Page 54 of Stealing Sophie
“Unfortunately,” Sophie said.
“Och, I am sorry for the trouble the laird put ye through, and surely he is, too.”
“He is not sorry.” Sophie chopped fiercely into a carrot.
“He is, but is not likely to say so.” Mary glanced at her. “Tell him ye want yer things here and now.”
“I did. He will fetch them...when he wants.”
“Och! Did ye go off to get them yerself, then? Roderick said ye walked out last night. But these hills are full o’ rogues. I am glad Connor brought you back safely.”
“He, ah, did.”
Mary chuckled. “Did Kin—er, Glendoon frighten ye with his grumphs and crabbit ways? He is a good man. Still, he doesna like others to know he has a heart, that one.”
“What do you mean?”
“He watches out for others. Like his tenants. We are all loyal to him.”
“Steals cattle for them, does he?” Sophie dropped chopped vegetables into a bowl.
“If he must. He makes sure they have what they need. He was a rogue for snatching ye, but he may have saved yer clan with that marriage, so Neill says. Yer own chief, God bless the lad, thought of his sister’s welfare and sent the laird to fetch ye.”
“Saved my clan?” Sophie glanced up.
“Aye, that cold fish, Sir Henry, will be less a threat to Clan Carran now that he canna wed the chief’s sister. Ye will be glad to have Connor MacPherson for a husband, I am thinking.”
Sophie chopped into an onion so hard that the knife stuck in the tabletop. She pried it loose and cut it up in silence. Caught up in the immediate events of abduction and marriage, she had not thought about what Sir Henry could have gained from marrying her. Sniffing, wiping her stinging eyes with the back of her hand, she nodded.
“I suppose,” she said, “Clan Carran is better off with Sir Henry not counted among the chief’s close kin.”
“Oh, aye. And yer kin will be glad to have MacPherson among them. Once they get over him stealing ye, of course. That will take some time.”
Sophie gave a hollow laugh, thinking of her cousins—and wondered if they knew of her marriage or had guessed her situation by now.
Mary chattered on as she prepared the stew, adding the vegetables to a kettle with simmering stock, adding barley and salt, and then producing chunks of a rabbit that she said Roderick had brought in that morning. Sophie watched with interest and helped where she could—at the convent, the girls had all done some cooking—and all the while, she could not help wondering about what Mary had said and implied earlier.
What scheme could Sir Henry have? Perhaps he thought to gain land through marrying her, or an inheritance, something her brother would know more about for both of his sisters. She wished she could ask Connor about it when he returned, but he might act distantly again, putting her off. Would he change his mind, finally, about this impulsive marriage and seek to annul it?
Certainly she was glad to be free of Sir Henry—but she could not say where she stood with Connor MacPherson, her legal husband now. He had cooled, that was clear, while she was warming to the idea—she blushed to think it. The man set her fairy blood to sparking and awakened her foolish heart. She would need to be careful this time.
Snatching up an onion, she chopped it with vengeance.
“Hey,‘twas not difficult to bring this bridge down,” Neill said as Connor walked toward him. The older man lay prone on the bankside, tucked partly beneath the bridge, hammer in hand while he pounded nails into a wooden plank to patch up the bridge. “But ‘tis a devil of a thing to right it again.”
“Aye so.” Connor reached down to give Neill an assist to his feet. “Time well spent so drovers and their herds can cross the bridge again. Best set the work aside for now, though. I saw the red soldiers as I came down the Benachally Mor,” he said, pointing toward an imposing hill in the distance.
“Let them keep away from this place,” Neill said.
“They do not like that hill and seem suspicious of ruins like Glendoon. All to our advantage.” Connor grinned fleetingly. “Though they seem more interested in MacCarrans than MacPhersons just now—and I do not want the bride-stealing blamed on MacCarrans. I will speak with Sophie’s cousins, and find a way to get word to Campbell too if I must.”
“Now that is a risk, lad.” Neill brushed dirt from his plaid and bent to put his hammer and nails into a leather pouch, which he hoisted to his shoulder.
“That may be. Come ahead. We have been out the whole of the day and long into the night, and I will not sleep on old heather when I could sleep in a bed.”
“Eager to return to Glendoon and your bride, hey?”
Connor frowned. “You know better. I must take this carefully now—she is not the sister I expected. And I do not know what Rob MacCarran intended by that. I need to talk to the lass further to see how it can best be sorted out.”
