Not even Jamie could fault him for that.
Twelve
Mairead sat on a flatstone in one of her favorite high pastures and watched two men try to kill each other.
She rested her elbows on her knees and her chin on her fists and ignored the fact that all that clanging of swords and spewing of curses was leaving her sheep no peace for grazing, but she had to admit they’d been subjected to worse. At least for herself, the view was fine and the swearing entertaining.
Giles Cameron was, as any maid with two good eyes would have immediately conceded, very handsome, terribly fierce, and exceptionally charming. She’d known him almost all her life and wished more than once that she could have calledhimher brother instead of Tasgall. He was hopelessly enamored of her next youngest sister, though, which could have made him her brother had things in her own life been different. But his hopes of wedding her sister were very slim considering that any of the lads who’d come to see if she might suit had immediately dismissed her and thrust their wooing gifts at whichever of her sisters they’d clapped eyes on first.
Not like that other man out there who had given her a flower the day before.
She looked at one of his dirks that he’d stabbed into the ground at her feet, inviting her to use it if she needed to, then at the growing little pile of other things that he’d begun. If he’d nodded knowingly at her each time he’d called a halt to the wielding of swords long enough to fetch and add to his collection, all she could do was tell him he was ridiculous and advise himto concentrate on his present business whilst she sat there and tried not to blush.
He was, after all, picking flowers for her.
She watched Oliver sparring with Giles and attempted a bit of dispassionate observation. He wasn’t Giles’s equal with the blade, but few were. That he was even standing against him when Giles wasn’t showing him any mercy spoke well of his skill. That he could wield a sword at all given where—orwhen, rather—he’d come from was very surprising. She wondered absently what it was he did to earn his bread. If he hailed from England, what was he doing in Scotland and how long would he stay?
She didn’t want to think about that last bit, actually. The reason he’d come back to her time was a mystery she hadn’t wanted to solve. It was enough to have him at least within view for however long he chose to remain.
She sat up as the lads put up their swords and came to cast themselves down on the soft grasses at her feet. Giles looked at Oliver’s dagger, then at the wee pile of purple things he’d begun sitting next to it.
“You haven’t a clue how to woo a woman, have you?” Giles remarked.
“Are you going to help me?” Oliver asked mildly.
Mairead snorted before she could help herself and found two pairs of eyes turned her way. “Dust,” she said, waving her hand in front of her face.
“I think I probably should,” Giles said. “I, as you might have noticed, am particularly skilled at letting a woman know she is the object of my affections.”
She found Oliver looking at her.
“Is that true?” he asked.
She shrugged. “Grizel drops things when he’s in the vicinity, so perhaps.”
Oliver smiled and turned back to Giles. “Then what do you suggest?”
“You might start by informing the gel you fancy that she is the one being fancied.”
Oliver looked at his pile of blooms, then back at Giles. “Is that not enough?”
Giles only rolled his eyes and flopped back on the ground to look up at the sky. “Absolutely hopeless.”
Mairead suspected she might find herself in that same situation if she had to listen to them any longer, so she pushed herself to her feet and went off to see about her animals. The very idea that Oliver Phillips would be interested in her for anything past refilling his ale and dropping soup on his lap was laughable. That she would find herself losing sleep over that same man was beyond absurd.
Though she couldn’t help but wish it weren’t.
The day passed slowly until she realized with a start that the light was beginning to fade. Her two keepers—for that is what they called themselves—had managed to keep themselves entertained whilst she labored, but that had mostly consisted of driving off a selection of her cousins with threats of bodily harm if they didn’t leave her in peace. She wasn’t sure that would convince Kenneth and the others to behave better in the future, but she couldn’t fault Giles and Oliver for trying.
Ambrose had joined them at some point during the afternoon, trailing after her keepers with Fiona trailing after him. Her nephew had peppered them both with endless questions about Edinburgh, and Fiona had listened, all ears, as Oliver and Giles discussed the delights to be found in various locales around the city. She was half tempted to ask Oliver how much the city had changed in four hundred years, but she suspected, given how easily he and Giles discussed the same sights, that it hadn’t been all that much.
She turned her sheep over to one of her younger cousins whose task it was to see them put in a pen, then stopped and looked at the keep in front of her. It had been her home for the entirety of her life, but for some reason it didn’t feel very welcoming at the moment. Normally she would have blamed that on either her brother or Kenneth, but they seemed to be simply players waiting for a storm to arrive that was far beyond their ability to control.
“Mairead?”
She pulled herself back from the gloomy place she’d been wandering in her head and looked at Oliver. “Sorry, what?”
“I was wondering if perhaps you might want to take your ease in the kitchens,” he said carefully.
