Padraig MacNally threw his hands up and stumbled backward, almost tripping over Fabienne, whose tail was swishing madly, so pleased that someone had come to call.
“What do you want?” Cailean demanded gruffly.
MacNally began to prattle in Gaelic, something about a foreigner and the years of his life devoted to serving others with no reward for it.
With a groan of exasperation, Cailean lowered his gun. “For God’s sake, take a breath, lad. I donna understand a word of it.”
MacNally paused. He drew a deep breath. He said, in Gaelic again, “A lady has come and released me from service!” He took a cautious step forward, nervously rubbed his hand under his nose. His plaid was filthy, and from a distance of a few feet, Cailean could smell whisky on him. That was not surprising—everyone knew that the MacNallys of this glen were drunkards. “I’m without situation!”
“Aye, and whose fault is that?” Cailean sighed.
“I’ve looked after Auchenard for fourteen years!” he wailed.
“Looked after it? The place is a pile of rocks.”
“The old man refused to send money for repairs,” he insisted, seemingly on the verge of tears. “What was I to do? There was naught I could do, laird! I need your help,” he said, clasping his dirty hands together and shaking them at Cailean. “Please.”
“Aye, and what can I do, then?” Cailean asked, annoyed. MacNally was not a member of the Mackenzie clan, and he didn’t like him being here. The man could not be trusted, and Aulay would be arriving at any moment with their goods. They would store it here until they were ready to sell it. Which meant when they were certain no one was in pursuit of them for having “forgotten” to declare their cargo with the authorities.
“I tried to reason with her, but my English isn’t very good,” MacNally begged. “And she talks, laird. She talks without a breath so that a man can’t say what he might.”
Diah.
He thought of the woman he’d met on the road yesterday. The one who had looked at him as if he were a beefsteak and she a starving orphan. She’d not been at Auchenard for as much as a day and had let go the man who’d kept a watchful eye on a property all but abandoned?
That was the way of the English—or Sassenach, as they referred to them here. They seemed to appear out of the mist to take this or that, to demand change to a way of life that had been known in these hills for hundreds of years. But of all the English reavers Cailean knew, none of them were quite as striking as this one. Her eyes were shaped like those of a wily cat, the color of them as green as new pears. She had a fine figure, too—frankly, she was beautiful.
She’d been quite a surprise to him, in truth, and Cailean was not a man who was easily surprised. But with rumors swirling fast and furious about another attempt to restore a Stuart to the throne, tensions were quite high between Highlanders who disagreed about it, and between Scot and Englishman. For a beautiful English lady to suddenly appear in the Highlands was an invitation for trouble.
Aye, she was surprising and beautiful—and unforgivingly, unacceptably English. Poor MacNally was no match for them.
“Aye, then. Wait there,” Cailean said. He stepped inside, slammed the door and marched across his half-finished house toward the back to leave his brother a note.
As MacNally was on foot, they walked the mile or so to Auchenard. They came through the woods, emerging near the drive. Weeds had sprung up among the gravel, and as they neared the lodge, Cailean could see the windows were unwashed, the lawn overgrown. Cailean paused and looked pointedly at MacNally.
MacNally read his expression quite accurately. “I’ll put it to rights, laird. I will.”
Cailean grunted at that and continued on. He didn’t believe it for a moment, but MacNally was not his worry.
He strode up to the front door and rapped loudly. Several moments passed before a man wearing shirtsleeves and a leather apron answered the door. “Sir?”
“Lady Chatwick,” Cailean said.
The man blinked. He looked at MacNally, then at Cailean. “Who...who may I say is calling?” he asked uneasily.
“The laird of Arrandale.”
The man seemed shocked. He hesitated, casting a disapproving look over MacNally.
“Be quick about it, lad,” Cailean said impatiently. “I havena all day for this.”
The man’s throat bobbed with a swallow. He nodded and disappeared into the dark and dank foyer of the lodge.
Several moments passed. Cailean could hear male voices, and then a sudden and collective footfall. It sounded as if an army were advancing on the door, but there appeared only the lady, the butler and two other men. One of the men was familiar to Cailean—he’d brandished a sword yesterday. The other man was a stranger to him.
Lady Chatwick, who led them, looked worried as she approached the door, but when she saw him standing there, a peculiar thing happened. A smile lit her face so suddenly and so sunnily that it startled him. “You again,” she exclaimed, and her voice was full of...delight?
She should not be delighted to see him, and Cailean eyed her suspiciously. She was dressed plainly, her hair tied up under a cap. Her slender neck was unadorned, and he could faintly see the pulse of her heart in the hollow of her throat.
He looked away from her neck, shifted his weight onto his hip. “Aye,” he said impatiently.
Her smiled deepened. What was she doing, smiling at him like that? He didn’t like it—it unbalanced him. She should not be smiling at him; she should be trembling in her silly little boots.
“I beg your pardon,” she said, touching a wayward strand of hair. “We’ve only just arrived, as you know, and I’m afraid we’re not ready to receive callers. I had hoped to be here a week earlier, but the journey was so arduous from London that we were delayed. First the rough sea, then all these hills.”
Why was she nattering? “These hills,” he said brusquely, “is why the area is called the Highlands. One might have expected it. And I’ve no’ come to call.”
Her green eyes widened with surprise. And then she laughed, the sound of it soft and light in that cluster of men. “I thank you for not couching your opinion in poetic phrases, sir. Of course you are right—I should have expected it.”
Just then a lad pushed his way through and latched onto her skirts, staring up at Cailean with trepidation. “Ah, there you are, darling.” She turned slightly, put her hands on lad’s shoulders and moved him to stand in front of her. “May I introduce my family? My uncle, Mr. Alfonso Kimberly,” she said gesturing to the taller of the two men. “And of course, Sir Nevis you have met,” she said, her eyes twinkling with amusement.
Sir Nevis stood with his hand on the hilt of his sword. Both men glared at him with wariness, as if he were the intruder here. Cailean grunted at them. He didn’t care who they were, was not interested in introductions.
“And my son, Lord Chatwick.”
The lad stepped back into her, practically hiding in the folds of her skirt, but she gently pushed him out again. He looked to be about seven or eight years old, slight and pale, his blond hair sticking to his head. Cailean wondered if the lad was ill.
“Ellis, might you bow to the gentleman?”
The lad clasped his hands behind his back and bowed woodenly. “How do you do.”
“Latha math,” Cailean said absently.
The lad blinked up at him.
“I said, ‘Good day, lad.’ Have you no’ heard a Highlander speak?”
“I thought you might be English,” his mother said.
“English!”