A challenge.
Ailean didn’t rise to it. Instead, he gave him a lazy smile. “And do ye think ye’ll need luck? Racing against me? I suppose ye will.”
Rowan snorted. “I’ve beaten ye before. I’ll beat ye again.”
“We’ll see,” Ailean replied, folding his arms. “I just trounced ye at archery. Even bonnie Fiona’s favor won’t help ye.”
Rowan gave him a playful shove. “We’ll see, indeed.”
Sensing movement to her left, Fiona tore her gaze away—and to her horror, saw Carrie fleeing through the crowd.
“Mother Mary—no,” she whispered.
17: AN UNWANTED SUITOR
LETTING AILEAN AND Rowan continue their verbal sparring, Fiona rushed after Carrie.
Lord, the lass moved faster than a greased eel, but eventually, she reached her. At the edge of the field, she caught Carrie’s arm. “Stop. Don’t run.”
Carrie wrenched free and rounded on her, eyes blazing.
“I didn’t encourage him,” Fiona said hoarsely. “Ye saw.”
“I don’t need yer pity,” Carrie snapped. “But why must ye always rub Rowan’s interest in ye in my face?”
“I didn’t!”
“Ye did. Letting him take that ribbon.” Her lip curled. “How fine it must be for ye, Fiona Mackinnon. Two men competing for yer attention.”
Heat washed over her. “I didn’t encourage him.”
“Ye could have said ‘no’.” She looked Fiona up and down scornfully then. “I don’t understand why ye turn lads witless … but ye do.”
Fiona flinched. The words stung worse than a slap. “Ye are just as bonnie as me,” she pointed out. It was true. Fiona’s figure was fuller, lusher; that was the only difference. But many a man preferred a lissome woman, and there had been times Fiona had envied her friend’s slender, elegant beauty. Yet Rowan seemed immune to it. “This isn’t my fault. Can I help if he’s pushy?”
Carrie’s lip curled, clearly unconvinced by her argument.
Frustration erupted within Fiona then. “Ye’d let a man I’m not even interested in come between us?” She’d always hated it when lasses fought over lads. Few were worth the trouble. But she had her pride too. She wouldn’t let Carrie shame her.
Carrie made a disgusted sound and stepped back. “I was wrong. We can’t be friends … not any longer.”
She turned and walked away.
Fiona didn’t follow. There wasn’t any point in trying to salvage the unsalvageable. No, their friendship—as much as she’d clung to it in her first days here—had never been real.
Her mood shadowed now, she returned to the crowd, but she did not go to watch the racing.
At the far end of the field, she could see Ailean atop his grey stallion and Rowan swinging himself up onto the back of a leggy black courser. The horses were dancing with impatience, tossing their heads, hooves stamping the turf.
She turned away.
She wanted no more part in any of it. Her stomach still felt tight and sour from her quarrel with Carrie, and the last thing she needed was to be dragged further into that tangle.
Instead, she kept to herself.
Digging into her coin purse, she bought a small cake studded with raspberries. The sharp sweetness burst across her tongue. She wasn’t truly hungry, but the simple pleasure comforted her.
She drifted through the press of bodies and noise until she found herself near the ring where men were tossing the caber.
