The Handfasting Read Online Free PDF

MacBede.’”
    Hoots
filled the air. Even the MacKay men, who tried so foolishly to blend with the
wall, boomed their amusement. People would hear it across the loch. You’d think
the kitchen was full of rough and rowdy men rather than a passel of women. And
what did any of them know?
    “They
were a disgrace measured next to you.” Leitis offered, as she fought to catch
her breath.
    Maggie
pressed dough in her hands, thinner and thinner, her head bent to her task,
anger building with each round of pastry.
    These
women knew nothing. Look at Muireall, who angled for a brute of a warrior
having already lost one husband to the fight. Didn't they see what they were
asking for? Did they all wish to feel the loneliness that Muireall suffered?
    “You
weren’t made to be the wife of a runt.”
    Harder
and harder she turned the dough until it was a circle so fine you could see
through it. She placed her latest effort on the pile of finished tart shells
and tried to break the flow of humor. “You know,” she tilted her head, the
shrill crack of her voice the only sign of irritation, “I think it was not
exaggerating you were up to, Neili!  I’m thinking you spoke the truth!  I do
have a fine hand with the dough.”
    “Oh,
do you?” Roz elbowed Neili.
    “Aye,
I’m thinking that my pastry shells are the best.”
    “Well
then, whatever you say, Mistress Margaret.” Neili winked at Roz. “And as you
are the best,” Roz sidled away, “you should do them all!”
    “You
wouldn’t.” Maggie hurled the pastry at the giggling girls.
    Like
a spirit, appearing from nowhere, Fiona caught the dough in mid-air. The room
stilled. Out of the corner of her eye, Maggie noted that the men stood
straighter, their smiles wiped clean.
    Fiona
sighed at Maggie. “Enough of chattering and playing, daughter. You need to be
getting yourself ready.”
    “Ready
for what?” Nosy Muireall asked.
    “For
The MacKay, of course.” Fiona answered. "He is to be our guest.”
    "What
does that have to do with me?” Maggie snapped, not that she wanted to know. Not
that she wanted any one to know. But she had opened her mouth and the worst
came out. Quiet settled on the room. Maggie sighed.
    One
of the MacKays, so silent up until now, spoke. "Lady MacBede, you speak as
if you know what the Bold is here for?”
    Fiona
shook her head. “Nay.”
    The
man accepted that as answer enough. This time Maggie's sigh was full of relief.
    Fiona
turned to Simon, "Have some lads send more hot water up to my chamber. I’m
going to see to the men’s baths.” She faced Maggie again, "And you, young
lass,” she took Maggie’s shoulders, looked her up and down with a shake of her
head. "Look at the state of you. Your hair is naught but a tangled mass.
You need to be seeing to yourself.”
    “But
Ma.”
    “No
buts, daughter. I'm not knowing the why of it, but the MacKay is here to see
you.” She turned to the men, "Is that much not so?"
    Their
stupid grins were back in place. "Aye, mistress, 'tis a fact."
    "Well
then, child," Fiona flipped a strand of Maggie's hair from her shoulder,
"you’d best make yourself worth seeing!”
    Nothing,
absolutely nothing, moved within the room except Fiona. Oblivious to the
reaction she’d created, she swept past the other women.
    The
frozen state lasted for as long as one woman could hold her breath, then all
manner of chaos erupted.
    “The
MacKay?”
    “Oh,
aye, isn’t that a ripe one.”
    “Our
Maggie?”
    “You
don’t say? Well, it’s about time.”
    “And
here she had us all thinking she was sweet on Hamish the tailor.”
    “Och,
wouldn’t the MacKay be just the one for our Maggie?" Letice looked to the
MacKay men, who nodded their agreement. Slyly she added,  "He’d not die in
her womanness.”
    “He’d
thrill to it.”
    “Rise
to it is more the way of things.” One of the men blurted out.
    "Ohhhhh!”
The stunned laughter swallowed Maggie, as all the women gathered around,
pushing her hair from her