How did someone manage to keep their skin that milky white?Surely, she was in the sunlight sometimes?
“Eoghan!Come!I want ye to meet my bride!”William shouted as he stood up from his seat.Ailith rose as well.If William was on his feet, this must be someone important.
The man leaned into the table so he and William could clasp forearms.
“Ailith, ‘tis my old friend and Grant kin, Eoghan.He’s been like a brother to me since he toddled when he walked!”
“Och, but I was on a horse before ye, my long friend.Ye were far too top-heavy and could barely stay in the saddle.”The man shifted his gaze to her.“Good eve to ye, Ailith.”
Ailith grinned at their brotherly affection.With so many siblings, he needed another?Ailith was excited to meet this man who had been so close to William for so long, and she was surprised he was a Grant.Their clans were close, aye, but with all the trauma the Grants had been through, having Eoghan attend meant that much more.
Ailith leaned over the table as Eoghan took her hand and kissed it.
“Ye are more beautiful than I recall,” he told her with a wicked grin.“But then, when I last saw ye, ye were an awkward lass with gangly arms following your brother around like a red-haired shadow.”
Ailith kept her smile on Eoghan, but slid her eyes to the woman next to him.Her face was not as open and engaging as Eoghan’s.His wife or sister or whoever this was definitely did not seem to care for Ailith.
As if on cue, Eoghan turned to the woman.“And my sister Betris.Do ye recall each other?”
Before Ailith could say anything, Betris spoke, thankfully saving her from answering.
“I recall ye, Ailith.Your red hair is unmistakable.I heard ye charmed William with it.”
Ailith didn’t know what to say to that, and she didn’t miss how the woman’s eyes gave her a once-over – the type of look Ailith had seen on other women before when they met someone who made them jealous.The green-eyed monster was peeking out behind Betris’s brown gaze.
Ailith patted said red hair that she had plaited and twisted up for the night with the help of Muire, who had also lent her several silver hairpins engraved with tiny flowers.It helped keep the mane of hair under some control, even as wisps and loose tendrils fell around her cheeks and shoulders.
“Och, well, no’ all of us can have tamed hair,” Ailith said, hoping it came off as kind and not catty.“And my brothers are cursed with it, too.”
Ailith gestured to Seocan, who leaned forward and ran his hands through his own mess of red waves that curled around his ears and forehead and down his jaw.“Aye.‘Tis quite the Gordon curse.Even my bairn has it!”
Everyone at the table laughed at Seocan’s comment, alleviating some of the underlying tension that seemed to be cutting through the joy of the night.
Everyone but Betris, who merely gave a tight smile.
Then her brown eyes moved past Seocan to Mairi, who was smiling at her husband’s jest.
“Mairi!Och, I have no’ seen ye in years!”
Mairi’s eyes lit up as she reached across the table to hug her friend.
Oh, great,Ailith thought.
She tried to ignore Betris’s gushing welcome to Mairi and listen to Eoghan and William swap childhood stories, but the fact that her sister-in-law, who didn’t seem overly fond of her, was friendly with this Betris, who didn’t seem overly fond of her, didn’t bode well.
Don’t read into it!Ailith told herself.Naught will happen at your wedding celebration.
Eoghan and William clasped forearms again.
“Dinna go too far.I want to speak more with ye later this night,” William told him.
Eoghan pointed to a table near the pipers.“Find me there.But no’ too late.Ye have a wedding to get to in the morn.”
William turned and winked at Ailith.“Och, dinna fret.The devil himself could no’ keep me from that!”
***
Mairi sighed in her seat.
