Hamish bit back an objection to being called a child. He mightn’t approve of Mackinnon, but he wasn’t stupid enough to offend him. If their rescuer abandoned them, he and Diarmid would be stuck out here the rest of the night. However, he couldn’t help pointing out a salient fact. “You’re out wandering the hillsides, too.”
“Aye, well, it’s different for me. Even if I was a blind man, I’d find my way over every inch of this glen. A wee bit of Highland weather doesn’t change that.”
A pang of envy sharpened Hamish’s hostility. While he loved Glen Lyon, the family only spent a few weeks there a year. He was a stranger to his inheritance in a way that Fergus Mackinnon wasn’t.
“We came out to look at the stars,” Diarmid said.
“Aye?” Mackinnon’s single word communicated endless wonder at Sassenach stupidity, despite these particular Sassenachs claiming to be Scots. “I dinna see the stars for the mist, but then I am a dim-witted Highlander.”
Hamish would wager a year’s allowance that this boy wasn’t dim-witted at all. “They were bright as diamonds before the moon came up. I’ve never seen Arcturus so clear.”
“Hamish knows all the constellations,” Diarmid said eagerly. It was very like his cousin to try to smooth over any antagonism. “He’s going to be Astronomer Royal one day.”
“Is that so?” Mackinnon didn’t sound any more impressed, now that he’d heard Hamish’s credentials. “Yet the next Galileo wasnae clever enough to ken that once the full moon came up, the stars would fade to invisibility?”
“I did. But we were headed home before that happened, and I thought we could find our way using the moonlight. Then all the hills started to look alike, and the mist came down, and we got lost,” Hamish snapped, uncomfortably aware that tonight’s debacle was mostly—well, all—his fault. “So will you take us down the mountain?”
Mackinnon shook his head. “No, that I will not, my fine laddie.”
“I say, that’s a bit rum,” Hamish began hotly. “Just because I don’t sound like I live on top of Ben Nevis and have haggis for breakfast every morning—”
The older boy broke into Hamish’s tirade. “The mist makes it too dangerous. I’ll not be risking my neck, let alone yours.”
“Then what are we to do?” Diarmid asked. “It’s getting colder.”
“There’s a cave nearby that will get us out of the wind, not to mention the sleet that’s on the way. We can wait there until the mist clears.”
“And when will that be?” Hamish asked irritably.
“Hamish,” Diarmid said in a reproving tone. “Master Mackinnon is kind enough to help us. He deserves our courtesy.”
While he laughed up his sleeve at both of them, Hamish wanted to say, but he didn’t. “I’m sorry, Master Mackinnon,” he said grudgingly, more for Diarmid’s sake than his own.
“Aye, well, follow me, and I’ll make sure ye get back to your parents in one piece.” Mackinnon clicked his fingers to the dog, who had been regarding Hamish and Diarmid with an expression only a little more disdainful than his master’s. “Come, Bailey.”
Mackinnon set out ahead, the dog trotting beside him, while Hamish and Diarmid did their best to keep up with his long-legged stride. Hamish had to admit that the young Laird of Achnasheen trod these mountains as if he owned them. His familiarity with this rugged landscape made Hamish feel depressingly feeble and…English.
* * *
Hamish mightn’t much like their brusque rescuer, but he liked what their rescuer accomplished. Within an hour, the three boys were hunkered down beside a roaring fire at the mouth of a cave that kept them from the howling wind. They’d all enjoyed an excellent supper of roast mountain hare. Mackinnon had even managed to conjure up some dry bracken for bedding. Prickly, but better than the bare rock.
Hamish struggled to stay awake with the older boys to prove he wasn’t a useless Sassenach, but warmth, hot food, and safety all conspired to put him to sleep.
He had no idea what time it was when he stirred. The fire had burned down low. He was deliciously cozy, and it took him a minute to realize that the scruffy black dog was curled up against his chest, breathing in soft snores.
The flickering light threw strange shadows across the faces of the two boys sitting up and talking in low voices. It highlighted Diarmid’s gypsy dark looks. The black eyes, long bony nose, and thin cheeks. Hamish and Diarmid might be cousins, but nobody would know to look at them. He was as fair as a Norseman, with a sheaf of wheat-blond hair and eyes the bright blue of his mother’s.
The flames turned Mackinnon into a young Scottish warrior. Hamish loathed admitting it, but their rescuer looked much more at home in this stark, magnificent setting than he or Diarmid did. The rich red hair, the cleanly cut features, and some indefinable air of authority marked him as prince of this domain.
Still half-asleep, Hamish lay concealed in the shadows back from the cave mouth. He curled his fingers in the dog’s soft coat, loving the pungent canine smell and the knowledge that a living thing rested up against him. He’d begged his parents for a dog of his own, but his silly sisters were afraid of them.
Cocooned in physical comfort, he didn’t immediately realize what the other lads were talking about. To his surprise, it wasn’t hunting or sport, but their ideas about the girls they might one day marry. This struck Hamish as ridiculously premature, but curiosity kept him quiet as the soft voices, one with a musical Highland lilt and the other clipped and precise and English, murmured across the dying fire.
“Och, aye, bonny. Who wants to look at a sour-faced besom over the supper table?” Mackinnon leaned forward to prod the fire with a stick, and the flare of light revealed the features of a boy not far from manhood. “It would put me off my taties.”
“All right, I suppose I’d like her to be pretty. But there’s more important things than how a girl looks.”
The comfortable note in Diarmid’s voice indicated he was enjoying the company. Hamish felt an unworthy prick of jealousy, only partly mollified by knowing that after tonight he’d never have to see that rude sod Fergus Mackinnon again.