Kate considered that. Then she lifted her own chin exactly so, and the two of them stood there together in the middle of that hostile hall like a pair of fools daring anyone to say a word about it.
Maisie looked from one to the other and cackled aloud with pure delight.
From the dais, Ragnall watched his wife make his sister laugh, and found he could not look away from either of them.
“Ye’re doin’ it again,” Alastair remarked.
“Doin’ what?”
“Starin’ at yer bride like a man at a fire he’s nae sure he’s allowed to warm his hands by.” Alastair drank, unbothered by the look this earned him. “They’ll take her, ye ken. In time.”
“Will they?”
“Aye. They’re stubborn, nae stupid. They’ll watch her for a year, and they’ll test her, and if she holds, they’ll take her.” He cast a glance around the hall. “The trouble is the year, Ragnall. It’s a long while to stand in a room full of folk waitin’ for ye to fail.”
Ragnall said nothing to that, because there was nothing to say to it that was not a lie.
A year of this. Of her walkin’ into a room and talk stoppin’. Of every cup she’s handed bein’ watched to see if she drinks it. And she’ll bear it; that’s the black joke of it. She’ll bear it with her chin up and her tongue sharp, and she’ll never once ask me to make it easier, because she’d sooner die than ask me for anythin’.
He set down his cup.
“Where are ye away to?” Alastair asked.
“To dance with me wife,” Ragnall said, “in front of the whole hall.”
He crossed toward her, and the crowd parted for him, and her heart began to behave very badly indeed.
“Me Lady.” He held out his hand. It was a very deliberate thing, done where every soul in the hall could see it. “Will ye dance?”
“Is that a request or an edict?”
“I’ve had me fill of edicts this month.” Something moved at the corner of his mouth. “It’s a request.”
She put her hand in his.
He danced better than she cared to admit. He danced like a man who had done it since he was a boy, sure and unhurried. His hand on her waist was warm through the loch-blue silk, and the fiddles went round, and the firelight went round, and the hostile faces went round with them.
After a while, Olivia found she had stopped noticing them at all.
“Ye’re glarin’ at me,” he observed.
“I’m concentrating.”
“Ye’re glarin’ at me while ye concentrate. It’s a rare gift.” He turned her neatly and drew her back in. “Ye’ve been countin’ the exits the whole night.”
“How would ye ken that?”
“Because I’ve been watchin’ ye the whole night, as ye ken fine, or ye’d nae have asked.”
Olivia missed a step. He caught her but did not remark on it, and that small mercy was somehow worse than if he had.
“They hate me,” she said.
“Aye.”
“Ye’re meant to say, ‘Nay, they daenae, ye’re imaginin’ it.’”
“Would ye have believed me?”
