Page 44 of Hold Fast

Una felt the hot blush creeping up her neck.

“What’s their name?” Fenella asked.

“Whose name?” Una said, pounding the coriander with more force than necessary, her ears hot and throbbing now.

“Dinnae lie to me, lass. I ken that look on your face.”

“Perhaps I am just happy,” Una replied saucily. “Is that nae allowed in the MacDonald clan?”

“Och, you verra well may be happy. But you had a secret smile just now. Like you were thinking about a tumble you took.”

“I havenae taken any tumbles, Fenella,” Una said, her eyes wide with protest. “With what time?”

Fenella laughed, her bosom quaking, and shook her head. “Fine. Keep your secrets then. The keep is full of them. But you might be interested to know that a little birdie told me some verra interesting news this morning.” She winked.

Una narrowed her eyes. “What?”

Fenella shrugged, her eyes on the lard and flour before her when she casually said, “Something about a certain bonny healer being lodged with Lady Catriona’s maid just down the hall from the laird himself?”

Una felt her mouth go dry.

“Is everyone talking?”

“Nay. Only one little bird,” Fenella said with a warm smile. “But it willnae be long.”

Una’s face felt unbearably hot. She stopped her grinding. Fenella’s smile was easy and genuine, but a year in the Cameron keep had made Una suspicious in a way she’d never been before.

“What else did this little bird tell you?”

Fenella shrugged her broad shoulders again and pursed her lips. “I have heard tell that our laird is often verra interested in the whereabouts and well-being of the bonny healer.”

“Fenella—” Una began, but the words died on her tongue.

She could imagine what the gossip would become, what people would say about her. How very unfair for her to have been here less than a fortnight and there already be rumors swirling about her relationship to yet another laird. A relationship that, unlike the last one, did not actually exist. Una swallowed against the lump in her throat.

Fenella smiled at her across the table, her eyes bright and kind and full of mirth, without a hint of malice, and continued to rub the globs of fat into the flour. “I remember the laird as a lad. Always with a smile on his face. He had a new joke for me every day. And hungry. Och, he was always so hungry. I teased his mother that her boy had a bigger appetite than my husband, Big Hew. God rest him.”

Una relaxed in spite of herself, resuming her grinding. “What was his mother like?”

Fenella’s smile softened, a wistful expression crossing her face. “My lady was the kindest. She didnae set herself apart. She was the laird’s wife, but she often made her way down here to have a cup of ale with me and the maids. She would ask after us, our bairns, our troubles. And it was a common thing for a maid who had complained of a sick child or a pished husband to find a basket on her doorstep the next morning.”

Una smiled.

“She loved children. All of them. Of an evening, she sat in a chair by the hearth in the Great Hall and told faerie stories to the wee ’uns. She—” Fenella cleared her throat, her eyes shining.

“She sounds wonderful,” Una said.

“Aye,” Fenella said with a cough. “She was. She was the beating heart of this keep. When she died, the keep died a bit as well, I think. The laird—Laird Ewan’s father, that is—was never the same. And our Laird Ewan wasnae ready for the title when it fell to him. Though he is the best man for it. He has all of his mother’s kindness. All of her heart. All of her worry too.”

Una looked back at the coriander grounds.

Fenella sighed and added water to her pastry. “If only he had someone to ease his heartache. To make him smile. I havenae seen that smile in a verra, verra long time.”

Una’s stomach tightened.

“Imagine my surprise when that little bird told me that he smiled when asking after the bonny new healer.”

Una’s heart was pounding now. She was saved from having to reply by Fiona appearing in the doorway.