Page 15 of Kilted Hate

And another minute later, Katherine, having received clear instructions from the maid, arrived at the dining room door. She hesitated for a second, and looking about her to make certain no one was around to see, she leaned her ear closer. The voices were faint, but she clearly heard a female voice that she recognized, though it could have been either Thora or Enya.

“…show her some respect. I told ye yesterday that she would be exhausted, and I was right. More so, I think she feels a little lost. She is in a land she daesnae ken, and…”

Katherine heard footsteps echoing in the corridor, and before she was spotted eavesdropping, she grabbed the handle and walked into the room.

The conversation came to an abrupt halt, and, upon seeing her, all the men immediately stood. Again, she was a little surprised. So the laird struggled to speak to her in any mannerly way, but he was polite enough to stand when a lady entered.Interesting.

The twin sisters turned in their chairs, both with welcoming smiles.

“Good morning, Katherine,” Thora declared.

“Good morning,” she replied, her eyes moving to each of them in turn and giving them all a small nod.

“Please, me lady,” Laird MacLeod said. He remained standing at the head of the table and gestured to an empty chair on his right between himself and his sisters. “Willnae ye join us?”

Though she was not a timid character by any means of the imagination, Katherine still found herself a little overwhelmed as every eye watched her move across the room. Once she sat, the men followed suit, and only then did the laird continue.

“Ye did meet them yesterday, but were nae properly introduced,” he began. He gestured to his brothers sitting across from her on the laird’s left. “This is Kai, and this is Magnus.”

Magnus smiled warmly. “Good day tae ye, me lady.”

“That was some arrival,” Kai declared with a wide grin.

“Kai!” Thora and Enya hissed at the exact same time.

Katherine couldn’t help but smile. “It’s all right,” she said, looking at the sisters. She then turned back to Kai. “You are right, and I must apologize for my rude behavior. I had no right to speak to you the way I did yesterday.”

Kai and Magnus looked pleasantly surprised, while the laird showed no reaction at all. But then, she wasn’t apologizing to him. It was he who had killed her father, after all. She felt no remorse at all for how she had treated him. Besides, after his antics this morning, he was hardly making any attempt toredeem himself. In fact, in stark contrast, he was only proving himself to be the brute she imagined him to be.

As Enya asked how she slept, Katherine cast her gaze across the table in front of her. She had been raised with good manners and thus swallowed the horror of what lay on the plates. There were items of food that looked so awful she didn’t even know what they were.

“That’s haggis,” Magnus said, as though he were reading her mind.

She brought her gaze to him to be met with the same soft smile.

“And they are oatcakes,” he continued, pointing to thick, circular biscuit-like things that sat on another plate.

“What is haggis?” Katherine said tentatively.

Kai jumped in eagerly and declared. “It’s delicious. It has sheep’s pluck minced with onion, oatmeal, suet?—”

“Sheep’spluck?” Katherine interrupted.

“Aye,” Kai continued eagerly. “The heart, liver, and lungs.”

All the manners in the world could not stop Katherine’s jaw from dropping, but Kai didn’t seem to notice.

“They cook it with spices?—”

“Kai,” Magnus said, trying to put a stop to his description, but Kai was clearly in flow.

“And salt and stock?—”

“Kai!” Magnus said a little more forcefully, but still, his brother continued.

“And they stuff that all intae the sheep’s stomach?—”

“Kai!” everyone at the table barked at once.

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