Page 24 of A Rogue in Moonlight
“Sausages? Mary MacIan gave you breakfast?”
Hamish took a parchment bundle from his pocket. “For you and Lucy.”
Setting the bagpipe on the grass, Dougal unwrapped the packet to find sausages and a stack of oatcakes. He ate a sausage, savory and still warm. The hounds stood, interested, and he tossed bits to them. “Mary is a fine cook.” He licked his fingers.
“The Lowland lady made those for you,” Hamish said. “She madeoatcakes and good strong tea, too. We shared a fine breakfast. You should have been there, Kinloch. She cooks.”
“She cooks?” He ate another sausage; it was seared, savory, perfect. He wrapped the rest to take home, wiping his fingers on his plaid. “A reason to keep her, then.”
Hamish chortled. “Aye, now that your Aunt Jean has run home to her mother again, leaving us to fend for ourselves once more.”
“Jeanie would come back if you were both less stubborn.”
“Bah. Life is more peaceful. The Lowland lass can cook. That is good enough.”
“It is not, and you know it. Though Lucy is near old enough to help,” he allowed.
“That wee lassie has no interest in household matters. It comes of being raised by a pack of scoundrels.”
“We are not so bad,” Dougal said. “Aunt Jeanie 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. A bairn should not tend the fires and such. Besides, she makes salty porridge and weak tea. That wee bit 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 patted his belly.
“You have thought it all out,” Dougal drawled.
“For the sake of our stomachs, one of us needs a wife in that big house.”
“Jeanie will return.” But Dougal 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 usfend for ourselves, I guarantee. Nor would it help any of us if I brought a gauger’s sister into our house.”
“Blast all gaugers!” Hamish shrugged. “Well, send her away if you can. A pity the reverend brought her here just 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 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 throughout his body and heart. Scowling, he tossed another stick. The deerhounds ignored it. “Lazy beasts.”
“I know how to get the teacher to leave,” Hamish said. “Let the fairies do it.”
“What?” Dougal looked at his uncle. Hamish was tough as an old ram, like his brothers Ranald and Fergus. But Hamish was the skeptical one when fairy legends and such were told. “You do not believe the legends of Kinloch.”
“I do not. But we have enough legends and haunts to frighten any Lowland lass away. Tell her about the fairies and haunts of Kinloch, and she will run home. 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?”
“The Edinburgh Ladies’ Society for the Betterment of the Gaels.”
“The very ones. Whae’s better than us?” Hamish said, quoting Robert Burns, as Dougal laughed. “And what might scare that lass away from this glen?”
