Highland Storms Read Free Page A

Seton was probably in his mid-forties, perhaps that seemed very young to him. Either way, they’d had this conversation before and she’d learned that maintaining a dignified silence worked better.
    ‘ Well, what are you waiting for? Find me something decent to eat,’ Seton snarled.
    ‘ But the bannocks …?’
    ‘ Are all well and good, but won’t keep hunger at bay till dinner time. I need proper victuals – eggs, mutton, something I can sink my teeth into. See to it.’
    ‘ Yes, Mr Seton.’
    Turning to leave again, she was halted once more by his parting shot.
    ‘ And if I catch your dog inside the house again, I’ll personally shoot him, is that clear?’
    Drat , she thought, he must have heard Liath’s claws clicking on the flagstones outside the door. ‘But the mistress said –’
    ‘ Devil take it, woman! He’s to stay where he belongs and there’s an end to it.’
    Marsaili closed the door behind her without a word.
     
    Brice joined his father downstairs at last, clean and presentable, and slightly less hung over after a cautious breakfast of rye bread, cheese and ale.
    Killian waved him to a seat and came straight to the point. ‘I want you to go to Rosyth. Something’s not right there and we need to know what it is.’
    ‘ Why me?’ Brice asked. ‘Can’t you send someone else?’ The last thing he wanted was to go gallivanting across the North Sea when he’d only just come back from the long journey to Canton.
    ‘ I could, but the estate is yours anyway, so it should be your responsibility. I’ve tried to look after it from a distance on your behalf, but it’s impossible. Since I can’t go myself to see what’s happening, you’ll have to sort it out.’
    Brice frowned. ‘I don’t understand. It belongs to you. Has done for ages.’
    Rosyth House was his father’s Scottish property, inherited some ten years earlier from old Lord Rosyth, Killian’s grandfather. Although technically Killian was now the laird and chief of clan Kinross, he hadn’t been able to set foot in Scotland since taking part in the Jacobite rebellion on the side of Prince Charles Edward, the man the English called ‘the Young Pretender’. Brice had been brought up to think of him as the true king’s heir, but most people had now given up hope of him ever gaining the throne. Rosyth House had remained in Killian’s possession, however, despite him being branded a traitor to the crown. He’d had the foresight to become a Swedish citizen and was therefore outside the reach of English law. Since the uprising, he’d lived in Sweden where he and Brice’s mother Jessamijn ran a prosperous trading company.
    Killian shook his head. ‘No, I signed it over to you before I declared for the Prince. Apart from the fact that you’re Swedish, you were too young to fight so no one could accuse you of being a Jacobite. It seemed the best thing to do at the time and it worked. The English couldn’t confiscate Rosyth, no matter what. Other lairds did the same, or so I’ve heard.’
    Brice was having trouble taking this in and squinted at his father. ‘So you’re saying it’s been mine all along?’
    ‘ Since 1745, yes.’
    ‘ Why didn’t you ever tell me?’
    ‘ I was going to when you were legally old enough to run it yourself, but you were in China when you turned twenty-one. I’m telling you now.’
    ‘ Well, what’s wrong with it?’ Brice asked. ‘I thought you had a steward looking after matters. And what about your late cousin’s wife, Aunt Ailsa? Isn’t she keeping an eye on things? Why do I need to go there?’
    Killian stood up and began to pace back and forth, his hands behind his back. Brice knew his father’s barely perceptible limp was a constant reminder of how close Killian had come to losing his life for the Jacobite cause, just like his father and two brothers before him. He’d been lucky though. He had lived to return to Gothenburg, together with a number of other Scotsmen whose lives