Adair handed the tray back to the young woman and returned to his place with the rest of his clansmen.
“You can go,” Nicholas snapped at the maidservant.
“This bold fellow is my eldest son, Adair Mac Seamus Mac Taran,” Seamus explained to the Norman as the young woman fled. “My clan has chosen him to be thane and chieftain when I die.”
As Sir Nicholas ran a measuring gaze over him, Adair wondered if the Norman had heard that Adair Mac Taran had never been beaten in a fight, whether with arms or bare-handed, since he was ten years old—after he had seen what Norman soldiers could do.
Sir Nicholas looked back at Seamus and raised a brow. “Chosen?”
“Aye, although he’s my son, we still hold to the old ways. I pick who will succeed me, and my clansmen must agree. I have, and they did.”
“And all are happy with that choice?”
“They accept it, and thus it shall be,” his father answered with a smile. “Loyalty to the clan comes first above all things.”
“Not loyalty to your king?”
“If a chieftain’s loyalty is pledged to the king, so is the clan’s, without fail. Since I swore my oath to Alexander when he gave me the charter, every man in my clan would die for him.”
“Whether there was a reward for such service promised or not,” Adair added, earning him another sharp look from his father, and a suspicious one from the Norman.
“My son is a bit hot-tempered, my lord,” Seamus said. “Something that stands him in good stead in a fight, but leads to misunderstanding at other times.”
“I see. And I sympathize. My brother is the same.”
There were two of them?
Seamus smiled as if he and this Norman interloper were good friends. “A trial at times, yet worth the trouble in a fight, eh?”
The Norman actually laughed, a harsh sound like a crow, but a laugh. “If you were to come to Henry and accuse him or his men of theft, he would have his knife at your throat before you’d finished speaking.”
And soon after that, he would be dead, Adair silently vowed.
“I haven’t come here to accuse you or your men of theft,” Seamus replied evenly. “I came to warn you that there may be outlaws afoot. I also came to tell you that we intend to mount more patrols on our land.”
His father’s intent suddenly became more clear, and acceptable. Not as good as telling the Norman they knew his men had taken the cattle—the hoof-prints of the beasts had showed they’d been herded toward Dunkeathe—but his father was a wise and patient man, so perhaps this was the better course, even if it was frustrating.
The Norman’s expression hardened. “Are you warning me about outlaws, or that you’ll attack any Norman who comes onto your land?”
“Has anyone proof that the cattle were actually stolen?” a woman asked, her dulcet French voice coming from somewhere behind the group of Scots. “Perhaps they merely wandered off.”
Adair, and all the others, turned to see who’d spoken. Then they stared at the vision of beauty walking regally toward them.
She was easily the most beautiful woman Adair had ever seen. She looked like an angel, with the merest hint of a smile on her lovely face, clear blue eyes the color of a summer’s sky, smooth cheeks and full, rosy lips. Framing her perfect face, her soft blond hair hung in long braids over her shoulders.
She was slender and shapely, too—and wearing the most motley collection of garments he’d ever seen on anybody except a beggar.
So she couldn’t be a supernatural being. She was a woman of flesh and blood and bone. A woman a mortal man could woo and hope to win.
Sir Nicholas had no wife. If this was Sir Nicholas’s lover, he was a very lucky man, and Adair might finally have found one thing to envy a Norman.
“They were stolen, all right,” Adair said, walking toward her. “The herdsman is certain of it, and I would stake my life on his opinion.”
She raised a shapely, inquisitive brow. “You would pledge your life on a herdsman’s word?”
“That one, aye, I would.”
The beauty frowned and addressed the overlord. “I wonder if some of the men of the garrison took the cattle by mistake, Nicholas.”
Adair nearly laughed at the stunned look on the man’s face.
The Norman quickly recovered, and his cheeks turned as pink as the lady’s bliaut. “Marianne, return to your chamber.”
So, her name was Marianne. And she was also definitely, unfortunately Norman.
“You would rob us of this charming lady’s company?” Adair’s father asked, rising. “Here, my dear, please sit down.”
It could be that his father was making that offer to goad the Norman, but it was more likely he was merely being kind to a woman, as was his way.
In spite of Seamus’s invitation, Sir Nicholas fairly bounded off the dais and came to stand between Adair and the woman. “My sister has other duties to attend to.”
Sister, not lover. A thrill of familiar excitement shot through Adair’s body, yet because she was a Norman, his excitement quickly dwindled.
Lady Marianne flushed as she addressed his father. “I thank you for your kindness, sir, but my brother is right. I should not linger here.”
There had been no need for Sir Nicholas to humiliate her, Adair thought, hating the Norman anew.
“Now if you’ll excuse me, I must ensure that we have adequate food and drink and lodging for our honored guests.”
Adair was grimly delighted by the annoyance that flittered across Sir Nicholas’s angular face. She’d paid him back for that humiliation, because short of rudely denying them food and drink and a place to sleep, Sir Nicholas had to let them stay.
Still, Adair expected the Norman to be discourteous, so he was taken aback when Sir Nicholas said, “Yes, of course. Off you go, then, Marianne. I’ll speak to you about the arrangements later.”
The beauty smiled tremulously, bowed and gracefully drifted toward a door at the side of the hall, the hem of her garments swaying as she walked, while the Norman threw himself back into his chair.
The man’s anger was no doubt caused by more than having to provide food and drink and lodging. He had to be well aware that a potential enemy could learn a lot about his fortress by staying in it.
Perhaps later, Adair thought with inner glee, he could thank his sister for the opportunity.
CHAPTER TWO
“SO HE TOOK the tray right out of my hands and served them himself,” Polly said breathlessly. “And handsome? Holy Mother Mary, I’ve never seen a man so fair. I thought I’d faint when our hands touched, I truly did.”
Marianne looked away from the cook to the little group of servants clustered around the very excited Polly, who was describing something that had transpired in the hall before she’d arrived and angered Nicholas even more. She was rather curious as to which man had taken pity on the nervous Polly, but it was time they all got back to work. It was bad enough Nicholas was obviously furious with her; she didn’t need a ruined evening meal to make things worse.
“That haunch of venison needs turning,” she said to the spit boy. “And the rest of you have other things to do, do you not?”
The lad immediately went back to slowly turning the spit. The scullery maid returned to her pots, and the two other female servants started kneading dough again. Three men hurried out of the