“Aye, daft enough,” agreed Eithne happily. “Were you knowing, Kelpie, that he’s altogether foolish about an English lass, his cousin Cecily in Oxford? And yet all he can be saying of her is that she is like her own wee kitten, and that he will marry with her some day.”
Alex grinned brazenly. “Well, and with who else?” he demanded. “You would not be having me, m’eudail.”
“Dhé, no!” agreed Eithne promptly. “I’d as lief marry the twins!”
“Mayhap Kelpie would have him,” suggested Ian lazily, and then he and Eithne shouted with laughter at the looks of sheer horror on both faces.
“Mercy!” begged Alex, getting to his knees and clasping his hands pleadingly. “Anything but that! Curse me all you wish, water witch, but please do not marry me!”
Kelpie looked at him. It was then that something clicked. “Very well so,” she agreed with enthusiasm. “And what sort of curse would you be wanting?”
She went back to the house a little later, looking thoughtful and with a pleasant feeling in the heart of her—not merely because, for once, she had got the better of Alex, but also because of the thing that happened between people when they teased. It was a warm and happy thing that turned insults to joking and the hatred of Alex to something kinder. For surely a body did not tease where he hated! And surely he had been half teasing her from the first.
Kelpie’s blue eyes glinted happily as she hurried into the big stone-floored kitchen, so that Marsali the cook almost smiled at her and Fiona for once forgot to cross herself.
“And about time it is, too!” Marsali grunted, remembering her doubts about Kelpie. “The mistress has been looking for you while you were playing like a fine lady. Here, now, be helping to pluck this fowl, and let Master Donald go tell her that you’re here.”