“Marriage!” Aileen exclaimed. She jumped from her seat and hurried out of the room.
“Marriage?” Donal asked.
“Marriage.” Meggie and Gillian sighed as one.
“Well, possibly,” Sinclair said, looking from one girl to the next.
Donal squinted at the six clansmen. “And which of these lads is your son?”
Sinclair’s mouth tightened, and a shadow passed through his eyes. “He’s not here.”
In unison, his clansmen shifted uneasily and looked away.
“But if—” Donal began, only to be interrupted when the kitchen door opened. Aeife and Aileen were bringing the whisky right enough. Trailing behind them were four more of his daughters—Cait, Marcail, Jennet, and Isobel. Their smiling faces were freshly scrubbed, their hair hastily tied up with ribbons, and they’d somehow managed to trade their workaday clothes for their best gowns in a matter of minutes. They looked like a garden of flowers on a sunny day. The Sinclairs rose, gaping.
“Now, what’s this?” Donal asked, frowning at them. “This is a meeting of men. Back to the solar with all of ye.”
Marcail frowned. “But, Papa, Aileen said that Chief Sinclair was looking for a bride for his son.”
Donal raised his hand. “I’ll handle this, if ye don’t mind.”
But the girls were already crowding forward. Isobel handed out the pewter cups, and Cait poured the whisky. The rest fluttered behind, daft as pigeons. The Sinclairs looked bewitched.
“I’m Aileen, and this is Isobel, Cait, Gillian, Meggie, Marcail, and Jenny.”
The men grinned and introduced themselves.
“Callum Sinclair.”
“Iain Sinclair.”
“Rob Sinclair.”
“Girric Murray.”
“Andrew Pyper.”
“Will Sinclair.”
“My!” Meggie exclaimed, staring at the row of men as if they were a plate of sweetmeats. Her sisters sighed like a warm spring wind over the loch.
Donal’s frown deepened as he considered the situation. He could send his four oldest daughters upstairs this very minute to pack their baggage, and they’d happily go off with the handsome Sinclairs, two by two. Could it truly be that easy?
But Aileen was a widow, not a virgin, and wouldn’t do. She was also his most sensible lass, and kept his home and her sisters in order. Meggie, sweet and lovely though she most certainly was, did not meet the Sinclair’s single qualification. And Marcail was a gentle creature. She needed a gentle husband. Cait was bossy and pawkie, and he couldn’t imagine her as the wife of a chief’s son. The rest of his lasses were really far too young to marry in Donal’s opinion, though he had no doubt he’d get an argument about that.
In truth, he simply did not know enough about the Sinclairs of Carraig Brigh to send any of his daughters off with them.
Padraig Sinclair cleared his throat. “My son has only recently returned from—well, a sea voyage. He was injured on the trip. That’s why he hasn’t come himself. Still, he needs a wife and an heir, and the matter cannot wait. I’ve come to you, MacLeod, because I was told you have a great number of marriageable lasses. I’m prepared to offer a good price to take one off your hands.”
Donal stiffened. “Take one off my hands? They aren’t bolts of cloth or barrels of ale. They’re my daughters. I’d be a poor father to them if I simply sold them off to any stranger who happened to be passing by.”
He wondered if the Sinclairs were less experienced in the ways of women than he was himself. A lass liked to be wooed, charmed, convinced. As his third wife had explained, a woman heard fairy bells ringing when the right man looked at her, and she looked at him. He’d heard them himself, each and every time he wed.
He glanced at his daughters. When it was right, a lass tilted her head and smiled at her man, all dew-eyed and knowing. She never looked away again after that moment. None of his girls looked dew-eyed in the least. This was mere flirtation.
“Perhaps your son can come and meet the lasses for himself when he’s well again, and if there are—” He paused. He could hardly explain fairy bells to a bunch of warriors. “I’ve really only got four lasses old enough to wed. I have several younger lasses—perhaps you’d consider a long betrothal of ten or so years?”
Sinclair shook his head, his lips pinching.
