Page 22 of Sinful Scottish Laird
She took his hand and turned away from the window, but before she could take a step, Belinda shouted, “Here comes someone!”
Ellis and Daisy gasped. Belinda suddenly appeared in the great room, having run from the foyer. “It’s a coach,” she said frantically.
“All right then, be calm,” Uncle Alfonso said, ushering her to a seat. “It will not do to appear overly anxious. Daisy? Perhaps you ought to be on hand to greet them.”
“Yes, of course,” Daisy said. She fluffed out her gown and straightened Ellis’s neckcloth. With a wink at her son, she glided to the door to receive her guests.
Rowley opened the door and shot open an umbrella, then marched out into the rain to greet her first guests as the coach rolled to a halt. A coachman in a soggy livery jumped down from the back runner and quickly set out a stool before opening the coach door.
A man whose shoulders were so broad he could scarcely fit through the opening emerged. He wore a tartan plaid belted around his waist, and the tail of it draped over his shoulders. Behind him, another man emerged, just as large as he. They had ruddy cheeks and tufts of ginger hair sprouting from beneath their caps. The first man strode forward, ignoring Rowley completely, and when he reached the entrance where Daisy was standing, he bowed. “Lady Auchenard.”
“Yes, I—”
“MacDonald. Irving MacDonald, that is, of Skye. My brother, Fergus MacDonald,” he said, jerking his thumb over his shoulder to indicate the other man.
Daisy was confused. She had not invited these men. She had invited Mor MacDonald and his wife. “Ah...how do you do?” she asked and curtsied quickly. “Please, come in from the rain,” she said, stepping back so the two massive men could enter. “You must have come for Mr. MacDonald and his wife?” she asked uncertainly as they crowded into the foyer and removed the plaids from their shoulders as rain dripped from their hair.
“Aye,” said Irving MacDonald. He offered no further explanation, no reason why the affirmative reply she’d received from Mr. MacDonald had been passed to them. Neither of them spoke as they stared at her.
“But you’ve come from Skye,” she said, her gaze going from one to the other.
“Aye,” said Irving MacDonald.
“Well.” She couldn’t very well turn them out for being the wrong MacDonalds. “Well!” she said again. “It seems you are the only ones to have ventured out in the rain. Would you like a whisky?”
“No,” said Irving MacDonald.
Dear God.“Then perhaps some wine?”
“No, we are no’ alone,” he said gruffly. “More’s coming, they are. Rocks on the road up the way, aye?”
“If I may, madam.” Rowley had come in behind the men, unnoticed by Daisy as they were so large. “Perhaps they will be more comfortable in the great room?” he asked as he managed to squeeze in around them.
Daisy followed Rowley and the gentlemen into the great room and introduced them to Alfonso, Belinda and Ellis. The gentlemen responded with greetings that sounded more like grunts, then stood silently.
“It’s quite a deluge, is it not?” Daisy remarked.
“Eh?Duda?”Irving MacDonald said.
“Ah...” Daisy cleared her throat. “I thought perhaps we’d take a tour of the lodge.”
The men looked at her as if they found that suggestion strange. Ellis, Daisy noticed, was sitting so tightly beside Belinda that her gown all but covered him.
Daisy looked helplessly at the windows. “Would you care for whisky?”
“Aye,” the men said in unison.
Rowley went to fetch it. Daisy sank onto the settee beside Belinda but avoided her cousin’s gaze. This was a disaster, and she didn’t need to see it on Belinda’s face. She watched the two giants toss back a whisky like water and hand the empty tots to Uncle Alfonso for more.
“Madam,” Rowley said softly behind her. “A carriage has arrived. A rider, as well.”
“Oh!” She sounded far too relieved, she realized, but hurried from the great room nonetheless.
“Mamma!” Ellis cried and ran after her, clutching at her hand as if he was afraid to be left alone with the Scots.
Again Rowley stepped out with the umbrella. A young couple emerged from this carriage and introduced themselves as the Murrays. After the exchange of pleasantries, Mr. Murray explained that their two children had been left with their nurse. Ellis was visibly disappointed.
“Milady, Mr. Ewan Somerled of Killeaven,” she heard Rowley say, and she turned to meet a tall, slender man with blond hair. He was wearing trews and smiled warmly. “Lady Chatwick, it is my great pleasure to make your acquaintance.”
