Page 52 of The Highland Ghost’s Virgin

Grisselle looked at Isobel. Isobel looked at the ceiling.

"By yer face, of course," Grisselle said.

A pause.

"Me face? What’s so interesting about me face?" he said. “Nobody ever finds me face interesting.”

"It's very large," Grisselle said, into her cup. "From her angle."

Senga made a sound at the hearth that was almost certainly a laugh converted at the last moment into a cough. Alpin did not look at Senga.

"Perhaps," Isobel said, with tremendous diplomatic care, "ye could try nae looking directly at her when ye do it."

"I'm nae looking directly at her."

"Ye're looking at her the way ye look at everything," Isobel said. "Like she’s a ledger you are trying to understand. She's a few weeks old; she doesnae understand distrust yet, it just reads as interesting to her."

"That is the most confusing thing I’ve ever heard about a bairn."

"Try turning slightly," Grisselle said. "And look at the window instead."

He turned slightly and looked at the window, which meant he was looking at Grisselle's general direction without looking at her specifically, which she decided not to remark on. Nora, presented with the cloth from a face that had stopped being interesting, took it immediately and began working at it.

"There," Grisselle said.

Alpin said nothing, holding very still, resolutely not looking at the baby eating his shirt.

Greer came in from the side passage, took in the scene at the table, and stopped.

She looked at Alpin. At the cloth. At the angle of his head. "Ye're holding the cloth too flat, me Laird," she said, coming around the table without breaking stride. "She has to work too hard for it. Tilt it down, here…" She adjusted his wrist with two fingers, brisk as setting a bone. "Let it pool at the tip. There."

Nora, presented with a better angle, latched on properly and stayed.

"Oh," Alpin said.

"Aye," Greer said. "Oh." She went to the hearth and said something to Senga about the morning stores and didn't look back. Alpin sat at the table with Nora, eating from the cloth in his hand like he'd been doing it for years instead of eleven minutes.

Isobel caught Grisselle's eye across the table.

Grisselle looked down at her cup.

Outside the window, the loch was flat and bright in the morning. From the yard, Niall's voice carried through the glass, loud enough to make out every word.

"I'm telling ye, she favors the left foreleg. Look at her."

"She doesnae favor anything; she's standing."

"She's standing like that, which is different from standing normally."

"That's how she always stands."

"Then she's always favored it, and nobody's noticed."

Senga turned from the hearth without looking up from her spoon. "Greer, did ye want the rest of this for the midday pot or are we finishing it now?"

"Finish it now," Greer said from the doorway. "There's venison coming up from the village this afternoon; we'll not need to stretch it."

"Cait." Senga pointed. "Left."