Ciaran kept his arms crossed and his eyes narrowed. She looked at him, found no comfort there, and continued with increasing speed.
“I am nae especially orderly. I daenae rise cheerfully in the mornings. I dislike being told what to do if I daenae first agree it ought to be done. I have opinions on most things, and I am told they show on me face before I speak them. I am nae the sort of woman men choose when they wish peace in a household.”
One of his eyebrows rose.
That seemed to vex her further.
“And,” she added, almost desperately, “there are other more beautiful women.”
That nearly amused him.
She had reached so plainly for whatever weapon came nearest to hand and thrown it without aim. She was arguing against being romantically desired, against being courted, admired, softened toward. None of it touched the matter as he understood it.
He had not come seeking softness.
“Have ye finished?” he asked.
Her lips parted. “Nay.”
“Something tells me ye have covered everything. Unless, of course, ye tell me ye’re secretly a witch.”
She stared at him as if he had failed in some expected duty of alarm.
“Look, me Laird, the others would suit ye better,” she said. “Surely ye can see that. They came for this. They stood there wishing to be chosen. I didnae.”
That, more than the rest, struck nearer the center, though not in the way she intended. He had seen it already. Her resistance had been part of what recommended her.
“I am nae what ye want,” she said again, quieter this time, as if repetition might do the work that logic had failed to accomplish.
Ciaran studied her.
Her fear was real; that much was plain. Yet even now, she fought him with reasons, not tears. Pride, argument, desperation, all braided together. There was spirit in her, and a lack of grasping eagerness that made the other women dim further by comparison.
She was not trying to make herself desirable. She was trying to be rid of him.
It still made her suitable.
Perhaps even more so.
“Me Laird,” she said, changing tack with visible effort, “please.”
Ciaran felt a few gears click into place in his head, even though he did not have the full picture yet. He had already gathered enough from the hall to know there was something beneath the disorder. Her panic. Isobel’s guilt. The timing of it all. None of this had sprung up naturally. A game had been played somewhere.
At last, Ava drew breath. “I am Isobel’s dearest friend.”
“I ken that.”
“She asked me to come.”
His gaze did not move.
“She said,” Ava continued, and now the words came out with the strained force of something she hated saying, “that if I stood here, others would come too. That the gathering would seem more respectable. Better attended. More worthy. I wasnaemeant…” She faltered, then forced it out. “I wasnae meant to be chosen.”
There it was.
Everything in the hall clicked in place at once. The fuller room, the guilt on Isobel’s face when Ava had protested. They had set a boundary around the event and expected him to remain obediently within it without ever being told such a boundary existed.
He felt something in him cool further.
