Page 6 of It’s in his Highland Kiss

“I would, but me maither has a soft spot for Marion,” Eiric said, thinking on his feet and hoping that it would be enough to convince the other woman. “She would verra much like to see her. She is more than welcome to come and stay with us for . . . weel, how does six months sound?”

“Six months?” Lady Hadlee scoffed, incredulous. “I will not give you my daughter for six months! I don’t wish for her to go to the Highlands. I don’t wish for her to have anything to do with that place.”

“Me lady, it’s part of who she is,” Eiric reminded her. “Ye’re from the Highlands, too.”

“And I’ve tried to forget that every single day of my life,” Lady Hadlee said. “I will not have her running around that castle.”

Eiric sucked his bottom lip between his teeth, worrying it. There was one thing that he knew for certain, and that was that he would take Marion to the Highlands, even if he had to fight an entire English army.

In fact, he’d probably enjoy it.

“Wouldna ye want her to learn how to be a good wife?”

It was a gamble, Eiric knew. It was just as likely that Lady Hadlee would be offended by his question as that she would be intrigued.

And in the end, it seemed like she was intrigued.

“Me maither enjoys havin’ her hands full, me lady,” Eiric said, when the woman finally turned to look at him again. “She never had a daughter of her own, and she would like nothin’ more than to help ye with Marion.”

“I don’t want her to marry a Scot,” Lady Hadlee said. “Marion will marry an Englishman.”

Eiric couldn’t understand why Lady Hadlee despised the Highlands and the Scots. She was one of them, after all; she came from a line of Scots. She had been born and raised in the Highlands, and though no Englishman could tell, Eiric could still hear hints of her former accent in her words.

It was a mystery for another day though. All that mattered to him was that Marion came with him.

“Of course,” he said. “We willna marry her to a Highlander, me lady, ye have me word. But Scots, Englishmen . . . What’s the difference? They both like the same kind of lass. And I’m sure that ye’ll agree when I say that me maither kens what it means to be a suitable wife.”

For all her bitterness, even Lady Hadlee couldn’t disagree with that. His mother was known as an exceptional woman, and as half the reason why his father was a good laird.

“I’ll have to speak to my husband about it,” Lady Hadlee said, as though Eiric and everyone else in the world didn’t know that she held the reins in their marriage. “I can’t simply send my daughter away without consulting him first.”

“Of course, I understand,” Eiric assured her. “However, . . . it would be better if ye consulted him sooner rather than later, me lady, because I am about to leave and head back home.”

“Tonight?” Lady Hadlee asked. “Why not wait until the morning?”

“I’m afraid I’ve stayed in England for far too long,” Eiric said. “Me distaste for it only grows the longer I am here, and I’m sure none of these fine men and women would find me verra pleasant in the mornin’. But it’s a good thing yer husband is here! Ye can go and ask him the noo, aye?”

Once again, Lady Hadlee gave Eiric a pinched look when he admitted his hatred for England, but she didn’t dare comment on it. Even for her, it wasn’t a subject that she wanted to breach.

She also didn’t want to miss an opportunity to rid herself of her daughter for six months, no matter how much she had protested at the beginning. Eiric knew that her desire to unload the burden that she viewed Marion to be onto his mother was much stronger than any desire she had to keep a close eye on her. Besides, his promises of turning Marion into a suitable wife only meant that soon, Lady Hadlee could rid herself of her daughter forever.

“Very well,” Lady Hadlee said, as she stood and dusted off her dress, though there was not a speck of dirt on it. “I’ll go and find my husband.”

Eiric watched the woman as she walked away, wading her way through the crowd, which seemed to only become larger and larger as the hours passed. He saw her walk up to her husband, interrupting his conversation with a man whom he didn’t recognise and drawing him aside, the two of them talking in hushed whispers.

It was a short conversation. Eiric could only imagine that all their conversations were short, with Lady Hadlee making a demand and Lord Hadlee quickly agreeing to it.

Is that man happy with her? He must be. They’re cut from the same cloth.

For all his meekness when it came to his wife, Eiric knew that Lord Hadlee was a cruel man to everyone else. Perhaps the only reason why his wife brought out that side of him, the one that didn’t dare disagree, was because she happened to be even more ruthless and callous than he was.

It didn’t take long for Lady Hadlee to return to Eiric, the small, satisfied smile on her lips alerting him to the fact that her response would be an affirmative one. There was no surprise there for Eiric, only sympathy for Marion, whose mother was so quick to discard her.

“Lord Hadlee agrees with me that this will be a good opportunity for Marion,” she told him as she took her seat beside him once more. “Where is Marion? I haven’t seen her ever since—”

“She’s outside,” Eiric said, quick to interrupt the other woman. “I spoke to her for a while, and she assured me that she would like to come see me maither verra much.”

“Of course she would,” Lady Hadlee said, her lips pursing into a thin line. “She’s like that, Marion . . . always wishing for a different life, that girl, as if the life I have given her isn’t enough. The nerve of her . . .”