Eachann looked up at them. “Like I was saying, I never knew our mother and look how I turned out.”
“I am, laddie. That I am.”
Eachann said something to his horse, then stroked the beast’s muzzle.
“Ye have more caring fer yer horses, Eachann MacLachlan, than fer yer ain wee bairns.”
Eachann froze and was silent and tense. All his cockiness had fled. He just stared down at the unopened letter with an odd and shuttered look.
Fergus had gone too far this time, Calum thought, looking from that bullheaded old man to his equally bullheaded brother.
But Fergus must have realized his mistake because he too was silent. The air grew thick and for just a moment there was no sound in the room except for the perennial ticking of the Bayard mantel clock.
Finally Eachann looked up, his jaw tighter than it had been a moment before, his eyes narrower. “I’ll take care of my bairns, old man.”
“They need a woman’s touch and they need tae live here, with the MacLachlans. The bairns need tae live with their ain father, lad.”
Eachann didn’t say a word.
Fergus turned to Calum again. “And ye’re the laird of the clan MacLachlan, the last Calum MacLachlan and ye dinna have any bairns. Eachann’s bairns dinna have cousins. Bairns need family, lads. If ye dinna be wanting to do a thing about it, I will.”
“Tell me, old man. You expect me to get bairns from that old woman?”
Fergus shrugged. “She was the first one I could find.”
Calum stood there completely silent.
But Eachann wasn’t. “Where did you look, under a rock during a full moon?” He glanced at Calum. “Perhaps he found her out scavenging for eye of newt.”
Fergus scowled at him.
“Skin of toads? Bat wings?”
“Jest all ye want, Eachann MacLachlan. But ye and yer brother still need wives.”
“And you want someone like that hausfrau to be the mother of the next MacLachlan laird?” Eachann began to laugh.
Fergus scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Weel... She came for free.”
“Free?” Calum’s head shot up and he stared at Fergus.
“Aye.”
Stunned, Calum remembered all the different women Fergus had been bringing to the island, and in his head, he began to mentally count them—money and women. “You mean all this time you’ve beenpayingthem?”
Fergus said nothing, which meant that was exactly what he’d been doing.
“You paid them money to come here when I told you no bride, no wife, no women?”
“I dinna have tae pay all of them.”
“How many?”
Fergus was quiet, but his lips were moving as he counted. Finally he looked at Calum. “Sixteen.”
Eachann burst out laughing and Calum knew why. Fergus had brought eighteen women to the island on the past year.
“Two came for free, brother,” Eachann said, his expression showing that he was trying not to laugh again.
