“Someone approaches,” Ranald murmured, hopping off the low wall and helping her down.
A sense of alarm rippled through Jennet as she watched a group of three men march up the path, the middle one flanked by two armed men. She tried not to fear that they brought news of Hacon. Then, as they drew closer, her eyes widened. The man who strode one step in the middle and slightly ahead of the others had hair the color of a deer’s hide. She began to recognize other things—the cocky stride, the tall, elegantly slim frame clothed in the finest linens and wools.
A glad hope-filled cry escaped her as she rushed down the hill. The nearer she got the surer she was of the man’s identity. Even as she flung herself forward he opened his arms to hold her tight.
“Father? ’Tis truly you?” she finally whispered, and stepped back to gaze up into eyes that matched hers to a shade.
“Aye, lass, and ’twould please me if ye would tell these men I am your verra own father, ere they spit me on their swords.” He glanced back at his guards, who had already relaxed their wary stances.
“Oh, Papa,” she cried, and flung herself into his arms again, feeling their slim strength encircle her as he held her close.
Once in control of herself, she stepped back, holding his hands in hers, and introduced him to Ranald and his former guards. Those two men hurried away to inform Hacon’s parents of their new guest. Growing calmer, Jennet more closely eyed her father’s attire.
He wore a well-fitted cotehardie of fine wool. His surcoat was also of a rich material and lined with fur. Snug particolored hose covered his well-shaped legs, and he wore fine leather boots belted beneath his knees. All in all, it was a fortune in clothing he wore, the shades of green perfectly complementing his coloring. She eyed him with suspicion.
“Where did ye steal these?” she demanded.
“Lass!” Artair Graeme clasped his hands over his heart and assumed a wounded expression. “How can ye accuse me so, me—the flesh of your flesh, the blood of your blood?”
“Verra easily. I ken ye too weel. We ne’er had the coin to afford such rich trappings.”
“Weel, we do now.” He hooked his arm through hers and, with a grinning Ranald following, urged her back down the newly widened path through the bracken. “Ye see, there was this rich widow—”
“Nay”—she held up her hand—“I think I can be pleased enough kenning only that ye didnae steal them.”
“I didnae. I earned them through the sweat of my brow. Weel, mayhaps, ’tis more honest to say the sweat of my—”
“Papa!” She scowled at him and Ranald as they laughed. “Ye ought to be bent with shame.”
“Why? For putting a smile on a lady’s face and coin in my purse?” He winked at her. “And such a big smile it was too.”
She had to bite the inside of her cheek to keep from laughing. Hugging his arm closer to her, she rested her cheek against it as they ambled down the path. He was a rogue, but she knew that only Hacon’s return, hale and hearty from the war, could make her happier.
“Weel, there will be none of that while ye are here,” she ordered. “Ye are to be on your best behavior whilst staying with my husband’s family.”
“Ah, so ye are wed to the rogue now.”
“Weel, handfasted ere he was dragged off to war in Ireland.”
“’ Twill do. I hadnae liked the thought of coming to sword-points with the mon. I had heard he might even equal my skill,” he drawled.
Rolling her eyes, she lightly punched his arm. “Boaster. And ye didnae promise ye would behave yourself.”
“I shall be a saint,” he vowed, and kissed her cheek.
Jennet doubted that but did not press him further. She was too happy to see him. Nevertheless, she promised herself she would keep a close watch on her charming, lovable, but errant father while he was at Dubheilrig.
Holding her woolen cloak snugly around her, Jennet made her way to the rear of the stables. An hysterical Katherine had demanded that she go to the stables and do something about her father. Poor Katherine had come to visit her pampered mare and had heard enough to know that Artair and Ranald were heartily misbehaving themselves. What Jennet did not understand was why Katherine had not simply tended to the matter herself. Ranald was Katherine’s son, after all.
Jennet had no trouble finding the culprits. She scowled down at the two couples sprawled in the hay only a few feet away from each other, all oblivious to her presence. She grabbed a wooden pail hanging from a nail and threw it against the door of an empty stall. “Ye said ye would behave!” she shouted.
All four miscreants jumped and turned toward her, grabbing pieces of their scattered clothing and trying to cover themselves. She ought not to be surprised. Her father had been very good for eight long, dull, winter weeks. This, however, was no saint who lay sprawled on his back clutching a corner of the blanket over his privates.
“Ye said ye would behave!” she repeated.
“I have behaved, verra weel.” He wriggled his auburn brows and grinned at the buxom woman kneeling by his side. “Havenae I, lassie?” He chuckled when the woman giggled.
Ignoring that, Jennet continued, “And to drag Ranald into sin as weel. Ye cannae tell me ’tis not your influence which has him rolling about in the hay with wanton abandon.”
