Chapter 9 #2
Ailsa’s laugh came out sounding more like a shriek.
She pressed her lips together and silenced it to keep from drawing their parents out of the solar, though she enjoyed how her derision infuriated Boden.
But really, a lover? If only he knew how she wished for that, and how impossible it seemed.
“A mysterious stranger is my lover? Ye’ve been in the whisky again, have ye? ”
Boden stepped back from her, consternation flashing in his eyes for a moment before he went on the offensive again. “Suppose I go tell Da right now?”
“Suppose ye are wrong? How embarrassed will ye be?” Should she tell him that their mother knew all about Anders and had met him already? Nay, not yet. Let him keep digging until the hole was deep enough to swallow him and his obnoxious accusations.
“How embarrassed will Da be for yer Orkney betrothed to find ye are ruined?”
This time, Ailsa didn’t hold back her shriek of frustrated outrage. “Ye are a fool, Boden. Accusations like that will come back on ye.”
“I doubt it. I saw a man sleeping on a cot. I havena seen him on his feet.”
Ailsa snorted. But maybe he had a point.
If she showed him Anders in the herbal with Maighread’s sharp eye on him, maybe he’d drop this nonsense.
She couldn’t deny Anders being here. He’d made certain of that when he visited the kitchen and the gardens with Maesie.
But she could prove they werena lovers and silence her brother. “Come with me.”
“To the herbal? Or have ye moved him to a chamber upstairs? Near yers?”
“Ye will see.” She led him to the herbal and opened the door. Anders sat across from Maighread, reading while she chopped herbs for some potion. “There is yer stranger, brother. A stranger only to ye. Maighread kens him well and has cared for him since he arrived injured, as ye saw already.”
“A problem, milady?” Maighread’s gaze shifted from Ailsa to Boden and back again.
“My brother insisted on meeting our guest. Boden, this is Anders. Anders, this is my brother, the Sinclair heir, Boden.”
Anders stood and offered his arm. Boden, shorter by a hand’s width, took it, looked up, and tightened his grip.
Why was everything a contest to him? Anders appeared to match the pressure Boden exerted, but did not push past it, though he could have.
“I understand ye like to hunt. Perhaps once yer father meets me, I’ll get a chance to join ye,” Anders said as he and Boden ceased their contest of strength.
Ailsa could have burst out laughing at how smoothly Anders showed Boden he was unimpressed.
“Dinna count on it,” Boden answered curtly, his color high and his jaw tense. “Maighread,” he said, acknowledging her presence before he turned to go. “Ailsa, a word.”
She and Maighread traded a glance. Ailsa shrugged and followed Boden out into the hall. “Are ye satisfied, Brother?”
“I’ll be satisfied when he’s in the dungeon or gone. A man like that has nay business moving freely about this keep.”
“A man like what?” Once again, Ailsa’s temper started to climb, tensing her muscles and making her clench her fists. “He hasna moved freely anywhere. He’s been injured and ill with fever, only lately has he recovered well enough to sit at a table, as ye saw.”
“He was seen in the garden, or have ye forgotten that?”
Ailsa quailed. She’d been so intent on defending Anders that she had.
"He’s a warrior, no’ a fisherman,” Boden continued. “Look at him—nay man that size is an innocent stranger.”
Her only hope to divert Boden was to go on the offensive. “Ye are jealous.”
“Dinna be ridiculous. I am the Sinclair heir.”
“Then dinna ye make ridiculous accusations, Boden. Da willna respect anything else ye tell him when he finds out how wrong ye are.”
“I’ll see about that,” Boden said. “I think I’ll go tell him now.”
“He and Mother are going to their rest. I suggest ye dinna,” she warned.
With a final smirk, he sauntered away, leaving her fuming in the hallway.
Bringing him here was a mistake. She hadn’t hoped to forge a friendship, but at least some sympathy from her brother for Anders’ plight would have been nice.
She should have known sympathy was beyond Boden’s ability.
His delusions had only worsened when he got a look at Anders.
She waited a moment before following to make certain he wasn’t trying to sneak back to the solar. When she saw him climbing the stairs to his chamber, she heaved out a relieved breath. But the relief lasted only a moment.
Raghnall entered the great hall while she watched Boden disappear at the top of the stairs. She hurried over to him. “Have ye told Da about Anders?”
Raghnall frowned and shook his head. “Nay, lass. I assumed ye wouldha done so already.”
“Nay, no’ quite yet. The arrival of the men in the dungeon has distracted everyone. Da kens about them, and plans to speak to them tomorrow, but Anders never came up in the conversation.”
“What are ye asking me to do, lass?”
After sparring with her disagreeable brother, Ailsa’s eyes filled at Raghnall’s kindness. He had called for her instead of Boden when the strangers from the birlinn had been brought inside Sinclair’s gates. He trusted her.
She blinked back the wetness in her eyes. “Let me tell him. I promise I will do so tomorrow—early. I willna allow him to blame ye for Anders’ presence, or ye no’ telling him yet. Maighread backs me, as does Mother.”
“I’ll leave it in yer capable hands, lass.”
For the second time tonight, relief made her blow out a breath. “Thank ye.”
She had to tell their father about Anders or her brother would. He wouldn’t obey their mother.
Ailsa was still furious that Anders brought this about by refusing to stay in the herbal, though she also understood his frustration.
But he’d created a problem for her and a jeopardy for himself.
Boden would paint Anders’ presence in the worst possible light, and that would be hard to recover from. Her father couldn’t be charmed.