Aingeal reached, at last, for the bread. “You have been here just a few days. It is too soon for criticism.”
“Then let us call it observation.” Étaín waited until Aingeal had taken a reluctant bite before adding lightly, “Your Sir Donal is interesting.”
Aingeal’s hand stopped halfway back to the plate. “‘Your Sir Donal’?” she repeated coolly.
“Yes. The dark one in the yard. The one all the boys are now trying, and failing, to imitate.”
“He is not mine.”
Étaín bit back a smile. “No?”
“No.”
“How sad for someone,” Étaín murmured.
Aingeal gave her a flat look.
Étaín laughed softly and propped her chin on her hand. “Do not glare at me so sternly. I only mean he is striking, and he carries himself like a man with actual substance, which is rarer than it ought to be.”
“He carries himself like a soldier.”
“Mm.” Étaín tipped her head. “And like a man trying very hard not to be seen too closely.”
Aingeal’s gaze sharpened at once. “What do you mean by that?”
“I do not know yet.”
Aingeal’s shoulders tightened in the defensive stillness that always came before she chose her words too carefully.
Étaín watched the change and felt her concern deepen. “You dislike him?” she asked.
Aingeal’s mouth thinned. “I do not know him well enough to decide.”
“That was not what I asked.”
Aingeal set down her cup with a precision that was almost severe. “You have been here only a short while. Why are you suddenly so interested?”
Étaín blinked, then smiled slowly. “I asked because I have eyes. And because every time his name is spoken, you become a fraction less pleasant than usual.”
“I am always pleasant.”
“You are many things. Pleasant is occasional.”
That earned a tiny, unwilling shift at the corner of Aingeal’s mouth.
Étaín pressed a little more gently. “Tell me this, then. Do you trust him?”
The humor vanished from Aingeal’s face at once. “No,” she said too quickly.
Étaín went still. She knew Aingeal had thought of that answer in advance. “And yet,” she said after a pause, “you keep him close.”
Aingeal looked away, toward the open shutter, and the silence that followed told Étaín more than any confession could have. He was a danger already allowed too far inside the walls.
Before she could ask more, a knock sounded at the door.
“Come,” Aingeal called.
The door opened. One of the kitchen maids entered with fresh hot water and a murmured apology. Behind her, another figure paused in the corridor.
