“Yer people?” She couldn’t hide her distaste for his claim.
“Ah—the persistent Raini has caught yer sympathy, then? With her stories of how I mistreat the orphans?”
“I make no judgments.”
“Wise choice.”
“But I am not immune to their lack of guidance and wished only to give them some joy.”
“Joy? In this place?” He shook his head. “For the first time in a decade, there were more deaths among me clan than births this year.”
The news troubled her heart. “I am very sorry…”
“I doona want yer pity, girl. According to yer father, ye are incapable of feeling anything but spite.”
“That is a lie,” she dared to say.
He placed his elbows on the table before him and then folded his hands, not taking his hard gaze off her. “Perhaps. But the truth here matters little, considering yer predicament.”
“Truth always matters to me.”
He waved her off. “Cease the dribble, ye sound like a nun reading from the book of Proverbs!”
“Would that bother ye, milord?”
“It makes no difference, except on my lands such things are relegated to the Sabbath.”
She forced herself to remain silent, realizing she could never win an argument with this man.
“Those orphans are forbidden here. Has my son not told ye?”
“Aye.” She would not lie to protect herself. “But we were beyond yer borders, I believe.”
“That remains a serious dispute for the king to decide. Until such time, those hills are considered me lands, though I allow travelers to use the land undisturbed.”
“Am I not extended the same courtesy?”
“Errant daughters deserve no consideration—just punishment to correct their transgressions.”
His words were meant to rile her emotions, to make her strike out. “I have obeyed my father in everything.”
“Except in who he wishes ye to marry.”
“That is a personal choice I willna let anyone take from me.”
Laird MacKay chuckled. “Ye are yer mother’s daughter…”
“Ye knew me mam?”
“I met yer family when ye were but a babe.”
“Is that why ye let me come here?”
“The details of how ye came to stay here are unimportant. What matters is that I willna let ye make a fool of me, me son, or me people.”
“I have done no such thing, sir.”
“Propping up those orphans as if they are clan members, ye, a daughter of a former laird, is an embarrassment. As for the healer…”
