Page 28 of Lost with a Scot
A groom took his horse to the castle stables, and Aiden headed inside to inform his brother of their arriving guests.
“Brock!” Aiden bellowed his brother’s name.
“What?” Brock bellowed from down the hall. Aiden peered down the corridor, waiting for his brother to come out of his study.
“Really, Aiden, must you yell a wounded bear?” His sister-in-law appeared at the top of the stairs, a stack of books in her hands, no doubt bound for the library.
“We have visitors,” Aiden announced.
“Visitors? Oh heavens!” Joanna rushed downstairs toward him. “How many? Who is it?” Then she was the one bellowing as she called for the butler.
“Brodie and Lydia are coming—they’ll be here soon.”
“Oh, is that all?” Joanna laughed with relief. She and Brock had known that Aiden had gone to wait for Brodie and Lydia’s ship to arrive, but they had no way of knowing about Anna and Cameron.
“But we do have two guests. A wee lad named Cameron who will be helping out around here, and a lady.”
Joanna placed her stack of books on the end of the banister and stared at him. “A lady? What sort of lady?”
“Well... I found her. She’s the survivor of a shipwreck.”
“You found ashipwreckedwoman?” Joanna asked, as if trying to puzzle out the meaning of what he’d said.
“Aye. Her name is Anna, and she doesna remember much. She was injured...”
Joanna pressed her thumb and index finger against her closed eyelids.
“Aiden, you must stop teasing me.”
“I’m not,” he insisted. He did enjoy teasing her, but he wouldn’t tease her about something like this.
She gasped as another possibility occurred to her. “It wasn’t Brodie’s ship, was it?”
“No, their ship was fine.”
“Oh, thank goodness.”
“Joanna? Where are ye?” Brock’s voice came from nearby.
“We’re by the stairs,” she called out to her husband just as he appeared in the entry way.
Brock, the eldest of their family, shared Aiden’s dark hair and stormy eyes. He was a bit taller and a little broader, but Aiden had won his share of wrestling matches against Brock.
Brock embraced him in a fierce hug. “I trust ye brought Brodie and Lydia with ye?”
“They’ll arrive in a few minutes,” Aiden explained. “I rode out ahead to let ye know we’ve got some other guests coming.”
“Your brother says he found a shipwrecked woman and brought her home,” Joanna told Brock.
Brock’s smile faded. “Ye did what now?”
“I found a lass washed ashore on the coast of North Berwick.”
His brother believed him more easily than Joanna had. “Is she all right?”
“She seems to be, but she took a blow to her head. Her memory is a bit muddled.”
Brock nodded. “And ye brought her here to care for her?”
