Page 59 of Lord of Dunkeathe
“I can’t really consider Lady Riona,” he replied in French, speaking quickly so that Adair couldn’t make out what he was saying. His brother-in-law knew the language, just as Nicholas had learned Gaelic, but if he spoke fast enough, he could hope Adair couldn’t keep up. “Her family’s too poor and have no connections at court. I’m letting her and her uncle stay untilLammas so that no Scot can claim I didn’t seriously think about marrying her.”
“Then your choice is a matter of money and influence?” Marianne asked.
“It’s a matter of survival,” Nicholas said, stabbing a piece of fish and switching to Gaelic so the Normans wouldn’t be able to comprehend the conversation.
“So, brother-in-law, if it can’t be the Scot, who’s in the lead?” Adair asked, revealing that he’d understood Nicholas after all.
“At the moment, my preference runs to Lady Joscelind or Lady Eleanor. Both their families are rich. Lady Joscelind’s father is very powerful at court, and Percival has several friends there, as well.”
Marianne fixed her gaze on him. “But do you like them? Are they pleasant?”
Chewing his fish, Nicholas shrugged. “Pleasant enough.”
“But Nicholas—”
Adair nudged his wife. “It’s his choice, Marianne, not yours. Let the man go about it his own way, whether for good or ill.” He gave his wife one of those looks he often did, the sort that suggested to Nicholas that there might indeed be such a thing as love. “You were anything but pleasant to me when we were first married and we couldn’t claim to have been in love then, yet it seems to have come right after all.”
Marianne smiled at her husband. “Aye, it did,m’eudail.”
The doors to the hall burst open and two men came stumbling and staggering into the hall, their arms about one another’s shoulders.
“Ooooooh,” Roban and Fergus Mac Gordon sang in unison at the top of their lungs, “and that was the lass from Killamagroooooo!”
As they finished their song, Roban saluted the high table with the small wooden cask he held in his free hand. “Adair! Marianne! Look who I found—Fergus Mac Gordon!”
Like his companion, Roban was completely oblivious to the sensation they were making. Lord Chesleigh’s expression was one of disgust and his daughter’s delicate nose wrinkled with distaste. Sir Percival sneered, D’Anglevoix regarded them as if he’d never seen the like, and Lady Lavinia and Audric exchanged horrified looks. Lady Priscilla giggled, nervously. Lady Eleanor looked dismayed, while her maidservant’s face was ashen.
Both Nicholas and Adair got to their feet as Mac Gordon staggered forward and bowed, grinning. “Greeting, chieftain of the Mac Tarans and his lovely wife!”
“Roban, you’re drunk,” Adair declared with amused patience. “Go sleep it off somewhere, and I suggest your new friend retire, too.”
“I’m not drunk!” the big Scot roared. “I’m well watered!”
Her face red, clearly embarrassed, Riona came rushing out of the kitchen corridor and made straight for her inebriated uncle.
“You’ve had a merry time, I think, Uncle,” she said when she reached him, putting her arm around him. “Now I think you ought to rest.”
“Rest?” he cried, throwing up his hands as if that was the most ludicrous suggestion he’d heard in years. “Who needs rest? Roban wants to hear about the time I was on the boar hunt and there was that dog, and then my boot—”
“Have you eaten, Uncle?” Riona interjected with an undercurrent of desperation in her sweet voice. “We had herring in oats tonight. I’m sure there’s some left. Why don’t you and Roban come with me to the kitchen?”
Nicholas got to his feet. Riona didn’t deserve to be humiliated this way, for it was clear she was both embarrassed and ashamed.
“Herring in oats, did she say?” Roban cried as Nicholas started around the high table, intending to escort the two men out himself if they didn’t go with her willingly. “Why didn’t you say there was such food awaiting us here? I was afraid it was going to be that tripe.”
Roban made a face, shuddered and said in a loud whisper, “How those Normans stomach that stomach, I’ll never know.”
“We can eat later, Riona,” her uncle declared. “These Normans don’t know how to make music, either.” He grinned at Roban. “Let’s do that one about old Mac Tavish and his dog.”
Prepared to drag them out of the hall if necessary, Nicholas strode toward them.
“I think you both should eat,” he said when he reached them. He threw his arms around the two men and steered them toward the kitchen. “The herring was very good. I can vouch for that myself.”
Her face flushed, but without so much as a glance in his direction, Riona hurried ahead of them.
“Of course it was good, boy!” Fergus bellowed. “Riona made it, didn’t she? She’s a wonder, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she’s a wonder,” Nicholas replied, thinking that it had been a very, very long time since anyone had called him “boy,” and wondering if Riona herself had prepared the fish.
