Chapter 12
Emeric was not at breakfast the next morning. As Anna dragged herself downstairs, eyes grainy and head aching, she found herself looking around for him. She was still annoyed with him, but that didn’t stop her feeling disappointed when he wasn’t in the great hall.
Laird Douglas and Lady Hildie were there, along with a good number of the castle’s residents. It seemed after last night’s revelry, she wasn’t the only one taking a late breakfast.
Hildie looked up with a smile as Anna entered and waved her over. “Come join us, my dear,” she said, patting the bench next to her. “Cook has just brought out some fresh porridge.”
The thought of porridge made Anna’s queasy stomach do somersaults, but she dutifully took a seat next to Emeric’s mother and forced a smile. “I think I might just have dry bread.”
Laird Douglas snorted a laugh. “It seems I’m not the only one with a sore head this morning, eh?”
She’d been introduced to the laird last night. He was a big jovial bear of a man with laughter lines around his eyes and a voice like a foghorn. She seemed to remember challenging him to a drinking contest.
“You’re definitely not,” Anna agreed. “It feels like someone is driving a tent peg through my skull.”
The burly laird laughed louder. “Ye are a lass after my own heart, ye are!” He gave her a good-natured thump on the back that nearly sent her face first into a bowl of porridge.
Forcing a weak smile, Anna gingerly bit into her piece of bread, hoping that it would settle her churning stomach. Despite the noisy chatter that filled the hall, she couldn’t help but notice Emeric’s prominent absence. His spot at the high table remained conspicuously empty and Anna tried to quell the strange mix of worry and irritation that rose within her.
She didn’t like the way they’d left things last night. The memory of their argument flickered in her mind like a stubborn flame, resisting all her attempts to douse it.
The door suddenly flew open in a rush of cold air that whipped at the embers in the fireplace and sent a flurry of soot skittering across the flagged stone floor. Aislinn came barging in. Her typically rosy face was ashen, wind-blown locks hanging loosely around it.
“It’s all gone wrong!” she cried, stomping over to the high table. “It’s ruined!”
“Calm down, child,” Hildie soothed. She laid a comforting hand on Aislinn’s trembling shoulder. “What’s gone wrong?”
Aislinn held up her hands in which she held a ragged bunch of flowers. Some attempt had been made to arrange them, but it hadn’t quite worked out and they stuck out allover the place, tied with a stringy bow. Some were wilted and looked half-dead as though picked too early.
“The bouquets are awful!”
Laird Douglas blew out a breath and pressed his hand to his chest. “Dear God, lass!” he boomed. “Is that all? The way ye stormed in here I thought we were under attack!”
Aislinn turned a withering stare on her uncle. “What do ye mean ‘is that all?’ My wedding is coming up and at this rate I willnae have a single bloody bouquet! I’ll be the laughingstock of the Highlands!”
The laird raised an eyebrow at Aislinn’s dramatics, but before he could speak, Anna cut in. “Maybe I can help.”
All eyes turned to her.
“Ye can?” Aislinn asked.
Anna shrugged. “I got a job as a florist once.” One among a hundred different things she’d tried. “And wedding bouquets were our specialty.”
Aislinn’s eyes widened in hope, her previous despair melting away. “Really? Ye could do that?”
