Page 10 of Eloping with the Laird
She batted him on the arm. ‘Andwhywould he no longer be honouring such a promise?’
‘I told him you were considering McKenna. We agreed you might be suffering from some melancholy after your fall yesterday...and that he should decide on a husband for you.’ His words rushed over her like ice cold floodwaters.
‘Melancholy? Because I selected someone you both did not approve of?’ She crossed her arms.
‘Nay, because you chose to attach your future to a dying man. Who does that, Moira?’
‘A person who doesn’t wish to be married in the first place,’ she hissed. ‘And now, instead of being promised to one man, you have made it so I am promised to two.’
Chapter Five
‘Why bother pretending to provide me a choice of husband when all along you and Ewan had planned to make the selection for me, Father?’ Moira called out her question even before she’d breached the threshold of Laird Bran Stewart’s study.
Ewan hurried after her and grabbed her arm. ‘All we want...’ he began.
Moira stopped and sent a lifted brow in his direction. He knew better than to grab her in such a fashion.
He let go of her arm and lifted his hands in supplication. ‘All wewant is for you to be happy, safe and protected. We didn’t think you were serious about wishing to marry Laird McKenna. He’sdying.’
‘Why would you not think I was serious?’ she countered, whipping around with such speed that her cloak spun out, the heavy fabric pulling her backward. She yanked on the cloak’s closure until it gave way and tossed it upon one of the chairs opposite her father.
‘I truly thought you weren’t thinking clearly,’ Ewan countered, running a hand through his mussed hair. ‘With the fall and what it may have triggered and...’
‘And what?’
He flushed and dropped his gaze. ‘Nothing.’
‘Both of you will sit.Now.’ Father’s voice cut through the room. He’d yet to glance up from his ledger. Typical Father.
Moira sat with a huff. Ewan frowned and settled in the chair next to her. It was as if they were eight and ten years old again and being scolded for having a shouting match about who would be first to try Mother’s new harp. She had a feeling the answer now to choosing her own husband would be the same answer she had received then.
Not now, Moira. Not yet, Moira. Not ever, Moira.
As in she would never be allowed to make a decision for herself despite being a grown woman of almost five and twenty.
She couldn’t wait a moment longer. ‘Was this but a ploy to distract me while all of you conspired to pick out the manyouwished for me to marry? Was even Brenna instructed to dress me in Laird MacLean’s favourite frock colour, so I would be more suitable?’ Fire burned beneath her skin and she wished to scald someone with it. It mattered not who.
‘The door.’ Father lifted his gaze to glare upon them.
Moira’s shoulders sank as did Ewan’s. The closing of the doorneverled to anything good. They met each other’s gaze, and Moira sent her brother daggers. His eyebrows gathered in, and he gifted her a pained expression. He attempted to utter something to her before cursing under his breath and rising to shut the study door.
She smiled. At least she had wonthatsmall battle.
She faced Father and the ire on his face melted the smile from her lips. Shifting in her chair, she squared her shoulders and schooled her features to prepare for whatever unpleasantness was sure to come.
Father rose and stared out the large twin windows that looked out upon the loch. How long he stood in silence, with his arms crossed against his chest, watching the morning sunrise dance along the meadow, Moira didn’t know.
‘I often wonder what your mother would think of us. What would she say now?’ His burr rolled softly into the air as it often did when he spoke of Mother. He faced them, his grey eyes bright with emotion. Agony reflected in his drawn features at the mention of their mother, who had passed before Moira had married, and sorrow burrowed its way into her irritation, loosening her anger.
She studied the lines of her palms, not wishing to dare answer such a question. Her beautiful, petite, fair, soft-spoken mother had always been quite the foil to her tall, dark-haired, brusque father. She had been the constant, steady voice of reason amongst them all. Slow to anger, quick to understanding, and astute to the ways of each of them as if she could pluck the goodness out of them as she did her harp. Her soft lilting voice could silence any argument, and one gentle glance from her could rescue their father from his anger and worry when the clan had faced difficult times. Without her, their family had run adrift more than once. Tradition and her memory moored them together most days. Without Father, Moira didn’t know what would become of them or the clan. Ewan hadn’t settled into the idea of becoming laird or husband, Brenna lived in a day-to-day existence unaffected by the challenges of the continued political upheaval that lay rife upon the Highlands and Moira wanted to flee from all expectations of anyone.
They were a fine mess and Father knew it.
Moira sighed and finally lifted her head to discover both of them watching her with interest. She balked. ‘What?’ she asked.
Father approached and leaned on the edge of his large desk. ‘What would you have us all do, Moira? Allow you to throw away your last chance at happiness?’
‘Last chance?’ She blinked back.
