He should have guessed as much. Laird Hart wouldn’t send a lad to deliver a message of official business.
Errol sighed. No matter how much strife continued betwixt the two clans, his sister and the eldest Hart daughter would not cease their friendship. He motioned to the keep.
“Go to the kitchens and get yerself a meal for yer work.” He held out his hand and the lad gave the message to him. He’d bring it to Anna.
There was no need to read it first. He’d made that mistake in the past. He had no interest in the menial conversations of lasses, especiallyones betwixt his younger sister and her friend.
“They are still communicating?” Robbie asked. “I am surprised yer da hasnae put an end to it.”
Errol shook his head. “’Tis no’ for his lack of trying. Anna is as stubborn as he is.”
Robbie chuckled. “A family trait, I’d say.”
With a scowl, Errol shouldered past his cousin in search of his sister.
He found her speaking to her maid, Fina, in the hall leading to the kitchens. He should have just had the messenger deliver the damn note since they were in the same area.
Anna scrunched her nose as he approached.
“Brother, ye should clean up afore entering the kitchens. Maighread will have yer head if she sees ye.” She waved her hand in front of her face. “Though likely she’ll smell ye before she sees ye.”
His sister and her maid giggled.
He cocked his head to the side and fought the urge to roll his eyes. Instead, he held his hand out. “A message from Moira has arrived for ye.”
Anna snatched the missive from his hand and cradled it to her chest, then eyed him suspiciously, her eyes narrowed. “Did ye read it?” she asked.
“Nay. I’ve better ways to spend my time.” Errol turned on his heel and left the girls giggling after him.
He wondered if he could convince his father into arranging another trip to Hart lands to meet with Laird Hart and his council. The meeting would result in naught, however, mayhap Errol would be able to catch a glimpse or two of bonny Moira. He’d seen her the past few times they’d met, and his body roared to life each time.
Errol remembered her from when he and her brothers actually spent time as friends instead of enemies when they were younger. She used to trail behind them trying to keep up. Not any longer, though.
Now she was grown with pale blue eyes, shaped like a cat’s, and fringed with long lashes. Her dark blonde hair fell in thick waves over her shoulders. Her skin was the color of ivory and he could only imagine that it would be soft as velvet under his fingertips.
Clearing his throat, he discreetly adjusted himself as he continued to his bedchamber to wash up. His body didn’t care that they could never be together. The animosity between their two clans would never allow it.
But in his mind, his thoughts ran rampant.
When he thought of the Hart brothers, anger had him clenching his fists. They were so smug during every meet. So much so that Errol wanted to march up to them and beat the smirks off their faces. They wouldn’t be so assured then. Like Alpin, the eldest Hart sibling, Errol would also one day be laird.
The strife between them and their clans would continue even then. He could sense it. Jaw clenched, he stomped up the stairs.
They’d been fighting off and on for so many years that both lairds would be hard pressed to say what exactly was the cause of the strife. Their clans were similar in size, though the MacLeod was slightly larger. With the Hart owning slightly larger lands.
Errol only kenned he hated them.
The Harts could not be trusted.
Even if they had shared brief respites of fighting in past years, it was never enough for them to solve their grievances. Whatever grievances those might be.
He also believed they had other worries. Bigger clans from the north that would attack if they got the chance. Smaller clans from the west that, whilst they wouldn’t attempt a full-on attack on their own, they’d had no qualms sending out small parties to steal sheep and cattle, or to hunt on MacLeod lands.
In his chamber, he splashed cool water on his face before pulling his tunic over his head. He ran the cloth he’d soaked with water acrosshis chest, wiping away the sweat and dirt from his sword practice earlier.
Stripping off his trews, he washed below his waist, his cock heavy in his hands at the thoughts of Moira running rampant through his mind once again.
“Fool,” he mumbled in the empty room, angry with himself for thinking of the enemy with anything other than hatred.
