Despite the council’s wishes, Hunter had offered the position to Beathan, insisting that he would stand aside for the rightful heir. The council had been concerned that there was madness in the bloodline and hadn’t been quiet in making their preference clear.
“I daenae want it. I’ve never wanted it. I urged me braither to marry, to have sons, so I’d never have it fall on me. I spent the war behind the castle walls, like a lass. I’m nae the person to lead our people,”Beathan had said that day.“It’s ye, Hunter. The man they trust. I daenae think there’s madness in me blood, but I didnae think me braither was mad either, and yet here we are.”
Still, there were many moments where Hunter wished Beathan had taken the position anyway. Usually, while writing endlessboring, infuriating letters to people who probably wouldn’t do business with them anyway.
“Jack, tell the families it was a territorial dispute gone awry, at that spot on the loch,” Hunter instructed. “And send more riders to the border. The ones who are good with a bow. A soldier on horseback with a bow and arrow in hand is harder to ambush. Send a few up there with muskets, too.”
He didn’t favor the cumbersome weapons himself, finding them too time-consuming and awkward, and prone to not working at all in the mercurial Highland weather, but they served as a decent repellent. The trouble was, they didn’t have many. Then again, neither did Laird MacLeach, as far as Hunter was aware.
Jack nodded. “Aye, me Laird.” He paused. “Do ye think this is all happenin’ now because Laird MacLeach regrets leavin’ the bairn at yer gates?”
“I daenae ken,” Hunter replied, almost snapping his second quill. “But if he wants her, I’ll say it again, more plainly this time: let him come.”
He’ll have to rip her from me hands, and he willnae get close enough.
If he had to end the entire bloodline to keep his daughter safe, then so be it. He wouldn’t hesitate.
Jack smiled. “Ye’re a fine da, Hunter.”
“Though I wonder if havin’ a bairn has softened ye a wee bit too much,” Beathan teased. “Nae so long ago, ye’d have chased after whoever harmed those guards and cut ‘em in twain.”
Hunter narrowed his eyes. “Get out.”
“Och, ye hit him in his sore spot!” Jack laughed, elbowing Beathan in the ribs.
Beathan grinned. “Ye mean hissoftspot?”
“Out with ye!” Hunter muttered sharply. “Or else it’ll be ye that I send after those MacLeach men.”
His cousin paled, while Jack tilted his head from side to side, as if considering the idea.
“Nae before me own bairn is born,” Jack said. “Elsie would kill ye, and dependin’ on what sort of day she’s havin’, she could do it too.”
Hunter resisted the urge to laugh, for he’d been witness to a couple of Elsie’s incensed moments, which seemed to come upon her at random and evaporated as quickly as they had appeared. A symptom of her pregnancy, or so Isla had informed them all in a hushed tone, so Elsie would not hear and fly into a rage again.
Instead, he shot the two men one of his choicest glares and watched with some satisfaction as they backed out of his garret without another word.
But mentioning Freya had stirred the urge to go and see his daughter… and he was sick to death of writing letters anyway.
Tossing his quill onto the desk, he walked over to the trapdoor in the middle of the floor, heaved it up, and climbed down the ladder that would take him into the main body of the castle.
The room could also be reached from the castle walls, where Jack and Beathan had entered, but no one used the ladder except him. The last thing he needed was people popping up to make another demand of him.
He followed a warren of passageways and narrow staircases that reminded him of his earlier encounter with Nancy and made his way to the nursery. The door was partially open when he arrived, but he didn’t knock or enter right away.
Instead, Nancy’s soft voice and strange accent kept him rooted to the threshold, observing her. It was clear she didn’t know he was there, and he was glad of it as he saw her at the nursery window with Freya in her arms, pointing to things through the slightly open casement.
She was a little awkward holding the baby, clearly still getting used to it, but Freya didn’t seem to mind.
“Those are sheep,” Nancy said, and after a moment’s hesitation, made a lowbaathat brought an amused smirk to his lips. “There’s a mommy sheep and baby sheep and… I think those ones with the horns are daddy sheep. I’ll be honest with you, Freya, I don’t see a lot of sheep where I come from.”
The baby gurgled, and Nancy’s face brightened.
“There’s not so much greenery, either,” she continued, a fresh note of excitement in her voice. “Can you see color yet? All of that out there is green. All the trees and the grass and the… I suppose the mountains aren’t green, but there’s some green on them. And up at the top there, that’s snow. Yes! Yes, it is. It’s snow, for building snowmen and making snow angels and throwing snowballs.”
Freya gazed up at Nancy with wide eyes, and as Nancy stuck out her tongue and made a funny face, the baby chuckled.
“Throwing snowballs is funny?” Nancy grinned. “You must be born with that warrior spirit up here, eh? Not much else to do but raise sheep and pick fights.”
