“And I’ll enjoy every moment of it,” Ella said, having overheard Annie’s last comment after being distracted by Muireall and Euan joining them. “What are we talking about?”
“Unless I miss my guess,” Euan said, “yer stubborn husband. If we all hadna taken him in hand, I dinna ken if we’d be here right now.”
“Nay, Euan,” Muireall interrupted, poking him in the ribs with her elbow. “We canna take credit for this. Calum and Ellaboth made this decision. The right one. Though we werena certain they ever would.”
Several hours later, the food, drink, dancing and excitement took their toll. Ella was ready to leave the party.
Calum took her hand and stood. “’Tis time for us to go to our chamber, my wife.”
“Gladly, my husband,” she told him with a smile and rose to her feet beside him. “I’m ready for ye to make me yer wife in all ways.”
“Ye will tell me if ye are at all uncomfortable, aye? I dinna wish?—”
“All will be well, husband. I trust ye to care for me.”
“And I love ye beyond reason, Ella. We will see many happy years together, starting tonight. I promise ye that and more.”
“Yer love is all I need, husband, for me to have everything I have longed for. With ye.”
“Damn it,I dinna need the healer!” Euan’s voice echoed down the hallway from the great hall a fortnight after the wedding.
Ella, recently accepted and confirmed as the healer’s apprentice, glanced at Mhairi and shrugged. “Nay doubt he was on the practice field again. Muireall will no’ be pleased.”
The healer nodded as Calum pushed Euan ahead of him into the herbal. “Sit yerself down, lad,” she directed with a stern look as she noted the blood on Euan’s sleeve. “What happened?”
“He willna listen,” Calum said before Euan could defend himself.
“Doing too much again, aye? Ella, see to him.”
Surprise lifted Euan’s brow.
“I’m the apprentice,” Ella told him. “With full authority to bind yer arm to yer side if ye dinna stop yer foolishness.” She pulled the blood-soaked sleeve away from his skin as Calum stepped forward to untie his leine and shove the neck wide enough to expose the cut Euan had spent weeks healing. Blood welled from a new cut just below it. “Ach, Euan, this isna the same wound.”
“Nay, ’tis another, damn it. One of the lads got a wee bit carried away with being given his first real blade.”
“’Twasna Georgie, was it?”
Calum shook his head. “Nay, an older lad did this.” He frowned at Euan. “I told ye they were no’ ready for those blades,” he said.
Euan simply growled in response.
Ella bit back a laugh as she cleaned the wound and inspected it. “Despite the blood, ’tis no’ too deep. It will heal well—if ye let it.”
Calum, at her back, snorted. “I guess that means I’m in charge of training the lads again.”
“Ye are the apprentice arms master,” Euan reminded him. “So next time, ye will be the one sitting here…ach!” He gave Ella a pained stare, brow wrinkled over slitted eyes. “While yer wife tortures ye. I’ll look forward to seeing that.”
“Wheesht!” Ella demanded. “I’m no’ torturing ye. I’m making sure this wound doesna fester.”
“Dinna complain,” the healer interjected, “or I’ll make sure yer wife kens how ye’ve been greetin’. Annie’s wean makes less noise than ye.”
“Greetin’!” Euan barked out his objection to being characterized as crying like a baby.
Calum roared with laughter.
“Ye and Calum are cut from the same cloth,” Ella told both men. “Stubborn, and poor patients. Mayhap I should rethink being the healer’s apprentice.”
The healer, on the other side of the chamber, cleared her throat. “Or mayhap nay.”
