“I dinnae sleep.”
Her control was hanging by a thread. “Then go dinnae sleep elsewhere!” Before the woman could respond, Wynda continued. “Second of all, I dinnae dream of Pherson. Or think of him when I’m awake. I dinnae think of him at all.”
Liar, her brain accused.
“Liar,” The Gray Lady cheerfully echoed. “He’s a fine-looking man, is he no’?”
Wynda’s first response was to deny it. But that would seem too sudden, too definite. She needed to appear uninterested.
The trick to winning an argument is to consider not just the statements of fact, but how they were presented.
Wynda was very good at thinking about how to think.
So she shrugged. “Is he?” She hummed, tapping her lip, then shaking her head as she headed toward the door. “I suppose, if someone liked men with—” Blast it! Why couldn’t she come up with an undesirable feature of his? “With wiry…muscles. And brown hair,” she finished weakly, her hand on the latch.
Behind her, The Gray Lady made a sound of amusement. “And ye dinnae of course. Like muscled men with brown hair.”
“Wiry muscles,” Wynda corrected haughtily.
“Och, aye,” the apparition mocked. “Tall and lean, so his wiry muscles stand out like cords along his shoulders and arms. Does he have a dusting of hair across his corded forearms? Hmm, Wynda?”
Swallowing a moan, Wynda allowed her head to drop forward so her forehead thunked against the wood of the door.
The Gray Lady continued her mocking. “When he looks at ye with that dark gaze, do ye feel a tugging down in yer woman’s parts? Does his mysterious, wild manner make ye curious to ken how he’d taste? Do yer lips long to discover—”
“Enough!” Wynda whirled and lifted a finger in warning. “Nay! None of those things!”
The rest of the Oliphant ghosts—at least the ones who bothered Wynda—had disappeared, and now ‘twas only The Gray Lady who stood, or perhaps floated, in her chamber. She shrugged, a faintly mocking grin on her lips.
“I was just relaying how desire feels, my dear. In case ye dinnae ken.”
“I ken what desire feels like,” Wynda snapped, which was the absolute truth.
As was everything the lady had said about Pherson.
Shut up.
“Ye ken, Wynda, ye are the smartest lass I’ve ever met.”
Wynda’s chin rose. “I ken.” It was the one thing she prided herself on.
But The Gray Lady sighed and shook her head. “But in some ways, ye are the most foolish. Go. Go to yer celebration. And if Pherson the falconer is there, dance with him once for me.”
Swallowing, Wynda shook her head. Part of her screamed to shut up and run before the lady came up with another lecture, but she had always been too argumentative for her own good. “He willnae be there,” she said authoritatively. “He prefers the quiet of his own cottage.”
‘Twas something she agreed with him about. Solitude was soothing.
Of course, he’s no’ quite alone, is he?
One side of Wynda’s lips curled wryly, as she banished the mocking specter before her and turned once more for the door and her sister’s celebration.
Then again, neither are ye.