“Mayhap this wasna such a good idea, Magnus. These must poke ye something dreadful. It’s why Albert stays on the path when I come out here. Ma skirts protect me.”
“Dinna fash. As long as they arenae nettles, then I’m fine.”
They may as bluidy well be nettles. They bluidy hurt.
Saoirse watched him as though she waited for him to reconsider. Instead, he pulled asgian dubhfrom his boot and bent to cut a stalk low to the ground. He held it up before putting it in the basket he still carried.
“I dinna ken if ye need the stems this long.”
Saoirse cursed her fair skin because she knew she must look like a summer apple the way she blushed. She shook her head as she gathered her tongue-tied ideas. She found it difficult to concentrate on her flower gathering, with Magnus standing so close.
“I dinna need them quite that long. Aboot half that much stem will work. Thank ye.”
She looked back down at the patch within which she stood. If she didn’t focus on her task, she was liable to slice her fingers off with her ownsgian dubh.She recalled thinking Magnus was a handsome man with his light brown hair, but never had her body betrayed her by reacting so viscerally. Recalling why he visited was a bucket of cold water. He was family, even if not by blood. He was her aunt’s younger brother, and not a man to make doe-eyes at.
She opted to put some distance between them as she walked a few feet away and turned her back to him. She nearly jumped out of her skin five minutes later when he stepped behind her and reached around to present the basket to her. She’d held the blooms she collected in her skirt. She dropped all of them as she twisted to find Magnus close enough for her nose to rest against his chest. She tilted her head back, his height blocking the sun from her whisky-brown eyes. Their gazes locked, and they stared until a throat clearing reminded them that they stood in Albert’s full view, along with anyone standing on the wall walk. Saoirse glanced at Albert, but he was looking at the battlements.
Magnus and Saoirse turned to follow Albert’s gaze, and Saoirse fought the urge to cringe. Her father stood with his arms crossed, staring down at them. She was certain he’d planted his feet hip-width apart, since all the men in her family adopted that stance whenever they—breathed. It was as natural to them as standing upright, but they did it purposely to intimidate. People knew Highlanders for their height and physique, but the Sinclair men were mighty oaks, while every other man was a sapling. Except for Magnus, who Saoirse realized rivaled her father in size.
“Welcome, Magnus.” Alex’s voice boomed from above. The tone sounded welcoming, but his expression didn’t share that sentiment.
“Hello, Alex.” Magnus nodded before looking back at Saoirse. “I didna mean to startle Lady Saoirse. I’ll pick up what ma lady dropped and walk back with her.”
Alex merely nodded, but his attention remained riveted on his daughter and his clan’s guest. He’d known Magnus since he was a lad of two-and-ten. He’d arrived at Castle Dunbeath twenty-three years earlier, when Saoirse hadn’t even been born. He and Brighde had only been married a few weeks.
Magnus was quick to gather the scattered plant cuttings before they turned toward the gate. Albert trailed behind them, and Magnus felt the man’s silent disapproval. He’d known Albert since he arrived two decades ago. They were the same age at five-and-thirty. He had done nothing wrong, but the temptation had been far too strong. It unsettled him that he’d been so ready to kiss the young woman who he should still think of as more a child than an adult. But nothing about Saoirse’s appearance or demeanor made him think of a child. A shy young woman, yes. A child in need of sheltering, no. Then again, perhaps she was a woman in need of sheltering from him. He would have to curb his interest lest he cause a rift between the Sinclairs and him.
“Óg!”
A wave of strawberry-blonde hair flew behind his sister as she raced down the front steps. Siùsan opened her arms and launched herself at her younger brother once she was within arms’ reach. She kissed his cheek as he lifted her off her feet.
“It’s good to see ye, Siùsan. Seamus and I miss ye fiercely. Ye ken I would have come sooner if I could have.”
He placed her back on her feet as Callum and Liam emerged from the keep. Callum wrapped his arm around his wife’s waist and kissed her temple. She placed her hands over his and looked back, beaming.
“It’s good to see ye, Óg. We’ve missed ye and Seamus.” Liam extended his arm, which Magnus clasped around the older man’s forearm in a warrior handshake.
“Ma brother wishes he could come, but ye ken things havenae been easy lately. It wouldnae be wise for us both to travel so far afield.” As the younger of the two brothers, Magnus served as Clan Mackenzie’s tánaiste, while Seamus was their laird. Magnus’s older nephew was only five, so he was far too young to assume the duties of the heir and the clan’s second-in-command.
Magnus looked toward Liam, Callum, and Siùsan, but he knew the moment Saoirse moved away from the group. He wanted to watch where she went and what she did, but he knew it would be far too obvious. He didn’t doubt Alex was still observing him. He was certain when a heavy hand landed on his shoulder and squeezed. To others, it appeared a warm welcome, but Magnus felt it for what it was. A warning.
“It’s good to see ye, Óg. Ye dinna look any different from ye did when ye left here five-and-ten years ago at a ripe auld age of twenty.” Alex grinned, but there was little humor in his dark eyes. It was a not-so-subtle reminder to Magnus that he’d been barely younger than Saoirse was now when he finished his fostering and was considered man enough to help run the clan.
“I canna believe it’s been that long, yet nae seeing ye in three years has been an eternity.” Siùsan wrapped her arm around her brother’s arm, playfully batting away Callum’s when he pretended not to let her go. They’d been married two and a half decades, but they were still as attached to one another as when they fell in love. All the married couples in the Sinclair family were the same, including Saoirse’s parents. Magnus watched Brighde and Saoirse join the group. Alex wrapped his arm around Brighde’s shoulders as she smiled up to her husband. Magnus looked between mother and daughter, and if he hadn’t known better, he would have thought them to be twins and Saoirse’s age.
“Óg!”
Magnus turned and grinned. He stepped around Callum and Liam, holding out his arm. The bear of a man who greeted him, ignored the proffered arm, and pulled Magnus in for an embrace.
“Mòr, it’s good to see ye.”
Both men shared the same given name, so when Seamus and the younger Magnus moved to Dunbeath to foster, both Magnuses adopted nicknames to keep them separate. The older Magnus went by Mòr, which translated to greater or bigger, and the younger Magnus adopted Óg, which meant lesser. The youngest of four brothers and the fourth of five children, Mòr volunteered himself as his foster brothers’ mentor. Everyone teased that he was happy to no longer be the youngest male in the family. He never denied the claim’s truth.
“It’s been too long. I’m glad ye’ve finally come to visit.”
“It hasnae been an easy three years.”
Saoirse watched her family, and she wondered what Magnus meant. She knew from her aunt that the Mackenzies suffered a wave of illnesses that claimed many lives, and there’d been ongoing strife with the Sinclairs’ distant relatives-by-marriage, the Rosses. But Magnus seemed to mean more, even if he said nothing else.
