Page 6

“We have two pigs … both sows,” Rose blurted out, stepping up next to her father. “They are both due to farrow in the spring. If ye take them both, will that be enough?”

Kyle considered her offer, while the veins on Graham’s forehead started to pulse. He’d focused his glower upon his daughter now and looked as if he wished to throttle her.

Kerr’s breathing turned shallow. If he touched a hair on her head, he’d pummel him into the ground.

“Aye, lass,” the bailiff said after a short pause. “That will make up the shortfall.”

The relief on Rose’s face was palpable. However, her father looked as if he were going to explode, like a pot of boiling water with the lid clamped on tight.

“Thank ye, Rose,” Kerr said. “I will send some men tomorrow morning to pick up the sows.”

She gave a stiff nod, although her gaze remained upon Kyle, as if he, not Kerr, had spoken.

The bailiff pocketed the coins Graham had given him, his brow furrowing as he watched the silently fuming farmer. “Is this agreeable to ye , Graham?”

“Aye,” he croaked, choking out the word as if it cost him.

“Good.” The bailiff nodded to Graham and his daughter and gathered the reins. “We’ll be off then.”

With that, Kyle and Kerr turned their horses around and set off back down the muddy road that led out of the valley.

Kerr had only ridden a few yards when he glanced over his shoulder to find Graham glaring after him. Rose watched him depart too, her lovely face pinched with worry.

Drawing up his gelding, Kerr twisted in the saddle to survey them. Truth was, he didn’t like leaving Rose alone with her father, especially with the man nearly apoplectic with rage.

Seeing his hesitation, Graham’s lip curled. “Want something, Mackay?”

Kerr held the farmer’s eye. “Don’t ye go blaming yer daughter for this,” he called out. “Instead, ye should be thanking her for saving yer hide. It’s lucky indeed that she has more wits than the rest of ye combined.”

And with that, Kerr reined his courser around and urged it into a canter, following the bailiff down the path.

Rose stared after Kerr Mackay’s retreating figure.

She hadn’t expected him to defend her like that, hadn’t wanted it—even though it wasn’t the first time he’d spoken up for her—yet there was a part of her that appreciated his words.

Since her mother’s passing, no one ever took her side. She had gotten used to fighting her own battles, alone.

Her father’s muttered oath made her jerk her gaze from the Captain of the Guard.

Graham glared at her, his pine-green eyes glittering with anger.

Rose’s pulse quickened as the reality of matters hit her. Mackay hadn’t helped her at all—he’d just smacked the hornet’s nest hard with a stick.

“What’s this?” he growled. “Have ye been humping that whoreson?”

Heat flushed through Rose. “Of course not!” she gasped. God’s bones. How could her father say such a thing?

“Then why would he defend ye?”

Humiliation prickled across Rose’s skin as she remembered Mackay’s interest in her at Samhuinn. She’d thought her reaction would have doused his attraction to her, yet perhaps it hadn’t. “I have no idea,” she replied. “But I’d thank ye not to accuse me of such things, Da.”

Her father’s face screwed up, although the heat in his eyes dimmed slightly. Rose didn’t like the cunning look that replaced his anger. “However, if ye were to start humping him, Mackay might leave us alone in the future.”

“Da!” Fire pulsed in Rose’s stomach now. “How dare ye?”

Her father’s jaw jutted belligerently. “I’m just looking out for our family,” he growled. “Someone has to … especially since ye have given away the last of our livestock. Those sows bring us in much-needed coin every spring.”

Indeed, they did. He’d put them by a neighbor’s boar just a fortnight earlier, and both sows were proven to give birth to large litters. Every spring, they sold the piglets at market.

But this year, they wouldn’t.

“It was either that or lose this cottage,” Rose pointed out between clenched teeth.

She then swept a hand around, indicating to the land surrounding them.

“And the run rigs.” It embarrassed her to see the fields so overgrown.

Before losing his hand, her father had spent most days laboring there—his sons, and Rose, at his side.

Yet now, he seemed to have forgotten he was a farmer.

Instead, he jealously guarded the small flock of black-faced sheep he owned and was forever trying to increase their number.

Knox and Clyde certainly preferred sheep farming to toiling in the fields, although Rose suspected that they often went off to Ceann Locha instead of watching the flock.

Her father glowered back, a muscle bunching in his jaw. His large hand clenched at his side.

Rose tensed. He hadn’t lifted a hand to her since she’d been a bairn. However, he looked vexed enough to do so now. She didn’t mean to humiliate him in front of the bailiff and the captain, but in her desperation to save their home, she’d done so.

“It’s bad enough that those Mackays took my hand,” he wheezed, eyes glittering, “yet ye’d let them rob me of my honor as well.”

“I didn’t, Da,” Rose whispered, even as her belly twisted. Her father was already in the grip of melancholia. She didn’t want to worsen things for him. “I was only—”

“Enough,” he barked. “Ye’ve always had far too much to say for yerself. A good woman keeps her mouth shut and lets her menfolk deal with important matters. No wonder ye can’t find yerself a man.”

Rose’s own hands clenched at her sides, even as his insult cut deep. Anger tightened her throat.

It took every bit of self-control not to let it all out, yet she managed to prevent herself. For all his bluster, her father was fragile. Life had hollowed him out. He was now like a brittle reed. Sometimes she worried that one particularly harsh gust of wind might snap him in half.

And so, she bit down on her tongue and let her father have the last word.

With one last baleful look at his daughter, Graham turned on his heel and stomped back inside the cottage.