The Highlander's Maiden. Elizabeth Mayne

sit to our table as honored guests. For heaven’s sake, talk. to me!”

      Cassie forced herself to look her sister in the eye and reluctantly began to tell her about the king’s messenger who came to Castle MacArthur in early December. “He brought two letters from the king, one to MacArthur and one specifically to me, which I received into my hand directly. The seal had not been broken so I am assured that MacArthur does not know the contents of the letters.”

      “The king wrote to you?” Maggie did her best to keep her impatience under control. Cassie could be maddeningly secretive.

      “Well, that’s the thing, you see,” Cassie murmured softly. “The king’s letter was really addressed to Lady Quickfoot, but the messenger gave it to me as though it had said Cassandra MacArthur.”

      “And the contents…”

      “Well, it was a royal command.” Cassie sat on the long bench of the table. Maggie settled beside her and took hold of her hand. “King James commands Lady Quickfoot to put her ‘services as a mountain guide at the disposal of his surveyors, Gordon and Hamilton, as they measure and survey Lochaber.’ The king also requires that all the proprieties of the Highlands be met.” Cassie stopped short of telling Maggie the worst codicil. Should Lady Quickfoot be a femme sole, all proprieties would be satisfied by her marriage to one Robert Gordon, surveyor, upon his arrival in Lochaber. The king was thorough, she’d give him that much.

      Maggie went from shock to laughter. “King James wrote all of that to Lady Quickfoot, did he?”

      “Aye,” Cassie replied somberly. “‘Twere it addressed to me, I would have told you straight away about it…but…it’s such a conundrum!”

      “Aye,” Maggie said, her mouth having the same difficulty keeping the smiles at bay as Cassie was. Then the two of them burst into laughter.

      “Oh, that’s rich,” Maggie laughed, wiping at the tears in her eyes. “To think our king doesna know a children’s tale from reality…It’s too funny for words. Why, imagine what you would do if he commanded Lady Quickfoot to come to court.”

      “Well, I guess I’d dress up Millie and her dolls and send them to court, wouldn’t I?” Cassie broke up again, holding her sides to keep from hurting her tender ribs with laughter. “You know who’s behind this, don’t you?”

      “No. Who?” Maggie asked, wiping her face with her apron.

      “That devil, our dear brother Jamie.” Cassie reverted to her normal solemnity easily enough. “I can just see him at court, spinning tales to the king that would make mine sound as tame as Ian’s favorite pudding.”

      “Aye, it has Jamie’s mark of deviltry to it. He’s as glib as an English bard. Well, you never know, Cassie, perhaps some good would come of this. You could be invited to court. Imagine your chances for finding the richest husband inland, if that were to happen. You’d certainly no’ have to settle for one of father’s choices then, would you?”

      Cassie remained firmly noncommittal on that subject, which made Maggie press her hand down upon Cassie’s resting fingers. “Are you no’ ready to be making yer own home somewhere, Cassie?” Maggie asked, saying what was on her mind.

      “Aye, well, I am and I’m not.” Cassie shrugged her shoulders rather helplessly. There wasn’t an awful lot she seemed able to do about her situation either way.

      “Has Father no’ had offers for ye since Alastair was-buried?”

      Plain speaking seemed to be Maggie’s forte inside these walls. Cassie wasn’t particularly warm to the subject, but she couldn’t see any route around the truth. After a moment of thought, her mouth deepened at the corners in that perpetual smile that graced her face. “Well, aye, one or two that made my hair turn white.”

      “Old men, then?” Maggie didn’t quite frown over Cassie’s less than forthright admission.

      “Older than James and Lord Sinclair, none so old as MacArthur.”

      “He wouldn’t marry you off to an old bounder, would he?”

      “Not unless I make him mad again. This past May he swore he would hand me off to the next man that offered.”

      “What had you done?” Maggie laughed. Her littlest sister had been telling their father off from the time she started talking. Maggie had always counted that to the fact that redheads rubbed each other raw. So it had been for their elder brother, Jamie, too, as well as their oldest sister, Roslyn.

      Cassie had taken the eternal battle for autonomy to a new height. At the age of ten she began speaking of their father only as “MacArthur” whenever she was forced to refer to him in passing speech. Maggie didn’t know why Cassie did that, but she’d always been curious to discover the reason. In that regard, Cassie had been as closemouthed on the subject as their father had been.

      Cassie’s face scrunched up in a comical scowl. “It wasn’t anything, really. MacArthur favors his newest confidant, Douglas Cameron. You know him, the Cameron with the black beard that struts about like he’s the good Lord’s gift to womankind.”

      “Aye, I ken who, sister. I’ve heard my serving girls call him Douglas the Darling, for he’s bedded every serving wench in Lochaber. Let’s see to the table while we’re talking,” Maggie urged, and the two of them got up and set to work taking out trestles to enlarge the table for supper. The corners of Maggie’s mouth twitched. “Douglas Cameron’s a verra comely man.”

      “I’ve seen handsomer.” Cassie refused to be pinned on that point.

      “He gets along verra well with Euan,” Maggie added. “They arm-wrestled to see who was stronger, and damn me if it didn’t turn out to be a draw.”

      To that Cassie said promptly, “Aye, well, he’s a man’s man, isn’t he now?”

      “Mumph.” Maggie laughed. “So what did you do to poor Douglas the Darlin’ that put you on the black side of Papa’s temper? Stick a burr under his saddle or poison his brose?”

      “Oh, I wouldn’t do anything like that,” Cassie said, with her blue eyes so wide and innocent she couldn’t be speaking the truth. “He came courting Beltane night, the first of May, and asked me to walk out with him. I said no—I wasna going up to the revelry in the hills. I wanted no part of the fumbling in the bushes, though I did say I’d go to the May crowning and watch the games earlier in the day.”

      “Then what happened?”

      “Well, he said I was being as prudish as a papist nun, and I pretended neatly not to know what exactly he meant by that. The poor vain soul was being sorely put upon to explain himself clearly, so he grabbed me and smacked me on my lips to diagram things more clearly, then groped at my breasts like he was milking a cow.”

      “Did you like it?” Maggie prodded, taking a cloth from her pocket to buff down the long polished tabletop.

      Cassie looked horrified at the very thought. “Has breathing the air on a mountain farm robbed you of the last of your wits, Maggie MacArthur? No, I didn’t like it at all! Douglas the Darling hasn’t taken a bath since he sprouted the first whisker of that great black beard on his face. He smells like pig farts. After I clobbered him to bring him back to his senses, I told him that, too. You know what he did?”

      Maggie shook her head, helpless to contain her laughter.

      “He tried to put his hand under my skirts!” Cassie complained indignantly.

      As straight-faced as she could, Maggie replied, “Well, Cassie, what else is a man with his reputation to do when you’ve likened his romantic efforts to pig farts?”

      Cassie gave in to the need to laugh heartily. So did Maggie.

      “Curiously enough, MacArthur laughed when I told him that, too.” Cassie grinned.

      “So how did you get out of randy Douglas’s clutches