Page 82 of A Rogue in Moonlight
“I will come with you. I must pay my rent to the laird,” Mary was saying. “It is odd that he has not come to collect it and give me a bottle of his finest stuff, which is his habit each month. I have earned enough from selling my cheeses and beer to the innkeeper, and I think I will bring my fee to the laird this day. It is a good day for a walk. Maggie, come!” Mary called to the dog trotting behind them. “She needs a good walk, too, on such a fine morning.”
“She gets plenty of exercise at night, roaming about,” Fiona said. “Which sort of whisky does the Laird give you?”
“His very best, the Glen Kinloch brew,” Mary said. “And he gives me an even better brew once a year, at Yuletide.”
“Is that what they call the fairy whisky?” Fiona asked.
“Och,no! That stuff is not so good. I have tried it and do not see the fuss. Too sweet, and flat. No strength to it, despite what they say of it in the glen.” She wrinkled her nose. “I like the Glen Kinloch sort, and the more it is aged, the better. The laird is saving the oldest stuff for—” She stopped.
“Saving it?”
“They all keep some back, of course. How did you hear about the fairy brew?”
“Kinloch told me about it.”
“Did he! Interesting. Did you taste it when you stayed the night at Kinloch House? Perhaps Maisie gave you some. She might mix them up, silly lass that she is. I suppose the laird was not there, with the fire that night.”
“I tasted it when I was there by myself,” Fiona said vaguely, willing to let Mary believe Dougal had been away with his kinsmen all night. “It was quite nice.”
“If you enjoyed it, then the fairies favored you. I hear some see the fairies when they drink it, a sign that the fairies give their blessing to that person. Did you see them? They never blessed me, I can tell you.”
“See them?” Fiona laughed.
“Then you saw nothing much, like me?”
“I thought it was lovely.” Fiona looked across the meadow that filled the bowl of the glen, scattered with wildflowers in the morning sunlight. On the other side of the valley, a league’s walk across the meadow, a hill rose toward the mountains behind it. There, the tower of Kinloch House stood tall, its stone walls catching golden light.
She wondered if Dougal was there, or already out at this hour. Two days ago she had been alone with him there, gloriously andprivately; she would never forget it. She had returned to Mary’s house the next morning as if nothing had gone on at the laird’s tower. But the night, the whisky, and the man had taken her over, heart and soul.
She had seen him at the kirk session later that day when she had attended with Mary to hear Hugh MacIan’s sermon on responsibility toward one’s neighbors. Restless, she had looked around and had seen Dougal, had caught his gaze. Her heart had near leaped into her throat. She had looked away calmly, but that spark between them, gazes touching across the church, had been filled with yearning.
Outside in the kirkyard, although she did not see Dougal, she felt welcomed by the locals. Perhaps it was the reverend’s sermon about helpful neighbors; perhaps her presence at the fire had assured the glen residents that the teacher could be trusted.
Grateful, wanting their acceptance as well as the laird’s, she knew she should keep her distance. Both of them needed time to think. She had much to explain to him about her grandmother’s will, her need to comply to allow her brothers to inherit—and the requirement that she marry a Highlander of means. That alone would give him pause.
She would wait and keep silent. His status as laird, poor or not, did not matter to her, but if he regretted what they had done, if he were uninterested in marriage, the dilemma would be solved. She wanted to be with him, and that would not change. Her thoughts tumbled with possibilities, her heart with feelings. She felt in a tangle.
Maggie barked and launched past them, racing toward the glen slopes. “She has found something to chase,” Mary remarked.
Fiona nodded, then noticed people moving over the slope higher up, running quickly. She heard distant shouts and laughter. “What are they doing there?”
Mary shielded her brow and watched for a moment. “Playing at the ba’.”
“Oh, the ball game—they played it in the schoolyard. Why are they at it so early this morning?” As she and Mary walked closer, sherecognized some of her students and their kinsmen.
“They are practicing,” Mary said. “There will be a game soon, for all the glen.”
Fiona raised her brows in surprise. “The whole glen?”
“It is a tradition in Glen Kinloch to play on New Year’s, and also in the spring on the first of May. It is nearing May now, so the laird has called for a game.”
“I heard nothing of it.” She watched the players as they ran in a cluster that seemed characteristic of the ball game they favored in Glen Kinloch.
“Word went round with the men. The women do not generally play.”
“I played at the football with my brothers when I was young.”
“You may have, but this sort of game is different. They play from the east side of the glen to the west. All the men and boys, a hundred and more, with the one ball.” Mary gestured wide to indicate the whole of the glen. “They form two packs, those from the north glen and those from the south, and they start in the center—there, where the burn crosses past those rocks,” she said, pointing.
