Page 122 of Highlanders for the Holidays
The Thief's Daughter
by Suzan Tisdale
Prologue
October, 1424
Highlands, near the Forth of Moray
No one buther mum had ever called Onnleigh pretty. Thief, liar, wretched creature? Daughter of a drunkard and thief? Aye, she’d been called all those things, more times than she could count. But pretty? Nay, not pretty.
“I dunnae lie to ye, lass,” Darwud MacCallen told her as he sat next to the stream that helped feed Loch Moy. He was smiling at her as he played with a long blade of summer grass betwixt his fingers. She was in the stream trying to catch a fish for her supper. Though the water was frigid this time of year, fishing was a necessity, especially if she wanted to eat anything more than dried apples for her supper.
He was being so kind to her, something she was not accustomed to, especially from members of her clan. An outcast since the age of nine—all because of her father’s love of drink—to have a young man like Darwud tell her how pretty he thought her was more than unusual.
“Stop yer jestin’, Darwud MacCallen,” she told him as she waded farther into the cold water. She’d been in the stream for at least half an hour and had yet to catch anything. Darwud was a distraction she wasn’t necessarily sure she wanted to go away.
He laughed, his crooked smile showing less than perfect teeth. Darwud was not a handsome lad, but neither was he hideous or unappealing.
“Ye wound me, lass!” he said as he crossed one ankle over the other and tossed the blade away. “I would never lie to such a bonny thing as ye.”
Bonny? Pretty?
He’d been coming around now and again for a few weeks, offering to help with her garden, her chickens and milk cow. He’d even been kind enough to help mend the thatched roof of the croft she shared with her father.
Standing in the center of the stream, with the hem of her dress tucked into her belt, she slipped an errant strand of hair behind her ear.Bonny. Pretty.How many times had he said such sweet things to her?
A large trout swam between her ankles, its tail fin just brushing her left foot.Damnation!she thought to herself. If she didn’t focus on the task at hand, they’d be eating dried apples. “Why do ye say such things?” she asked, turning her attention back to the stream.
Before she knew it, he was wading into the water. “Let me help ye, lass.”
Mayhap time had changed people. It had been years since she’d set foot anywhere near the MacCallen keep. Mayhap Darwud didn’t know about her father, his reputation as a drunkard and layabout. Aye, all they said about her da was true, she’d not deny it. But what they said of her? Not one word of it the truth. She never told a lie, hadn’t stolen anything since she was nine, and worked very hard to keep home and hearth. She supposed it boiled down to what the Bible said about the sins of the father passing to the son and all that. Though she wasn’t Grueber’s son, she reckoned the good people of Clan MacCallen didn’t care to take that into consideration.
Darwud was standing next to her now, bent over at the waist, hands cupped under the cool water. “Now watch and see how I do it.”
She resisted the urge to scoff at him. With a father as unreliable as Grueber, she’d learned early in life how to fend for herself. That included fishing. Still, it was awfully kind of him to help.
A warm autumn breeze flittered in over the tree-lined bank, caressing her skin, and pulling more of her unruly red hair out of her braid. Though she was trying to catch a fish, her mind was anywhere but on the matter at hand.
Moments passed by, with her heart happily dancing against her chest. Dare she believe that the rumors and stories had faded with time? Dare she hope that someone might take a fancy to her?
“Ah ha!” Darwud cried out as he scooped a large trout out of the water and held it up for her to see. It flipped and flopped, splashing little bits of water onto her nose. “That, my lass, is how it be done!” he exclaimed.
Why she clapped her hands together, she couldn’t say. But she did. “That be a right good fish, Darwud!” she told him approvingly. “Da and I will give thanks to ye when we sit down to sup this night.”
His expression changed from victorious to something far more mischievous. “Ye want the fish?” he asked.
Her brow furrowed in confusion. “Aye, I do. Did ye nae catch it fer me?” Embarrassment forced the color to creep up her neck, flushing her cheeks.
“Mayhap I did, mayhap I dinnae,” he said as he headed toward the rocky banks.
Onnleigh remained standing in the water, feeling rather foolish.
“Now, I might be willin’ to give ye the fish, if ye were to give me a boon.”
A boon? Not a coin to her name. She thought everyone knew that. “I have no coin to give ye,” she told him, a little miffed that he’d expect her to pay for a fish that she could very well have caught on her own. Had he not been here distracting her, she would have caught more than enough by now. Ignoring him, she set about to do just that.
“I dinnae ask fer coin,” he told her. “I asked fer a boon.” He tossed the fish into her basket and waded back into the stream.
