Page 34 of The Highland Ghost’s Virgin

"Aye, but ye neednae look quite so grim while ye're doing it. Grandda carried plenty and still found time to invent a selkie wife for me entertainment." She tucked her knees up under her, settling deeper into the window seat. "I worry about ye sometimes. Ye ken that."

"Ye worry about everyone. It's yer particular talent."

"It's a talent that requires practice, and ye give me ample opportunity for it." She said it lightly, but her eyes stayed on him a beat longer, searching for something he wasn't ready to show her. "Ye've seemed different, this past fortnight. Lighter, some days. Then heavier again, like tonight. I daenae ken what to make of it."

"There's nothing to make of it."

"Ye keep saying that. I keep nae believing ye. We could go on like this all evening, if ye have the patience for it." She smiled, taking the sting from the words. "I'll stop asking, for tonight. But only for tonight."

"Generous of ye."

"I am, generally, an extremely generous person. Ye should tell people that more often. Improve me reputation."

She reopened her book, though she kept talking, apparently unwilling to let the conversation end entirely on his terms. "Ye ken, if ye ever did want to talk about whatever's put that look on yer face, I wouldnae tell a soul. Nae Greer, nae the council, nae even the mare, and she's the most discreet creature in this entire castle."

"I'll remember that."

"See that ye do." Isobel's eyes dropped back to her page, though the smile stayed. "Go on, then. Off to bed, or wherever it is broody Lairds go to brood. I have a selkie wife to get back to."

Alpin stood, and paused a moment in the doorway, watching his sister curled into the window seat with their grandfather's book open on her knee, entirely at ease in a way he found he envied more than he'd admit to her directly.

"Isobel."

She looked up.

"The height's nae the only thing I got from him," he said. "Ye should ken that. Whatever else ye think of me."

Something shifted in her face, warm and a little surprised, though she covered it quickly with a smirk. "I already ken that." She tipped her head, studying him a beat too long. "Do ye?"

He didn't answer that fast enough for it to sound convincing. "Some days."

"Only some days." She raised a brow, no bite in it at all. "That's a start, I suppose. Go on, off to bed."

"Ye ordering me out of me own castle now?"

"Someone has to." She was already back in her book, and by the time he reached the passage, he heard her laugh once more behind him, soft and to herself, at something on the page that had nothing at all to do with him.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The council chamber smelled of tallow and old wood smoke, same as it always did, and Alpin took his seat at the head of the table already knowing what the meeting would be about before Eachann had opened his mouth to say it.

"Me Laird." Eachann folded his hands atop the ledger in front of him, spectacles catching the light. "We understand a date has been promised. The council would be grateful for the particulars, so that preparations can proceed with proper order rather than guesswork."

"Three weeks," Alpin said. "Give or take."

"Give or take." Ranald leaned forward, both forearms braced on the table, his voice already carrying the particular edge it got whenever he considered himself the only man in the room being reasonable. "Me Laird, with respect, 'give or take' is nae a date. It's a shrug wearing a fancier coat."

"It's what I've settled on for now."

"The clan wants a day they can mark on a calendar, Me Laird, nae a season they can vaguely anticipate. Me own wife's been asked three times this week by women in the village, and three times I've had nothing to tell her but 'soon,' which is starting to make me look either foolish or forgetful, and I'm neither."

"Ye're patient, Ranald. That's what ye are."

"I've run clean out of patience, me Laird, same as everyone else at this table."

Eachann raised one hand, mild and practiced, the gesture of a man who had spent decades keeping this particular table from tipping over into shouting.

"What Ranald means to say, with considerably less heat than he's currently using, is that certainty serves the clan better than optimism. A firm date lets Greer plan the feast properly, lets the village prepare their own contributions, lets the whole glen feel settled rather than waiting on word from the castle. Uncertainty breeds talk, me Laird, and talk is rarely kind."