Elspeth gasped. “You know the lass canna command her gift at will. What will happen to her if she fails to see the answer?”
“Think you I care?” Linnet’s father jumped to his feet and slammed his meaty fists on the table. “’Tis glad I am to be rid of her! All I care about are the two MacDonnell kinsmen and the cattle he’s giving in exchange for her. He’s held our clansmen for nigh onto six months. Their only transgression was a single raid!”
Magnus MacDonnell’s chest heaved in indignation. “’Tis a dullwit you are if you do not realize their sword arms and strong backs are more use to me than the lass. And MacKenzie cattle are the best in the Highlands.” He paused to jeer at Elspeth. “Why do you think we’re e’er a-lifting them?”
“You’ll live to rue this day.”
“Rue the day? Bah!” Magnus leaned across the table, thrusting his bearded face forward. “I’m hoping the boy is his half brother’s brat. Think how pleased he’ll be if he gets a son off Linnet. Mayhaps grateful enough to reward his dear father-in-law with a bit o’ land.”
“The saints will punish you, Magnus.”
Magnus MacDonnell laughed. “I dinna care if a whole host of saints come after me. This marriage will make me a rich man. I’ll hire an army to send the sniveling saints back where they came from!”
“Perhaps the arrangement ’twill be good for Linnet,” Elspeth said, her voice surprisingly calm. “I doubt the MacKenzie partakes of enough ale each time he sits at his table to send himself sprawling facefirst into the rushes. Not if he’s the fine warrior the minstrels claim.”
Elspeth fixed the laird with a cold stare. “Have you ne’er listened when the bards sing of his great valor serving our good King Robert Bruce at Bannockburn? ’Tis rumored the Bruce hisself calls the man his champion.”
“Out! Get you gone from my hall!” Magnus MacDonnell’s face turned as red as his beard. “Linnet leaves for Kintail as soon as Ranald has the horses saddled. If you want to see the morn, gather your belongings and ride with her!”
Peering through the spy hole, Linnet watched her beloved Elspeth give Magnus one last glare before she stalked from the hall. The instant her old nurse disappeared from view, Linnet leaned her back against the wall and drew a deep breath.
Everything she’d just heard ran wild through her mind. Her da’s slurs, Elspeth’s attempts to defend her, and then her unexpected praise for Duncan MacKenzie. Heroic acts in battle or nay, he remained the enemy.
But what disturbed Linnet the most was her own odd reaction when Elspeth had called the MacKenzie a man of strong passions. Even now, heat rose to her cheeks at the thought. She was embarrassed to admit it, even to herself, but she yearned to learn about passion.
Linnet suspected the tingles that had shot through her at the notion of wedding a man of heated blood had something to do with such things. Most likely so did the way her heart had begun to thump fiercely upon hearing Elspeth’s words.
Linnet’s cheeks grew warmer… as did the rest of her body, but she fought to ignore the disquieting sensations. She didn’t want a MacKenzie to bestir her in such a manner. Imagining how her da would laugh if he knew she harbored dreams of a man desiring her chased away the last vestiges of her troublesome thoughts.
Resignation tinged by anger settled over her. If only she had been born as fair as her sisters. Lifting her hand, she ran her fingertips over the curve of her cheek. Though cold to the touch, her skin was smooth, unblemished. But while her sisters had been graced with milky white complexions, a smattering of freckles marred hers.
And unlike their hair, always smooth and in place, she’d been burdened with a wild mane she couldn’t keep plaited. She did like its color, though. Of a bolder tone than her sisters’ blondish red, hers was a deep shade of copper, almost bronze. Her favorite brother, Jamie, claimed her hair could bewitch a blind man.
A tiny smile tugged at her lips. Aye, she liked her hair. And she loved Jamie. She loved each of her eight brothers, and now she could hear them moving through the hall below. Even as her father’s drunken snores drifted up to her, so did the sounds of her brothers making ready for a swift departure.
Her departure from Dundonnell Castle. The dark and dank hall of a lesser and near-landless clan chief, her ale-loving da, but the only home she had ever known.
And now she must leave for an uncertain future, her place at Dundonnell wrested from her by her father’s greed. Tears stung Linnet’s eyes, but she blinked them away, not wanting her da to see them should he stir himself and deign to look at her as she exited his hall.