She loved him.
Dear God, what did she do now?
“Miss Lockhart! Jani!” An animated cry broke Mena away from her astonished revelation as she felt Jani tense beside her.
Rhianna raced up the subtle hill toward them, draped in the costume of a Grecian goddess. The effect was slightly ruined by her thick lamb’s-wool wrap, but in frigid weather such as this, it couldn’t be helped. Flanked by two equally red-faced and exuberant girls, she nearly bowled over Jani, but he stopped her just in time with two steadying hands on either arm.
The moment she was stable, he dropped his hands to curl them into fists at his sides.
“Whit like, Jani?” The younger girls giggled, casting not-so-subtle coquettish looks at the young Hindu. Mena had to admit, Jani was an exotically handsome young man, and it broke her heart that he only had eyes for her oblivious charge. Especially when she noted that he caught the notice of many a lass.
“Are ye all right, Miss Lockhart? Ye look like ye’re about to cry,” Rhianna observed with her usual lack of tact, though her dark eyes were filled with concern.
“Just a bit of ash from the fires drifted over,” Mena lied as she greeted Rhianna’s friends, remembering their names as Liza and Kayleigh, though she couldn’t recall which was which. “What’s this, then?” She gestured to the charred remains of what she’d surmised to be an apple peel in the girl’s hands.
“It’s a C, Miss Lockhart, and C is for Campbell.” The sad-looking apple peel was shoved beneath her nose for inspection, and it did, indeed, seem to have been singed into the shape of a C. Though there was a suspicious hook at the bottom of the peel that could have been a J if reversed.
Rhianna had explained earlier that a long-standing Samhain tradition of divination claimed that if a woman were to peel an apple, then stand with her back to the ceremonial bonfires and throw the peel over her shoulder into the flames, said peel would spell out the first letter of her future husband’s name.
“Campbell, indeed?” Mena smiled into Rhianna’s glowing features and glanced at Jani, who scowled at the peel as though it were his enemy.
“As in Kevin Campbell,” the brunette taunted in a singsong voice.
“Nay, Rhianna, it wouldna be Kevin Campbell,” the redhead—Mena thought she was Kayleigh—argued. “The letter only pertains to the first name of your husband, surnames doona count.”
Rhianna pouted at her friend. “But there’s no way an apple peel can spell out the letter K!” she protested loudly. “Exceptions have to be made, isna that right, Miss Lockhart?”
Three sets of expectant young eyes turned on her and Mena couldn’t help but laugh out loud, abruptly grateful for the distraction. “I would imagine that in such a case, an exception could be made. Else it would make many an unfortunate man with a name starting with the letter K very lonely, indeed.”
“Right!” With her raven hair glittering in the firelight, Rhianna triumphantly held the charred peel up as if it were a trophy of war, and whooped like a savage.
“What about ye, Miss Lockhart?” the brunette, who must then be Liza, asked shyly. “What did yer apple peel say? Mine was an N … or an S, I suppose.”
Mena forced a laugh. “I’m much too old for such games, and I’m not of a mind to be married.”
Because she already was, and it had been a nightmare.
“It doesna matter!” Rhianna insisted, her dark eyes glittering with mischief. “It’s not like you have to marry. The apple peel just tells who ye would marry if ye were of a mind.” She repeated her words with a mocking giggle.
“Really, I—”
“Oh, come on, Miss Lockhart!” they all begged, pulling at her sleeves and half dragging her toward the fires.
“Just try it once!”
“It’ll be fun!”
“Please?”
Feeling rather harassed, yet enjoying the barrage of attention from energetic young women, Mena shrugged. What harm could it do?
She glanced at Jani who still studied the apple peel with a fierce expression. Though when he turned back to her, he summoned a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.
Mena reached out and gave his hand one soft squeeze.
“Andrew!” Rhianna bellowed in a rather unladylike fashion across the fires to her brother, who lingered with Rune by the handsome tables laden with food. “Bob an apple for Miss Lockhart!”
Dark hair already gleaming with moisture, Andrew flashed a rare smile, tossed whatever he’d been snacking on to Rune, and lustily dove into the dark liquid of the nearby barrel face-first. His skinny legs kicked comically in his struggle, and even the solemn Jani laughed at his antics.