“Charlie ismyname,” the duke of Lundy said truculently, looking up at the laughing man.
“It was my name first,”Charlie Gordon replied, swooping the youngster up in his arms and tickling him. “Shall we share it?”
“I gots an Uncle Charles,” the little boy persisted, giggling.
“Aye, laddie, ye do. Royal Charles, who will someday be our king, God bless him! But I’m naeCharles.Like you I’m just plain Charlie, and I’m happy to share my name wi ye, laddie,” Charlie Gordon concluded, his eyes twinkling at his little nephew.
“I’m nae plain,” Charlie-boy responded. “I’m a duke.”
“What’s that?” his uncle asked mischievously.
The child shook his head. “I dinna know,” he said to the laughter of his family.
“Ah, well then,” his uncle told him, “there is plenty of time for ye to learn all about being a duke, laddie. For now I think ye would far enjoy just being a wee lad, eh. Hae ye a puppy?”
Charlie-boy shook his head again. “Nay,” he said. “We all share Mama’s Feathers, but she’s a silly old thing.”
Charlie turned to his youngest brother. “Neddie, where’s the gift we brought for our wee nephew.”
Reaching into his doublet, Neddie Gordon drew forth a small black-and-gold puppy, handing it to his elder sibling.
“‘Tis for you, Charlie-boy,” Charlie Gordon said, handing the puppy over to the wide-eyed child. “‘Tis a Gordon setter, and will be a good hunting dog when it is grown.” And when his nephew had taken the puppy gently into his arms, his uncle set him down on the floor again with his prize. Turning to his brother, he said, “Neddie?” and a second puppy was drawn forth from the younger Gordon’s doublet and handed to Henry Lindley, who had been looking slightly crestfallen at his little brother’s good fortune. “We’d nae forget ye, Henry,” Charlie said to his now delighted older nephew.
“What about us?” Fortune demanded boldly.
Robert and Henry Gordon brought forth puppies from their doublets, and handed them over to their very pleased nieces.
“That’s the whole litter,” Charlie Gordon told his half sister.
She sighed. “‘Twas kind of you,” she said, weakly watching as India squealed when her puppy peed on her bodice; and her own spaniel, Feathers, growled menacingly from behind her skirts at these unruly intruders onto her territory; and the three older puppies, hastily placed upon the floor chased after her two elderly cats, Fou-Fou and Jiin, who, with amazing agility, leapt atop the sideboard, hissing while her beautiful blue-and-gold parrot, Hiraman, screeched wildly, “Robbers! Rubbers!”while flapping upon his perch by the fireplace.
The children, of course, giggled and ran after their puppies, gleefully tumbling over one another, while the adults began to laugh.
“‘Tis certainly a well-ordered household,” Velvet Gordon teased her daughter.
“‘Twas your sons who brought chaos into it,” Jasmine said spiritedly. “‘Twas all calm until you came, Mama.”
“What’s for dinner?” her stepfather, the earl of BrocCairn, asked, grinning. “‘Twas a damned long, cold ride over from Dun Broc. There’s a good storm coming in another day or two. I can feel it in the air. We’re in for a wicked hard winter.”
“I hope Uncle Adam and Aunt Fiona get here safely before the storm breaks,” James Leslie said.
“I wanted Mama to come over to Dun Broc, and stay with us,” Velvet said. “Alec and I have been married for over a quarter of a century, and you’ve never seen my home, Mama.”
“In the spring,” Skye promised. “I’ve done all the traveling about I intend to do for a while.”
“Thank God for that!” Daisy muttered gratefully from her seat by her mistress.
“Why, Daisy,” Velvet teased her mother’s companion. “You haven’t had so much fun in years now, admit it! Your life was in a rut.”
“I like me rut very well, Mistress Velvet,” Daisy responded.
“Well, you’re out of it now,” Skye said, “and I vow you’re looking younger than you have in twenty years.”
On the twenty-second of December Adam and Fiona Leslie arrived from Edinburgh in the gray late morning. By noon the snow had begun to fall, and by dusk it was piling up upon the hillsides, in the forest, and upon the battlements and windowsills of the castle. Outside there was not a sound to be heard as the snow fell softly, showing absolutely no signs of letting up.
In the hall that night Adam Leslie delivered some rather unsettling news to his nephew. “Before we left I met Gordie MacFie in the High Street. He told me that he hae heard therewas an Englishman nosing about the city seeking ye out. Said the fellow claimed to hae an arrest warrant for ye, signed by the king himself, Gordie said.”
“St. Denis!” Jasmine cried, turning pale.
