Page 48 of Somewhere Along The Way (Mackinnon #3)

Chapter Fifteen

Shortly after the Duchess of Grenville came, she went. Back to England, that is, for a fortnight after their arrival at Seaforth, Bella’s father and brother arrived from Edinburgh in the middle of the night. Shortly after their arrival, the roof fell in on Annabella’s hopes.

The whole thing started innocently enough the evening before their arrival, when Ailie’s beautiful, golden puffball of a cat, MacBeth, did something no self-respecting tomcat would ever do. He had kittens.

Annabella and Ailie had, for two whole days, devoted their attention to the utilization of a basket of seashells Ailie had collected the summer before.

Since the rage of ornamentation for the home at present was the use of seashells to decorate toilette boxes, pincushions, trinket boxes, and the like, the cousins had precisely grouped their shells—according to shape and color—in piles scattered about the floor.

Annabella, having entered the room ahead of Ailie, immediately set to work applying glue to what was to be a shell-encrusted flower pot.

With a handful of shells in her hand, she had just begun to press the shells into the glue to form an interesting border when the door opened and Ailie burst in and cried, “The dreadfulest thing has happened, Bella. Come quick! MacBeth has had kittens!”

Annabella jumped up quickly, leaving her glue-smeared pot, and hurried with Ailie to the barn, where MacBeth lay in the hay behind the rick where the dairy cows were milked. Annabella picked up one of the blind, mewling kittens as Ailie exclaimed, “I thought he was just getting fat.”

“He was,” a voice said, “only it wasn’t from eating.”

Annabella looked around to see a young man not much older than herself step out of a nearby stall, leading a sleek gray.

“Oh, Allan, is that your new gelding? Are you going for a ride?” asked Ailie, going around the horse and giving him a good looking over.

“Yes, he’s a beauty, isn’t he?” He looked at Annabella. “Don’t you think you should introduce me to our cousin? You are Annabella, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” she said, thinking Allan reminded her so much of Gavin, for they were about the same size and age.

“Do you ride?” Allan asked.

“Frequently, although I haven’t had much opportunity since coming to Scotland.”

“Then I’ll take you riding with me soon,” he said, swinging up onto the gray’s bare back.

The two girls watched Allan ride out of the barn before their attention went back to the kittens.

“I still don’t know how MacBeth had kittens,” Ailie said, still somewhat dumbfounded.

“I think you’ll have to change his name to Lady MacBeth now,” Annabella said.

They stayed with the kittens for a while before Ailie said, “Well, I’m going to the kitchen to tell Cook the news. Do you want to come?” she asked.

“No, I’ll stay here for a while and then I’ll go work on my shells,” said Annabella.

After personally inspecting all seven kittens, Annabella carefully placed the last one next to its mother and prepared to leave when a dark, looming shadow stretched across the floor of the barn.

Annabella looked up and saw the frightening form of her uncle standing in the open doorway.

She had grown quite fond of this uncle of hers, but he was still capable of striking terror within her with just one look.

Surprise written all over her face, she gasped and said, “Oh, it’s you. ”

She felt as awkward as her words sounded. Her uncle Barra stepped into the barn and fixed her with a stare that made her squirm. “You dinna think you had been cornered by a ferlie , did you, lass?”

Bright splotches of rosy color spread across her cheeks as she said, “You surprised me, that’s all.”

“A lass surprised is half beaten,” he said. “Come into my study, fondling, I want to talk to you.”

Annabella’s knees quivered. An official summons from Barra Mackenzie ranked right up there with cataclysmic happenings and divine revelations. “But…but…”

“Don’t stand there sputtering. If I wanted to do you bodily harm, I would have ordered you to the pit prison in the keep, before breakfast. Come along with you now.”

“You mean you want me to come now?” she stammered.

“I dinna ask you now hoping you will come tomorrow. And I’m not in the habit of answering a legion of questions whenever I summon someone. I’ve stated my reason for seeking you out,” he said. “If you choose to come, I’ll be waiting for you.”

The Earl of Seaforth left as impressively as he had entered.

I’ll be waiting… It wasn’t exactly the wording to make one break any records to get there.

Pessimistic, she remembered that according to Ailie, Allan had once said of his father, “It’s a good thing you aren’t one to talk back, or he’d cut your tongue out.

” Annabella fought the urge to hide in the barn with the kittens for the rest of the day.

By the time she reached his study, Annabella was a mental wreck and frightened out of her wits.

As cautious as a whore in a confessional, she opened the door and crept in.

With her hands folded piously in prayerful entreaty in front of her, she entered the room, wondering at her sanity for doing such a thing, although it was a little too late for such thoughts now.

Judging by the dark scowl upon his face, she had failed, and failed miserably, in her attempt to placate her uncle with humor.

She stared at the large knife in his hand, the blade of which was as long as her forearm.

Without a word, he let fly with the knife and it whizzed across the room and buried itself up to the hilt in the heart of a straw-filled form of a human shape. With her heart in her throat, she gazed at Barra Mackenzie.

“There is nothing I find less palatable than a boiled egg with a hard shell and a mushy middle,” he said.

“Before you were a twinkle in your papa’s eye, quakling, I had more scars on my conscience than there are hairs on your head.

While I rather admired your paltry display of pluck, it was a rather na?ve thing to do.

Bear in mind it would please me greatly to see you stiffen your backbone, but remember as well that I am not in the habit of occupying myself with the snotty-nosed impudence of a nursling. Sit down.”

In the flash of a second she was in the chair across the desk from hun, her mind frantic with wondering.

What have I done? To whom have I done it?

What will he do to me for doing what I don’t know that I’ve done?

Taking a deep, fortifying breath, she asked, “I might know better how to act, if I knew the reason I am here.”

“You think you have that right, do you?”

“If I’m to suffer the consequences of it,” she said.

“Much better,” he said. “One should learn to be direct or say nothing. Common sense plus a dash of daring is a good thing to have. You’re learning to overcome your cowardly habit of indecision.”

“You might be cowardly too, if you were my size—and a woman.”

“Whining in anyone is ineffective, and it’s a puny tool at best. Any fool can pluck hairs from the nose of a dead lion.

Wisdom is a woman’s tool, and a man’s strength is not its match.

Keep your head, lass, and your self-respect along with it.

” He leaned back in his chair. “Don’t look so forlorn.

It’s not as difficult as it sounds. We Scots have a saying, ‘Set a stout heart to a steep hillside.’ ”

A little relieved, she asked, “You didn’t call me here because of something I’ve done?”

His brows lifted. “Why? Have you done something?”

“Nothing to merit a tongue-lashing.”

“Then we’ll proceed. Your father is on his way here with the intention of hauling you back to England and putting you in the tower under guard.”

“We don’t have a tower.”

“Don’t get technical,” he said. “I was merely letting you know it’s a serious matter that brings him.”

“Anything that brings my father is serious. If it brings him in a hurry it’s more than a serious matter, but I’m happy with the news he’s taking me home.”

“I intend to talk him out of it.”

“You mean you want to keep me here? In Scotland?”

“Yes.”

Annabella felt her heart constrict. Her eyes burned. Fighting back tears, she asked, “Would I be considered impudent and snotty-nosed if I asked why?”

He laughed at that. “Because I aim to help you, quakling, and I can do it best if you remain here.”

“If my father has made up his mind, he won’t be swayed, Uncle. I can vouch for that.”

“He will when I tell him of my discovery of your plans to secretly marry…”

Annabella sprang from her chair. “What?”

“One who has, I believe, made some three offers for you already—the Marquess of Tukesbury.”

“I wouldn’t marry him for the world. I don’t even like him.”

“You know that, but does your father?”

“He will if I tell him.”

“Sit down, lass, before I throttle you.”

Annabella shot into the chair.

“Now,” Barra went on, “you can deny it, but you realize, of course, that knowing your distaste for marriage to Huntly, your father would be a fool not to believe that you would jump into marriage with any young, handsome Englishman who came along, rather than take the path chosen for you.”

“Except for the fact that I don’t like the marquess.”

“Inconsequential,” he said.

“My father knows me better than you think. He won’t believe it,” she said. “He knows I’m too much of a coward to defy him.”

“I wonder,” Barra Mackenzie said, and smiled. “Run along now. Your first lesson is still as warm as fresh milk. Give it a chance to cool.”

When Annabella was summoned to her uncle’s library the following day to discover that her beloved brother and her more than irate father were waiting for her—along with her mother, her aunt, and her uncle—her first and by far most daring thought of her entire life was to bolt for the nearest door and keep running until she dropped from exhaustion or fell into the sea, whichever came first.