Angus laughed. “If all of them you produce are as bad as your eldest, you’d have to trade six of them for a length of silk.”
“He’s just like you were at that age.”
“I never was!”
“Worse,” she said, laughing. “And he’s the spitting image of you. Or I think he is, but it’s been too long since I’ve seen your face.” Reaching up, she touched his big beard. “Why don’t you let me cut that?”
He pulled her hand away and kissed the palm. “It keeps me warm, and that’s what I need.”
“If you married, you—”
“I beg you not to start on me again,” he said with so much agony in his voice that she relented.
“All right,” she said as she got up, with Angus pushing on her back to help her. “I’ll leave you be if you promise not to take a girl’s laughter in anger. She bested you with the only weapon a woman has, her tongue.”
“There are other uses for a woman’s tongue,” Angus said, his eyes twinkling.
Kenna stuck out her big belly. “Do you think I do not know all about the uses of a woman’s tongue—and a man’s?”
Angus put his hands over his ears. “Do not tell me such! You’re my sister.”
“All right,” she said, smiling. “Keep your belief that your sister is still a virgin, but please do not let anger rule you over this girl.”
“I will not,” he said. “Now, go back to your husband.”
“And what will you do?”
“I’m going to crawl under a rock and sleep for a day or two.”
“Good, mayhap the heather will sweeten your temper so that when a girl makes a remark to you, you can reply in kind.”
“In kind,” he said. “I will remember that. Now go before I have to play midwife to you.”
2
ANGUS MANAGED TO avoid seeing the niece for an entire week. He followed the wisdom of his sister and pretended to laugh at himself with all the other people, but when he turned away his smile didn’t remain.
At first he’d tried to defend himself, but that only made people laugh harder. It was as though they’d been waiting all their lives to find humor in him and now they were making up for lost time.
However, Angus was glad that no one—except his own brother-in-law, that is—so much as hinted that Angus had been the one to loosen the girth and make the girl fall. No one said so, but they knew who had done it.
Angus didn’t catch Shamus alone until three days after the incident. By then Angus had had to answer the same questions a thousand times. “Yes, yes,” he said, each time trying hard to smile, “I was quite stunned by the beauty of the girl.” “No, I’d never seen anything like her before.” “Yes, I’m sure the angels smiled when she was born.” “Oh, yes, what she said was quite clever. Never met a girl as clever as she is.”
Each time he walked across the courtyard, it was always the same. No one wanted to talk to him about anything but the way he’d stared at the girl—except for his young cousin Tam, who wouldn’t speak to Angus at all. Twice Angus tried to get Tam to go hunting with him, but the boy wouldn’t. “She depends on me to hold her horse, so now I ride a pony and follow her. I’m one of the few men she trusts. She told me that, and she called me a man.” As he said it, he gave Angus a look that told him they were no longer friends.
By the time Angus was able to catch Shamus, he wanted to smash his big face. Angus grabbed him by the collar while he was in one of the horse stalls, slammed him against the wall, and raised his fist. But Shamus wasn’t afraid of pain; it was something he’d lived with all his life. When they were children everyone knew to stay hidden when Shamus appeared with a black eye. His father had again beaten the boy. Now, his father was dead and there was no longer any reason for Shamus to do what had been done to him, but old habits don’t die easily.
“Go ahead,” Shamus said. He wasn’t as tall as Angus, but he was older, and bigger. When an oxcart got stuck in the mud, it was Shamus’s strength that helped pull it out.
Angus lowered his fist. “Are you mad? To do that to Lawler’s niece? She must not have told or her uncle would have had someone lashed. How long has it been since you had the skin on your back torn off?”
Shamus shrugged. “Not too long. A year or two. But I knew he wouldn’t do anything. He hates her.”
“Who hates her?” Angus asked.
“Lawler hates his niece.”
For a moment Angus didn’t know what to say. How could a man hate his own niece? For all that he complained about his sister’s children, he would die for them, imps that they were. “You’re lying.”