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so he didn’t ever cast them on another woman again. But then I suppose ye’re just grateful to have found a husband at all. I wonder ye did not go to the old church to spend yer days in prayer.”
    “I have no wish at all to spend my days in prayer,” Annabella said. “I’m grateful that Da found me a husband, but I can’t help but wonder how he did it. We live in a stone tower that has stood for several hundred years, and housed many generations of Bairds. We cannot be said to be poor, but neither are we rich. How hard our father must scrabble to find dower portions for four daughters. How has he done it? Where is it coming from? And how on earth did he find an earl for me? Why would such a man have the daughter of a simple tower laird of no importance for a wife?”
    She looked at Myrna. “Ye’re good at ferreting out information.” Then Annabella added the spur she knew would encourage her sister to go snooping. “I can only hope that Da has not taken from your dowers in order to gain this earl for me.”
    Myrna paled as her breath caught in her throat briefly. Recovering, she said, “Ian remarked to me recently that his father was not pleased with the size of my dower. He said his son’s bride should do better. But he also said I am healthy, and he believes I will be a good mother.”
    “Ye’re not breeding stock,” Annabella said, irritated.
    “Aye, I am, and so are ye,” Myrna replied. “Our dowers and our ability to give our husbands sons are our great value as women.”
    “Jesu, Jesu, ye’re listening to those traveling churchmen again. Reformed Church or old Church, they all have the same opinion of women.” Annabella swore.
    Myrna’s Cupid’s bow of a mouth pursed itself in disapproval. “I intend to be a good wife to Ian Melville,” she said. “I shall birth a son for his family as quickly as I can. Ye had best do the same for yer earl, sister.”
    Annabella sighed. Why couldn’t a woman just be ? she silently asked herself. Why was her only value in her ability to reproduce, and in the coin she would bring her husband? But she was curious to learn what Myrna could find out about Duin and its earl, because the day was drawing nearer and nearer when the Fergusons would come to take her away to the west, and the stranger who would be her husband.
    Myrna, however, could learn no more information about the lord of Duin. Nor did she learn how their father had managed to gain the dower to betroth Annabella to an earl. With the Fergusons just a few days from Rath, Annabella went to their mother and asked, “How did Da find a dower large enough to satisfy an earl, Mama? I pray he took nothing from my sisters to do it.”
    “Ye should really not ask such questions, Annabella,” her mother said. “It should not matter to ye how the deed was accomplished, and naught was taken from yer sisters.”
    “But I have asked, and I want to know,” Annabella persisted.
    The lady Anne sighed. Then she said, “I suppose there is no harm in yer knowing. It was nothing more than a wee bit of good fortune that put ye in the earl’s path. I will not pretend that it has been easy to find a good husband for ye, Annabella. Yer da was actually despairing over it, for a lass wi’ a plain face and a small dower has a difficult time of it. But then Lord Bothwell came to yer da and suggested that he offer the Earl of Duin that bit of property in the west yer da inherited, as a dower portion for ye. The earl has been attempting to purchase that land from yer da for several years, but Robert would nae sell, for the kinsman who left it to him feuded with the Fergusons of Duin. The land borders his own and is particularly good grazing land. The earl raises cattle.
    “Angus Ferguson is ready to take a wife. He doesn’t need a rich wife, for riches he has aplenty. He doesn’t object to having a wife whose features are modest in appearance. But most important, he wants that acreage that yer father holds, and so ye