“Losh, but ye have come back with an entire army with ye!” Tomas said.
Tomas and Mattie were tending to their horses in the stables, and so had seen the retinue’s return. When they saw their laird was with Erica, they dropped to their knees.
“Of course we had to return with a troop of soldiers, ye pair o’ lummoxes!” Laird O’Donnell berated them. “Not only do we have to guard this ruddy box o’ precious jewels, but there was the threat o’ bandits all the way back here.”
“Och aye, those bandits.” Mattie grinned, wiping his hand across his brow. “If it had nae been for Finn, we would have found ourselves in deep water. Did he bypass the inn this time?”
Erica shook her head. “Finn was paid off, an’ he left—”
Laird O’Donnell did not want his soldiers questioning the wisdom of this decision.
“Erica, dismount and walk inside with me this instant! Will ye leave me standing there in the great hall like a great idiot?”
She ran after Laird O’Donnell, eager to see how her father was received by the Buchanans.
It did not go well. Jamie was already half-cut with strong spirits, even though the sun had not yet reached its zenith. The guards, recognizing a powerful laird in the O’Donnell, allowed Laird Stuart entrance without checking the hall’s occupants first. When Erica’s father walked in, he found Jamie with his hand up a serving wench’s skirt and the laird’s brother, Robert, throwing knives at the feet of a young lad, who could not have been more than seven or eight years old.
Before they became aware of Stuart O’Donnell’s entrance, the wench was already trying to free Jamie from his trews, and one of the knives had pinned the young lad’s shoe to the old thresh strewn over the floor.
“Don’ scream like a girl!” Robert shouted to the little boy who cried when his toe was pierced. “Else I will give ye something to cry about!”
“What’s all this knavish foolery?” Laird O’Donnell bellowed, his voice so loud it dislodged some dust from the hall rafters. “I send me daughter to wed ye as a bond between our two clans, and I did not believe her when she told me about the frisks and jollifications she warned me about. So explain yerselves!”
Privately, Erica wished they had entered the hall a few moments later so that her father could laugh over Jamie in the same way Finn had done, but she was pleased to see herself proven truthful.
As the two men seated on the dais began to make their apologies, Laird O’Donnell said to Erica, “Go to yer chambers, Daughter, and make sure they are the best. I will make sure this poor wee lad has his wound attended to.”
Leaving the hall, Erica heard Jamie saying in that hoaxing voice of his, “But how else am I to spend me time when me bride goes runnin’ back to her own home?”
Try wheedling yer way out o’ yer problems under me faither’s knife-sharp observation an’ see how that goes for ye, Jamie Buchanan.
She skipped up the stairs, hoping that Gertrude would be able to fix a nice bathtub full of hot water for her that evening. It was warm inside the castle corridor, and Erica pulled the fichu off her neck to cool herself down. Her bodice was so tightly laced that there was nowhere for the drops of perspiration to run down; the beads of sweat clung to the soft swell of her breasts like shivering diamonds. She waved the fine lawn kerchief in front of her face, relishing the fresh air it created. Deciding it was the only way to properly refresh herself, Erica went to the tower battlement that overlooked the west side of the castle, where the view was pretty and the wind was always sharp and keen.
She was surprised to find two people already up there, almost as if they had been waiting for her!
The tall man with the short spikes of silver-hued hair turned around when he heard the door to the battlement open, his turquoise-blue eyes widening.
“Finn?”
“Erica!” He ran toward her, picked her up into his arms, and spun her around in a circle. “Ye came back! Brave girl! But please tell me it is to tear up yer plighted troth in front o’ that busterd, Jamie?”
Aware of the beautiful blonde lady’s eyes on her, Erica blushed and demurred once Finn placed her back on the ground.
“I pray everything works out for the best, Finn. I am still a vessel of me faither’s ambitions, however.” She turned and bobbed a curtsy toward the lady, raising her eyebrows to Finn for an introduction.
He laughed. “Excuse me manners, Lady Erica. This is me mither, Brigette MacComhaill.”
Erica’s mouth dropped open, and she could not resist saying when she rose from her curtsy, “Surely ye jest? Ye named yer son after Fionn Mac Cumhaill, the Gaelic champion and legendary hero with immense strength?” She pronounced the Gaelic name correctly, as the Picts and Celts would have done hundreds of years ago when heroes roamed the green hills: Feynn MacCool.
Brigette smiled and nodded, but this was not enough to satisfy Erica’s curiosity.
“What on earth would ye have done if he had turned out to be a weakling?” she had to know.
Brigette and Finn laughed. “I took the chance he would take after his faither’s clan, although me own clan is no’ lackin’ when it comes to height an’ strength and feats of arms.”
Finn had enough of this kind of talk. “Ye praise me too much, Mither. I am a soldier for hire with nay clan to claim him at the end o’ the day.” He turned to Erica. “Mither’s family were all healers and scattered to the four winds during the last witch hunts. And as for the yarns she spins about me faither, dinnae believe a word o’ them!” He grinned and gave his mother’s shoulders a hug.
“Why have ye come back?” Erica could think of no worse a place for Finn to be. She was certain that Jamie had not forgiven him for the insult.
“I asked him to escort me here,” Brigette said. “Would ye no’ agree that Finn is the finest envoy in the Highlands? Aye, I thought ye would. I came to heal the auld laird.”
