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“Stop your palavering and come join the rest of us,” their uncle interrupted.
“Why didn’t Georgie come with you?” Donella asked as she drew him to an empty chaise.
“She thought you would have enough family telling you what to do without in-laws chiming in.” Fergus pointedly looked at Lady Reese.
Her ladyship sniffed with disdain. “I, for one, would welcome Georgette’s input. She’s a very sensible girl.”
“You like her because she never contradicts you,” Fergus said.
“As I mentioned, she’s very sensible.”
“Perhaps we might get started?” Walter tactfully said.
“I’d like to start with a discussion about those bloody Murrays,” Alasdair said. “I’m tired of waiting for answers.”
“You’ll mind your business, if you please,” Uncle Riddick sternly replied. “I have the matter well in hand.”
“I don’t mean to start an argument, Grandfather, but—”
“Then don’t.”
“But I doubt a stern letter will solve the problem,” Alasdair firmly went on. “If not for Logan Kendrick, Donella would have been kidnapped.”
Eden shook her head. “I don’t understand why they’d do something so deranged.”
“I believe the answer is simple,” Walter said. “When Donella was seventeen, Mungo Murray wished her to marry his son, Roderick. Since Donella was betrothed to Alec at the time, the offer was refused. Mungo saw that as an insult to his family’s honor.”
“We would have refused it regardless of Alasdair,” Uncle Riddick snapped. “Roddy Murray is as thick as a plank, and his father is no better. Dolts, the lot of them.”
“Roddy was quite sweet, though. Not at all like his father,” Donella said, compelled to defend her long-ago suitor.
“And very handsome, as I recall,” Walter thoughtfully added.
It was Roddy’s handsome looks that had run Donella into trouble in the first place—not that she could admit it.
“That certainly didn’t excuse the lies he told about my sister,” Fergus said. “I should have shot him back then, like I wanted to.”
Alasdair frowned. “What sort of lies were they?”
Oh, Lord.
“It doesn’t matter,” Donella said.
“The kind no gentleman should make about a lady,” Fergus darkly responded.
Alasdair looked blank for a moment, then guffawed. “That’s totally ridiculous. Donella cutting up larks with—” His wife elbowed him. “Um, Donella would never do anything inappropriate. She wanted to become a nun, for God’s sake.”
“It’s immaterial,” Uncle Riddick said. “The Murrays need to realize once and for all that Donella will never marry Roddy.”
Eden pressed a hand to her chest. “Do you mean to say that Mungo Murray tried to kidnap Donella to force her to marry his son? That’s positively medieval.”
“It’s an old tradition in some Highland clans,” Walter explained. “Although I’ve not heard of such a case in many years.” He shot Donella a troubled glance. “They obviously heard you were leaving the convent. Just as obviously, Mungo Murray now feels that his son has a claim on you.”
“As if the poor woman doesn’t have a say in her own life,” Eden huffed.
“Right. I’ve had enough of this,” Alasdair said. “Fergus and I are riding north to pay Mungo Murray a visit.”
Donella almost fell off the chaise. “No. I absolutely forbid it.”
