1
Twenty years later…
“Tell me what he said.”
Erica O’Donnell pulled her maid away from the door and shut it firmly behind her. “Leave out nary a word, mind ye. I will nae miss a single detail.”
“I am unsure the laird would have ye ken when matters are far from settled.”
Gertrude glanced uneasily behind her as though she expected someone to come through the door at any moment. With as thick as the castle walls were, it would be nigh on impossible to hear anyone coming, something Erica well knew, much to her chagrin. She could read the maid’s reluctance upon her face so clearly, it might as well have been one of the tapestries in the great hall which depicted every moment of the great battles her father had fought in.
Frustrated and more than a little put out that her maid seemed to have more loyalty to the laird of the household than the lady she served, Erica thought quickly, looking for some enticement that would perhaps convince the girl to talk. She made a mad dive for the chest at the foot of the bed, heaving open the lid with difficulty to burrow within.
“This,” she said in triumph, pulling her scarlet shawl aloft and holding it triumphantly. She had woven it herself of the finest wool, and she well knew the girl had envied it from the way her hands always lingered over folding the shawl as she’d put it away.
“My lady?”
“I will give ye the shawl in exchange for ye to tell me everything Father said while ye were in the hall earlier. I know ye heard every word he said.”
The thing was, he had likely said plenty. Erica’s father was not prone to mincing his words. If he were upset, the entire castle knew it.
Gertrude bit her lip. Erica could see full well the war being waged in the way her eyes darted from shawl to door and back again. Finally, she could bear it no more. She snatched the shawl and wrapped it rapturously about her shoulder.
“There is someone,” she said quickly, nestling into the soft wool. “A man has made an offer, and the laird is inclined to accept it.”
Erica breathed deeply. This was it. Her fate was about to be mapped out for her by men.
“Is he young? The son of a laird? Surely ye must ken something!”
“He must be impressive enough for the laird to agree to a betrothal without having laid eyes upon the man.”
“Not someone from nearby then.”
Erica sank back upon her heels, still kneeling at the chest that held all her worldly possessions. Around her were the things she’d scattered, the covers and blankets she had woven with her own hands to furnish the home of her someday husband. Beneath lay her wedding clothes, a gown she had labored over for the past year in preparation for this moment. Her fingers trailed over the brocade.
“Someone from a distant clan. Would they be looking to build an alliance then?”
Excitement surged through her veins. Her marriage would be an adventure, founding a deep and lasting alliance that would build the wealth and prestige of husband and father both. It was no wonder her father had been so taken with the idea as to agree without having met the man in question.
“Or perhaps a uniting of territories?” she murmured, imagining herself to be the mistress—nay, queen—of all she could survey and more besides.
Gertrude shrugged. “I dinnae ken if he said; ’twas ere I came into the hall.” The girl bit her lip, her face flushed as she looked from the shawl about her shoulders to her mistress. “’Tis little enough I heard. Truly, my lady, I should nae take the shawl…”
Reluctantly, the maid tugged the scarlet fabric from her shoulders to offer it back to her mistress. Erica raised her hands to press the shawl back into the arms of the girl. “Nay, Trudy. Take the wrap and enjoy it if ye can. ’Tis hardly yer fault.”
Still, her heart pounded erratically within her chest as she turned away to study the brocade once more.
The door burst open then. Gertrude squeaked and dropped the shawl, her expression so guilty only a fool could possibly miss it.
A fool or Erica’s mother.
The Lady Abigail O’Donnell was everything her daughter was not. While Erica was dark like her father, with nut-brown hair and eyes the color of autumn leaves gone dead for winter, Abigail was blond with hair so gold she might as well have stolen it from the sun itself, as her father claimed she had. Green eyes bright with excitement and laughter took in the disarray of the room.
“Bonnie lass! Did ye hear so soon?” She glanced at Trudy, who flushed and dropped to her knees to pick up scattered items she folded in haste and restored to the chest. “Never mind, ’tis written on yer face. Hurry, my sweet, yer faither calls for ye. He would tell the happy news himself.”
“’Tis true then?” Erica asked, rising quickly and brushing at her clothing, shaking out the blue and green fabric of her dress to dislodge dust and straw from her floor. “Faither has made a decision?”
She could not bring herself to say the words, but they sang through her head all the same. She would wed. Finally, she would be a wife. At nineteen she had been despairing that her father would ever find a suitable match. Those she had grown up with had husbands and even bairns of their own, a fact which she had pridefully told herself was because the laird was canny and would only agree to a husband for his only daughter who would bring some gain to his own holdings. Only a laird or a son of a laird would do for Erica.
