Page 51 of Sinful Scottish Laird
But not a single one of them had spirited green eyes or a bloody seductive smile.Not one.
Cailean didn’t speak; he tossed some coins on the table and left, even as the women taunted him and called him back, one of them promising a remedy for his failed masculinity. He was mortified by that, of course—if there was one thing on which he could depend, it was his bloody masculinity. In fact, it was pounding hard in his veins as he rode away.
He was soon enough at Balhaire and the village that surrounded the fortress. Everyone was in the throes of preparing for thefeillto celebrate the end of summer. The Mackenzie tradition was an annual affair, and it brought dozens, even hundreds, to Balhaire for market, games and dancing. Thefeillwas particularly important during trying times—Balhaire was a true stronghold, and Arran Mackenzie wanted his clan and other Highlanders to know it and depend on it.
The inner bailey and the old keep were teeming with people when Cailean arrived. He walked down the long, narrow corridor that led to his father’s study, sidestepping two footmen who carried a sideboard between them.
At the end of that hall, Cailean walked into his father’s study in such a stew that at first he did not see his mother until she cried out with delight.
“Cailean! I am in astonishment!” She hurried across the room with her arms outstretched. Cailean reached for her hand, but she pushed his hand away and threw her arms around his neck, rising up on her toes to kiss his cheek. “I’ll not be greeted like a distant cousin.” She hugged him tightly, small thing that she was, then let him go. “I thought at first you were a vision—I have so rarely seen you of late, and particularly when the day is fine.”
“Aye,” he said. “Business has brought me in from the sunshine for a word withAthair.”
“Ah yes, good, then. We men must speak of cargos and prevailing winds,” his father said from behind his desk.
“What matters?” his mother asked.
“You’ll no’ want to hear it,leannan,” Cailean’s father said and fluttered his fingers at her. “Best you go and occupy yourself.”
“Are you asking me to leave, dearest? Don’t you want my advice? Cailean, darling, you will attend thefeill,won’t you?”
Cailean couldn’t help but smile—after all these years, his mother’s English accent weighed down any word she tried to speak in Gaelic. “Aye, of course I will.”
“I’d like you to invite your neighbor.”
Cailean’s heart stilled. “Who?”
“Yourneighbor,” she said, enunciating the word. “Lady Chatwick.”
“Mathair—”
“Her family, as well,” she said before he could object. “She has a young son, does she not? He will be delighted.”
“Aye, she does, but I—”
“I should like to meet her,” his mother said quickly. “She is English after all, and there are precious few of my countrymen in the Highlands.”
“Aye, with good reason,” her husband reminded her.
“You sound like a Jacobite, darling. Cailean, please do extend the invitation.”
“If you mean to try your hand at matchmakingagain,” he said, leveling a pointed look at her, “you’re too late.”
His mother gasped. “She’s made a match so soon?”
“No’ with a Scotsman. An old love has come from England to fetch her.”
His mother gaped at him. “Who? Who would come all this way?”
“Captain Robert Spivey.”
His mother stared at him blankly, but his father’s brow furrowed. “The name is familiar.”
“Aye, it is. Spivey is or was captain of theFortune.”
His father frowned darkly. “Is that no’ the ship whose gun nearly brought down our foremast?”
“It is the ship that lost a sailor to Wallace’s gun, aye,” Cailean said.
