Page 24 of Laird of Secrets
“That wee lassie has no interest in household matters. It comes of being raised by scoundrels.”
“We are not so bad,” Dougal said. “Aunt Jean taught her to make her bed and keep her clothes neat, sweep the floors, sew a seam, cook a little.”
“She is not even seven years old. And she makes salty porridge and weak tea, nor can we expect a child to tend the fire in the hearth and take on such things. The wee lass needs a mother,” Hamish said. “You should have married the one who ran off with the shepherd.”
“She did not want me,” Dougal said.
Hamish grunted. “Then marry this Lowland lady so we can have good sausages and cakes, and she will teach the school and tell her brother to keep his officers away from her husband. And we will all be content.” He grinned and patted his belly.
“You have thought it all out,” Dougal drawled.
“For the sake of our stomachs, one of us needs a wife in our house.”
“Jean will return,” Dougal said. But he feared that this time, Hamish and Jean might be done with their stormy, passionate, stubborn marriage. “Miss MacCarran would be out searching for wee rocks and letting us fend for ourselves, I guarantee. Nor would it help if I married a gauger’s sister.”
“Blast all gaugers!” Hamish shrugged. “Well, make her leave if you can. A pity the reverend brought her here at this time. I wish he had waited a few weeks more.”
“Aye.” Dougal bent to pick up his bagpipes and walked beside Hamish, the dogs following. Aye, indeed, he did want the Lowland lass to stay, and he could not explain the strong feeling of it, the surge of craving inside him. He barely knew the woman. But he could not forget those kisses—or the fine way she stood up to him and expressed her own thoughts and her own will. He admired that even more than sweet, earnest kisses.
He was not desperate for a wife, he told himself. He had dallied now and then with one girl and another, if they were willing, and lived beyond the glen. In truth, a long while had passed since the last time he had let his heart become even a little interested. By now he was resigned to bachelorhood. It suited him.
But this Lowland girl was different. He felt it all throughout body and heart.
Scowling, he picked up another stick and threw it. The deerhounds ignored it. “Lazy beasts.”
“I know how to get the Lowland teacher to leave,” Hamish said then. “Let the fairies do it.”
“What?” Dougal looked at his uncle. Hamish was tough as an old ram, like his brothers. But unlike them, he was skeptical of fairies and suchlike. “You do not believe in any of the legends of Glen Kinloch.”
“I do not. But this glen has legends and haunts enough to frighten any Lowland lass away. Tell her about the fairies and haunts of Kinloch, and she will run back south. And we will carry on. But without a cook,” he muttered.
Dougal laughed. “If she ran off in a fright, her brothers would be here the very next day to ask what we are up to in Glen Kinloch.”
“Brothers?”
“One of them is Lord Struan.”
“Och,” Hamish muttered. “We would also have to deal with the—what did the reverend call them? The Edinburgh Society for Ladies Who Fancy Themselves Better than Highlanders?” He huffed a curt laugh.
“The Edinburgh Ladies’ Society for the Betterment of the Gaels.”
“The very ones. Wha’s better than us?” Hamish said, quoting Robert Burns, and Dougal laughed too. “And what would scare that lass away from this glen, and none the wiser but us?”
“Very little. She breaks rocks for amusement.”
“Tcha,”Hamish said, shaking his head. “We will tell her about the sprites who haunt the caves, and the tall ancient race of fairies who live in the hills, and the ghosts who bother all at Kinloch House. Except they do not, but she need not know.”
“When she first met me on the mountain, she thought I was one of the Sidhe, or even a ghost. I only startled her for a moment. She was not frightened.”
“Then we will warn her of women stolen away by the fairies.”
“Scaring her is not the way. And do not take that scheme to the other uncles.”
“We cannot risk the gaugers learning that we have a supply of whisky more valuable than any cargo yet moved from this glen. And we do not need the sister of a gauger wandering the hills breaking rocks and seeing things.”
“True. I do not want to sell that cache of whisky, Hamish,” Dougal murmured.
“You have no choice. We all agreed. Selling that whisky will help you buy back the land that might be sold out from under us.” His uncle looked hard at him. “Sell it, unless you wish to sell the fairy brew and earn a fortune. And some of us think you should.”
