Page 47 of Sinful Scottish Laird
So he was not scandalized. He was interested only in the rock.
“Bring your arm back like this,” Cailean said, pulling her arm back. “As you release it, turn your hand up, like this. Do you see?”
“Yes, yes, I see,” she said curtly—her heart was beating so hard that she was certain he could feel it, and she wanted nothing more than to let go of the blasted rock. She elbowed him in the chest. With anoof,he let go of her and Daisy threw the rock as hard as she could. It skipped three times before it sank.
“You did it, Mamma!” Ellis shrieked.
“I did it!” she cried, throwing her arms into the air.
Cailean laughed at her glee, and his smile sent a rush of desire through Daisy.
Ellis was speaking to her, explaining, she thought, the nuances of rock throwing, but the blood was pumping so loudly in her ears that Daisy couldn’t hear him at all. She couldn’t seem to think of anything but yesterday, and how she’d felt in Cailean’s arms. Safe. Cherished. So exquisitely female. She couldn’t seem to think of anything but how she wanted to be there again.
“I’ve promised to take Lord Chatwick up to the bluff to the bonniest view of the glen. Would you care to join us, then?”
“Please, Mamma!” Ellis said excitedly.
“Yes,” she said, and held out her hand to her son. “I would like that.”
They walked for a half hour, meandering along a trail that had been forged by generations of wildlife. Cailean was patient with Ellis, answering his many questions about things ranging from stars to rocks to how one went about learning to shoot a bow and arrow. Ellis seemed to stand taller, and instead of speaking with his head down as he often did, he looked Cailean in the eye when he asked his questions, and he laughed at the things Cailean said.
Daisy was moved by it—even her uncle couldn’t elicit this from her son. Cailean had somehow seen past her son’s fears and timidity, and, as a result, Ellis was blossoming before her eyes.
Cailean led them up a rocky path, catching Daisy’s hand to help her up over some of the larger rocks. At the top of the bluff, they looked out over the lake and the hills beyond it, the landscape dappled with the shadows of the puffy clouds overhead, the tiny dots of sheep on one hillside and then the shimmering line of the sea beyond the loch.
The view was breathtaking. It felt as if they were the only people in the world here, rulers over all they saw.Thiswas freedom. This landscape, these hills, this life—all of it freedom. Daisy could feel in her heart how much she would miss Auchenard and her freedom. It didn’t matter that she hoped to marry her first love. Her life would never be hers again.
Cailean was the one who broke the spell by suggesting they return to the lodge. It was time for Ellis to be at his supper.
They made their way back down the hill and around the edge of the loch to the lodge. As they walked up the lawn, Daisy had a look at her son. His shoes were muddied, his breeches stained. He’d lain in the grass, and the elbows of his coat were stained, too. “Belinda will have an apoplectic fit when she sees you,” she said, tousling his hair. “You best find Uncle Alfonso first,” she told him with a wink.
When they reached the terrace, Ellis brushed his blond hair from his eyes and beamed up at Cailean. “Might we do it again?” he asked.
“I donna know,” Cailean said gravely, and Ellis’s face fell. “We best be about stalking the red stags first, aye? The season will be upon us soon.”
Ellis grinned. “Do you mean it?”
“Aye, of course I mean it,” Cailean said.
Ellis whooped with joy and bolted away from them, running for the lodge.
“Uncle! I’m to learn to stalk!” he shouted, as if Uncle Alfonso could hear him from somewhere inside.
“He’s too young to hunt,” Daisy said as she watched her son bound into the lodge.
“You mother the lad to death, aye? He’s what, twelve years?”
“He’s nine years!”
“Och,all the same,” Cailean said, grinning. “A lad should be about the world, learning how to be a man.”
“Yes, well, I’m to be the judge of that.”
“Beg your pardon, but you canna be the judge of that,” he said cheerfully. “You’re a woman.”
Daisy wanted so badly to touch him, to put her hand against his face, rough with the beginnings of a new beard. “I thought perhaps you might not return to Auchenard.”
He arched a brow in surprise. “Aye, of course I have. I said I would, did I no’?”
