Page 84 of Blood of the Thistle

And more annoying, it did not escape Bram’s notice that Anastasia didn’t direct anything at him, did not say ‘please tell her’ or ‘would you translate’. She spoke directly to the women as if they were indeed speaking the same language, she smiled at them, laughed with them, looked directly at them despite understanding naught of what they said, and yet she had scarcely looked at him.

By the time Mòrag and Iseabail finally continued toward the keep, Anastasia offering a Gaelic farewell that sounded as unnatural as her greeting, Bram’s earlier amusement had disappeared entirely.

While she stared after the departing mother and daughter, Bram studied her for a moment before asking, “Have I offended ye, Anastasia?” In his mind, in hindsight, he realized he should have asked: Have I offended you anew? Today?

She blinked. “What?”

“I asked if I’ve given ye some fresh reason to be displeased with me today.”

Her brow creased and once more she didn’t meet his gaze but stared at his shoulder. “No.”

He gestured vaguely toward the keep and the door through which the women had disappeared. “Ye spoke more willingly and openly to two women whose language ye dinna understand than ye have to me.” Ye smiled so bluidy easily with them.

She shrugged, seeming to shrink a bit before she raised her chin and said, with annoying coolness, “They haven’t given me a reason not to.”

The words were quiet, almost matter-of-fact, and thus they struck harder than anger might have.

Bram’s jaw tightened. “I should assume then, that I am being punished for what I said?”

Anastasia shook her head. “I’m not punishing you,” she said flatly.

“Then what would ye call it?”

For several seconds she only looked at him, her expression shifting as if she were weighing several different replies—some true, he supposed, and some not.

At last she sighed. “I’m keeping my distance—isn’t that what you wanted?”

Bram’s expression sharpened but she went on before he might have replied to the instigation of her question.

“I’m grateful to you—very grateful,” she said, softer now. “You could have left me where you found me that first day. You kept me safe and brought me here. I won’t forget that. But I know better now than to... read more into anything said or done between us.”

Following that, he heard inside his brain, Are you happy now?—but he couldn’t say if he imagined that in her voice or his own.

Anna looked past him toward the keep. “There she is.”

Bram followed her gaze and saw Etta crossing the courtyard toward them with a hurried stride, her accusatory gaze fastened on him.

“God’s wounds, what are you two talking about that you look ready to commit murder?” Etta asked in their own tongue.

“Calm yourself,” he snapped at his sister. “I’ve not bitten off her head.” Not so much as she’s bitten off mine.

Possibly sensing the familiar tension in their tones, Anastasia interjected, “Your brother was showing me around.”

“Around what?”

“Well, pointing things out, I guess is more apt—the buildings, the chapel, the stables.”

Etta looked faintly disbelieving. “Is that so?” she asked, attempting to fix a withering glare onto Bram.

He rolled his eyes. “Guid day then,” he murmured and took himself off.

Bluidy hell.

***

Later than afternoon, having spent the better part of the morning putting the newly reorganized companies through their paces, Bram rode back to the keep from the training fields with Harsain and several others. He listened with only half an ear while Domnall defended the miserable showing of several younger archers and Harsain maintained that no amount of wind could explain why one of them had nearly put an arrow into a grazing cow.

“Mayhap he meant to kill the cow,” Niall suggested, spitting neatly to the side of his destrier. “In which case, ye must allow the shot wasnae so poor.”