Ava turned then, because that at least deserved the respect of a direct look. “As yer brother's new wife or yer friend?”
A hint of guilt flickered across Isobel’s face, brief and sincere.
That sincerity made the whole thing more maddening, not less. Ava did not doubt her friend’s heart. But she doubted her judgment, which was far less useful.
“Again, Ava, I truly believe me brother would never trap a woman,” Isobel said. “He would never humiliate ye.”
Ava held her gaze. “Yebelieve that.”
“Aye.”
“And I daenae ken him at all. I daenae even ken what he looks like. ”
Isobel drew breath as if to argue again, then let it go. Perhaps she had finally understood that no amount of certainty borrowed from sisterly devotion could settle the nerves of a woman asked to trustThe Silent Death.
Ava looked away first.
There was nothing to be gained now by circling the same fear until it swallowed her whole. She could not leave without making a spectacle of herself. She could not wring a promise from the air. She could not undo the past two weeks and return to the safety of her father’s study before this ridiculous plan had grown bones.
So she did the only thing left to her: she straightened. She needed to be prepared for anything.
Her shoulders rolled back beneath her gown as she lifted her chin a fraction and schooled her features into something calmer and less easily read. If she must stand in this place, she would not look eager, nor frightened enough to gratify the hall, nor soft enough to invite pity.
Bruce would have barked at that thought, she suspected. Her father would have kissed her temple and told her to come home. Neither comfort was available.
Isobel noticed the shift in her posture. “Do ye need some ale?”
“The last thing I need is ale,” Ava replied. “Meeting yer brother is hard enough while sober.”
That almost earned her a smile. “Ye need nae make a performance of it.”
“I daenae,” Ava said. “It comes naturally.”
Isobel opened her mouth to speak, when the sound of footsteps rose behind them.
They were not loud, and that was the first strange thing about them. Unlike the other ones Ava had heard since she stepped into the hall, they sounded firm and determined. Like they never needed to be loud in the first place. She could tell it also surprised the other attendees because everyone fell silent and froze. Even Isobel’s breath seemed to catch.
Ava’s body understood before her thoughts did, and the private space between the two women vanished at once. Everything they had said, every fear and every slow effort at composure, was suddenly exposed to reality.
Isobel opened her mouth to speak. “Ava, I…”
The words faded as Ava turned and saw him.
For one suspended moment, nothing in her mind aligned. She had expected severity, perhaps ugliness, perhaps some grim and weathered face that matched the stories told of theSilent Death. She had expected a man who looked like a menace in a bad way.
What she had not expected, and what no one—not even Isobel—had prepared her for, was the most handsome man she had ever seen in her life.
Her eyes remained on him, almost involuntarily. He looked arresting and formidable. He had broad shoulders, dark hair, and a face strong enough to alter the room by appearing in it.
There was something marked in him too, something dangerous, and Ava knew it had something to do with the scar around his neck. It looked too sharp to have been caused by an accident.
He looked handsome and utterly dangerous at the same time.
Ava felt her breath catch in her chest. Every thought she had had over the past weeks about theSilent Deathhad now gathered into one living figure before her.
Standing there under the watchful hush of the hall, she knew with sharp certainty who the man was.
This was Ciaran Nairn.
