The Scottish Bride (Sherbrooke Brides 6)

Fletcher put his thumb in his mouth, leaned toward Big Blue, who was looking back intently—actually looking at the little boy—Tysen was sure of it. “Papa, you must let me down,” Fletcher said. When released, he walked right up to the big gelding, and to Tysen’s surprise but no one else’s, the soon-to-be–former Big Blue lowered his head and lipped Fletcher’s hand, blew on it, and stomped his left front hoof several times.

“Don’t worry,” Sinjun said. “No animal would ever hurt him. Isn’t it amazing? Ah, yes, I believe Big Blue has spoken.”

Fletcher patted the horse’s neck, then turned back to his uncle Tysen and said i

n his clear child’s voice, “He tells me he is not blue. He tells me he doesn’t even like colors. He wants to be named Big Fellow.” The thumb went back in the mouth, then his small arms went up for his father to pick him up again, which he did. Colin Kinross said, “Well, Tysen, what do you think—can you bring yourself to call him Big Fellow?”

Meggie started laughing. “Oh, Aunt Sinjun, it is marvelous. Big Fellow—I like it.”

“If that’s what he wants,” Tysen said, and he sounded utterly bewildered.

Phillip Kinross, sixteen and quite a handsome young man with his father’s dark hair and wicked smile, just shook his head and said, “It isn’t bad, Uncle Tysen. Fletcher was mad at me when he renamed my horse. I can tell you I was worried with what he could come up with, but his name is now Edwin, which, actually, suits him just fine, and me as well.”

“What was his name before?”

Fletcher grinned at his very serious uncle, who’d always been very kind to him.

“It was Claymore,” Phillip said. “Fletcher said my horse was peace-loving and thus the name Claymore made him very nervous.”

And so the following morning, Big Fellow, with Tysen astride, rode beside the carriage that held one lone passenger—his ten-year-old daughter, who had been wise enough not to argue with her father about her displacement as his tiger. It was a beautiful day. Fleecy white clouds in wondrous shapes filled the sky, a slight breeze moved in from the sea to dry the sweat on Tysen’s brow, and the scent of wildflowers filled his nostrils. He saw clumps of heather ranging from deepest purple to snowy white, in the most unlikely places—poking out of crevices in black rocks, pushing through low-lying stone fences.

A day and a half of beautiful summer weather brought them to Kildrummy Castle. Tysen saw the ten or so chimney stacks rising high into the air, the round turrets curving outward on each corner of the huge square manor. It wasn’t at all like the older castles he’d seen—soaring stone buildings with slitted windows high above the ground, cold and stark against the Scottish skies. No, Kildrummy was newer, with its slate roof and light gray stone walls.

“What do you think, Meggie?” he asked, pulling Big Fellow next to where she was leaning out the carriage window to see.

“It’s sitting up on that barren stretch right over the sea like a big bird of prey,” Meggie said. “There’s that huge forest just off there to the left, but nothing close to the castle. Goodness, it’s all bare land and it looks like there are deep ditches all through it. We should fill in all those ditches. We should plant trees. It is too stark, too forbidding.” She licked her lips and frowned just a bit. “It’s scary,” she added. “And lonely. But the forest just beyond is lovely.”

Tysen, whose memory of Kildrummy was that of a ten-year-old boy, had agreed with Meggie. That stretch from the castle to the forest was an ugly piece of land. It was stark, and barren, what with all those strewn rocks and boulders. Those jagged ditches, or whatever they were, were dangerous. Walking or riding through that land would require a good deal of attention.

Now, as a man, however, he believed it magnificent. He wouldn’t have changed a thing. He would have made his way carefully through all the boulders and crevices and admired it. But if Meggie wanted trees, she would have them. If she wanted all those crevices filled in, so be it. He said, “I will inquire what trees would best survive here. We’ll have to examine all those ditches and see where we would get enough dirt to fill them. You, my girl, can find out about the flowers outside the castle walls.”

She beamed at him and he frowned. Oh, dear, she saw that he was still upset with her. She said in a very small voice, “I wonder if any of the round turrets are bedcham-bers. I would really like that.”

“We will see,” Tysen said, realizing he shouldn’t say yes to her immediately. He was still infinitely upset with her. He still awoke in the middle of the night, his belly cramping at the thought of his ten-year-old daughter hugging the back of the carriage, splattered with mud and rain, sleeping in the stables. He drew a deep breath. Had Douglas or Ryder been her father, he didn’t doubt for a moment that they would have thrashed her.

Sinjun had come up with no proper punishment by the time they’d left, and Tysen was still stymied.

Kildrummy Castle. It was his now. He was Lord Barthwick.

Late that night after the sun had finally dropped behind the hillocks in the west and the air was clear with just a touch of light left, Meggie sat on her narrow bed in the south turret that looked over the barren stretch to the forest—lush and green and covered with pine trees and the occasional sheep. She mentally began her planting, staring at the closed-in inner courtyard of the castle. But every time she thought of something colorful to plant she thought also of her father’s anger at her. Not that he ever acted angry. No, he acted disappointed, just looking at her, all aloof, with distress in his eyes, and that was much worse. Meggie sighed and slid deeper under the fat quilt that was older than her father, maybe even her grandfather.

At dinner her father had been polite, just as he’d been since Edinburgh, nothing more—surely no outward show of anger. She remembered the one time he’d actually raised his voice and spanked her. That had been when she’d tied the bells to the goat and he’d played a rather clever tune, if one attended to it carefully.

She wished he would yell again, maybe even thrash her. At least it might make him forgive her more quickly. She remembered once when Uncle Douglas had yelled at one of the twins—Jason—and smacked his bottom three times. Then Uncle Douglas had picked him up, scoured his head with his knuckles, told him he was an idiot, tucked him under his arm, and carried him to the stables. Uncle Douglas had probably let Jason be his tiger that day.

She had disobeyed her father, who was closer to God than anyone. Regardless, she had not been wrong to come. She knew, knew all the way to her bones, that her father would need her.

Mrs. MacFardle, in Meggie’s immediate estimation, hadn’t appeared at all pleased to have the new English lord here at Kildrummy Castle. Dark looks, she’d given Papa, beetled black eyebrows drawn nearly together over her forehead every time she had looked at Meggie.

Finally, she’d shown them about and reluctantly served them dinner. Meggie wished Mrs. MacFardle were more like that ancient old woman at the inn where they’d stopped for lunch in Clackmanshire, who’d patted Meggie on the head, her voice singsong and very soft, murmuring Scottish words that Meggie thought were endearments, like “a wee gowan,” which she was told later by dear Pouder meant “a little daisy.” As for her father, he was braw, and that, Pouder said, meant he was a handsome fellow. Meggie didn’t think that Mrs. MacFardle thought her papa was braw at all, not even after he’d said a very eloquent grace over their dinner, which, Meggie believed with all her heart, didn’t deserve any grace at all. The pile in the middle of her plate was called haggis, Mrs. MacFardle told them, a sneer in her voice. Every Scot, she said, ate haggis and thanked the good Lord for providing such a splendid edible. Meggie took one look at that sheep’s stomach with its runny brown ingredients stuffed inside, fastened her eyes on the dark blue carpet that covered the dining room floor, and ate four slices of rich rye bread smeared with thick yellow butter.

Her father took one bite, spoke quickly to Mrs. MacFardle of the huge luncheon he and Meggie had eaten at the Wild Goose Inn, then took one more small taste which meant that as an adult, it was his duty to be polite. There was no one more polite than her father. Even surrounded by sinners, he was polite. Even driven from his own parlor by ladies who pursued him shamelessly, he was polite. He needed her, badly, particularly here in this foreign land, and he would realize it, sooner or later.

It was at dinner that they learned that Mrs. MacFardle was also the cook. Just thinking about it made Meggie hungry. And now her stomach was growling, but she had no idea where to find the kitchen in this huge, rambling place that seemed older than Northcliffe Hall, even though it wasn’t.

She snuggled down, aware that the stone wall

s of her bedchamber were thicker than her leg. That was comfort-ing, because a storm was blowing in off the sea. It wasn’t too long before she heard the wind, swirling off the water, battering against the windowpanes. Then the rain came, hard and fast, striking the glass with a great deal of force. She wished she wasn’t alone. She wished she wasn’t so cold deep down inside where the thick warm quilt couldn’t reach. At three o’clock in the morning—she knew it was that late because a tremendous slash of white lightning lit up her turret bedchamber and she could read the old clock that leaned against the mantelpiece—she just couldn’t stand it. She was so cold and so scared that she knew her heart was going to burst out of her chest. She grabbed a blanket off the bed, wrapped it around herself, and left the bedchamber. She began the trek to the laird’s massive bedchamber that overlooked the angry sea.