Free Highland Seer by Willa Blair Page B

bringing my need for ye...for yer skills, to the Lathan ambassador.” She hesitated, then went on. “I would like this chance to tell ye more about my clan so ye can understand my urgency to train up my lads to protect my people.”
    “That isna necessary, Laird MacKyrie. Ye’ve made yer wishes clear.”
    Her stomach sank at his curt response, but she lifted a hand. “Please call me Ellie. There’s no one here but ye and me. I’d like us to be friends, at least.”
    He took a measured sip. She watched him roll it around in his mouth before swallowing, pleased to see before her a man who appreciated good whisky. He relaxed a bit and relented, though his tone remained brusque. “Verra well, Ellie. What would ye like to discuss?”
    “No’ discuss, please. Just talk. I’ve been so long without someone who can listen and understand what has happened to my people since the battle at Flodden four years ago.”
    “Perhaps ’twould be better to have Jamie here, then.” He took another sip and settled a bit more deeply into his chair rather than heading for the door. Ellie hid a sigh of relief.
    “Nay, I’ve talked to him enough these past few days. I’d rather talk with ye.”
    Donal did not answer.
    Ellie got up to fetch the bottle. She added two fingers more to Donal’s cup and set the bottle near his hand. The message was clear. Relax. Enjoy. One eyebrow lifted and lowered as he regarded her. So, Donal understood and seemed willing, for now, to go along.
    She smoothed her skirts as he watched her take her seat, then she looked aside, suddenly unwilling to meet his gaze while she spoke of private things. “We lost my father and brothers that day. Most of our fighting men had gone with him and died as well, including my new husband. We shared only weeks together before he left.” An echo of her misery on that day filled her mind. She’d feared never seeing him again. She hadn’t. Ellie shrugged off the memory and continued. “My father...the old laird, left only a small garrison behind to maintain the security of the keep. In the years since, the lads too young to go with him have grown, the babes that were started before the battle have been born and now cling to their mothers’ skirts, never having met their fathers.”
    “A sad day.” Donal’s face gave away little, but she could sense that he was revisiting some of his own sad memories as she described those days.
    “Aye. Since then, our neighbors have had their eyes on us. They’ve tried our gates. Most of our remaining fighting force have been lost defending our walls or our whisky wagons. Since they’ve not been able to break us, lately they try another tactic. If they canna defeat us in war, they think to win our lands through my defeat, so they sue for my hand in marriage.”
    “It is ever so, is it not?”
    Ellie’s pulse spiked along with her temper. She doubted that he sympathized with her. Many men would not, since the value to their clan of highly placed women lay in the alliance that could be made with their marriage. Or alliances. Ellie set her drink aside and leaned forward. “I refuse to bow to such pressure. I will choose the husband I want when I wish to. I willna have one chosen for me by land-grabbing neighbors or even by the people of my clan.”
    Donal’s gaze cut through her. “I wish ye well with that, then. Any man would be lucky to have ye to wife.”
    Did he mean that? “Aye,” Ellie said, though in her heart, “nay” echoed again and again. She ignored it as best she could. She didn’t want just any man. She must have the man in her dream. “Tell me about yerself. Ye’re a MacNabb. How did ye come to be with the Lathans?”
    Donal hesitated. She thought at first he would refuse to answer her. Then he turned his cup, staring into its depths. “My sister fancied a Lathan lad she met in Edinburgh years ago. I escorted her to her marriage, intending to stay at most a month to ensure her well-being, but the auld