Amanda Scott by Lord of the Isles Read Free Book Online Page A

mentioned Macleod. Is there aught of him that you should tell me?”
    “Not before your lady returns. I like my head right where it is, thank you.”
    A gillie entered then with a tray upon which stood two pewter goblets, a jug, a basket of rolls, a platter of sliced meat, and a jam pot.
    Lachlan poured the whisky while Hector helped himself to a roll, breaking it in half and slipping two thick slices of roast beef into it.
    “Thought you said you’d eaten,” Lachlan said with a grin.
    “I did, but you eat better than I do. I don’t know what your people do to the meat here, but it always has more flavor than ours at Lochbuie.”
    “Ask Mairi; she’ll know.”
    “Ask Mairi what?” that lady demanded as she strode briskly back into the hall, smiling at both men.
    “About meat,” Hector said. “What do you do to it to give it such flavor?”
    “Faith, I don’t know,” she said. “I enticed one of the cook’s lads from Ardtornish to accompany us when we came here, and he tends to all that. I’m sure it has something to do with the spices he rubs into the roast before he puts it on the spit, but as he has never put a dry or tasteless meal in front of us, I have not troubled my head about it. You may ask him anything you like.”
    He nodded but knew he would not bother. The meat at Duart was delicious, but the food he ate, as long as it was plentiful, was not important enough to him to waste his time quizzing his twin’s kitchen staff about their methods.
    “So tell us your news,” Mairi said. “What of those at Lewis?”
    “All well,” he said. “Your youngest nephew now has four teeth and a mop of blond curls. The eldest is to foster with Argyll after Easter. Your sister is in splendid health, and her lord is his usual stoic self, which was annoying during the time I spent with them, but which I came to recognize as an excellent character trait after I met his uncle at Chalamine.”
    “When you mentioned Glenelg earlier, I thought you had met him at Lewis,” Lachlan said. “I own, your going to Chalamine surprises me. You knew that MacDonald intended to tell Macleod of the reception when he arrives at Finlaggan. He does not trust the man, for all that he serves on the Council of the Isles. What stirred you to approach him betimes?”
    “The weather,” Hector admitted, glancing from his twin to Mairi and back again. “I got caught in a storm whilst riding through Glen Shiel. My only choice for shelter seemed to be a crofter or Chalamine, so I opted for the latter.”
    Mairi frowned, but Lachlan said with a twinkle, “Was there lightning?”
    “Aye, damn you, there was, and rain pelting down on me as if that Noah lad ought to have begun building a new Ark.”
    “Noah?”
    Hector grimaced, then grinned. “Aye, you ken the chap. Macleod tried to tell me his kinsmen littered the world before any sons of Gillean blessed it with their presence. Insisted that he’d never heard of any Macleans on Noah’s Ark.”
    “What an insolent man,” Mairi said. “He sounds most uncivil.”
    “Aye, well, I told him the Macleans had no need of Noah’s Ark.”
    With a sleepy smile, Lachlan said, “I warrant he wanted to know then how our people survived the Flood.”
    “Aye, and I told him that there never lived a Maclean who had need of another man’s boat to take him from harm’s way.”
    “You didn’t,” Mairi exclaimed, laughing. When he nodded, she laughed even harder. “How I’d have liked to see the old rascal’s face! What did he say then?”
    “He laughed, and not long afterward he agreed to let me marry his daughter,” Hector said casually, watching them both closely.
    His news clearly stunned them, apparently rendering Mairi speechless. Even Lachlan was silent for a few moments. But he never remained so for long.
    “How came this about?” he asked evenly.
    Mairi glanced at him, visibly reacting to his tone of voice.
    Hector recognized the warning tone, too, but he met his twin’s