Page 55 of Stealing Sophie
“Ah.” Neill was blessedly silent.
“And I need to get back to look after my livestock. Fiona is not pregnant yet this season. She may never take again.”
“Not so long as she grazes on Glendoon grass,” Neill said. “Barren place.”
“So it seems, but I have little choice but to stay there and graze my cattle on those lands.”
“Women are that particular about their homes—your bride may not want to raise her bairns in a haunted place.”
“Bairns? The lass wants an annulment, I expect.”
“After all that trouble to snatch her?Tcha.” Neill shook his head. “We will have these two bridges fixed soon,” he went on. “Hamish MacDonell told Andrew he will drive his herd to the Crieff market next week, and that will take him this way. I wish no harm to his cattle, though I would not mind if Hamish got a dunking.” Neill grinned.
Connor chuckled, aware of long-lasting tension between Neill and Hamish, who was a rapscallion along with his kin, save for a man or two among them. “Whose cows will Hamish be selling at the Crieff market this time?” he asked.
“None of his own!”
Connor laughed outright, glancing about as they went, constantly watching for soldiers, Highlanders, friend or enemy. Years being renegade made it second nature.
“Hamish and his lads cut three red beasts from Allan MacCarran’s fold last night and two black kyloes from Campbell’s herd last week, I hear,” Neill said.
“Ah. I saw Hamish with those reds myself the other night, and wondered.”
“I told Hamish that when he takes Sir Henry’s cows, he steals from Connor MacPherson himself. But he said you have no legal claim to Kinnoull herds now, and if cows wander in open pastures at night, it is no fault of his and he can borrow them.”
“He is not the only one borrowing good cattle by dark of night.” Connor hastened along, half-running toward the cover of the low hills. Neill, shorter but sinewy, kept up.
“I told Hamish that MacPherson still has a legal claim to any cattle on Kinnoull lands.” Neill was not one to drop a subject quickly, Connor knew.
“But my father’s fate changed that. And my second petition for reinstatement is lost in the bowels of the London courts by now. When I was in Edinburgh a month past, I saw my advocate. He still had no answer.”
“Useless long-robes. A Scottish advocate has little influence in a London court. Lawyers,” Neill snarled. “Smoke Campbell out and take Kinnoull back yourself.”
“That is the old Highland way, not the new. Lawyers and documents, suing for rights, submitting petitions to London, waiting endlessly—that is what is done now.”
“Bah. If the English king can still draw and quarter Scottish rebels, then Highland men can still use smoke and axes to gain back our homes and our rights.”
“We can still do a bit of stealing and harassing,” Connor replied dryly.
Neill spat. “Campbell has no right to sit at Kinnoull.”
“He has the deed.”
“All the same, someday you will hold Kinnoull again, as your kin did before you.”
Connor’s throat tightened. When he and his father were arrested together, Thomas MacPherson of Kinnoull had whispered a vow to his son—promising that Connor would have Kinnoull no matter what happened. His father had been wrong, he thought. Aye, he was still Viscount Kinnoull. That had not gone to Campbell with the lands. He had a few furnishings and fine things, along withmemories. Little else.
And someday, somehow, he would have his lands back.
His kin had held Kinnoull for two centuries. Connor was the last of his kin, the son and only child of a dispossessed father. His mother had died in his childhood, and he felt estranged from most of his kin now. Most of his household had left Kinnoull House by now. And Cluny MacPherson, chief of the clan, had not been quick to offer help when Connor and his father sat in prison, or help in staying Thomas MacPherson’s execution. Ultimately, Robert MacCarran of Duncrieff had obtained Connor’s release, but it had been too late for Thomas.
Connor owed Duncrieff more than he could repay and had not honored that completely. The legacy of the MacPhersons of Kinnoull would die with Connor—his own descendants, if he had any, would be lairds of Glendoon. Blood heirs to Kinnoull would no longer be welcome on those lands.
Somehow, aye, he would change that, if it took his lifetime to do it.
Sighing, walking beside Neill, he rubbed his brow. He was tired, felt it throughout his bones. He wanted to go home—what there was of it at Glendoon. And he had yet to solve the problem of his bride. That wee nun was possibly the most distracting element in his life just now. She had set his thoughts—his body and heart, too—into turmoil.
As he and Neill climbed a rocky slope, he paused, propping one foot on a rock as he looked around from the higher vantage point. In the distance, he glimpsed red-jacketed men, along with horses and the flash of steel weapons.
