Page 70 of Blood of the Thistle

Bram approached and stepped into her view. “They’re curious,” he said, his voice low. “They’ll question ye. Whatever tale ye tell, keep it simple. Dinnae speak of... where ye came from.”

She gave a short, tight nod, unable or unwilling to meet his gaze.

He set his hand at her back and urged her forward. He could feel the resistance in her frame as they neared his family.

Etta stared openly, her eyes snagging on the unaccountable shortness of the skirt. His mother was quieter, her gaze fixed on Anastasia’s face like a scribe reading script.

“Ye’ve brought us yer war bride,” Etta spoke first, switching to English, her tone warm and teasing, which she effectively ruined by adding, “or a thief. I have nae certainty yet.”

“Etta,” Mairead snapped automatically, though her eyes never left Anastasia. “I am the laird’s màthair, lass, Mairead Mac Cailin.”

“I’m Anna—Anastasia Ellis. It’s a pleasure to meet you,” she replied, her voice level.

“And whence—?” his mother began.

“Anastasia and I met during my escape, Màthair,” Bram spoke up, hoping to stave off at least half their questions. “She’s nae from Scotia, as ye may have surmised, was as desperate as I when we met, and has proven herself a... valuable traveling companion.”

His mother’s brows rose at the hesitation, while somewhere behind him Harsain made a small sound in his throat that Bram elected to ignore.

Mairead recovered quickly and offered Anastasia a polite smile, but Bram could practically see the words cycling through her mind, each one discarded and replaced as she attempted to make sense of the strange young woman her son had brought home: beggar, fugitive, leman, runaway wife, perhaps even English spy before she was through with it.

He continued before she could settle upon any of them.

“Anastasia came to my aid after a wee skirmish with some English scouts.”

His mother’s gaze snapped immediately to him.

“ʼTis true,” Bram assured her. “ʼTwas Anastasia who tended my wounds, and ʼtwas she who cleaved the English shackle from my wrist.”

The words wiped the last traces of suspicion from Fearchar’s expression and changed Harsain’s scrutiny entirely. His captain looked from Bram’s wrist to Anastasia and then regarded her for several moments with a solemnity that required no translation.

His mother, unfortunately, heard only one portion of the explanation.

“English shackles?” Mairead repeated, her face blanching. “Oh, I canna bear to think upon it, and yet I will insist ye tell me all.”

“Mam—”

“All.”

“Aye.”

Apparently satisfied that she’d secured his eventual confession, Mairead clasped her hands before her—wrung them, in truth—and turned again to Anastasia. “And what misfortune befell ye, lass, that ye found yerself in such dire straits as to be traveling with my son and...” She paused, looked Anastasia up and down once more, and finished, “garbed in this fashion?”

Anastasia glanced down at her thoroughly travel-stained clothing. “These are... my clothes.”

“Saints preserve us,” Mairead murmured in Gaelic, barely audibly, all while attempting to maintain her smile.

“So many questions have I,” Etta announced.

“Of that I have nae doubt,” Bram muttered.

“Anastasia’s circumstance was nigh as dangerous as my own upon English soil,” he informed them, “and I could nae in guid conscience abandon her to whatever fate the English might have visited upon her.”

“Nae, nae, of course ye wouldnae,” Mairead agreed, though some measure of uncertainty remained.

“Did ye fight the English, too?” Etta asked, her brows climbing toward the middle of her forehead.

Anastasia touched a hand to her chest, evidently astonished that his sister might imagine such a thing. “Me? No—oh, gosh, no. I wouldn’t know how to—”