Page 8 of The Laird's Wicked Game
“Ye aren’t the laird of me,” the smaller lad retorted, wiping his sleeve at his runny nose. Lyle was of a stockier build than his brother, his hair walnut brown, his eyes blue.
“Aye, I am!” Ailean dug him hard in the side with an elbow.
Lyle let out a squawk before stomping his foot down upon his brother’s, and Ailean retaliated by putting his younger brother into a headlock.
“Enough!” Maclean snarled, and the lads sprang apart once more. “Any more squabbling and I’ll bash yer heads together.” They both flushed red at this, but their father plowed on. “Is this how ye behave in the presence of a lady?”
Both boys looked Kylie’s way then, marking her presence for the first time. In return, she nodded to them, not sure whether to smile or school her features into a stern expression. One look at these two and she could see they were trouble; it was clear they ran rings around the hapless lass, Esme, who’d been trying to marshal them.
All the same, Maclean didn’t need to roar at them like a bull. She could tell he was exasperated, and likely on edge after the incident in the barmkin, but that was no excuse.
“Lady Grant will be yer duenna from now on,” the laird announced then, ignorant of her misgivings.
“Duenna?” Ailean frowned, while his younger brother stared at Kylie with unabashed curiosity.
“Aye, it a bit like a companion … for older bairns,” Kylie explained, relieved to be able to move on from scolding. Back at Moy Castle, Kylie’s sisters had teased Maclean that he needed an Iberian ‘duenna’—a stern older lady who usually chaperoned lasses—to take his wayward sons in hand. Their mother, who hailed from Iberia, had told them of such women. It was then that Kylie had offered him her services.
“And I’ve given her permission to take a birch wand to yer arses if ye play up,” Maclean added.
Both lads paled at this, and Esme made an anguished noise in the back of her throat, while Kylie stiffened. “I don’t think that will be necessary,” she assured him.
“Well, if they disrespect ye, let me know,” he replied curtly, “andIwill tan their hides.”
Kylie pursed her lips. She had little experience with fathers and sons, for she’d grown up with four sisters and had no bairns of her own, but she couldn’t imagineherfather speaking to any of his children this way.
Maclean had done a fine job during supper of appearing calm and collected; however, the man was clearly still riled, and his sons had unwittingly stoked his temper.
Her breathing grew shallow then. Had she misjudged him? When they’d met at Moy, she’d found him a tolerant, even-tempered man. But she’d only just arrived, and he’d already shattered the illusion. Did she really want to work for him?
Another, awkward, silence settled in the chamber then, before Kylie realized that Lyle was gazing, wide-eyed, at her. “Ye are bonnie,” he blurted out.
“Milksop,” Ailean sneered at his brother.
“I am not,” Lyle answered, pushing his lower lip out. Suddenly, the wee lad looked as if he might burst into tears.
Kylie’s chest constricted. The bairn was only four summers old and motherless. Couldn’t his brother and father be gentler with him?
“Lady Grant is to be listened to and respected,” the laird replied, his tone clipped now. “She will teach ye letters and numbers … andFrench.”
Both lads looked nonplussed by this announcement, although Esme’s blue eyes went as round as moons.
“I don’t want to study,” Ailean muttered under his breath. “I want to learn to fight and ride a horse.”
“I don’t care what ye want.” Maclean took a menacing step toward his son then, and Ailean visibly wilted under his father’s censure. “By God’s rood, ye and Lyle will learn some manners. By Yuletide, ye shall both read, write, and do basic sums. I also expect ye to greet and have an exchange with me infrançais.”
Neither of the lads argued with this, although the tears in Lyle’s eyes now glistened, and Ailean’s jaw had set.
Kylie’s belly clenched as her gaze flicked between the bairns and their stone-faced father.
Mother Mary, what have I done?
“Still no regrets about accepting this position?”
Kylie glanced up from where she was hanging the last of her kirtles upon a peg on the wall. In truth, she did, but pride meant she wouldn’t admit such to her sister. “Not yet,” she replied lightly, even as a queasiness rolled over her.Liar.
“Ye don’t sound convinced.” Makenna, who’d just finished bathing behind a screen in the corner of the chamber, now sat upon the bed they’d share. Her legs were tucked underneath her as she sat in her night-rail, combing out her wet hair.
“That’s because it’s too early to tell.”