"Did you see the loch Miss Robinson?"
I told the little girl I had seen the loch the previous day, but that I wanted to see it again with her and she happily slipped her small hand into mine and showed me the way.
Over the course of the next two days Cameron McLanald became my little shadow. Even when I was off-duty she insisted on being with me, which I didn't mind due to both my own lack of companionship and a certain fragility in the child that brought out my protective side. I told myself it was just that I hadn't been around little kids for a few years but the truth was Cameron was the most nervous four year old I'd ever met. When I told her she would be going to London the next weekend, to see her mother, she reacted by bursting into tears and wrapping her small body around me, repeating through jerking, sobbing breaths that she didn't want to go. It wasn't my business to pry into the circumstances of her family life and it isn't what I intended to do, but she seemed to be genuinely inconsolable and it made me suspicious. What kind of child reacted that way to being told they were going to spend a whole weekend with their own mother?
We were in the courtyard again, armed with small nets and searching the murky waters of the fountain for salamanders when she fixed me with her blue eyes, already brimming with tears, and said:
"Miss Robinson, I don't want to go to London this weekend. Can I stay here with you and Daddy?"
I thought the Laird was away, for how long I didn't know, but he'd left on the helicopter shortly after introducing me to his daughter. Part of me thought her clinginess was about his absence - and I had no idea our conversation was being overheard.
"But your Mommy misses you, Cameron. She'll be sad if she doesn't see you. Don't you want to see her?"
That question pushed the tears glimmering in the child's eyes over the edge and she started to cry in earnest as they slid copiously down her cheeks.
"No. I don't want to go. I want to stay here. Please can I stay here with you?"
When I scooped her up onto my lap her whole body was trembling and something inside me just took over. There was no good reason for a four year old to be trembling with fear over the prospect of seeing someone - especially her own mother. Her sadness made me angry. Surely she'd expressed herself to other adults? Had they just ignored her? I pulled my head away so I could look her in the eyes.
"Cameron, why don't you want to see your mother? Are you scared?"
Her lower lip wobbled as she nodded her response.
"Why are you scared?"
"I don't like Mummy. I like you. I want to stay here. Please, Miss Robinson. Please don't make me go."
She then dissolved into sobs and buried her face in my neck and I gave up on questioning her further about her mother, knowing it was probably just going to make things worse. It wasn't up to me whether or not she went to London and it appeared to be some kind of arranged agreement so there was no canceling. I just held her tightly until her breathing started to slow down again and asked the question that would, unbeknownst to me, lead to my seeing a side of her father I had yet to experience:
"What do you want to do with Daddy when he comes back?"
Cameron thought about it for a little while and then replied, in a voice still thick with tears. The combination of her upset and her accent made it difficult to understand exactly what she said.
"I want to go shooting."
I, being American and not aristocratic, completely misunderstood what Cameron was saying.
"Cameron, why would you talk about shooting? You don't shoot people with your Daddy!"
She'd looked up at me, confused, and she was just about to say something that probably would have clarified everything when the Laird strode into the courtyard with a face like thunder. Neither me nor Cameron had time to say anything before he snatched her off my lap and turned his anger towards me:
"You were hired to make sure she's safe and fed. You weren't hired to fill my daughter's head with wishy-washy American bullshit!"
It took a few seconds to even process what was happening - I had no idea what the Laird was so angry about. Surely he wasn't taking issue with my telling Cameron that shooting people with her father wasn't the best way to spend her time? He was fuming, though. I could see it in his narrowed eyes and, frighteningly, the fact that he seemed to be shaking slightly.
"What? I - Darach, I'm not sure what-"
"Pack your things!" He bellowed, cutting me off before I could finish and so loud it was enough to have tears of dismay starting immediately in my own eyes. What had I done? I stood there in front of him, staring dumbly for a few moments as Cameron started to cry again, and then I got angry. Whatever he was yelling about it must have been a misunderstanding. I hadn't done or said anything that warranted that kind of reaction. I was his employee, yes, but that didn't mean he had a right to speak to me like that, to yell at me with that tone in his voice.