"Ye look as though ye're preparin' for a siege instead of a festival, Fergus." Alasdair stepped up beside him, his boots silent in the long grass, holding out two heavy horn cups. Fergus reached out and took one, his fingers wrapping around the cool horn.
"I've seen Jacobite skirmishes with less bloody noise," Fergus muttered, taking a small sip.
"Aye, perhaps," Alasdair agreed, his dark eyes scanning the crowd. "But fewer drunk grandmothers to contend with."
As if summoned by the very mention of her authority, a maid serving swept directly past them, her white apron catching the firelight as she carried a massive iron tray of steaming meat pies. She paused just long enough to bark at a grizzled clansman old enough to be her father.
"If ye drop another pewter cup tonight, Hamish MacPherson, I'll have ye scrubbin' the lower stable floors with the boys until Christ's mass comes around."
Hamish merely grinned into his foam, his teeth missing at the side. "Ye threaten me with that every year, woman."
"And one year I'll mean it," she snapped, her skirts swirling as she marched back toward the grease-troughs.
Alasdair watched her go with the deep, quiet respect of a fellow commander. "A terrifyin' woman, that one."
"Aye."
The music swelled louder, the fiddles joining the pipes as more families flooded into the lower meadow from the high road.
Fergus recognized nearly every face in the firelight now. That fact still managed to strike him hard when he wasn't looking. A year ago, half of these very people had looked at him like a foreign intruder. A soldier wearing a stolen laird's name. Tonight, they shouted greetings as they passed his post, their heads unshaded.
Beside him, Alasdair smirked into his horn cup. "They like ye, ye stubborn bastard."
"They tolerate the name," Fergus corrected.
A sudden movement near the eastern edge of the field caught his attention before his mind could construct a defense against looking.
Margaret.
She was standing beside Isobel near the largest firepit, her slender frame wrapped in a heavy tartan wool blanket against the wind. Little Lilly was cradled against her shoulder, a tiny bundle of pale wool.
The yellow firelight flickered across her face in shifting, liquid gold, and the dress beneath the blanket caught it differentlyfrom everything else in the meadow. Deep, burning red. The color he had chosen in a room where he had been trying very hard not to let his face say anything, while the seamstress watched him.
The firelight suited it. He had known it would.
She was laughing at something Isobel had whispered. The bright sound of her laughter carried through the roaring crowd in brief, clear pieces, reaching his ears despite the scream of the pipes.
His fingers tightened around the horn cup until the bone groaned under the pressure.
Alasdair followed the line of his stare, his smile fading into something much quieter. "Ah," he said softly.
Fergus watched Margaret carefully pass Lilly into Maisie's waiting arms, her hands briefly lingering on the child's blanket to adjust the tuck against the wind. Lilly immediately reached out her tiny, pale fist and grabbed a stubborn handful of Margaret's honey curls, tugging with all her little might. Margaret winced, her shoulders hiking, but then she laughed again, leaning into the pull rather than pulling away.
Because apparently, physical pain did not discourage her.
"She shouldnae fit here this easily," Fergus said, the words slipping out past his teeth before he could stop them. "She's a Lowland girl from a soft house."
Alasdair nearly choked on his ale, a sharp cough escaping him. "God help ye, Fergus, ye sound jealous of yer own bloody clan."
"I am nae jealous."
"Aye, of course." Alasdair's mouth twitched with a dangerous smirk.
Fergus looked away sharply, his face burning hotter than the peat.
Unfortunately, turning his head required looking directly toward the center of the clearing where the dancing had begun.
Margaret had been dragged into the great circle now, pulled there by three older weavers who completely ignored her protests and her flour-stained reputation from the afternoon.
