Page 47 of The Shape of Silence

Tormod muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like a prayer for patience.

Tonight none of it irritated Morggán as it might have. He found himself more interested in Avery than the argument itself. She seemed to understand what Eòin did not, that Alasdair was stirring the pot for sport.

Her lips twitched in a near-smile as her gaze moved back and forth between Eòin’s growing outrage and confusion and Alasdair’s entirely fabricated indignation. Firelight softened her features warmly, catching gold through strands of pale hair that hung in loose waves over her shoulder. The smile was quickly concealed, though, as she pressed her lips together, as if to remind herself to stay composed.

He’d grown accustomed to her quiet solemnity, but this—this sweetness emerging slowly from beneath all that caution and isolation—felt like witnessing something rare.

She’d always been beautiful, but these guarded hints of warmth revealed something he had begun to suppose the world itself had nearly pressed out of her, some lighter part of her nature long buried beneath solitude and survival and years spent speaking mostly to herself and a hound.

More than once tonight, when amusement touched her, her glance slipped sideways toward him, as if seeking his acknowledgement, or perhaps only wanting to share her reaction with him. And every time she did, it left him increasingly and intoxicatingly aware of her beside him, and he began to wish she did it more.

“Ye see?” Alasdair demanded suddenly, pointing a spoon accusingly toward Eòin. “Even the lass kens I’m right.”

Avery startled slightly at being dragged into the argument. She straightened her back and waved her hands together before dropping them back to her lap. “No. I don’t know what you’re arguing about,” she confessed.

“Nae one does, lass,” Tormod muttered.

“Simple-minded, ye all be,” Alasdair informed them.

“Simple-minded?” Eòin repeated. “Ye began this by claiming drunk fighting is a skill.”

“It is a skill.”

“It’s idiocy.”

“ʼTis nae,” Alasdair agreed easily. “ʼTis skill. Ask the lass—said as much herself.”

Even Tormod huffed faint amusement through his nose at that.

It was one of Alasdair’s hallmarks, to claim that another had said something, or agreed with him on one of his bullshite statements.

Like Tormod always says, was a constant in Alasdair’s repertoire.

Donnchadh avowed just yesterday ye dinna have the upper body strength to wield the mace, was another fabrication Morggán had overheard more than once, used most often on green soldiers.

Laird claims ye’d drown crossing a puddle.

Tormod said if stupidity were coin ye’d outfit three armies—just yesterday, he said that to me.

Finlay says to me—and I dinna invent this myself, ʼtis I’m only the messenger—that ye’ve the courage of wet bread.

The list went on. It was, in fact, endless. It seemed every day, Alasdair had some new quote to share.

Anything to provoke another, anything to entertain himself.

Just now, he did not disappoint. Into the brief lull, he announced heatedly as young Cailean happened to walk past the seated group, “Why do ye speak so, Donnchadh? I trow young Cailean could best one of God’s men in a fight, and aye, even if the priest had but only one hand.”

Cailean jerked abruptly at the mention of his name, and stared, aghast, at Donnchadh, who happened to roll his eyes at Alasdair at the moment, and hovered with uncertainty until Tormod waved him on, telling him to ignore Alasdair.

Avery’s mouth curved again before she could quite suppress it, and as though compelled by habit now, her gaze flicked briefly toward Morggán once more.

He found himself smiling back at her, enjoying every blessed minute of her wee abandon.

“Tell the lass about Perth,” Finlay said suddenly around a mouthful of bread. “When Alasdair challenged that blacksmith.”

“Christ,” groaned Donnchadh.

“It wasnae a challenge,” Alasdair objected immediately. “The man insulted my mother.”