And then, they were inside, stepping over the threshold into a world of light and noise, blinding after the gloom of the carriage.
“Thomas!” somebody shrieked, and then a tiny woman with a vibrant mop of red hair was elbowing her way through the crowd towards them, beaming.
“Brace up, here comes Veronica,” Thomas muttered, a grin spreading across his face.
Then the woman—Veronica—was upon them, flinging stocky arms around Thomas’s waist and squeezing.
“We all thought ye would try and get out of it,” she said craftily, grinning up at him.Itobviously being the party.
“Aye, well, here I am,” Thomas said, laughing. “Where are the girls, then? Let me wish them a happy birthday.”
Veronica glanced around the crowded pub. “Oh, I have no idea where they are. Ye can find them later.”
“I’m here forthem, Veronica!”
“I saidlater. Now, introduce me to this vision of beauty, eh?”
Still reeling at being referred to as avision of beauty, Emma stepped forward and offered a hand for the other woman to shake. Veronica batted it aside and pulled her close in a tight, spine-cracking hug.
“I’m so glad to find that Thomas is thinking of settling down. He’s a dear, and he’s a like a brother to me,” she said with a sigh, her voice low in Emma’s ear. “Hurt him, and they’ll not find yer body.”
Emma blanched. Veronica let go of her, flashing a sweet smile and a wink.
“Now, let’s introduce her to the others! Come on, come on, hurry up! Lots to see before we bring out the cake!”
The next hour flew by a chaotic blur of faces, names, and anecdotes. Everyone was happy, everyone was thrilled to meet Emma, and everyone seemed to love Thomas.
Emma managed to glean that there were three men who ran the pub—four people in total, including Veronica. A tall, austere man with dark hair and deep brown eyes was named Colby, and he was Veronica’s husband. He seemed forbidding and distinctly unfriendly until Emma saw his gaze soften when it landed on his wife. The birthday girls, whom Emma had still not met, were his nieces, and he and Veronica were raising them together. The third man was Dominic, Laird MacLennan, a grim-faced man behind the bar whose dark hair was starting to thread with gray, serving customers pints and glasses of ale at top speed. He spared a quick smile for Thomas and Emma, complimentingEmma on her fine dress and asking what in the world she saw in Thomas.
There were others, of course. Friends and distant family members, all wanting to meet Emma, compliment her dress, her beauty, and her relationship with Thomas.
It was bewildering but in a good way.
“How am I to remember all their names?” Emma whispered in Thomas’s ear during a lull in conversation.
He chuckled. “Oh, ye don’t. I never do, I’m afraid.”
She smiled at that, longing to tip her head forward and bury her nose in his neck. Instead, she cleared her throat and dropped down from her tiptoes, glancing away for another relative to talk to, someone who could take her mind off the way Thomas was making her feel. She needed her wits about her.
There’d been endless questions about their relationship, of course. Since Thomas hadn’t required more than she tells people that they were engaged—secretly, of course—most of the questions required quick thinking to answer. To avoid complicating things, Emma stuck to the truth. She told people that she was an apprentice healer at the Keep, that was how they had met, and their engagement was secret.
“Will ye carry on being a healer when ye are Lady MacPherson?” one woman asked, her eyes bulging out of her head.
Emma hesitated. A demure smile and anoshould have sufficed. After all, any reasonablewoman would abandon any ambitions or hobbies of her own once she was married to settle down to the womanly task of caring for a husband and having babies.
It wasn’t as if it was real, after all. There was no engagement, and Emma was not going to beLadyanything.
But somehow, that just didn’t sit right.
“Aye, I am,” she said firmly. “I love being a healer. I like caring for people. It’s a skill that may be lost over the years, especially in women. I want to keep healing whomever I can for as long as I can.”
The woman didn’t seem pleased with this response. “But when ye have children of yer own, surely…” she trailed off meaningfully.
“Then I’ll teach them how to heal, too.”
Thomas hooked an arm through Emma’s, pulling her away. “Ye are doing very well, my dear betrothed,” he murmured in her ear, chuckling. “Why not sit down and rest? Have a drink before ye offend anyone else.”
“Why should that woman be offended just because—”
