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Chapter Fifteen
For an hour, I listen to three women blethering. Jamie and Emery get on well, and that means they never stop talking. Do I want my sister to become friends with my wife? I'll only be married to her for one year, which means Jamie will be disappointed when Emery goes back to America. She might even try to…help us. Then she'll get the entire MacTaggart clan behind her to meddle and "fix" my relationship with my "wife."
I might be panicking prematurely. No, I'm not panicking at all. I have legitimate concerns that my sister might get overly attached to my wife, the woman I mean to shag regularly but not sleep with or develop feelings for, no matter what anyone else thinks.
When Mrs. Darroch brings us our meal, she joins in the blethering too. Fortunately, my housekeeper has enough sense not to tell any stories about me or to mention my ex-wives. Una had lived here at Dùndubhan with me, so Mrs. Darroch knew her. They never got on, though. Emery seems to enchant everyone who meets her, even my overprotective housekeeper who thinks she's my second mother. And aye, my actual mother loves my housekeeper and vice versa.
Emery listens intently when Mrs. Darroch tells her all about the meal we ate. Few Americans are familiar with Scottish food, so it usually needs a wee bit of explaining. We have Lorne sausage as well as tatties and neeps. Emery laughs at those two words, but she's not denigrating our traditional foods. She thinks tatties and neeps are "such super-cute names" for the dishes. It's potatoes and turnips. I don't see why that's entertaining, no matter what we call them.
Emery yawns throughout dinner. The lass is exhausted, because I dragged her out of bed at dawn to satisfy my selfish need to get home quickly. She can sleep as late as she likes tomorrow morning.
My wife gets almost giddy when she sees our dessert—blueberry tray cake. Emery rubs her palms together and licks her lips, her eyes alight. She gets excited about everything. I can't remember the last time I felt as happy as she seems to be all the time. Maybe I've never felt that way.
Except, perhaps, that day in New Orleans when she convinced me to go sightseeing.
After her second piece of cake, Emery suggests we all drink hot cocoa. Jamie loves the idea, of course.
"That's for bairns," I say. "Grown men donnae drink cocoa."
"Sure they do," my wife tells me. "As long as they don't have big old sticks up their fine asses."
I can tell by the way her eyes sparkle that she's teasing me.
"Try it, Rory," Jamie says. "Cocoa will soothe your jet lag and help you sleep better."
"Donnae have jet lag. It's a mental state, not a physical condition, and I do not let it affect me."
Jamie and Emery seem dubious, though they stop harassing me.
But I must disappoint the lasses by not drinking cocoa.
Emery takes another sip of her chocolate drink and yawns again, slumping into the chair she occupies, her eyes half-closed.
Jamie relaxes at one end of the adjacent sofa with her legs tucked under her, while she hugs a pillow to her belly.
As for me, I sit upright in a high-backed chair angled to face halfway toward the windows and sip whisky while I gaze out one of the three tall windows that overlook the castle compound. The flaming ribbons of sunset unfurl across the sky with streamers of clouds scudding along in their wake.
Earlier, when Emery had seen me pouring myself a dram of whisky, she'd asked me why the word was misspelled on the bottle.
"Not misspelled," I told her. "In Scotland, whisky is spelled without the E."
"Because all you stubborn Scots just have to come up with your own way to spell words." Her eyes had sparkled again when she said that. My wife seems to relish teasing me.
Now, my wife asks, "What kind of Scotch is that you're drinking?"
"It's whisky. Single malt Scotch whisky."
"What brand?"
"Ben Nevis," I say. "It's made in Fort William, which is near Ballachulish."
"Do all MacTaggarts drink Ben Nevis?"
"No. My brother Lachlan prefers Talisker, and my brother Aidan will drink anything."
Peripherally, I can see Emery watching me. "What about your sisters? Do they like whisky too?"
Jamie pretends to gag. "Och, no, we hate that rot. Men have no taste buds. They'll drink anything. But I like Irn Bru."
