Page 124 of The Highlander's Auctioned Hellion
Lydia turned the letter over to see if anything had been written on the back, but it was blank.
“What do you think it means?” she asked, and Callum shook his head.
“I dinnae ken. Came out of the blue. She has nae been in the convent for too long. Perhaps it’s just part of her manipulations again. Or maybe she had seen the error of her ways. Who kens? I dinnae wish to think on it nae more.”
He lifted another letter, still sealed, from the pile of correspondence on his desk.
“There was another letter for ye, delivered this mornin’.”
Lydia recognized the handwriting instantly and broke it open, reading it eagerly.
“It is from Joanna!” she said happily.
Callum frowned. “Who is Joanna?”
“Oh, she is my best friend from London. After everything that has happened, I have barely had a chance to write to her. She has said she will come to visit soon.”
“Perhaps ye will find her a laird of her own,” he muttered.
“Oh no, Joanna isn’t interested in marriage. She is far too independent for that.”
Callum scoffed. “She does sound like someone I ken.”
Lydia folded the letter away to read in full later and was about to leave the room when Callum called after her.
“Dae ye have somewhere to be?” he asked.
“Not right now, no, but I promised the cook I would review what she is planning to make for my mother. I think she is worried that the Scottish fare will be too rich for her.”
“Well, yer maither can like it if she is in me castle,” Callum muttered, but his eyes widened when Lydia narrowed her gaze.“Nae offense meant to yer maither, but there is nothin’ wrong with Scottish food.”
“I never said there was. Was there something you needed me for?”
Callum nodded his head toward the other door. “Come with me, I want to show ye somethin’.”
But after he rose, he slowed his pace, stopping beside a chair by the door.
He paused, fiddling awkwardly with his sleeves. Callum was wearing his léine as he usually did without a jacket, but then he pulled something off the back of the chair, looking particularly awkward.
Lydia frowned at him as he pulled a jacket over his shoulders that she had not seen before.
“It is a foolish thing, the woman has lost her mind,” he said with a rumbling growl, and Lydia could not hold back a smile. The jacket he wore was gold, just like her dress.
“Kristen has some ridiculous notion that we shouldmatch.I dinnae ken why,” Callum complained.
The jacket was beautiful, made from the same hue of gold, but a little darker than Lydia’s gown. Stars were sewn all over it withdark buttons at the center of each one, and the sun had been stitched across Callum’s shoulder.
It was beautiful, and Lydia brushed her hand down the front admiringly.
“You look very handsome,” she said appreciatively, delighted when his cheeks reddened.
“Away with ye,” he murmured as he headed out the door and along the corridor toward the library.
Once they were inside, Lydia saw a thick wooden box on the chair beside the hearth and frowned as Callum picked it up and presented it to her.
“It is a gift. Ye dinnae have to use it,” he said inelegantly, crossing his arms over his chest as she took it.
“For me?”
