Chapter 13 #2
She cleaned up the floor, the high chair, and the table.
Dishes were quickly finished, and she was just helping herself to hot cereal from the community pot when it occurred to her that she hadn’t seen Ian or Patrick that morning.
Were they sleeping in? Somehow she doubted it, but it wasn’t as if she knew them very well.
Maybe they’d stayed up half the night playing with Alexander’s Legos while he was asleep. Stranger things had happened.
Then she finally looked out the kitchen window she’d been standing in front of for twenty minutes.
Her bowl fell from her hands.
Good thing it had been one of the kids’ plastic ones. Her oatmeal was in the sink, but did that really matter when compared to what she was seeing outside?
Jane and Ian had an enormous backyard. They had a garden.
They had a swingset. They had a deck that was probably full of furniture during the summer but was now empty in preparation for winter.
They also had a very large grassy place that looked perfect for the playing of croquet, horseshoes, or a little touch football with a very large extended family.
But there was no football going on today.
There were two fools out there hacking at each other with swords.
Madelyn stared, openmouthed, as Patrick and Ian fought.
She’d never seen anything like it, not even in movies.
In movies, it looked choreographed. She knew it was choreographed so the actors, when brave enough, or the stuntmen, when skilled enough, didn’t get themselves killed.
They also used, she assumed, swords that didn’t have sharp edges.
She’d felt that sword Patrick was using.
Her finger still ached from the cut.
She set her spoon down, walked over to the back door, and eased it open until she could peer out just the slightest bit.
The ring of steel was startling at first, but she soon grew accustomed to it.
There wasn’t much conversation going on, but what there was of it was being conducted in the native tongue.
Ian said something and Patrick laughed, then they both continued to chop at each other as if they had every intention of inflicting bodily harm.
Were they out of their minds?
No wonder they scared the hell out of Hamish Fergusson. She wouldn’t have wanted to tangle with them, either.
They must have been quite an asset to their reenactment society.
Cattle raiding . . . enemies to slay . . .
Moraig’s words teased the edge of her memory, but she honestly couldn’t remember what else the old woman had said. Something about Patrick not being able to do that these days. She could see how he might be good at it, given the way he used his sword.
He gave Ian a shove backward, stripped off his shirt, and continued fighting.
Madelyn fanned herself surreptitiously.
She hoped, not quite so absently, that they’d just begun their workout.
She continued to stare at them in fascination, though in all honesty, she spent more time looking at Patrick than Ian, and not just because he’d taken off his shirt.
It was the fact that she’d sat next to the man in a car, sobbed all over him just the morning before, and she hadn’t had a clue what he was capable of.
If Bentley could have seen this, he would have peed his pants.
And then the unthinkable happened.
Patrick tripped backward over some sort of children’s outdoor transportation device.
She started to yell a warning, but found herself rendered quite speechless by the fact that Ian didn’t blink.
He didn’t offer to help, either. He simply took advantage of the fact that his cousin was flat on his back and tried to stab him where he was.
Patrick rolled and was back on his feet, spewing a mouthful of what had to be curses, almost faster than she could follow. Ian only laughed and continued a very relentless assault.
Things took an ugly turn.
They used the deck, they used the rock wall, they even used bits of the kids’ very sturdy swingset—nothing was apparently very sacred when it came to trying to kill each other.
Curses flew, sweat dripped (she fanned herself more at that point), and the ring of swords was so loud and so fierce she almost had to close the door so she wouldn’t have to hear it anymore.
Good grief, who were these guys?
She decided on the spot that a visit to Moraig was most definitely in order.
“Oh, thanks for doing the dishes!”
Madelyn almost fell over in shock. She turned toward Jane, who looked a good deal tidier than she had been earlier that morning, and gestured weakly to the great outdoors.
“Have you seen . . .” she began. Well, of course Jane had seen. Madelyn took a deep breath. “Where did they learn that?”
Jane continued to smile, but it was a very careful smile all of a sudden.
Madelyn’s BS radar kicked into high gear. A half-truth was coming; she would have staked her career on it. She pretended not to notice Jane wringing her hands.
“Oh, here and there,” Jane said vaguely. “It sort of runs in the family.”
“Is that so?” Madelyn asked. “Reenactment society and all that, I suppose.”
“Sure,” Jane said, nodding enthusiastically. “Highland games, that sort of thing. You know boys and their toys.”
“Right,” Madelyn said. “Interesting toys.”
“Aren’t they, though. Would you excuse me?”
Madelyn moved aside so Jane could open the back door fully.
She called to Ian and Patrick in Gaelic, and they immediately put up their very unusual toys.
Madelyn liked the cadence of the language.
She was surprised her mother hadn’t learned it.
Her father knew it. At the moment Madelyn wished she’d spent less time practicing the songs of Scotland on her violin and more time learning its language.
“They didn’t have to stop,” Madelyn said.
“Oh, well,” Jane said uneasily, “they were done anyway.”
“I see,” Madelyn said.
“I’ve got to get back to the kids. Sarah’s into everything. Want to come?”
What she wanted was to stand right where she was and unravel the mystery of Patrick’s morning exercise, but she was nothing if not polite, so she followed Jane into the living room.
She sat on the floor and examined Alexander’s Legos until Ian and Patrick came through on their way to the showers. They were all smiles.
And no swords.
Something was definitely afoot here.
And she was definitely not one to let a good mystery go unsolved.
“Be back in a minute,” Patrick said as he headed for the stairs.
“Sure,” she said, smiling briefly at Ian, who followed hard on Patrick’s heels. She looked at Jane to distract herself. “So,” Madelyn said easily, “where are you from? If you don’t mind my asking.”
“Indiana,” Jane said. “And you?”
“Seattle.”
“Then you should like Scotland. It’s your kind of climate.”
“I love it. So, how did you meet Ian?”
“New York. I was designing bridal gowns and he . . . um . . . wandered into our salon one day.”
“You design bridal gowns?” Madelyn asked, stunned. “Do you still?”
“Nah, I got sick of white,” Jane said easily. “I weave now, sell a few things down in the village, other things in London. Just to keep a little finger in the pie. The kids are what I concentrate on.”
Madelyn couldn’t imagine trading in a career like that for the intellectual stimulation of two small children. She needed to think, to fight, to right wrongs in the courtroom. She was sure of it.
At least she was pretty sure of it.
“Mama,” Sarah said, spontaneously throwing arms around her mother. She crawled into Jane’s lap, snuggled close, popped her thumb into her mouth, and proceeded to sigh the sigh of a completely content child.
Madelyn suddenly became quite unsure of everything.
She blinked several times to keep her tears where they belonged. Good heavens, what was that? Her biological clock chiming with all the subtlety of Big Ben?
Patrick came tromping down the stairs. He walked into the room, picked up Alexander, and tossed him into the air to the accompaniment of squeals of delight. He set the boy down, then looked down at Madelyn.
“Sleep well?”
“Like the dead.”
“Quite the change from the continual mutterings of Hamish Fergusson, no doubt,” Patrick said, plopping down on the couch. “He’s always full of complaints. Damn those Fergussons. Never have liked them.” He flashed Jane a teasing smile. “There might be an exception now and then.”
“Big of you,” Jane said. She looked at Madelyn. “I’m an American Fergusson, and Pat has never forgiven Ian for dipping into the enemy’s gene pool.”
“Untrue,” Patrick said. “Rather, I’m jealous he managed to find a gem amongst the refuse.”
“I think that’s a compliment,” Jane said with a laugh, “but I’m not sure. And you know Hamish and I just can’t be related, no matter how distantly.”
“You’d like to believe that,” Patrick said with a smile.
“I have to believe it, though I use our common ancestors to get out of speeding tickets. Hamish feels sorry for me being married to one of those dastardly MacLeods.”
“No doubt,” Patrick snorted.
Madelyn watched them tease and wondered at the ease of it. They didn’t tease in her family. Well, to be honest, her parents didn’t tease. Sunny teased and Madelyn tried to figure out what she meant by it.
A by-product of herbs, probably. Sunny sniffed too many things that made her quite happy and content.
Madelyn was tempted to dose herself up with a few when she got home.
“You look beautiful,” Patrick said. “That sweater suits you.”
She realized he was talking to her. She smoothed her hand over the sweater a little self-consciously. “Yes, it is lovely. I don’t know where to begin to thank you.”
“Oh, no,” Jane said with a laugh, “don’t give him that kind of free rein. He’ll be having you muck out his stables if you’re not careful.”
“Or, worse yet,” Ian said as he walked into the room, “he’ll have you being his date to any number of social functions.”
“I don’t go to social functions,” Patrick said.