Page 90 of Blood of the Thistle

Anna thought of the red-haired woman she’d worked beside for much of the morning, strong-backed and cheerful, laughing whenever her youngest boy wandered directly across a patch of ground his mother had only just cleared.

“She seems happy.”

“I ken she is now.” Etta sifted a handful of sand through her fingers. “She wasnae for a long while. Her youngest, Ruairidh, is the babe she was carrying when her husband died. The wee red-haired terror who kept tossing about all the weeds we’d piled so neatly.”

“And what about the woman who kept correcting everything I did?” Anna asked. “The tiny one with the gray braid—I’ve seen her and talked to her several times now but still don’t know her name.”

“Mòrag?” Etta’s face brightened. “Och, Mòrag has corrected everyone since before I was born. Mam says she came into this world displeased with how the midwife was holding her.”

Anna laughed. “That sounds about right.”

“She’s Iseabail’s màthair—you met Iseabail the other morn with Bram, aye?”

“I did.”

“Mòrag’s husband, Donnan, tends one of the holdings nearer the river, and they’ve six children, though only the youngest two remain at home. Iseabail married last autumn. Her husband is one of Bram’s men.”

“Which one?”

“Fergus. Tall fellow, brown hair, has a wee scar here.” Etta drew one finger along the edge of her jaw. “Ye’ll have seen him in the hall. He was with Bram when—” She stopped and shrugged.

“When they were ambushed?” Anna guessed.

“Aye.” Etta picked at the sand between her fingers. “He came home.”

“So Iseabail is married to Fergus, Mòrag is her mother, and Margaret is the one with the four children.”

“Three.”

“You just said she had three when her husband died and was pregnant with another.”

Etta frowned, and stared thoughtfully at the blue sea for a moment. “Aye. Four.”

Anna laughed, dropping her forehead onto her folded arms, and Etta began laughing as well.

“Nearly lost one there,” Etta admitted, and then laughed and rolled onto one side long enough to scoop up a handful of sand and let it sift slowly through her fingers.

For a moment they were quiet, listening to the gentle wash of the sea against the shore.

“Do ye like my brother, Anna?”

The question was so direct, so entirely without preamble, that Anna nearly choked on her own saliva. She lifted her head sharply from her arms and stared at Etta.

Anna narrowed her eyes at her, but Etta only smiled and returned her attention to the sand trickling between her fingers.

“He’s... complicated,” Anna said at last.

Etta snorted. “All men are, but Bram more than most.” She glanced sideways at Anna. “Ye still havena answered.”

Anna lowered her chin onto her folded arms again, suddenly finding the water considerably easier to look at than her new friend. She could lie. She could laugh it off, insist that of course she liked Bram well enough, considering he'd brought her safely all the way here. But Etta had offered her friendship so easily and sincerely that Anna found she didn’t want to repay it with dishonesty.

“Yes,” she admitted quietly. “I like him.”

Etta’s smile grew.

“Don’t.”

“I said naught.”