He sighed again. “Then come.”
They went to an alcove that Kendrick usually held as private, his alone. Cramped and narrow, it held his personal weapons and other belongings along with a bench. He sat upon one end of this and gestured Bradana to the other.
“Well?” He lifted a brow.
Bradana struggled to master her thoughts. She would have one chance at this, and only one.
“Father, ye ha’ been good to me all these years,” she began. “Like my own father, in truth.”
His expression eased a little. “I think o’ ye as a daughter, Bradana. And care for ye as one.”
Did he? He’d never said so before, though there had been a measure of kindness, aye, and laughter sometimes.
“I hope ye will hear me as a daughter now and understand—I do no’ welcome this marriage.”
It was what Adair had insisted she must convey to Kendrick, that though she held obligations toward him, she did not approve the match. Something she had never done.
His expression changed and grew stern. “Why is this? For a year and more ye ha’ known o’ the match. And ye ha’ met Earrach before. Ye expressed no objections.”
“’Tis easy to believe we may accept events that remain at a distance. Now it is come…”
His eyes moved over her face carefully. “Now that it is come, it is come. Bradana, this is an important alliance. Your failure to go through wi’ it would destroy our good relationship with Mican MacGillean. Not only that, but it would cause great and terrible affront to Mican and his son that could well turn them into enemies.”
Dismay poured through Bradana and stole her words.
“Perhaps ’tis just anticipation getting the better o’ ye.”
“Nay.”
“Or—is this about Adair MacMurtray after all?”
Her gaze came up to meet his.
“My nephew is a gey charming young man. Even I like him, despite the trouble he causes me. And when we are young,” he said almost grimly, “we sometimes let fancy take hold and get the better o’ us. Ye fancy him? Ah, that will pass.”
It would not. An unending stream of lifetimes would not put an end to what she felt for Adair. How could she explain that to this man?
“It is a good match.” He covered her hand where it rested on the bench. “And I need for ye to go through with it.”
Bradana’s eyes filled with tears, which she tried to convince herself were born of anger.
She blurted, “Earrach will not let me bring Wen with me when I go north. He says his hounds will savage him.”
“Is that what all this is about? Let me speak wi’ Mican. Ye will be allowed to tak’ your hound. Now go. The feasting begins soon.”
She stumbled to her feet, pierced to the heart.
Chapter Twenty
Adair did notattend the feast, and Bradana worried for him. She fretted that some other terrible harm had befallen him, perhaps at the hands of her stepbrothers. Or that Kendrick had somehow persuaded him to board his little boat and sail back to Erin. That she would not see him again.
But nay. Adair would not do that. As she felt for him, he felt also for her.
She had dressed again in her new green gown, and her mother’s woman had fussed with her hair. Mother still felt unwell even after her sleep, but she had dragged herself up and given Bradana a smile.
“Ye look beautiful, daughter. Will ye play your harp for them this night?”
“I am no’ certain the men from the north appreciate the harp, Mother.”
