Chapter 22 #2
Abigail did as she was told, dropping the stack of books onto the small circular table with a thunk. She yawned as she plucked the red book off the top and handed it to her sister.
“Are ye goin’ to take another nap?” Ayla asked her with a chuckle.
“I might,” Abigail grumbled, easing herself back into her armchair. “I’ll nae be gettin’ ready for quite some time.”
Freya ignored the chatter, flipping through the book in her lap with reckless abandon before finally landing on a specific page.
“Here it is,” she intoned. “A tonic that I’ll teach ye to brew. I’ll teach ye how to read me notes anyway.”
It was clear to everyone in the room that Freya was speaking to Amara and Ayla, but it was Marissa who answered.
“Ye ken I could just teach them meself,” she argued. “Ye dinnae have to go out of yer way to do this.”
Freya shot her a withering look through the mirror. “It’s nae out of me way, and these girls are goin’ to be family soon. And ye ken I take care of me family.”
Marissa rolled her eyes but didn’t argue. Her sister’s voice had taken on a tone that she knew all too well. One that told her that any arguments would fall on deaf ears.
“I’ve never met so many independent women,” Amara murmured.
Her voice was soft, as if she was speaking to herself. But when Marissa met her eyes in the mirror, they were shining with excitement.
“What do ye mean?” Freya asked.
Amara shook her head, disrupting Ayla and Marissa’s braiding briefly before settling down.
“It’s just,” she explained, her voice high-pitched and filled with awe, “ye all have done so much. Despite the loss of yer parents, ye were able to make a name for yerselves, outside of men. I mean, ye were a healer, Lady McEwan. And ye…” Her gaze flicked to Marissa.
“Yer stories are incredible. When ye were recountin’ that one yesterday, I could hardly look away.
Ye’ve established yerselves outside of the men in yer lives.
And it’s somethin’ that I… somethin’ that we… ” she trailed off.
For a moment, Marissa wondered how Amara was going to finish that sentence. Wondered who the ‘we’ referred to. But when her gaze flicked to Ayla, she had her answer.
Her future sister-in-law was chewing on the inside of her cheek. Her hands had stilled in Amara’s hair, a plait half-formed between her slender fingers. But she was still staring at the top of Amara’s head as if she was working intently.
There was a pause, and finally, Ayla sighed.
“She’s right,” she began, as if admitting it was something shameful. “It’s somethin’ Amara and I have talked about since we were wee lasses. Since her maither worked in the castle. For as long as I can remember, in fact.”
“We always wondered if it was possible,” Amara picked up. “To nae have to be what everyone expects us to be. To be ourselves, even if we have to get married.”
“Even if we want to get married,” Ayla amended. “Because I do want that. To find a handsome and strong husband who will love me unconditionally. But I want to marry him because I want to, nae because I have to. And that’s somethin’ ye have done. Both of ye.”
Her grey eyes flicked to Freya and then to Marissa.
Not for the first time, Marissa felt a rush of affection for the women in the room with her.
Growing up, she had always been proud of Freya, had always admired her tenacity and ability to make do. But it was something she had only just now realized that she’d started taking for granted.
“I was lucky,” Marissa murmured softly, drawing the attention of the other women in the room.
“Lucky that I had someone like Freya and that she was strong enough to teach me and Abigail that we could be who we wanted to be. And that Michael, when he fell in love with her and they married, allowed us to be people instead of just wives and future maithers.”
Abigail nodded from where she sat in her reading chair. She was looking more alert than she had since they’d first walked into the bedchamber.
“We’ve never been treated like a burden,” she explained. “And I ken how lucky we are for that.”
“Dinnae get me wrong,” Ayla piped up, suddenly blinking back tears.
“Arthur… He’s… Well, he and Joseph are the best big braithers.
They’ve never made me do anythin’ I dinnae want to.
They’d be perfectly content to let me live in this castle for the rest of me days and be a spinster.
They’d pay Amara until the day she died, and we’d get to be best friends and paint pictures and read books… ” she trailed off.
The other women watched her patiently.
“But…?” Freya prompted, her tone prodding and motherly.
Marissa looked at her. Since she’d gotten pregnant, there had been slow changes about her. Her older sister had always been the more matronly of the three, the one that had always seemed destined to become a mother.
But it was only now that Marissa was seeing her with nothing but affection and patience written in the lines of her lovely face that she realized just how much her sister was fully growing into the role.
Just as surely as that baby was growing in her belly, Freya was growing into the mother she was always destined to be.
“But,” Amara continued for her friend, “the council.”
That was all she needed to say. The other three women nodded in understanding.
“Why is the council so different here?” Abigail asked, her burning curiosity palpable.
Marissa watched as Ayla and Amara locked eyes in the mirror, a silent conversation passing between the two. There was an almost imperceptible motion, a shake of Ayla’s head, but Marissa didn’t miss it.
They’re nae goin’ to tell us the full story. Nae yet.
“Me faither,” Ayla began. “He wasnae a good laird. Nae like Arthur. And they’re punishin’ Arthur for it.”
It was the only explanation they’d be getting, that much was clear.
Abigail opened her mouth, and Marissa could tell she was about to fire off a flurry of questions.
Marissa quickly headed her off.
“Well then,” she began, speaking fast so that Abigail couldn’t interrupt, “we’ll just have to show them tonight.
Nae only has Arthur picked the right woman to stand by his side, but he’s picked the right family to align himself with.
Clan Reid and McEwan will be long and lastin’ allies to one another. We’ll make them see that.”
Abigail’s mouth snapped shut, her questions dying on her tongue. There would be time for those questions, Marissa was sure.
There was something in the air between the women. Friendship, yes. That much was clear from the moment all five of them had been in the same vicinity. But it went beyond that.
A kinship that she didn’t often recognize in other women. A yearning to be more than what they had been taught to be.
The trust born from that would grow. She knew that eventually, the full story would come out. But that time was not tonight.
No, tonight was for convincing the council to accept her, and continuing to build upon the trust and affection that were beginning to grow between the women in the room with her.
She smiled at them all, going back to her work on Amara’s hair as everyone else broke back into conversation around her.
And while her fingers moved and the familiar hum of her sister’s voices filled the air, she found herself for the first time not just thankful for Arthur and the situation he had saved her from, but for the family that their marriage would create.