Page 75 of Sinful Scottish Laird
It kept coming back to him like a bad stomach—he should not have left things with Daisy like he had. He owed her an apology at the very least. An explanation at best.
One morning, he wasn’t completely dressed when he heard voices on the front lawn. He pulled on a pair of buckskins beneath his lawn shirt, picked up his musket and, barefoot, walked outside, half expecting to see troops on his lawn. He set the musket aside, however, when he saw Catriona and Rabbie along with some of the Mackenzie guards, their horses prancing impatiently around his lawn.
“It’s a wee bit early for social calls, is it no’?” Cailean asked.
“Have you finished the work?” Catriona asked, hopping down off her horse.
“No.”
“It looks finished,” she said, ignoring him, removing her gloves as walked past him, uninvited, into his house. “You must invite us all!” she called over her shoulder before disappearing into the interior.
“Why are you here?” Cailean asked Rabbie as he came down from his mount.
“My mother has sent me, aye?” he said and winked as he followed Catriona inside. “We’re to look in on you and report if you are dead or alive, aye?” He glanced back at Cailean with a grin. “Which is it, then? Dead? Or alive?”
That was an excellent question. Cailean waved to the guards, then followed his siblings into his house.
Catriona was in the salon, looking up at the plasterwork. “When will it be finished?”
“A fortnight. Perhaps a month.”
Fabienne had been asleep near the hearth, and now she stretched her lanky legs before trotting over to dip her head beneath Catriona’s hand. Catriona cooed to the dog, then said, “We’ve heard an English man-of-war was seen near Tiree.”
“Pardon?” Cailean asked, startled by that bit of news.
Catriona turned around to face him. “You’ve no’ heard?”
Cailean’s heart hitched—what was a man-of-war doing so far north on the eastern coastline? “No,” he said and signaled for his dog, squatting down to hide his despair behind scratching her ears. “Who has seen it?”
“The MacDonalds,” Rabbie said. “They claim to have chased it away with their mighty fleet of three.” He snorted. “Whatever might have happened, the ship came no farther north and turned about, headed south.Athairbelieves it’s the English captain’s doing.”
Cailean mulled that over a moment. He didn’t see how that was possible. Spivey didn’t know what he’d find when he came here. He couldn’t have possibly sent word back so quickly. Even if he had, an English man-of-war was not something one could dispatch with ease. “They’ll no’ find the cove,” he said.
“Aye, perhaps no’,” Rabbie agreed. “But if they come round again, they might find the captain hanging from the tree on the cliff above the rock. Good riddance, I say. The fewerSassenachin our glens, the better we are for it, aye?”
“Rabbie!” Catriona scolded him. “You speak so ill of the very place our mother was born.”
Rabbie shrugged. “She’s a Scot now,” he said unapologetically. He paused to examine the woodwork around the mantel. “She is loyal only to us.”
Catriona snorted. “Donna be barmy, Rabbie. Come on, then. We’ll go, Cailean,” she said cheerfully and moved to quit the room, Fabienne trotting behind her. “Our mother bids you come to supper soon!” she shouted back at him.
“Aye, I will,” he muttered. He scarcely took notice of his sister’s departure. His mind raced—Daisy and her family had to go. At once. Rabbie would never hang a man, but Cailean wouldn’t put it past half the men in these hills.
“What ails you?”
Startled, Cailean looked at Rabbie. He hadn’t even noticed his brother had not followed his sister. “Pardon?”
Rabbie’s eyes narrowed. “You donna look yourself, Cailean.”
“No. It’s early yet,” he said.
Rabbie smiled wryly. “I rather thought it was too late,” he said.
Cailean looked at him in bafflement.
“Forget her, lad. She’s no’ one of us,” Rabbie said, and with a slight shake of his head, he walked out, following after Catriona.
When Cailean reluctantly followed, Catriona was already on her horse. Rabbie mounted his, then lingered a moment, studying Cailean before spurring on after his sister and the guards.
