Page 5 of Highlander’s Wrath
Returning his guest’s bow, James McDonald looked at his daughter, waiting for her to leave the room.
She gave herself a shake, as though she had been mesmerized by the two gentlemen before her.
“Shall I call Mama to come and make her introduction, Papa?” Coira asked.
James nodded. “No’ just yet. Run off an’ tell her to make up the south-facing bedchamber, will ye, Coira?” James replied, dismissing his daughter with a nod.
After his eldest daughter had left and shut the door behind her, James settled back in his desk chair and indicated to Laird Hamish that he could take the one opposite.
“The messenger arrived no’ two days afore ye, Barclay, with word from our dear friend, Father Abercromby. I pray ye left everything well at Barclay Castle?”
A footman knocked and entered. James asked Laird Hamish if he cared for some of the famous Macanroy whisky, and after pouring out two generous glasses of the golden liquid, the footman bowed himself out of the room again, taking his lairdship’s cloak and hat with him.
“As well as can be expected, I thank ye,” Laird Hamish said, “but the castle suffers for lack of a mistress, and me son is missing a mither.”
James listened to these words. Personally, he wondered why Laird Hamish Barclay, in possession of large tracts of land and a sizeable bank account—not to mention the fact the gentleman was also obviously in possession of a face handsome enough to turn the head of the most hard-hearted female—would be struggling to find a second wife. Maybe it had something to do with the careless way the man dressed himself. The laird had made some small concession to English fashion by wearing breeches and a serviceable pair of long, black leather boots, but James could not help but cringe at Laird Barclay’s brutally short hair and the week’s growth of stubble on his chin.
He lifted his eyebrow. “D’ye no’ have time to attend the balls at Inverness? There are sure to be plenty of womenfolk at the reels who are on the catch for a lairdly husband,” James suggested helpfully.
Laird Hamish thought it best to steer the conversation in safer directions; he did not want to tell his amiable host that every woman in Inverness would turn pale at the mention of his name, his stormy reputation preceding him.
“Och, courting and playing the fool to woo some wench is no’ to me taste, McDonald,” Laird Hamish scoffed. “It’s a nanny, or some woman specialized in the education of wee tykes I have need of. D’ye ken of any?”
James acknowledged the sense in this. “A good woman for yer son might just be the perfect solution to yer quandary, Barclay,” he said, and the two men sat chatting about where to find the best female servants until the bell sounded for supper.
