
There was a lull. Ewan ached to reach out and put his arm around Ailsa, but he couldn’t. He didn’t deserve it. Not until he apologized to her for what he had said. Even with everything that had transpired since, that still mattered. Making amends still mattered.
Not only to Ailsa, but to Ewan, too. He needed to do it in order to be the kind of man his father had raised him to be.
A wave of grief hit him at the thought.
Donaghey, meanwhile, was squaring his shoulders, the posture one that reminded Ewan of Ailsa.
“What’s past is past,” he said definitively, as if saying so could make it true. “What we need to do now is reclaim our home. Gordon escaped with his life. We have to assume he will be back and plan accordingly. We cannot be ill prepared. We will need tofight.”
It was a rousing declaration, one that would have caused any group of men to roar with approval, to stamp their feet and then rush off to ready their horses.
But, for all that she was a clear leader, Ailsa was not a man. She was not a soldier.
“No,” she told her brother firmly. “Now, we need to rest.”
Donaghey frowned. “But?—“
“No,” Ailsa repeated. “I am needed here. The girls need to recover. We have time to speak of the future. We will accomplish nothing if we do not rest.”
Ewan felt another surge of pride. This was a wise course of action, a level-headed one. It was the kind of thinking with one’s head that made a good leader, the kind that brought a clan into prosperity with her.
Donaghey held his sister’s gaze for a long moment. Ailsa didn’t back down, didn’t so much as bat an eye. She returned his stare with everything she had.
Ewan could see the calculation in Donaghey’s eyes, watched the way he registered that his sister had grown, that she was no longer the child he remembered. That she was now Lady Buchanan, the highest-ranked woman in the Keep.
That here, at the very least, she could command her brother.
“Very well, my lady,” Donaghey allowed. “First, we rest.”
