“So I came to choose a suitable bridegroom for ye?”he said with the smugness of an older brother.
“Nay.Ye came to guard my honor.”
He gave her a look so sour it made her laugh.After a moment, he asked, “So now that Lady Aillenn is in Scotland, what kind o’ bridegroom is she lookin’ for?”
She knew he was baiting her.But two could play at that game.
She pretended to consider.“I prefer short men,” she decided.“Aye, short.And pale.Fair-haired.Soft around the edges.And agreeable.”
He gave her a disgruntled glare.“So womenly men.”
A snort of laughter came out of her.She supposed her descriptiondidsound like a woman.Nother,of course, but the kind of woman most men seemed to desire.
“What about ye,brother?”she asked.“What kind o’ wife do ye see for yourself?”
“Me?”
She didn’t realize she was holding her breath, waiting for his reply, until he finally spoke again.
“I haven’t thought much on it.But I think I may be developin’ a taste for women with mule-hair beards.”
That made her laugh again.It also sent a secret thrill through her, remembering his kiss.
But they wouldn’t be doing that again.Not if he was supposed to be her brother.
As they walked along, the path opened into a grassy glade between copses of trees.The green expanse was dotted with meadowsweet and buttercups.
Adam nudged her and nodded across the lea toward a coney nibbling on a daisy.They paused to watch until it scampered off into the woods.
“What’s our home like?”he asked as they passed through the glen and entered the forest again.
Their home?For a moment, she was still thinking about what he wanted in a wife.Had he already wedded her in his mind?
Then she realized he was speaking of their family home, as her brother Ronan.
“Have ye ne’er been to Ireland?”she asked.
“Nay.”
She hadn’t either.But never having seen a place didn’t stop her from pretending she’d grown up there.
“Though I’ve heard ’tis like Scotland,” he said.“Just greener, with rollin’ hills.”
“That’s right.”She’d heard the same.
“Do ye get along with our sisters?”he asked.
She’d never considered that.The Bhallachs were fictional sisters, after all.“I suppose I do.”
“Tell me a story about them.”
Her mind went blank.Then she remembered an incident from her own real childhood and her four older sisters.
“When I was a lass,” she recounted, “my sisters were playin’ with an orphaned lamb on the Sabbath.They accidentally chased the wee beast into a bog.It was bleatin’ for dear life.But my sisters were afraid to go after it, for they were wearin’ their fine Sabbath clothes.Well, I couldn’t stand by and let the poor thing drown.So I lumbered into the bog and pried the beast out o’ the mud.It thrashed and spattered me with muck, but I managed to save it.When my da saw me, he said I wasn’t fit to go to church.He shut me in the sheep pen with the rest o’ the beasts until they returned from Mass.”
To Eve, it was a funny story.
Adam, however, didn’t see the humor at all.
