Page 95 of Blood of the Thistle

Bram’s jaw tightened. When she reached for the next page, he said the one word he knew she could not ignore. “Anastasia.”

That succeeded where the prospect of his own death had failed, her hand pausing before her gaze rose to his.

“What of her?”

“If anything happens to me, she should remain here for as long as she wishes.”

A faint crease appeared between his mother’s brows. “Where else would she go?”

“I dinna ken, and that is the difficulty. She has no people, no kin to take her in. If she decides someday that she wants to leave Craig na Coille, I want it seen to that she has the means.”

Mairead sat back slightly, regarding him now with greater attention.

“She is to have coin,” Bram continued. “Enough that she neednae depend upon another’s charity, and Fearchar is to provide horses and an escort if she means to travel. She is not to be sent out into the world alone.” Another thought struck him. “And she is nae to be made to feel she must earn her place here.”

“Has someone done so?”

“Nae.” Bram scowled faintly. “I am telling ye what I want, Mam.”

“So I gather.”

“Nor do I want anyone deciding she ought to marry merely because—” He broke off as his mother’s expression changed, this time plainly enough that he could not ignore it. “What?”

Mairead waved one hand dismissively. “I dinna like this talk, as if ye willna return and see to all of this yourself.” She regarded him for another moment before adding, “And dinna pretend ye willna consider wedding the lass yourself once this business with Raghnall is done.”

Bram pinned his mother with a severe glare. “What makes ye suppose that?”

“Och, I’ve eyes, luv. I see the way ye watch her.”

“Mam.”

“What? Ye do.” Mairead laid aside the parchment in her hand. “I confess I dinna understand the lass entirely. Fine woman she is, but strange ideas she has, living alone and earning her keep by teaching scores of bairns. Mayhap ‘tis an English thing.”

Bram decided there was little profit in correcting that assumption.

“But I dinna need to understand everything about her,” Mairead continued. “Ye are a grown man and long past the age yer father was when he wed me. I might have expected one of our own lasses to catch yer eye before now, but none did, and this one has. I trust ye to ken what sort of woman would make ye happy.”

For several seconds Bram said nothing. His mother had seen what he had not permitted himself to see, and named what he had not permitted himself to name.

Bram looked down at his mother’s lean hand covering his own. Whatever reservations Mairead still possessed about Anastasia, he knew that promise would be kept. “Aye,” he said. “Thank ye, Mam.”

Mairead departed not long afterward, leaving Bram alone with the scattered parchments. He crossed to the narrow window overlooking the courtyard, his thoughts still unsettled.

Anastasia would be safe here. His mother had given him her word.

He should have been satisfied. The matter should have been settled.

Instead, as Bram stood looking into the courtyard, another consequence of his possible death occurred to him, one he could neither entrust to his mother nor arrange through Fearchar.

Anastasia would never know that he’d lied to her.

His fingers curled against the cold stone. If Raghnall killed him, she would be left with the cruelty he’d shown her beneath the peculiar storm. He’d wanted her to leave, and so he had made her believe she was foolish, that the bond between them was something she alone had imagined. If he should die now, that ugly lie would be the only truth she ever knew of him.

With unpleasant clarity, he remembered something she’d once told him about the man she’d expected to marry.

It’s a lot easier to get over someone when they’ve been hurtful and disrespectful, when you realize everything they ever said was all lies.

Sweet Christ.