Page 4 of The Highlander's Auctioned Wife
Meanwhile, her eldest sister, Moira, had been given to her husband, Laird MacIverson, in an arranged marriage, and though that seemed to now be a happy union, Anna knew that had been more about luck than anything else. And she didn’t feel like risking her own future on something as flimsy as luck.
“Ye ought to do as ye’re told,” the older of her two brothers, Ewan, said curtly. As the firstborn sibling, he liked to think he was above the rest, as strict and proper a man as his father. “What right do ye have to speak to our faither like that?”
Anna turned a cool glare toward her older brother. “I’d like to see how wellyestomach it when Faither’s attention finally turns on ye,” she said, matching his curt tone. “Once I’m out of the way, it’ll be ye on the choppin’ block for marriage.”
“And I’ll do me duty,” Ewan insisted, though Anna didn’t miss the slight flicker of unease in his hazel eyes. “Proudly, I will.”
Jackson, the younger of the two brothers, snorted into his cup of rosehip tea. “Ye realize that, to marry a lass, ye’d actually have to look one in the eyes first.” He flashed a subtle wink at Anna, before turning his attention to Thomas. “With respect, Faither, I daenae see why she cannae choose her own husband, at her ownpace. Surely, itwouldmake more sense to concentrate on Ewan first. He’s the heir, after all. And an heir needs heirs.”
Ewan paled a little, his assertion diminishing.
“Because she’s nae gettin’ any younger,” Thomas replied stiffly, his irritation showing in the tense pull of his shoulders. “She’s three-and-twenty. Her value is already declinin’ and if we were to wait forherto choose a husband, she’ll be too old to have much worth at all. She should’ve had at least one bairn by now as it is.”
Anna clenched her hands into fists beneath the table, her eye twitching with the indignity and injustice of it all. “So, me value is only dependent on how many bairns I can churn out? There’s nay value in who I am as an actual person?” She nodded sarcastically. “I was wrong when I said I must be a cow at market—clearly, I’m naught but a broodmare.”
“Anna, please…” her mother urged, settling a hand on her husband’s arm to soothe him. “We cannae have this argument again.”
Thomas nodded. “Precisely. The auction will go ahead. As the Laird of this clan and as yer faither, I have decided it.”
“Have it,” Anna replied sharply, shrugging her shoulders. “Auction me off like an animal if that’s yer will, butIget to decide who claims me hand. This willnae be a matter of who the highest bidder is, but who is… impressive enough to win meover. I’ll meet each one, see who is worthy ofme,nae the other way around, and make a decision of me own accord.”
Thomas took a breath. “Anna, the last time I allowed ye to spend time with a Laird that wanted yer hand, the poor man left runnin’ after ye convinced him that our castle was haunted with all the ghosts of a plague that never happened here!”
A quiet snort of laughter slipped from Louisa’s lips, her slender hand hurrying to cover her mouth, though her eyes—the same green as Anna’s—remained bright with mirth.
Thomas shot his wife a dark look that seemed to say,Nae ye, disrespectin’ me too?
“Ye must admit, love,” Louisa rushed to say, “that it was one of Anna’s most… inspired moments. It’s a rare gift to have the trust and love and loyalty of an entire castle, so much so that she could convince them to run around in sheets, groanin’ and wailin’ and pretendin’ to be ghosts.”
Anna’s chest puffed with no small amount of pride, for ithadbeen her grandest performance to date. It had been the sort of theatrical event that could have made Shakespeare bow to her artistic majesty, and what had made it even greater was that the servants hadn’t hesitated, though they had undoubtedly known it might annoy their Laird.
Anna’s father struggled to suppress a small smile, the sight of it allowing Anna to relax a little bit. Perhaps, she could convince him after all.
“I did us all a favor, chasin’ him off,” she insisted. “I cannae be blamed if a grown man like him was cowardly enough to flee because of a few ghosts. We live in the Highlands, for pity’s sake. Ye cannae wander anywhere without encounterin’ a ghost or two, but ye wouldnae seemescreamin’ me head off, sprintin’ away so fast I’d forget I arrived on a horse.”
She was certain she had almost wriggled herself off the hook as the entire table laughed at the memory of her exploits. Even her father couldn’t contain his smile anymore, chuckling and shaking his head. Ewan, too, failed to hide his laughter.
“I had to chase the poor wretch to give him his horse back,” Ewan recalled through wheezy chuckles. “I shouldnae have worn me cloak, in hindsight. Think he thought I was Death itself, tryin’ to hunt him down. When I caught up to him, he was babblin’ prayers at me, crossin’ himself, tremblin’ head to toe.”
Jackson nodded, holding his stomach as he howled with laughter. “Me favorite is still the wee lassie ghost, though.” He wiped away an amused tear. “Thatwas inspired. Even I’d have run off if that had come knockin’ at me door in the dead of night.”
Anna grinned, still delighted that she’d managed to get her niece, Beryl, to terrify the hulking beast of a man. A year earlier, Laird MacHale had strutted into the castle, certain he would leave with the last Lane sister as his wife, not realizing that his arrogance was pure fuel to Anna’s imagination.
All it had taken was a white paste, fashioned from pounded chalk and water, and some gray ash from the fire to paint Beryl’s face into a ghoulish complexion. Plus a knowledge of all the secret passageways in and out of the rooms of the castle, particularly the room that Laird MacHale had been put in.
It had taken two nights of sneaking Beryl in and out of the bedchamber, where she sang an eerie little song and repeated the words, “I go where Anna goes,” before Laird MacHale had made his excuses and departed.
Then, there was the time she had snuck bits of meat about the person of another Laird, so the castle dogs launched themselves at him whenever they caught a whiff of him. There was the time she had put crabs in another Laird’s bed, the time she had set a ferret loose in a Laird’s room and exchanged his clothes with much smaller ones, and the time she had blunted a Laird’s broadsword and switched his longbow for one that was impossible to string, so that he would be humiliated during a tournament the following day.
But the laughter soon faded, Thomas’ expression hardening once more. “Maybe ye were right about that one,” he conceded, “but ye must marry before ye turn four-and-twenty. I willnae hear any argument to the contrary. It’s nae about bairns, Anna, but alliances. We have an alliance to the north and to the west of us, but we need an alliance to the south and east of us. It’s for the protection of our people, Anna, and as someone who has the love of our people, surely that’s somethin’ ye ought to be happy about?”
“Dinnae claim to ken what the people would want from me,” Anna countered. “They worked together to help me avoid a bad union. They wouldnae want me to marry someone I daenae like. They want me to be happy, as much as I want them to be happy.”
Thomas shook his head slowly. “And if they were asked to choose between their safety and prosperity, or ye havin’ yer way, I assure ye, they’d choose their own safety.”
“But they’re nae the ones who’ll have to spend the rest of their lives with their supposed ally,” Anna said defiantly, sipping her medicinal tea to wet her dry throat. “Thatis why the decision must be mine. Have the auction, aye, but daenae deny me a say in who wins.”
Silence stretched across the table, peppered only by the crackle of the fire in the hearth and the strike of the wind against the windows, a cold draft sneaking in. But Anna held her nerve, keeping her gaze fixed on her father, watching for any trace of resignation in his face, any hint that he might relent.
