Page 56 of His Secret Highland Bride

“Hal, we need goose feathers for fletching. Can ye help us with that?”

“If I butcher the geese for feathers, who will buy the meat?” the plump man asked.

“Throw them in the pot to feed us all while we work,” Munro suggested.

The man grumbled again but relented.

Lindsay stepped up next to Munro.

“I will put these rabbits in the pot as well to help feed everyone. I know we don’t have much to give, and I know in the past the laird and lady selfishly took without seeing the village taken care of.”

She received a few nods and kept going.

“But there is a new laird now.” The man she was supposed to have married. A man she didn’t know and who could turn out to be the same as his father. But she wanted these people to have hope. She wanted to have hope herself. “We have a chance to have better lives if we pull together. If we don’t, we may not have any life at all.” That got the crowd moving.

Munro continued to order people about, taking several older lads to help him and her cousins in the forge.

“You’ll learn some fine skills helping me, lads. The lasses love a blacksmith.”

The gawky boys smiled and rushed to do his bidding. Where the threat of death didn’t sway them, the possibility of female attention had. Some were sent off with wagons to collect whatever metal would be donated. Some stayed and hauled more wood for the fire.

Lindsay went to meet up with Hal and his wife as they settled a large pot over a fire that was being started. Other women were bringing water and dumped it in as soon as it was placed.

“Throw them in,” Hal’s wife said with a smile. “It’s been quite a while since we’ve made enough for the whole village.”

“Ah, do ye remember, dear Jenny? We met at such a gathering when we were but children. I thought you to be a fairy, for how beautiful you were.”

Jenny’s rosy cheeks turned darker at her husband’s romantic musings. She swatted his arm playfully.

By midday, the whole village was caught up in their duties to make arrows. Lindsay had never considered what effort was involved in such a task. Being the daughter of a rich laird meant she hadn’t needed to worry about things like how the warriors would protect the clan. It just was. Not having a set skill, she was passed around to different jobs as she was needed, from trimming down the goose feathers for fletching to affixing them to the arrow shafts with a foul-smelling glue. Occasionally, she would take her turn by the large pot, stirring and adding other ingredients. She even helped Munro by filing the new arrowheads to deadly points.

As the day grew long, she helped serve the villagers who’d come to help and was happy to see a few familiar faces.

“Thank you for helping.” She turned to her cousins. “You all look well.” She’d seen Doran when he came to watch over her, but the younger boys seemed so happy. Lindsay’s heart warmed when they all smiled at her.

“I wasn’t sure if you would want to see me, since I caused so much unrest, but if it would be all right, I would like to visit.”

Three heads nodded. Robbie came forward and wrapped his lanky arms around her waist in a tight hug. “I miss my ma, and you smell like her.”

Tears threatened. Lindsay smelled like her aunt because Lindsay’s mother often sent her sister the violet soap they made at Riccarton. To Lindsay, it smelled of home, and now she realized it did for her cousins as well. “You are my only family here. I would love to check in on you and see how you’re doing.”

“We’re not hungry all of the time,” Robbie said.

“And we’re learning our letters and how to read,” James shared.

“We’re learning how to make things and run the forge,” Doran said. “And Shane says I’ll soon be ready to join the guard.”

She swallowed down her worry about her cousin being on the battlefield. Shane surely wouldn’t allow anyone to put Doran in danger. He was not yet a man. At her youngest cousin’s giggle, she turned to see Treun licking his face.

“She likes you. Perhaps you’d like the duty of keeping her out of trouble today.”

Robbie laughed again and ran off with the little dog in tow. Her heart was lighter as she went about serving these people, learning the names of the other villagers. She’d never thought this place would be her home, but now with Shane and these people, it might be.

She glanced across the village at Castle Cluny sitting on the hill in all its glory and wondered if they were still awaiting her arrival to wed the laird. With the threat of the MacColls, she hoped they were too busy at the castle to care about the laird’s missing bride.

She had plenty of other things to worry about herself.

Chapter Twenty-One