Chapter 8
The clouds were roiling, like a pot set to boil, the angry gray bubbles fighting to overcome the easy, drifting white that lurked beneath.
It would rain hard at least once over the coming days, the kind of soaking deluge that drove everyone indoors but which rejuvenated the earth and the crops.
Eilidh had seen those kinds of clouds more times than she could count from her bedroom window at Castle Dubh-Gheal.
From the castle’s perch atop the cliffs, she’d been able to see storms that raged miles out to sea.
She missed her home. She missed it desperately.
“Daydreaming again?”
Eilidh startled at Ailsa’s question, then offered a sheepish smile to her sister through the reflection in the darkened window.
“Nay,” Eilidh insisted, squaring her shoulders and turning to face her sister. “Just thinking about how the crofters will be affected by the rain that those clouds promise to bring.”
Ailsa arched a brow, looking doubtful. “Och, nice try, sweetling, but ye are nae going to trick your eldest sister. I ken that look. That’s the dreamy look.” She paused, mischief flaring in her expression. “Might it be a certain injured warrior who has captured your thoughts?”
Eilidh didn’t have Davina’s bright red hair and her corresponding propensity toward blushing, but that didn’t mean that her cheeks didn’t flush red enough to make any kind of denial absurd.
Besides, before Eilidh could even summon the words of a refusal, Ailsa let out a squeal of glee so girlish that, for a moment, the years vanished.
Just for a little while, there was no war and Ailsa wasn’t the Lady of a Clan.
They were the same lasses in the first blush of youth, Eilidh with her giggling affection for the nephew of the cook, who always cast sidelong glances at her until his aunt shooed him away, and Ailsa sighing over…
Well, Ailsa had been sighing over Ewan Buchanan, as it happened, before their first engagement had gone awry that first time.
But even if the object of Ailsa’s affections was unchanged from that time, nearly everything else was different. It was a relief to pretend they were those carefree young girls again, even if the illusion could not last.
“Look at ye,” Ailsa crowed. “Ye are glowing like a sunset.”
“Stop it,” Eilidh said, covering her cheeks.
“Something happened between ye two.” Ailsa danced a silly little dance that made Eilidh cover her eyes as well, if only to preserve her poor sister’s dignity.
“Truly,” she said, her laughter undercutting her words. “Stop it.”
Ailsa let out another giddy little squeal and squeezed in beside her sister in the window seat, then peppered Eilidh’s head with kisses until Eilidh had no choice but to accept this onslaught of sisterly affection.
Eventually, Ailsa gave up her deluge of teasing. She rested her cheek against Eilidh’s head and wrapped her arm around her younger sister’s shoulders. It was so perfect, sitting here in the safety of Ailsa’s arms.
She missed moments like these. She hated the heavy knowledge that war would interrupt them sooner rather than later.
And, indeed, Ailsa sighed just a moment later.
“Just be careful, would ye, my sweet girl?” she murmured. “Just be careful.”
Eilidh knew there was wisdom behind her sister’s caution, and yet she felt an instinctive bristling of defensiveness.
“The Gunns are our allies,” she said, as much to reassure herself as to convince Ailsa.
“They are,” Ailsa agreed, caution belying her words. “But allies dinnae vanish when trouble arises. Allies step up for the fight. And so far…”
She didn’t need to say the next part, but maybe Eilidh needed to hear it.
“So far, I’ve nae seen such a thing from Ciaran, nor from any of the Gunns.”
Eilidh’s fingers twitched toward the shard of mirror, but even with that reminder of all the questions that remained unanswered, her faith outweighed her doubts.
“Potentially,” she said, cautiously at first, then with more certainty, “the Gunns didnae come to our aid because they need aid themselves.”
Yes, that made sense. Hadn’t Mairi said that the clan had lost their business after the uprising?
Eilidh had seen how tense Clan Buchanan had gotten during those long months after Gordon had burned down the distillery, and that had only been one year’s worth of coin taken from them.
How worried might they all have become if they had lost their income for decades?
“Perhaps…” Ailsa allowed.
But Eilidh’s fancy had gotten her in its grip, no matter her intentions.
“Perhaps we need to be the ones to help them,” she went on, sitting up straight enough that she dislodged Ailsa’s grip around her shoulders.
“I ken that ye have your family here—your husband, your son—but I’m nae any use to the Buchanans.
I could help the Gunns. I could… I could help them make connections with the other clans.
Mairi said they’ve been keeping to themselves, but that willnae help them get their feet back from under them. ”
“Eilidh,” Ailsa said warningly.
But Eilidh didn’t even really hear her. “So mayhap this connection between us isnae a bad thing,” she went on.
She could see it all so easily now—a way forward, a way in which she and Ciaran could explore the heat that had sparked between them when they’d kissed.
“I dinnae mean to make anything more of it than it is—”
“Perish the thought,” Ailsa interjected, her tone dripping sarcasm.
Eilidh ignored this. “But marriages have been made upon less than a mutual political goal,” she said, a smile overtaking her face.
“I could help him, help his people. I could have a purpose if I were Lady Gunn. I could help them rebuild, help families relight their hearths, and bring joy back to a place that has been robbed of that happiness for so long.”
“And ye as Lady Gunn, the princess of the household?” Ailsa interjected with a laugh, not an unkind one, but one that was robust enough that it startled Eilidh from her reverie.
Eilidh quickly reviewed everything she’d just said out loud and blushed anew.
“I sound like an idiot, don’t I?” she asked quietly.
“Nay,” Ailsa said quickly. “Nay, ye are fanciful, Eilidh, and ye sometimes let your imagination get the best of ye, but ye are no idiot. But it’s one thing to daydream and another thing to let your better judgment slip away from ye.
So just don’t forget your cautious side, aye?
I’ve been corresponding with Graham, and he feels the same.
We both think that the best thing to do here is to be cautious—at least until Ciaran has a chance to prove himself. ”
Eilidh fought an inner war between recognizing her sister’s wisdom and her ongoing desire to defend Ciaran. Before either side could win, however, the door to the library burst open and Lady Kirsty strode in.
And just like that, the fancy had her in its grip again. Because she would need to learn how to deal with Lady Kirsty if she was thinking of a future with the Gunn Clan.
“Lady Kirsty!” she cried, jumping to her feet so quickly that she nearly toppled Ailsa back in the window seat.
She would apologize to her sister in a moment.
“How good to see you! I must say, I was hoping to speak with you more closely after the hustle and bustle of the banquet the other night. Would you care to join me for tea?”
There, that had sounded like she was equipped to be a grand lady, didn’t it?
Belatedly, she remembered that someone had tried to poison Ailsa at that banquet.
Darn. A grand lady probably wouldn’t have let that detail slip, even for a second.
It would be fine, though. She would just make certain that Lady Kirsty tasted everything first. Then, Eilidh could confirm that she wasn’t the poisoner, which would help the lady of Buchanan Keep as well as show her suitability for the position amongst the Gunns.
See? She was getting the hang of this already.
Eilidh blinked, and she realized from the way that Lady Kirsty was looking at her that she had let herself get carried away daydreaming for a little too long.
But instead of looking annoyed or disappointed or exasperated, Kirsty looked intrigued.
“Do you know, Miss Eilidh,” she said, a gleam in her eye, “I think I would like that very much, indeed.”
Kirsty was up to something.
This was, Ciaran reasoned, not ultimately that surprising. Kirsty was always up to something.
But this time, she seemed to have looped Eilidh into her… machinations.
Ciaran did not like it. He took a bite of his food but didn’t taste much of anything.
He also didn’t like that he couldn’t figure out what Kirsty and Eilidh had their heads bent together about, not when he was trying his best not to look her in the eye.
He had not behaved honorably earlier.
It wasn’t even the kiss—well, yes, obviously it was the kiss, but that had been born of desperation.
Eilidh had been poised to look in the armory, where Black and his minion would still have been lurking.
Ciaran could not allow her to see them. His guts clenched miserably at the mere idea of them seeing Eilidh.
He couldn’t bear the idea that she would get any more attention from Gordon than she already had.
So, he had kissed her. That had been a tactical move, albeit something of an unorthodox one.
The dishonorable part had come after. When he’d enjoyed it.
He’d enjoyed it a great deal, had been consumed by it. And, just for a little while, he’d let his control slip. He’d almost lost himself in the taste of her, the feel of her in his arms.
But then his control had returned—or some form of it, at least—and he had remembered that he could not be doing this, that he couldn’t let himself get any closer to her.
He’d basically shoved her away. And then he’d run.
Like a coward.
Ciaran Gunn had never been a coward a day in his life. He’d faced swords, cannonfire, muskets… He’d stared down a line of red-clad soldiers as far as the eye could see.
But from this slip of a lass with her dreamy expression and her pert, fey features?
He’d run.
And now he could barely even look at her.
Not that she was making it easy on him. He kept finding himself giving in to his ridiculous urge to glance in her direction to make certain that whatever nonsense Kirsty was dipping in her ear, it wasn’t about him.
It absolutely was, though. For one, Kirsty would matchmake a fencepost if someone hung a nice plaid across it, and for another, every time he looked over, Eilidh was giving him this look. As though he was… endearing.
Ciaran found this distinctly alarming, because she should be positively furious with him.
So, he let himself be a coward twice over, because he just tried to stop looking at her.
“Ah, Gunn.” A sharp rap on the table drew Ciaran’s attention to Ewan Buchanan. “I meant to speak with ye. After months of rebuilding, we’re getting the first new batch to distill tomorrow.”
There was a handful of men around the Great Hall who paused their chatter at this to raise their glasses and let out a cheer.
Even with everything weighing upon Ciaran, he found a smile creeping across his face at their clear happiness.
He would do anything to bring that kind of optimism to his own people.
“Aye, aye, let me speak!” Ewan called out to the men, though he, too, wore a smile.
The men grumbled good-naturedly, but their noise fell back to a low hum.
Ewan turned to Ciaran, who braced himself for what he knew was to come.
“Anyway, Gunn, I was hoping that ye would join us down at the distillery. Bring a little bit of that Gunn wisdom to our newest batch.”
Ciaran hunched his shoulders against the instinctive refusal that tried to rise to the surface. He shouldn’t.
But, damn it all, he wanted to. He missed the work of distilling, missed using his hands to make something that would please people, rather than dealing in death and treachery.
He hesitated, feeling the weight of too many eyes upon him.
“Aye,” he agreed after a moment. “Aye. I’ll help ye in whatever way I can.”
Ewan gave him an approving nod, but it wasn’t the laird’s reaction that Ciaran cared to observe.
His eyes darted to Eilidh, and, once again, he found her already looking in his direction. This time, he let their gazes meet and linger.
And damn him if it didn’t feel good when she gave him a small, encouraging smile.