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“Ye’ll all spend the night in me dungeons!” chirped the boy with the wild red curls. “Och, nay, mister Laird! Nae yer dungeons!” And then he and his sister dissolved into laughter once more.
Of course, that was the second that Nathair choose to walk around the corner. The Man-at-arms slowly took in the scene, and Alexander watched as his eyes went from the children to the pig and then to his Laird covered in so much mud that the only things distinguishable were his blue eyes.
“Oh, for the love o’ Christ,” Nathair said, and then he was wheezing with laughter, too. “Och, Sandy, what’ve ye done?”
“Aye, Sandy, what’ve ye done?” the children repeated in unison.
“That’s quite—” Alexander started angrily, but an odd silence fell again, and neither of the children was focused on him any longer. Nathair’s eyes were on the door, too, and slowly Alexander turned towards it.
“Oh, dear,” said the small woman who stood there, a half-smile on her heart-shaped face. She could not have been more than five-and-twenty, but she stood there with the kind of authority men twice her age found challenging to command.
She is just like her house. She could have been pretty, but for all these oddities.
She was very short, only a little over five feet in shoes at most. She sported a healthy weight without plumpness, most of it showing in the curves around her hips and chest. She was dressed demurely enough, in the kind of wool-spun dress a farmer’s daughter was like to wear, though it was slightly too tight on her figure, as if she didn’t wear it often.
Her skin might have been smooth in its rose-tinted cream, but it was scattered with freckles all over her nose and forehead, ruining the image. Her eyes were green like the pine trees in summer, and there was pity shining in them. These, too, were marred with an oddity, a glint of gold ruining the otherwise perfect image.
Her hair was what bothered him most, though. It was cut shorter than most women’s, though not in a boyish style. It was neither straight nor curled, instead gently waved from root to where it stopped just under her chin.
It was bright red, just like the boy on the pig who sported curls to rival Nathair’s. The woman’s hair was more carrot-colored than deep, and would have been quite pretty if not for the strange streak of crow-black that ran down the right-hand side.
Has she applied some sort of dye? I dinnae ken it was possible to put it only on one strand.
It didn’t look like dye, though. In fact, it seemed the exact shade of black worn by the other child, the little girl. In short, this woman was unnatural, odd, with the kind of appearance that triggered all of Alexander’s stressors.
“What have ye been up to now, ye mad bairns?” the woman asked with her hands on her hips. “Look at the mess o’ this poor lad. Forgive me, sir, me siblings can get a wee bit carried away. Say ye’re sorry, Annys, Jamie, and get down off Bacon.”
Nathair moved forward to help Alexander regain a little of his composure as the two children scrambled down off the pig. A smirk was still playing at the corner of his mouth. Whether it was at the mess of Alexander or at the name of the pig, the Laird wasn’t sure.
“We’re sorry, Mister,” the little boy, Jamie, said humbly. “We dinnae mean to run ye over.”
“It was right funny, though, even yer friend seemed to think so!” Annys added. At a glare from the woman, she quickly added, “But aye. Right sorry.”
“He is nae a mister,” Nathair informed them breezily. “This is yer Laird, Alexander MacKinnon. Is this the farm o’ Mr. O’Donnel?”
The woman gasped. “What? The Laird? Oh, goodness, Laird, what a surprise! I cannae believe what a mess ye’re in, how embarrassin’ for us! Please, both o’ ye, come inside, come inside. Let me get ye some beds, and I’ll have me maid draw ye a nice bath.”
Alexander just stared at her, the gentle kindness in her tone sticking out like an injured thumb against the chaos around them. Nathair moved forward, taking the woman’s hand and bending his lips to meet it.
“Such a kind woman to honor us so,” Nathair said. “As I said, this is Gallagher, and I’m Nathair Barcley. Ye’ve told us about Annys and young Jamie already. May I have yer name, too?”
The woman laughed. “Aye, Chieftain Barcley, I ken who ye are. The honor is all mine, I assure ye. Me name is Cicilia O’Donnel. I’m afraid if ye’re lookin’ for me faither, ye’re gonnae be here a while. He’s travelin’, off to some trade show or another.”
“And Mammy’s deid,” Annys added helpfully. “She died when me an’ Jamie were born. Now it’s just me an’ Cil an’ Jamie whenever Daddy’s gone. Well, and the Humphries, an’ the farmhands, an’…”
“That’s enough, Annys. Ye and yer brother take Bacon back to his pen and get inside. Ask Katie if she will nae draw a bath for our guests, and Angelica will help ye wi’ yer nightwear tonight,” Cicilia said.
The two children seemed to be calmed only by the sound of her voice and hurried to obey her orders, taking the pig with him. The second they were gone, Nathair said in a low voice, “Well, I dinnae ken about ye, Sandy, but a bath an’ a meal sounds grand.”
Alexander said nothing, the cold, disgusting feeling of the slowly drying mud temporarily removing his ability to speak.
Nathair smiled at Cicilia. “Do ye have a stable lad who can go fetch our horses?”
Cicilia nodded. “We have plenty o’ farmhands. One o’ them will help.” She called the instruction after Jamie to let someone know, then looked at Alexander. “I understand yer discomfort, sir,” she said calmly and softly. “But will ye nae come inside an’ clean up?”
“Aye,” he said in a low, rough voice, much to Nathair’s apparent relief. “That would be right welcome, Miss O’Donnel. Thank ye.”
As he and Nathair followed the woman inside, though, he could not shift a sense of foreboding. For some reason, he felt like there would never be any going back.
