Page 23 of Highlander's Wild Lass
“Ye ken what I mean, lad. What business do you have, truly, at the McLean’s, if it were nae for a bonnie young lass that has been ripenin’ like a peach…and that brings me back to where ye were this very night?”
“I was—”
“Were ye sullyin’ her good name? I’ll have yer head if ye took her to bed before she agreed to wed ye.”
Anthony’s eyes widened. “Nay, Mrs. Duncan! I would never.”
“Och, good!”
“I went to ask her to go ridin’ with me. But she fell ill and fainted in her yard. I—well—I carried her to her room and looked after her since they really daenae have anyone else.”
“I would say ye have somethin’ in yer heart for her.”
“I daenae ken,” Anthony said.
“I’m sure ye will figure it out. . .”
There was a long pause as Anthony busied himself with the rest of the meat and cheese platter. The sun was beginning to inch over the eastern mountains, lighting the kitchen with a dim warm light.
“I’m goin’ to head back. I need a few things. Can ye spare two maids?”
“Ye need two maids?”
“Aye, whoever ye can spare. Their home is as dusty and unkept as can be and they all look like they havenae had a proper meal in months.”
“Poor things,” Mrs. Duncan said, bustling into action. She snatched the first young maid that walked into the kitchen and sent her off to fetch the two women she could spare for the day.
“I’ll get some of the men to help with the animals too…” Anthony trailed off, standing from the crate.
The sun was higher in the sky now, nearly above the mountains. He looked around the kitchen, saw day-old loaves of bread wrapped up in cloth, and grabbed a few for the McLean’s.
He wondered what else he could bring, walking around the kitchen, grabbing a few vegetables, a bag of flour, and whatever else he could throw into the cart that they might surely need.
Anthony piled everything on the table and called to Mrs. Duncan. “I’m goin’ to round up some men, but I’ll meet ye at the gates!”
“Aye!” Mrs. Duncan’s muffled voice called from the pantry.
6
Celestia woke the next morning to an empty room. The chair Anthony had sat in was back in the corner by her chest of drawers, and Auralia was gone.
She could hear the stirring of life beyond her bedroom door.
Celestia felt her forehead, still slightly warm but not nearly as bad as it was. She was still in her clothes from yesterday, so she stood from the bed gingerly. The lightheadedness from yesterday lingered still.
She grabbed her large tartan plaid and wrapped it around her again.
She heard a commotion coming from outside her window. She peered out and saw Clyde scampering around gleefully, kicking his back legs in the air as two men she didn’t recognize chased him about. In the distance, she saw a few women in the garden, kneeling in the dirt looking as if they were planting.
“What in the name of God…” she murmured to herself.
When she opened her bedroom door, she was met with a bustling the house hadn’t seen since her mother was alive. A maid dashed passed her, greeting her with a toothy grin, with a pile of rags hanging out of a bucket in one hand and a broom in the other.
“Auralia?” she called out.
“In the kitchen!” Auralia answered cheerfully.
Celestia entered the kitchen to see Anthony sitting around the table with Auralia, Chester, and Hugo with a kitchen maid laying out plates of bacon, eggs, bannocks, and what looked like canned pears from last year’s harvest.
