Whence Came a Prince Read Free Page A

not
ken
my mother.”
    “Not as you do.” She touched his coat sleeve. “But I know my father, and so do you. You must not let him take advantage of this delay, Jamie, for given half a chance he will.”
    “Nae!” He ground out the word like oats on a provender stone. “Lachlan McBride will ne’er
swick
me again.” After twenty long months beneath his uncle’s roof, Jamie had learned to hold his tongue and hide his coin purse when Lachlan was present. “If I must live at Auchengray through the summer, I’ll labor under my own terms, not his.”
    Rose’s hand on his sleeve tightened. “What terms have you in mind?”
    “Suppose I tell your father that waiting until Lammas is
my
idea.” Already Jamie liked the sound of it. Not his mother’s plan, but his. “By the first of August the lambs will be sold and my duties here ended. Naught will remain but to claim my share of the earnings.” He turned abruptly, nearly knocking her off balance. “ ’Tis better to wait, or we risk losing everything. Will you trust me in this, Rose?”
    She looked up at him, a half smile decorating her bonny face, a twinkle in her eye. “The first of August will do nicely.” Since he’d taken Rose to wife, Jamie had cataloged her many expressions; this one bore the mark of mischief. She wanted to outwit Lachlan McBride almost as badly as he did.
    Rose swept her thick braid over her shoulder, then brushed his cheek with a kiss. “We shall celebrate my seventeenth year and quit Auchengray on the same day.” Sliding her hand inside the crook of his elbow, she tugged him toward the door. “As to our glad tidings, I suggest you tell Father at once. You know how he loathes
saicrets.
”
    “Indeed he does.” Jamie tucked the guineas from Glentrool in a drawer, then escorted his wife into the upper corridor. “Unless the secrets are his.”
    The aroma of meat roasting on the kitchen hearth wafted up the stone stairwell, calling them to table as clearly as the laird’s clanging brass bell. When they entered the dining room, Lachlan greeted them with a curt nod, fingers drumming as he awaited the midday meal. His dark suit of clothes marked him as no ordinary farmer but a bonnet laird, who held the deed to the land he worked and straddled the great chasm between highborn society and the peasantry. Lachlan cared nothing for either class; he resented the rich and ignored the poor, claiming neither understood the value of hard-earned silver.
    Jamie and Rose were the only ones welcomed to the low-beamed dining room at mealtime, where the final course was always a fancy pudding, at Lachlan’s insistence. The household servants would take their dinner later—without pudding—at a well-scrubbed pine table in the kitchen, while the farmworkers and shepherds ate their meager rations out of doors.
    “Uncle Lachlan.” Jamie made an effort to keep his tone pleasant. “Isn’t the weather fine?”
    They spoke of trifling matters while Neda directed her staff in serving the meal. “Gentlemen,” the housekeeper said with a broad smile that belied her years, “ye’ll fancy this plump hen, I’ll wager.” A stuffed pullet was presented to the laird for his approval, then quickly sliced and served. Jamie ate prodigious quantities, gathering strength for the confrontation to follow. Rose poked at her food; little traveled from fork to mouth. When the citron pudding appeared, stained pale green with spinach juice, Rose blanched and made a hasty exit.
    “
Whatsomever
has happened to my daughter’s appetite?” Lachlan plunged a spoon into his pudding. His ebony hair, pulled into a tautknot, was streaked with silver—more each year, Jamie thought. Lachlan’s piercing gaze met his. “Is your wife ill?”
    “Nae, not ill.” Jamie pushed aside his dish without tasting it. “Perhaps you’ve already
jaloused
the nature of her discomfort.”
    Lachlan lowered his spoon, even as his brows lifted. “Is she … with child?”
    “Aye.”