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“I’m only saying.” Brigid bounced Amelia, her eyes dancing. “So, the feast is tonight. What will ye wear?”

Freya hadn’t given it a single thought.

“Me blue gown, I suppose. It’s the only good one I brought.”

“The blue gown.” Brigid pursed her lips. “The Laird does like ye in blue. He couldnae stop staring at ye in it on the road.”

“He doesnae stare at me.”

Brigid laughed so hard that Amelia laughed too. “He does. Like a man who’s found water after a week lost in the hills.”

Freya rolled her eyes. “Ye are exaggerating.”

“I’m nae,” Brigid said, smiling. “Ye should wear the tartan too.”

Freya blinked. “The tartan? Are ye sure?”

“Aye. I think ye should wear his colors, pinned at the shoulder the way a lady wears them,” Brigid said, her eyes twinkling. “The MacArthur folk are still wary of ye, I’ve heard. Of all of us. It would do them good to see ye wearing their tartan.”

“It would do the Laird good, ye mean.”

“That too.”

Freya averted her gaze. “I only have the one he lent me at the inn, and I didnae exactly borrow it.”

“Then ye’ve been wearing his clothes. What’s one more time?”

She opened her mouth and closed it again. Brigid did have a point. Honestly, what was one more time?

Brigid gasped. “And flowers, me Lady! There’s white heather by the garden wall. I’ll help ye put it in yer hair.”

“Brigid, it’s a feast, nae a wedding, remember?”

“Aye, but did ye ever have a proper wedding?”

Freya swallowed. “I had a priest and music.”

“A priest and a fiddler in an inn,” Brigid pointed out. “Ye deserve one night where folk look at ye and see a bride.”

Freya’s throat tightened, and she looked at the twins. “What if he laughs?”

“He willnae laugh, me Lady. I assure ye.”

“How can ye be so sure?”

Brigid smiled, slow and knowing. “Because I’ve seen how he looks at ye when ye’re nae looking, me Lady. That man’s nae going to laugh. He’s going to forget how to breathe.”

Even though a part of Freya wanted to deny what she was saying, another part of her realized that Brigid might actually have a point.

She found Evander in the study that morning, bent over a ledger, and stood in the doorway longer than she meant to. She had no reason to be there.

“I brought ye an apple,” she said, which was absurd.

He looked up and smiled at her as though it were the finest gift in the Highlands.

She sat with him for an hour while he worked, saying almost nothing, and could not remember when she had last been so content.

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