Saidh nodded at once and followed her to the chairs by the fire. She even managed a smile, which did not usually come to her expression at the thought of sewing. But in this case, she didn’t mind at all. It meant she had an excuse to avoid Fenella until she’d spent the worst of her tears and calmed a bit. While Saidh had agreed to stay when Fenella had asked her to, standing about patting her cousin’s back, saying “there, there” while Fenella sobbed all day and night was not something she really wished to do. She would wait until the woman had spent her tears and then try to offer her some comfort and distraction, but until then, sewing seemed a more attractive pastime.
Much to Saidh’s relief the sewing Lady MacDonnell was tending to was simple mending. There were no fancy stitches for her to fret over, as straight lines were all that were required. They worked in silence at first, though it didn’t feel awkward to Saidh. It was when Greer came back downstairs and cast a brief scowl at her on his way out of the keep that they began to speak.
“Oh dear, Greer appears annoyed with ye.” Lady MacDonnell sounded most amused at the fact and Saidh bit her lip, then smiled and admitted:
“Aye, ’tis sure I am he is. I fear I left him to Fenella’s damp mercies earlier.”
“Ah.” Lady MacDonnell said grimly. “I came up as he was carrying her above stairs. Crying on his shoulder again, was she?”
Saidh nodded, but lowered her gaze to the stocking she was mending and muttered, “Crying seems to be all she does.”
“Aye, and ’tis damned annoying,” Lady MacDonnell said, drawing Saidh’s startled gaze. Smiling, the woman informed her, “I have verra good hearing, me dear.”
“Oh.” Saidh swallowed and nodded with a weak smile.
After a moment, the lady commented, “Ye do no’ seem to care much fer yer cousin.”
Saidh stared at the stocking in her hands and then sighed. “In truth, I’m no’ sure whether I do or no’. I barely know her, m’lady.”
Lady MacDonnell raised her eyebrows at that, and Saidh nodded firmly.
“She stayed with us fer a week or two when we were children while her mother was ill, and then I attended her wedding when I was sixteen. But other than those two times . . .” She shrugged. “This is only the third occasion that I’ve spent time around her.”
“I see,” she said thoughtfully, and then asked, “What was she like as a girl?”
“She was always crying then too,” Saidh said with a grimace, and then to be fair, added, “But I suppose that was me fault.”
“How is that?” Lady MacDonnell asked curiously.
“I grew up playing with me brothers. ’Twas what I’d always done, so when she arrived, I thought, ‘Grand, another playmate,’ and expected her to want to muddy her face, wrap a fur around her waist, climb the trees and swing from branches yelling war cries too.”
“Muddy her face?”
“Aye, well me brothers and I liked to play at being warrior Britons, but we had no blue paint so made do with mud.”
“Ah, I see,” Lady MacDonnell sat back, grinning and nodding. “I imagine that was fun.”
“Aye,” Saidh assured her with a laugh, but the amusement faded quickly from her face and she sighed. “Fenella did no’ agree. She was a little lady. I could be a dastardly Briton if I liked, but she would no’. In fact, she decided I could be the dastardly Briton warrior trying to kidnap and harm her, and me brothers could be her valiant guards who rescued her from me filthy pagan hands.”
“Do ye no’ ha’e seven brothers?” Lady MacDonnell asked with a frown.
“Aye.”
“Well, those hardly seem fair odds,” she said dryly. “One little Briton warrior against seven bigger boys.”
“I won,” Saidh informed her with a wolfish smile.
“Nay!” Lady MacDonnell said with disbelief.
Saidh nodded. “Me brothers got a severe punishment did they ever actually harm me, but I was no’ bound by the same rule. After all, how much harm could a wee lass do?” she asked with feigned innocence. “So, while they tried to capture and pin me down without harming me, I was free to pull their hair, punch and kick to me heart’s content . . . and I trounced all seven o’ them.”
Lady MacDonnell’s eyes widened incredulously and then she burst into laughter.
Saidh smiled at her amusement, and added, “Fenella was most annoyed that her champions failed her so.”
“Oh, I can imagine she would be,” the woman said dryly.
“Especially when she began to cry and I got so annoyed I tied her to a tree and left her there through the nooning meal.”
“Oh, my sweet Lord,” Lady MacDonnell breathed with admiration. “I do believe I like ye, Saidh Buchanan.”
“Why thank ye,” Saidh said with surprised pleasure. “Ye seem a right nice lady yerself.”
They grinned at each other briefly, and then Lady MacDonnell picked up her mending again. “So Fenella has always been a crier when she does no’ get her way.”
Saidh glanced up with surprise, but then slow realization rolled through her. Fenella had cried every time she hadn’t gotten her way as a child. When she’d first arrived, Fenella had expected Saidh to play with the dolls she’d brought with her. But Saidh hadn’t been interested, preferring to run about with her brothers as she always did. Fenella had cried.
Her mother had then taken Saidh aside and suggested it would be kind to play dolls with her cousin. When she’d protested that she didn’t want to play with dolls, her mother had insisted, saying that first she should play with the dolls with her cousin, and then the next day Fenella would play what she wanted to play. So Saidh had suffered through the doll business, but the next day, Fenella had refused to join her and her brothers in a game of hide-and-seek, and had burst into tears when Saidh had shrugged and simply gone out to play with them anyway. It was her day after all, and she didn’t care if Fenella joined in or not.