“I was born here, on the island, like my father and his father.” He turned left, at a spot where the fog thinned past the hemlock tree. Beneath his boots was the sound of gravel that covered the path near the front of the house.
He felt her shiver. “The house is just ahead.”
A familiar shadow Calum knew was home loomed before them in the mist, huge and dark and over two stories tall. He slowed as he approached the front steps.
“If you believe you are truly a Scot, then why aren’t you living in Scotland?”
He gave a bitter laugh as he opened the front door. “There’s a saying that a Scotsman is never at home unless he’s abroad.” He could see by her eyes that she didn’t understand. “Scotland is no longer the home of the Scots, lass.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because to us it’s true. Those who are there now are either Sassenach... English,” he explained, “or men who are more interested in the price of wool than the price of human pride and suffering. Tradition and obligation are not part of them. They might call themselves Scots, lass, but those men are no Scots.” He carried her inside, then kicked the door shut behind him with a loud bang.
She didn’t flinch at the sound, but seemed intent on giving him an odd and searching look that said she had expected him to eat her and was surprised he hadn’t.
“You ask a lot of questions, lass, for someone who won’t tell me her name.” He waited, but she said nothing, just looked away, then her eyes began to examine the room.
“This is my home, and my father’s and his father’s.” Odd how his voice sounded like gravel, rough and angry, yet what he felt was not anger. He wasn’t certain what it was, but he wasn’t angry.
She continued to look around them as he crossed the entry, the sound of his steps echoing up into the high beam rafters that soared upward over two stories above them.
He stopped and looked around him. He was proud of his home; he always had been. His great grandfather had been a large man, like Eachann, and he’d built the place in the huge proportions and in the rough Celtic manner of a chieftain’s Highland castle.
Yet the whole structure was made from the island’s resources. The slate floors and stone block for walls were quarried from the pink granite on the island. All the wood and trim were hemlock, knotted pine, and maple from the native forests; and fat cobbled gray stones polished by the motion of the sea had been made into fireplaces big enough for a clan of Scotsmen to stand inside.
To the MacLachlans who came here, this was a new castle in a new homeland, built by a proud man, who had been one of the last Highland warriors. A man forced to flee his homeland and everything that was Scots, everything that had, for so many generations, been the MacLachlan of MacLachlan.
His Scots forefather who had lived in four-hundred-year-old castles would laugh and called this house new. But his home meant something more to Calum, and seemed old enough to him, because the stairs had been hollowed by the footsteps of his great-grandfather.
He felt the woman’s stare, but he said nothing. She seemed to be studying him as if she were looking for nits. The air was filled with something that made him feel more than awkward, so he turned and walked down a wide paneled hallway with long and proud strides.
A distant female shriek echoed from the east halls, Eachann’s wing of the house. Calum stopped.
Something crashed. Glass. There was a loud bang and he thought he heard his brother yelp.
The woman in his arms gave a quiet gasp. He glanced down at her. Her eyes were wide and her full lips had thinned and turned tense.
“He won’t harm your friend.”
“She’s not my friend,” she said almost too quickly, like someone who speaks before thinking. But there was no anger or hatred in her voice. In fact, it was oddly without any tone of emotion.
She turned away. “We’re from... I don’t...” She was suddenly quiet, and when he looked down at her, she said, “We hardly know each other.”
“Neither of you has to worry, lass.” From Calum’s perspective, Eachann had more to worry about than that wildcat woman did. She was a handful, which he supposed was good revenge. Eachann needed to learn that he couldn’t control everything and everyone on one of his whims.
There was another crash, and it crossed Calum’s mind that his brother with the fey powers had finally met the one animal who wouldn’t eat from his hand. Hell, from what he’d seen and was hearing, she was more likely to bite the fingers off of it.
He carried the lass into the library where it was clean and warm and familiar. He set her in a large winged chair that stood by the fire and shook out a throw. He stopped and picked a few of the lint balls from it, then laid it over her. While he creased the sides neatly and tucked the ends into the side cushions of the chair pillows, she cocked her head and watched him as if she had never seen such an action.
“What’s the matter?” He folded one corner back into a perfectly neat triangle, then pulled it down until the tuck was tight and flat. He squatted down and shoved the edge of the throw neatly beneath the seat cushion.
She blinked, then shook her head. “Nothing.”
“Do you not want the covers?”
“I am cold.”
“I have something else to warm you up, lass.” He poured two whiskeys and handed her one. “Here. Take it.”
