“Ye ken I could just teach them meself,” she argued. “Ye dinnae have to go out of yer way to do this.”
Freya shot her a withering look through the mirror. “It’s nae out of me way, and these girls are goin’ to be family soon. And ye ken I take care of me family.”
Marissa rolled her eyes but didn’t argue. Her sister’s voice had taken on a tone that she knew all too well. One that told her that any arguments would fall on deaf ears.
“I’ve never met so many independent women,” Amara murmured.
Her voice was soft, as if she was speaking to herself. But when Marissa met her eyes in the mirror, they were shining with excitement.
“What do ye mean?” Freya asked.
Amara shook her head, disrupting Ayla and Marissa’s braiding briefly before settling down.
“It’s just,” she explained, her voice high-pitched and filled with awe, “ye all have done so much. Despite the loss of yer parents, ye were able to make a name for yerselves, outside of men. I mean, ye were a healer, Lady McEwan. And ye…” Her gaze flicked to Marissa. “Yer stories are incredible. When ye were recountin’ that one yesterday, I could hardly look away. Ye’ve established yerselves outside of the men in yer lives. And it’s somethin’ that I… somethin’ that we…” she trailed off.
For a moment, Marissa wondered how Amara was going to finish that sentence. Wondered who the ‘we’ referred to. But when her gaze flicked to Ayla, she had her answer.
Her future sister-in-law was chewing on the inside of her cheek. Her hands had stilled in Amara’s hair, a plait half-formed between her slender fingers. But she was still staring at the top of Amara’s head as if she was working intently.
There was a pause, and finally, Ayla sighed.
“She’s right,” she began, as if admitting it was something shameful. “It’s somethin’ Amara and I have talked about since we were wee lasses. Since her maither worked in the castle. For as long as I can remember, in fact.”
“We always wondered if it was possible,” Amara picked up. “To nae have to be what everyone expects us to be. To be ourselves, even if we have to get married.”
“Even if wewantto get married,” Ayla amended. “Because I do want that. To find a handsome and strong husband who will love me unconditionally. But I want to marry him because Iwantto, nae because Ihaveto. And that’s somethin’ ye have done. Both of ye.”
Her grey eyes flicked to Freya and then to Marissa.
Not for the first time, Marissa felt a rush of affection for the women in the room with her.
Growing up, she had always been proud of Freya, had always admired her tenacity and ability to make do. But it was something she had only just now realized that she’d started taking for granted.
“I was lucky,” Marissa murmured softly, drawing the attention of the other women in the room. “Lucky that I had someone like Freya and that she was strong enough to teach me and Abigailthat we could be who we wanted to be. And that Michael, when he fell in love with her and they married, allowed us to be people instead of just wives and future maithers.”
Abigail nodded from where she sat in her reading chair. She was looking more alert than she had since they’d first walked into the bedchamber.
“We’ve never been treated like a burden,” she explained. “And I ken how lucky we are for that.”
“Dinnae get me wrong,” Ayla piped up, suddenly blinking back tears. “Arthur… He’s… Well, he and Joseph are the best big braithers. They’ve never made me do anythin’ I dinnae want to. They’d be perfectly content to let me live in this castle for the rest of me days and be a spinster. They’d pay Amara until the day she died, and we’d get to be best friends and paint pictures and read books…” she trailed off.
The other women watched her patiently.
“But…?” Freya prompted, her tone prodding and motherly.
Marissa looked at her. Since she’d gotten pregnant, there had been slow changes about her. Her older sister had always been the more matronly of the three, the one that had always seemed destined to become a mother.
But it was only now that Marissa was seeing her with nothing but affection and patience written in the lines of her lovely face thatshe realized just how much her sister was fully growing into the role.
Just as surely as that baby was growing in her belly, Freya was growing into the mother she was always destined to be.
“But,” Amara continued for her friend, “the council.”
That was all she needed to say. The other three women nodded in understanding.
“Why is the council so different here?” Abigail asked, her burning curiosity palpable.
Marissa watched as Ayla and Amara locked eyes in the mirror, a silent conversation passing between the two. There was an almost imperceptible motion, a shake of Ayla’s head, but Marissa didn’t miss it.
