The Highlander Takes a Bride by Lynsay Sands

nodded. “Me brothers got a severe punishment did they ever actually harm me, but I was no’ bound by the same rule. After all, how much harm could a wee lass do?” she asked with feigned innocence. “So, while they tried to capture and pin me down without harming me, I was free to pull their hair, punch and kick to me heart’s content . . . and I trounced all seven o’ them.”
    Lady MacDonnell’s eyes widened incredulously and then she burst into laughter.
    Saidh smiled at her amusement, and added, “Fenella was most annoyed that her champions failed her so.”
    “Oh, I can imagine she would be,” the woman said dryly.
    “Especially when she began to cry and I got so annoyed I tied her to a tree and left her there through the nooning meal.”
    “Oh, my sweet Lord,” Lady MacDonnell breathed with admiration. “I do believe I like ye, Saidh Buchanan.”
    “Why thank ye,” Saidh said with surprised pleasure. “Ye seem a right nice lady yerself.”
    They grinned at each other briefly, and then Lady MacDonnell picked up her mending again. “So Fenella has always been a crier when she does no’ get her way.”
    Saidh glanced up with surprise, but then slow realization rolled through her. Fenella had cried every time she hadn’t gotten her way as a child. When she’d first arrived, Fenella had expected Saidh to play with the dolls she’d brought with her. But Saidh hadn’t been interested, preferring to run about with her brothers as she always did. Fenella had cried.
    Her mother had then taken Saidh aside and suggested it would be kind to play dolls with her cousin. When she’d protested that she didn’t want to play with dolls, her mother had insisted, saying that first she should play with the dolls with her cousin, and then the next day Fenella would play what she wanted to play. So Saidh had suffered through the doll business, but the next day, Fenella had refused to join her and her brothers in a game of hide-and-seek, and had burst into tears when Saidh had shrugged and simply gone out to play with them anyway. It was her day after all, and she didn’t care if Fenella joined in or not.
    Fenella had gone weeping to her mother, and Saidh had feared she would be stuck playing dolls again, but her mother had kept to her original rules. If Saidh wished to play hide-and-seek, then Fenella could either join in, or sit with her all day. Fenella had chosen to sit with Saidh’s mother that day and for two days following, but on the third day had finally come out to play with them. That was the day they’d played at being Britons and Saidh had left her tied to a tree. She had paid for that by having to play dolls the next day after Fenella had gone weeping to Saidh’s mother again and tattled.
    And so Fenella’s stay at Buchanan had gone. If she didn’t get her way, she wept, which quite often got her her way. At least from Saidh’s mother and brothers. Since Saidh was not a crier, her brothers were unused to dealing with a weeping female and did whatever they could to shut the girl up. Saidh, however, not being a crier, just found the copious tears annoying and did her best to avoid the lass during her long visit. She’d been greatly relieved when Fenella’s father had come to take her home.
    But she hadn’t held any of that against Fenella when her family had gone to attend the girl’s wedding to Hammish Kennedy. And Fenella didn’t appear to bear a grudge either. They’d got along well enough then during the little time they’d spent together before the wedding, although Saidh had found herself feeling somewhat awkward and lacking next to the dainty, ladylike woman Fenella had grown into. She still did, she supposed.
    Frowning, Saidh glanced at Lady MacDonnell and asked, “Do ye really think Fenella killed yer son?”
    “Aye,” Lady MacDonnell said at once, her expression hard, and then conflict crossed her face and she admitted, “I do no’ ken. There is just something . . .”