Page 56 of The Winter Laird

Nioclas gave her a wink.

A wink!

She tried to interject again, but no one listened. They simply continued the discussion around her as if she wasn’t sitting at the table with them. She glanced around the great hall, but no one was paying any attention to them. Brianagh fervently hoped the clans folk had too much to drink to remember the discussion.

“I believe you could do it,” Nioclas murmured, leaning close. She blinked at him, and he smiled slyly. “Perhaps, if we work together, we could win their wager. And your Keela could have a nice wedding—’tis high time she married, after all.”

“Nioclas, this is a woman’s love life they want to wager on,” Bri replied, shaking her head.

“Nay, we’re wagering on your ability to find her an acceptable match,” Reilly said, interrupted himself as he and Erin haggled over the terms of the wager.”

“Matching someone simply to win a bet is cruel,” she retorted.

“But matching someone simply to see them happy?” Nioclas asked seriously. “In truth, the Irish do not tease about love. We believe, among all else, that a soul is only half of itself. When you find love, the two halves make each person whole.” He gave her a small smile. “I can’t say I ever fully believed it, but perhaps I have reason to now.”

She gaped at him.

Romantic Nioclas? Surreptitiously, she fanned herself. It was rather hot in the great hall all of a sudden.

He smiled lazily at her, then went back to his meal.

“I’ll do it,” she said suddenly, turning to the others. “I’ll find Keela her other half, if she agrees to it.”

“I’ll help,” Erin volunteered.

I’ll need it, Bri thought, sneaking a glance at Nioclas. But she didn’t miss the self-satisfied smile that crossed Reilly’s features.

Chapter 15

Brianagh was ready. She’d felt the small thrill of excitement course through her once her mind was made up, and she reminded herself to slow down. The first meeting with a client was an evaluation of her commitment to the process, interest in marriage and partnership, and what she expected out of the matchmaker. Bri felt she could accomplish all that without scaring the poor girl.

Marrying for clan alliance, Brianagh had learned, was usually reserved for lairds and clan elders. But everyone else in the clan was fair game, and she was thrilled to learn Keela had only been to the castle a few times before, when the laird called the village in for battles or extreme cold, and had shown interest in the man Erin suggested at dinner a few nights ago. Due to her mother’s declining health, Keela had been a dutiful daughter and concentrated on ensuring her mother’s comfort. But now that they were both ensconced in the castle walls with a room and two servants of their own, things had become a whole lot easier for Keela to focus on herself.

That was the tack Brianagh planned to use, anyway.

Entering the kitchens, Brianagh halted when she noticed Nioclas sitting at one of the work benches, the kitchen maids all scurrying to do his bidding. She hadn’t anticipated seeing him until the evening meal, but she joined him and put her plans for the cook aside momentarily.

“What are you doing in here, my laird?” she asked. He should’ve been out training, as was the norm. In fact, she and Erin had plans for the afternoon to sneak down to the lists and ogle. It had quickly become one of her favorite pastimes.

“I’d planned to surprise you, but since you’re here…” Nioclas smiled encouragingly at her. “I thought we might picnic.”

Bri looked at him in shock. “Picnic?”

“Aye, your cousin told me about the tradition,” he said with confidence, “and I’ve had our kitchen lasses prepare us a midday meal we can eat together.”

“A picnic.” Bri was dumbfounded. Why would Reilly encourage Nioclas to take her on a picnic? Unless… She took a sharp breath. Unless he wanted them to fall in love and was giving Nioclas pointers.

She tried to dismiss the thought, but once lodged, it wasn’t budging from her mind. Reilly was so insistent that she make a life here, when her life was so clearly set in the future…

Her eyes met Nioclas’s, and she temporarily lost her train of thought. He truly was beautiful. He was not like his elders with their long, unkempt beards; he believed a beard to be more a hindrance in battle than a help in weather and was shaved most mornings. Today, he had the perfect amount of stubble to make her knees weaken. His eyelashes were long and dark, framing the clear, intelligent gray eyes so unlike the rest of his clan. His lips were absolutely sinful—not too lush, not too thin, as though they were made to fit over her own.

Stop! she commanded herself sternly. But she knew she couldn’t. Every woman in a five-mile radius drooled over him, with the exception of Erin, who was so blindly in love with her husband she had eyes for no one else.

Also, Nioclas had put a frog down her dress when she was thirteen. Bri recognized the futility of ever finding a man sexy after that.

“Was that an aye?” Nioclas asked softly, taking her hand.

The electricity zinged up her arm, causing her heart to beat faster, and she nodded.

---