Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

A t dinner, Stellan led Mariota to the high table as her station as the MacKay heir demanded. She seemed nervous when Stellan seated her where his father, after greeting her warmly, indicated, on his brother's far side. But her gaze, when she turned it from Anders to Stellan, seemed to hold an air of awareness that heated his blood. He was glad their father was talking to Nan on his other side and not aware of the byplay.

It struck him that she didn't know they knew who she was. Did she understand who he was? Or wonder which twin was the Sutherland heir? Their resemblance to their father, and their presence at the high table, made it clear they were his sons.

"Tell me about yerselves," Mariota said to Anders, but her gaze dropped before she added, "How is it being one of twins?"

So, she wasn't sure who she was dealing with.

While Anders strove to answer her, Stellan had the opportunity to just look at her. To study her profile, as she faced forward, looking out over the hall at the people of his clan. He wondered what she was thinking, but the light from the hearth fire and torches along the walls of the great hall lit her face and danced in her hair, distracting him. She listened to his twin with interest, nodding, thoughtful, occasionally laughing at his quips, and Stellan found himself getting more entranced with every smile she turned on his brother. Some of them spilled past Anders to him.

When she looked past Anders and asked him how they bore fostering apart, he found himself tongue-tied before her yet again. His brother's throat-clearing broke Stellan out of the prison of his rapture. He shrugged and thought for a moment. "It was an adjustment neither of us expected to have to make. It pained us both," he added with a glance at his twin, who nodded. He didn't like thinking about those years, but his words earned him a sympathetic frown, and Mariota put a hand on Anders' arm. In such close proximity to his twin, Stellan felt her palm burning through the sleeve of his own leine .

"I'm so sorry," she told him, turned to Anders and added, "for both of ye."

"'Twas good for us, as it turned out," Anders told her, knowing Stellan needed a moment.

"What?" Her surprised expression amused Stellan.

"It gave us a chance to grow as individuals," Stellan told her, his voice gravelly with the need for her coursing through him. "To hone interests and skills each of us had that might have been subsumed in being together and doing the same things all the time. We didn't enjoy the separation, but we learned from it."

He forbore to mention how much Anders had learned from the lasses everywhere he went. He didn't want to plant ideas in Mariota's head, or in Anders', for that matter, where she was concerned.

She hadn't been told that the laird decreed Anders would take her home and likely betroth with her. That would tell her Anders wasn't the heir. Stellan liked that idea less and less the more time he spent with her. As dinner progressed, they traded a lot of glances that to him felt more heated each time it happened. But she also shared a trencher with Anders, a sight more intimate than Stellan liked.

Still, Stellan sensed nothing seductive in her interactions with Anders or in his twin's reactions to her. He liked that, but it also worried him. She was the heir to another clan, and he to his, though his father didn't know the twins had sworn an oath to rule together. Unless their clan went to war to subsume MacKay territory, he and Mariota could never marry. The Sutherland had to propose Anders for her. And Stellan knew two more things. His father would never initiate such a clan war over Stellan's attraction to her, and if MacKay brought a war, there was no guarantee that Sutherland would win.

After dinner, Mariota pleaded exhaustion. "'Twas a full day. I beg leave to find my bed," she said. Though the image of her in the bed in her chamber caused Stellan's pulse to speed, he knew he dared not escort her. Stellan met Anders' gaze and silently urged him to offer his escort. The twins needed their da to see them following his wishes. Stellan needed that most of all if he was to be able to spend any time with her.

"My lady?" Anders stood and offered his arm. She accepted with a disappointed glance Stellan's way, and Anders escorted her from the great hall.

Stellan turned back to his father to ensure he knew which twin remained, but he stood.

"I've work to do. We'll speak tomorrow. Nan, would ye like an escort to yer chamber?"

She sent Stellan a speculative look, then shook her head. "Thank ye, nay. I'm going to visit with my friends over there." She nodded across the hall.

Sutherland grunted his agreement and took his leave.

Now that his father was gone, Nan gave Stellan one more chance at her company. "Care to join us?"

"Thank ye, nay," he told her, preferring to wait for his twin.

She shrugged and left him alone at the high table.

He stood, too. But instead of leaving the hall, he took one of their accustomed seats by the great hall's hearth and waited for Anders to join him. When he did, Stellan tipped his mug. "Slàinte, brother. What do ye think of our lass?"

Anders choked on the mouthful of ale he'd just taken in and sprayed it toward the fire, which leapt when the alcohol hit it. "Yer lass, ye mean," he said when he could breathe. "I could feel the heat pouring off ye."

There were times when the bond between them was damned inconvenient. "Da wants ye to return her to MacKay. What do ye think he means, save that he's expecting ye will wed her— perhaps even while ye are there?"

"He may think so, but ye found her. Ye seem to like her. And I've been around enough lasses to divine that she likes ye. Though, enough? That remains to be seen. Ye should be the one to travel with her, to meet her da, even to marry the lass— though I dinna ken how. No' me."

"There's one problem with that," Stellan said, staring into the fire.

Anders flinched. "Aye, she's her father's heir. Her husband must rule MacKay with her. And ye are da's heir, so he expects ye will rule here after him. I'm the expendable one."

"Nay to me. Nay to the vow we made."

Anders nodded, then grinned. "Do we switch? Ye go as me, and I stay as ye?"

"And when we are discovered?" Stellan couldn't imagine the outcry that would result.

Anders shook his head. "If ye decide against the match, ye can leave her there, and come home. As long as ye manage to control yerself and dinna ruin the lass so ye are forced to marry her."

"Aren't ye forgetting Da said they probably think that has already happened? Our fathers can decide to betroth ye to her. To me as ye. To one of us!" Stellan tossed off the rest of his ale, tempted to hurl the cup into the fire for the satisfaction of watching it shatter. They'd known a day would come when the Sutherland would try to settle wives on them. Mariota had unwittingly made that day today. "God's bones, even if I burn for her, she's a lass I can never have. Because of the trouble it would cause with MacKay, Da willna accept her for me. And we swore when we thought ye would be sent to the Norse land forever that we would marry only a lass we could bring home. No' a Norse princess who would keep ye there. And no' the MacKay heir."

"We were nine," Anders replied, his tone dry, his gaze on the low flames in the hearth.

"We were wiser than our years." Stellan clenched the fist holding the cup. "I ken ye dinna want her, but I might."

Anders cut his gaze to his twin and raised his cup in salute. "Then ye will find a way. Ye had best plan to go with her so ye can find out if she's worth the trouble the two of ye will cause."

The next morning, Mariota made her way downstairs to break her fast. She found a place to sit off to the side where she could look over the entire great hall and watch the comings and goings of the people in it. A lad here and there caught her eye, handsome or tall or muscular, but not having met them and knowing nothing about them, she felt no stirring of interest like she felt for Stellan. Some men merely passed through, others sat and ate with friends or family. Children and dogs moved between tables, playing, begging food and attention, all so normal she might have thought she was still at MacKay.

Except for the twins. They entered the hall together. She couldn't miss seeing them. They drew her eye, no matter how fleeting the glimpse she got of them. Nor could she look away as they scanned the crowd, many of whom seemed focused on the pair, as well. Anders, she presumed from his grin, saw her first and elbowed his brother. Stellan met her gaze and nodded. They both moved toward her. On cue, her heartbeat picked up its pace and her palms began to grow damp. Anders smiled at her but she couldn't stop looking at his solemn-faced twin.

"Good morrow," Anders greeted her with a grin.

Anders' grin was about the only way Mariota could tell them apart. She summoned a smile to answer him, then turned it on Stellan. "Do ye wish to join me?"

"Aye," Anders answered, speaking for them both.

Stellan caught the attention of a serving lass and ordered their meal, then sat next to Anders.

Opposite her. Where she could not escape looking at him. Not that she wanted to avoid seeing him. But would anyone notice her gaze locked on him? Would he?

"I hope ye had a restful night," Stellan said while they waited for their breakfast, his gaze on her as unrelenting as hers on him. Something passed between them, an imagined whisper of his breath on her face that made her toes curl in the slippers Nan lent her. His eyes, the color of old amber or pine bark held her captive.

She sucked in a breath. "I did. Thank ye." She took a moment to get her wild thoughts under control. Anders' eyes were the same color, but she felt nothing from them. She prayed he was the Sutherland heir, not Stellan. Only Stellan seemed to be able to make warm tingles swirl through her without actually touching her. "I've been enjoying watching yer people while I broke my fast. There's little difference here from mornings at MacKay."

"I imagine many of the same things must be taken care of each day," he said as he accepted a trencher and cup of cider from a lass who lingered to smile at him and Anders, then turned her attention to Anders when only he smiled back.

Mariota wanted to laugh at her blatant interest in Stellan's twin, but that wouldn't be polite. Instead, she took advantage of Stellan's willingness to talk. "I am sorry ye have to fend them off," she remarked with a nod at the retreating lass's back, oddly pleased that Anders had sent her on her way. Why, she couldn't say. It wasn't as though she was interested in him. She noted that Nan intercepted the lass and spoke a few words to her before she moved on. Warning her to behave? "Or does yer cousin Nan do that service for ye?"

Anders glanced around and caught Nan's smirk. He gave her a frown in return and turned his back.

"Aye, well, she thinks she must dissuade any lass who shows an interest," Anders groused. "She doesna always succeed," he added with a smirk much like his cousin's.

"I would enjoy making more friends here," Mariota said, after exchanging a grin with Nan. She shifted her gaze back to Stellan. "Several, in fact. I'm somewhat isolated at MacKay."

He shrugged off the lack. "There are plenty of lasses here for ye to meet. Ye ken Nan."

Anders quipped, "And ye have me," he added with a glance aside at Stellan. "Who else could ye possibly need?"

Stellan.

Stellan's lack of reaction to his twin's jibe disappointed her. Had she been reading too much into his care for her? Was he just being the responsible brother?

Anders rambled on about several of the lasses she should meet, and pointed out one of those already in the great hall. As if drawn by his comments, that lass finished her meal and walked by their table.

"Brìghde, come meet our visitor," Anders directed before she could move past. "Brìghde is a friend of mine," he told Mariota, "and now she can be yers, too."

Only a friend? Or was she more than that to him? She found it hard to believe a man as attractive to the lasses as Anders could be satisfied with mere friendship. Then again, he'd offered just that to her.

Brìghde greeted her politely. "I'm pleased to meet our visitor," she said with a smile. "I heard but little about how ye came to be with us. I'm eager for the rest of yer story."

Mariota wasn't certain how much of her problems she wanted bandied about the Sutherland clan, but if Brìghde was friends with Anders, and not one of the lasses trying to hang onto him, she would be a good friend to have. "I'm pleased to meet ye, too. I've met only the twins, Nan, and yer steward and healer," she said.

Brìghde laughed and glanced at Anders. "I can help with that. Join me. I'm off to visit the cobbler to retrieve a pair of boots he repaired. On the way, I'll introduce ye around. We lasses must stick together, aye?"

Mariota, reluctant to leave the twins, felt suddenly shy. Anders seemed content to interact with the lasses, but Stellan's gaze was on the door to the laird's solar. While his lack of attention on her was disappointing, it convinced her that at least one of the twins had more important work to do than entertain her. "Thank ye. That would please me greatly."

And might give her a chance to see how this clan differed from MacKay. She might learn things that would be useful when she became laird. Not just Sutherland strengths and weaknesses that her da would look for as a matter of course, noting vulnerabilities that she might need to use against them in the future, but also things she could use to help her people. How tasks were distributed among the people of Sutherland, how they managed their food stores, crops, livestock, what they did for income for the clan, and so forth. She rested her chin on a fist, realizing she both wanted to run away and to learn how to do leadership right— which she didn't think her father did. There was always so much discontent at home, but she didn't understand what caused it or why it was so widespread. Perhaps it wasn't just that Alber was there, but that men like Alber thrived under her father's leadership.

And why did everyone she'd seen so far at Sutherland seem the opposite— content, even happy. Even the lasses vying for the twins' attention and failing to receive it didn't seem to mind. Was it a game? They knew they'd never wed with either of them, but the fun was in the flirting and the attempts? She'd seen a few couples behave that way at home, but nothing like the scale the twins inspired.

She straightened. To accomplish all of that, she would need more time than her da would likely allow, but she could make a start right now.

Brìghde proved to be pleasant company. They went first to the cobbler to retrieve her boots and she made a point of introducing Mariota and praising the cobbler's work, making the older man redden above his bushy beard, but he smiled at the compliments she heaped on him. From there, they ventured around the bailey to the various crafters and tradesmen.

The latest tapestry on the weaver's loom drew Mariota's admiration, and she studied it with delight, a hint of a smile on her lips. Rather than the usual battle scene, it depicted Dunrobin's large, square tower and outer walls surrounded on each side by one of the four seasons. Spring and the shore of the Dornoch firth to the east, summer to the south, autumn to the west and winter to the north. It was far from finished, lacking about a third of the finished size and the handwork that would make it truly unique and beautiful, but the weaver's artistic design was clearly well underway. "I hope I may come back to see this work when ye finish it," she told the smiling weaver. "'Twill be lovely wherever 'tis hung."

"'Tis meant for the new Lady's bedchamber," she said proudly. "Twill be finished long before 'tis needed, of course," she added with a glance at Brìghde. "But I've already received other requests for similar, smaller works for the healer and others in the clan."

"I'd love for ye to one day make something similar for me at MacKay," Mariota told her, truly impressed with the design and artistry the weaver had already demonstrated. "Perhaps one day, ye would visit so ye can see the keep and the area around it."

The weaver dropped her gaze. "I'd be honored, milady."

After they left her, Mariota couldn't resist asking, "How long ago did Stellan and Anders lose their mother?"

Brìghde shook her head. "'Tis a sad tale. She died birthing a lass who also didna survive. Their da was so heartbroken at the loss of his love and wee daughter that he has never remarried, nor intends to. By the clan's new lady, the weaver of course, means Stellan's wife, once he becomes laird."

Nay! Mariota's belly hollowed. Stellan was the heir, not Anders. The twin she'd hoped to attract was forever out of her reach, as tied to his clan as she was to hers.

She took a breath, forcing herself to set aside her dismay. If there was a way, she would find it. "Why would the laird nay make an alliance through his own marriage?"

"I believe he sees himself as the clan's past and Stellan as its future." She shrugged. "But I dinna ken, and though Anders is my friend, he doesna speak of it to me— or anyone."

Later, the twins found Brìghde and Mariota in the mews, admiring Valkyrie. Stellan overheard enough to impress him yet again as Mariota told Brìghde about climbing trees as a lass and raising her hawk from the egg she found high in a nest, and about learning to shoot a bow.

"Could ye teach me to shoot?" Brìghde asked. "If I could handle a bow and arrow, I could help defend the keep."

"I'd be happy to," Mariota told her. "Nan, too, if she wishes it."

Anders snickered at that. "Can ye imagine those two on the walls?"

"Brìghde, aye," Stellan told him.

"I'd fear for our men if Nan were armed," Anders continued. "She'd as likely shoot herself or the man next to her as over the wall."

Stellan's mental image of the scenario Anders painted, though it was highly exaggerated, made him laugh.

"Who's there?" Brìghde's voice preceded her out the door of the mews. "Ye two. What do ye think so amusing?"

"Naught," Anders replied, still chuckling.

"We were having a serious conversation, and heard yer laughter. Ye were listening."

"'Twas naught," Stellan told her, having recovered his composure.

"What brings ye both?"

Brìghde's query made Anders grin and Stellan frown.

"We heard voices and stopped to find out who was in there," Stellan answered, pointing at the open door.

"Stellan wanted to escape our da and the planting schedule," Anders declared, earning a glare from his twin. "I had a purer motive," he continued, "to make certain ye hadna shared all of Sutherland's secrets while ye have been about."

"Only those concerning the two of ye," Brìghde jested.

Stellan couldn't miss how Mariota paled. Something had upset her, but what? He fought to wipe his frown from his brow. Anders calm demeanor told him Brìghde knew nothing of any secrets he and his twin kept. Certainly not the most important one. He was certain Anders would not have mentioned their childhood vow to any lass. Or anyone else. Nor had he. Had their grandda done so before he passed on? Stellan had no reason to believe so, since even their father seemed unaware of their and their grandda's wishes. Or perhaps their da just rejected them in favor of his own expectations for his sons. Though they had survived— even thrived —when he fostered them separately, they never lost their determination to honor their vow to rule together.

Mariota seemed to have regained some color. Stellan thought she might need more air. "Anders, perhaps we should take Mariota riding. Valkyrie must need some time in the open sky."

"A brilliant idea, brother. Mariota? Would that please ye— and Valkyrie?"

"Aye! Of course, it would."

Her enthusiasm was unmistakable. Perhaps he had imagined her pale countenance, or it was a trick of the light in the mews.

"Brìghde, would ye join us?"

Stellan watched with interest as Brìghde fought for a polite reply. He was certain riding was one of her least favorite activities. And Anders knew it.

"I fear… I have other… things… to take care of," she said, forming the words as though speaking them would choke her.

"Another time, then," Anders said, letting her off the hook. "Perhaps we could escort ye toward the keep while Mariota readies Valkyrie for her outing? 'Tis on the way to the stable."

That brought a smile back to her face. "I would be grateful, of course."

With a smile for Mariota and a smirk to his brother, Anders offered his arm, and all three left Mariota to ready her hawk.

"What do ye think of our guest?" Stellan asked after they were far enough from the mews to be out of earshot. He saw Mariota as courageous but impulsive. He was curious how another lass, with a woman's particular understanding, might perceive her.

"She's lovely, a bit quiet, but appreciative of the hospitality she has received here," Brìghde told him. "She seems quite… comfortable… with ye two."

Anders nodded. "She's met Nan, too, but we've spent the most time with her."

"I appreciate ye taking an interest in her," Stellan said. How much had Mariota told her about the danger she'd been in at home? He didn't want to make an issue of it with Brìghde if Mariota hadn't shared any more of her personal life than the clan already knew.

"I am always happy to be of service to ye both," Brìghde answered.

Stellan noted her choice of words, Anders' grin in response, and wondered just what sort of service she'd offered his twin— or was hinting at to him. Were they more than friends? Would she be hurt by their father's intention to betroth Mariota to him? He dared not ask her, but Anders would answer him. Later.