Page 42 of The Highland Laird’s Hellion Bride

He had not accounted for children.

Four of them poured out of the cart the moment it rolled into the courtyard, followed by two hounds that immediately set Brochan into a fit of half-hearted barking, and Mrs. MacKinnon calling instructions that none of them heeded.

Duncan had greeted the lot with delight, and within a quarter hour, he had settled MacKinnon himself by the hearth with a cup of whisky and an account of Morag’s latest escape that had already grown to include things that had not occurred.

Magnus took his ledgers to the far end of the hall and told himself the tax figures required his full attention.

They did not hold it long.

The eldest MacKinnon girl, no more than ten, had drifted toward Elspeth within minutes of arriving, drawn apparently by the ribbons woven in her hair. She stood beside Elspeth’s elbow, watching with clear fascination, until Elspeth patted the bench beside her and the girl climbed up without further invitation.

“Did ye make these yerself?” the girl asked, reaching up to touch one of the ribbons with careful fingers.

“I did.” Elspeth tipped her head down so the girl could see them better, patient under the small, careful tug of fingers in her hair.

“They’re bonnie.”

“Thank ye.” Elspeth caught the girl’s hand before it could tangle further and gave it a light squeeze. “What’s yer name?”

“Isla.”

“Well, Isla, if ye like,” Elspeth tapped the tip of the girl’s nose, “I’ll teach ye how to plait before ye leave.”

Isla’s face lit up.

Magnus turned a page he had not read.

The younger boy—Hamish, Magnus recalled, seven years old and completely not mindful of caution—abandoned whatever game he had been playing with his siblings and installed himself directly in front of Elspeth, hands on his hips, studying her.

“Do ladies in yer lands truly eat cake every day?” he asked.

Elspeth considered the question with a gravity Magnus felt was undeserved. “Every single day.”

Hamish’s eyes went round. “Every day?”

“Aye. It is a great burden, bein’ a lady. We must eat cake constantly, or else we forget how.”

“That’s nae a burden.”

“Ye’ve clearly never had to eat quite so much cake, Hamish.”

He considered this with visible skepticism, then apparently decided the matter was settled. He dropped onto the rug directly in front of her, followed in short order by his brother and two sisters until they formed a loose, expectant circle at Elspeth’s feet.

“Tell us a story,” Isla said.

“What sort?”

“A good one.”

Elspeth folded her hands in her lap, and Magnus, four tables away with a ledger open before him and a quill he had not dipped in some time, found himself listening despite every other intention.

“Once,” she began, “there lived a selkie who came ashore on a night when the moon hung low over the water, and shed her seal-skin on the rocks to walk as a woman for a single night.”

“What’s a selkie?” Hamish asked.

“A creature who is a seal in the water and a woman on land, so long as she keeps her skin close by. Lose the skin, and she cannae return to the sea.” Elspeth’s voice had dropped, low and warm, the storytelling voice she had clearly used before on siblings or servants or herself alone in some quiet room. “On this night, a fisherman found the skin lyin’ on the rocks and, thinkin’ only of his own loneliness, hid it away.”

“That’s a terrible thing to do,” said the second girl, whose name Magnus hadn’t caught.