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“How was your hunt, Brother?” Avelina asked.

“We will taste the rewards of our hunt this eve,” he said. Which meant it had gone well.

“Tannochbrae said nothing of the cattle?” Kieran asked.

Ewan answered nay, followed by more questions from Niall’s brother, each of which, along with their answers, was as terse as the last.

She caught Niall’s gaze. He seemed disinterested in the men’s conversation but very interested in her. Avelina’s pulse quickened. The conversation was as uncomfortable as her insides, which swirled about every time Niall looked at her. Though the feeling was less of a discomfort than it was. . . something else.

An impossible situation, this. The hatred at this table was as palatable as the affection she’d begun to bear for Niall. Finally, and to her dismay, her brother addressed the one topic Avelina would have hoped to avoid.

“You and my sister,” he said, as if she were not sitting just next to him.

When he did not finish, Niall asked innocently, “Aye?”

“I should have known better than to leave the two of you alone at the keep.”

Avelina cared not that her brother’s nostrils flared—a clear indication he was angry.

“I am sitting just beside you,” she said. “And can speak to whomever I please.”

“Why you would wish to, knowing what he’s done—”

“What his clan has done. Niall was just a boy.”

Her brother’s harsh laugh cut off the remainder of her words. “Niall? So, you are using his given name?”

“Avelina,” Niall said, a direct response to her brother’s displeasure at her using Niall’s given name, “may surely choose with whom to speak and with whatever level of familiarity she chooses.”

Her brother stood.

Niall did the same.

Avelina sighed.

’Twas inevitable, surely. However. . . “Not in our host’s hall,” she said, aware they were now very much the center of attention.

Their host held his hand before him, gesturing that the two men should sit.

“He gives us aid,” Kieran said, “which surely we need to learn what truly has been happening with these cattle. Would you get us thrown from the hall because you cannae conduct a civil conversation?”

He seemed to address his brother just as much as her own.

Neither man said a word.

Finally, as Avelina held her breath waiting, they began to sit at the same time.

“Keep my sister’s name from your mouth,” her brother added.

Avelina rolled her eyes. “Ewan,” she warned.

“I make no promises,” Niall said in response.

Despite it, the meal passed in relative peace, until the chieftain stood at the end of the meal and summoned all four of them to his private chamber. Escorted from the hall and to his solar chamber not far from it, Avelina said a silent prayer no argument had broken out.

That was, until the chieftain welcomed the men but stopped her at the doorframe.

“I am certain they will send word to you, my lady, when our conversation is finished.”