“Will you be at Eilean Ros for a time yet, Miss Douglas?” Anna asked.
“Only as long as Cousin Payton needs me. We’ve searched rather hopelessly for a housekeeper since Mrs. Craig passed. Until we can find one with suitable credentials, I’ll stay on. I would not leave Eilean Ros without a feminine touch, for I fear he’d turn the house over to a hunting lodge.”
The ladies laughed politely. Mared snorted.
“A pity you’ve had no luck,” Anna sighed. “I’m certain there are women about in need of the work.”
“Most women in need of work have gone to Glasgow,” Mared said.
“And those that remain behind cannot be de-pended upon to manage a barnyard,” Miss Douglas added.
“How fortunate, then, that the laird doesna require more than that,” Mared suggested with an innocent little smile.
She had meant it to be witty, but Miss Douglas looked appalled, and Ellie and Anna turned twin looks of horror on her. Only Payton chuckled softly. “Miss Lockhart, I beg ye, donna spare us yer true feelings for Eilean Ros.”
Ellie and Anna tittered with polite relief, but glared at her nonetheless, and Mared wondered when they had gone over to the side of the enemy.
His cousin, however, was less forgiving in her demeanor.
“I do beg yer pardon, laird. Miss Douglas,” she said grudgingly, and bowed her head. “It was merely a jest, but apparently one quite lacking in wit.” And she smiled.
Miss Douglas sniffed, and Anna, the consummate hostess, quickly asked after Payton’s new crop of barley, planted just last year. The question obviously pleased him, for he began to talk with great enthusiasm about his crop. How difficult it had been to drain the field above the loch, how the crop had come in much stronger than he’d expected. How he would use barley to stock the whiskey distillery he was intent on building, how barley-bree would be common in his neighbors’ homes. And last but not least, how his sheep could graze the fallow fields. It was obvious he thought himself clever—his eyes were quite radiant with it.
Much to Mared’s chagrin, Ellie and Anna ooh’d and aah’d along with him. It rankled her to no end, particularly because even she, the only true Lockhart within these four walls, could not help but be enthused by him, no matter how badly she tried not to be.
When he and his cousin took their leave, he bowed gallantly over Ellie’s and Anna’s hands. Her sisters-in-law were practically swooning with delight. That was the danger of having English women in the house, Mared thought as she watched them beaming at Douglas. They had no sense of history, no sense of how he, by virtue of having brought sheep into these hills, had changed the very course of all their lives. And by virtue of having lent them money, how he would change the course of her life. All they saw was a handsome, charming man.
“If I may,” he said politely as he escorted his cousin to the door of the salon behind the Lockhart butler, Dudley, “I would extend an invitation to all the Lockharts to be my guests at Eilean Ros on the evening of Friday next, for a ceilidh.”
Mared was instantly suspicious. She could not recall a time he had hosted a ceilidh. “Thank ye, but we canna possibly—” she started, but Ellie was quick to stop her by stepping in front of her and all but shouting, “How very kind!” Then she dipped a curtsey worthy of a duke, not a bloody Douglas, and said, beaming, “I’m certain our laird would be delighted by the invitation.”
“No, he—” Mared tried, but Anna eagerly chimed in, “Of course he would! He was just saying this very week how he’d like to go forth a bit more than he’s been able.”
Mared gave Anna a puzzled look. She could not imagine her father saying any such thing. He was usually far too occupied in fretting about the demise of Talla Dileas.
“Splendid,” Payton said. “I shall consider it a favorable reply, then. Good day, Mrs. Lockhart. Mrs. Lockhart,” he said, nodding to Ellie and Anna. He shifted his gaze to Mared. “Miss Lockhart.”
The two Lockhart traitors stood on either side of Mared and wished the Douglases a good day in their badly spoken Gaelic.
When Dudley had shut the door behind the departing Douglases, Mared whirled about, glaring at her sisters-in-law. “Have ye forgotten who the enemy is, then?”
Anna laughed, but Ellie sighed wearily. “Darling, calm yourself.” She linked her arm with Mared’s. “We are quite well aware of the enemy.”
“Certainly we are,” Anna said. “What woman could ignore him? He’s really quite appealing, isn’t he? There are times I find it very difficult to remember why he is the enemy. He’s so handsome—not at all like the fops in London.”
“Ye donna understand, Anna—”