Page 62 of The Cruel Highlander's Bride
Halting there in the hallway, he stopped to think about it.
Huh, what did he do to enjoy himself? Since he took over the Lairdship, there had been very little time for anything that wasn’t related to his duties. He rode when he could and tended to the horses as an escape, but he didn’t know if he would really call that frivolity.
What did he use to do for entertainment? His life before he became Laird felt so far away these days, but even then, a lot of it was about survival. It was hard to have joy when he was trying to provide for himself and his aging mother.
Now, he actually had the means for simple enjoyment, and yet he had not taken advantage of them.
Ciara was looking at him smugly, pleased that she’d given him a taste of his own medicine, but he was more confident than ever that they needed a break today.
“Well, that settles it. Ye and I are goin’ to spend the day doin’ somethin’ wholly frivolous,” he announced.
“And what do ye have in mind?”
“Come on, ye’ll see.”
Magnus pulled Ciara along by the hand, leading them outside. He hoped he could find what he was looking for. The children of some of the servants often played outside the castle… and there!
His wife caught sight of the instruments at the same time.
“Ye want to play shinty?” she asked, raising her eyebrows at him skeptically.
“Aye, it’ll be good fun. We can take turns shootin’,” he said, handing her one of the camans that was being used to play. “There’s obviously no teams, but we can make our own game out of it.”
She held the piece of wood gingerly, as if she’d never interacted with nature or a sport this closely.
“Come on, have ye never played before?”
“Nay, of course nae. Have ye?” she asked incredulously.
“Nae since I was a lad. But aye, it’s a classic.”
Ciara’s gaze flicked from the wooden stick in her hand to him and back. The furrow in her brow told him everything he needed to know.
“What do I do with it?”
Dinnae laugh. Dinnae laugh.
If Ciara even had a whisper of a thought that he was mocking her, she’d stomp right back inside. And he wasn’t—mocking her that is. She was just so adorable, looking at the caman like it was a wild animal.
“Ye hit the ball towards the goal, and I’ll try to stop it,” he explained, thankfully managing to keep almost all of the amusement out of his voice.
“Why?”
Now, he really did laugh. “Forfun, lass.”
She scrunched up her nose, and she did not look convinced. She gripped the caman more firmly, though not correctly, but at least now she was holding it like she actually intended to play.
“There ye go,” he cooed and strolled over to the make-shift goal that some of the children had set up.
Goalwas a strong word for it. There was no net and no top post, just two pieces of wood about the right distance apart.
If it wasn’t for the caman and the ball, he might not have ever realized it was a goal. He stood between the two pieces of wood, and Ciara shot him an incredulous look, indicating she’d thought he had completely lost it.
“That’s the goal?”
“Aye, for now. When ye master shinty, I’ll build ye a real one.”
Ciara looked down at the ball and then back up again. At least the ball was decently crafted. It looked to be some form of leather stitched together with twine. Hopefully not heavily packed, but Magnus figured if children were playing with it, surely Ciara could hit it.
