Page 12 of The Wrong Highlander (Highland Brides 7)

“Good,” Donnan said, relaxing slightly and glancing around before gesturing at a passing servant. The woman smiled and nodded as she flew by and Donnan returned his gaze to Conran. “How’s yer head?”

“Oh.” Conran raised a hand to feel the knot on the side of his forehead where Evina had slammed her sword hilt into him, and then to the one on the back of his head where he’d apparently hit it on falling off his horse. They both felt a little smaller than they’d been when he’d woken up here last evening. The aching, thankfully, had ended shortly after waking.

“Fine,” Conran said finally. “I’m a fast healer.”

Donnan nodded, and then suddenly said, “Lady Evina would no’ have hit ye but she was worried about ye drowning Gavin.”

“He’s important to her, is he?” Conran asked, trying to sound uncaring, but aware that he was suffering a touch of a jealousy he really had no right to. He barely knew the woman.

“Everyone here at Maclean is important to Lady Evina,” Donnan said solemnly.

“O’ course,” Conran murmured, relaxing, until the man continued.

“Although Gavin is mayhap a little more important than most. At least, she tends to favor him.”

“Does she?” he asked grimly.

“Aye. But then there’s good reason.”

“I’m sure there is,” Conran said dryly.

“He is her first cousin and she did raise him after his parents died,” Donnan added.

Conran glanced at him with a start. “How could she have raised him? He’s older than her, is he no’? He looks older.”

Donnan grinned and shook his head. “Gavin’s a big boy for his age, carries himself well, and his facial hair came in early, but the lad’s only sixteen.”

“Good God!” Conran said with true amazement. He would have guessed the boy was at least twenty-five. “How old was he when his parents died?”

“Two,” Donnan answered.

“And Lady Evina was . . . ?”

“Ten.”

The answer came from over Conran’s left shoulder and in a woman’s voice. He turned his head slowly, unsurprised to find Evina standing behind him.

Nodding a silent greeting, he let his gaze rove over her. There was still a hint of hectic color in her cheeks. From their tumble on the bed? He wanted to think so. Certainly, that was why her hair was mussed and her gown wrinkled. She looked like she’d just tumbled from bed, or been tumbled on one, Conran thought with an inner smile, and only wished they hadn’t been interrupted. Although he supposed he should be grateful they had. Evina was a lady, the daughter of the laird here. She wasn’t to be trifled with.

“I was ten when Gavin came to us,” Evina added quietly now.

Realizing he’d been sitting there ogling her, Conran forced a polite smile to his face and commented, “That’s young to take up mothering the lad.”

Evina relaxed a little and shrugged. “Me own mother had died just weeks before. There was no one else to do it.”

Conran felt his eyebrows raise at this news, but did the math. She was ten when Gavin came at the age of two. He was sixteen now, so Evina was twenty-four . . . and still unmarried. Why?

“Ah, here we are.”

Conran glanced around at Donnan’s words to see that the servant the man had gestured to earlier was pausing before them with a large platter in hand. It held pastries, cheese and fruit, he noted as a second woman appeared with two mugs and a pitcher of what appeared to be cider.

“Thank ye, lassies, but ye’d best fetch another mug for Lady Evina,” Donnan said with a smile as the two women finished setting down their burdens and straightened.

“No mug,” Evina said, moving to settle on the bench next to Conran. “I’ll have mead instead, please, Sally.”

“Aye, m’lady.” The woman who had brought the cider bobbed a curtsy and the two women rushed off.

“Tell me, Lady Maclean, why are ye no’ married?” Conran asked once the servants had moved away.

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