“A grave military matter settled through joint command.”
“Do not sound surprised.”
“I am not.” His gaze moved to the boys, then back to her. “We work well together.”
Warmth rose in her face. She turned toward the hall before he could see too much of it. “Come, then. There are pigs invading a garden, and I expect your military expertise may be required.”
Donal fell into step beside her. “Are the pigs armed?”
“With entitlement.”
“Dangerous creatures.”
“The worst.”
As they crossed the yard together, Aingeal realized she was smiling. Not because she had forgotten the danger. Because, for a little while, it had not been the only thing between them.
By the fourth day after Étaín’s arrival, Aingeal knew the danger was no longer only outside her walls. The border still needed watching. The stores still needed counting. Two western families still slept in the lower chambers by the bakehouse because they did not trust the roads enough to return home. The granary roof held, but only because men checked the hide seam every few hours. Tomas had spent most of the morning muttering over how long the saved barley might last if the weather turned cruel.
All of that should have filled her mind.
Instead, she found herself watching Étaín observe Donal.
It was not jealousy alone, though jealousy still moved through her in sharp, shameful flashes. Not fear that Étaín would charm Donal away with a smile or a soft laugh. Aingeal knew her cousin too well to believe she would set out to wound her.
What frightened Aingeal most was Étaín’s attention. It had changed. Her cousin was still warm. Still bright. Still capable of making a room soften merely by stepping into it. But when she looked at Donal now, the brightness thinned. Something sharper moved beneath it.
Aingeal stood that afternoon in the shadow of the gallery stair and looked down into the lower yard with a stillness that, from a distance, might have passed for patience. Near the training ground, Donal stood with Seamus and two boys who were trying, and failing, to look older than they were.
Étaín came down from the hall carrying a cup in one hand and a strip of bread in the other. She crossed the yard without hurry, pausing once to smile at a maid and again to ask after an old shepherd’s cough. By the time she reached the training ground, both boys had straightened, and even Seamus’s hard mouth had twitched.
She said something to Donal.
Aingeal could not hear the words.
Donal turned his head, listened, and answered. As always, he did not encourage her. He did not lean toward her the way men often did when Étaín looked at them with bright, easy attention. He remained polite, grave, and attentive.
Nothing improper passed between them, and that should have comforted her. It did not. Because Étaín was not merely speaking to him. She was measuring him.
Aingeal felt the knowledge settle cold beneath her ribs.
Maybe Étaín saw something. Maybe Étaín, with all that warmth others mistook for harmlessness, had begun to notice what Aingeal had refused to see clearly because wanting Donal had made her careless.
That was worse than jealousy. This was the fear that another woman was not stealing his attention but uncovering his truth.
Later, in the hall, Étaín seemed to find him again without seeming to try.
Tomas had spread the winter maps over the long table near the fire. Donal stood on one side, one hand braced on the wood, speaking quietly with Brennach about the western ridge. Étaín came to look, drawn by interest rather than design, and Tomas shifted aside to make room because everyone shifted for Étaín if she smiled and asked kindly.
Aingeal, across the room speaking with Father Cillian, saw it all.
Étaín bent over the map, one finger hovering above the inked roads. Brennach muttered something that made her grin. Donal answered a question after a pause, and Aingeal saw Étaín’s eyes sharpen again.
Recognition almost. Or the beginning of it.
Aingeal’s stomach tightened.
She heard Father Cillian ask her something about the displaced families and answered because she knew how to answer while only half present. She had done it for years.
