Page 77 of Sinful Scottish Laird
Cailean squatted down beside him. “Look here, now,” he said softly. “I’ve brought you something.”
“You have?” Ellis asked.
“Aye,” he said and held out the bundle to him. Ellis didn’t take it immediately. “Och,have you no’ received a gift, then?” Cailean said laughingly. “Take it, lad. Open it.”
“Is it a dirk?” he asked suddenly, taking the bundle from Cailean.
Cailean laughed. “No. You’ll have no need of a dirk in London, will you?”
“Come in, come in,” Mr. Kimberly said, his hand on Ellis’s back. “We’ll have a look at the gift and indulge in some fine brandy I purchased at Balhaire,” he said, ushering them all inside.
In the great room, Ellis went down onto the floor with the package and untied the twine that held it together while the butler poured brandy. Spivey, Cailean noticed, refused his.
Ellis folded back the cloth and picked up the first item: a sporran made from a hare’s skin.
“What is that?” the captain asked.
“A sporran,” Cailean said.
Ellis put it aside and picked up the next item—a small plaid. He gasped with delight and scrambled to his feet, holding it up, then trying to wrap it around his waist.
“I’ll show you how it’s done,” Cailean said and demonstrated how to fold the plaid, how to don it. “You’ll need a belt, then. And it’s a wee bit long, but you’ll grow into it.”
“I rather doubt he’ll have need of that in London, either,” Spivey said dismissively.
Daisy looked appalled. “It’s wonderful,” she said to Cailean. “Thank you. Isn’t it lovely?” she said to her son, pushing him toward Cailean.
Ellis looked at Cailean, and his lower lip began to tremble. Clutching the plaid to his chest, he suddenly launched himself at Cailean, throwing his arms around his legs and burying his face in Cailean’s side.
Bloody hell, the bairn was weeping.
“Stop that,” Spivey admonished him. “It’s unbecoming.”
“I’ve one last thing for you, lad,” Cailean said quickly, and he put his hand on Ellis’s back, patting him. “A wee secret shared only among Highlanders. But I must offer it to you in private...if your mother doesna mind?”
Daisy shook her head. He turned Ellis around to the door and moved him briskly along, out of the great room.
Thankfully, no one followed.
He marched Ellis down the corridor and out into the portico, and there he knelt down and looked him in the eye. “Let’s have it, then. What ails you?” he asked, squeezing Ellis’s shoulders. “Highlanders donna cry unless they have good reason.”
Ellis looked to the ground. “I don’t want to go,” he said miserably. “I want to stay here, at Auchenard. With you!”
A Diah.“That would be my wish, too,” Cailean said. He put his arms around Ellis and hugged him tightly. He was surprised by the amount of affection he held for this child. He felt sympathy for his shyness, sympathy for his uncertainty about where he stood in the world.
He slowly pushed Ellis back. “Do you know what keeps me, then?” he asked.
Ellis shook his head.
“That I know you’ll come back, aye? I hang all my hopes on that, I do. You’ll come back to Auchenard. You will, Ellis Bristol.”
“I won’t,” Ellis said tearfully into Cailean’s shoulder. “Mamma will marry him, and I will be in England.”
Cailean closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the same sorrow that Ellis felt, along with a generous dollop of regret seeping into him, filling him up.
“You’ll be back, lad. I feel it in my bones, aye? You’ll reach your majority before you know it, and then Auchenard will be yours. And then you might come whenever you please.”
“But...” Ellis lifted his face from Cailean’s shoulder. “But what about you?”
