Chapter 10
Chapter Ten
Christmas morning Fergus woke to a hammer striking against the inside of his skull. The sunlight forging through his bedchamber window only made the pounding worse. And his mouth was unnaturally dry. That was the last time he touched Prince Charlie’s Liqueur. The concoction was poison.
He rolled toward the bedside table to reach for a glass of water, and his stomach pitched. “Dear Lord,” he moaned and sank back into the mattress with his eyes closed.
As he lay in his bed, slowly breathing in and out to quell the tempest in his stomach, his encounter with Eddi on the stairwell trickled into his memory. He groaned a second time and threw an arm over his eyes to block his embarrassment as much as the blinding light.
Had he truly sang to her? What a drunken fool he’d been.
It was no wonder the lass refused his offer of marriage.
He expected nothing less of his Eddi. She was fearless in speaking her mind and confident she deserved more than a slurred proposal and lousy serenade.
And she would receive a proper offer as soon as the room stopped spinning, and he could crawl from bed without tossing up his accounts.
As it turned out, it was early afternoon before Fergus recovered and was able to make it to the castle in his Sunday best. He entered through the servants’ door and made his way to the kitchen as he always did. His mother’s salt and pepper eyebrows shot up on her forehead in censorship.
“Look at you all dressed up. Do you realize Christmas service was several hours ago? I noticed you missing from the church pew this morning, Fergus McTaggart.” She slapped an onion on the cutting board, grabbed her knife, and glowered.
“Dinnae tell me it was a lassie that kept you away all morning.”
The whack of her knife was a little more violent than usual as she cut the onion in half.
“Not exactly.” He rubbed the back of his neck as heat stole into his face. “It was that damned bonnie Prince Charlie and his private poison.”
His mother stopped chopping to point the knife in his direction. “I told you no’ to imbibe.”
“You’ve told me many things over the years. I’m only now beginning to listen.”
She rolled her eyes and returned to her work. His cousins bustled around the kitchen, trying to appear busy, but they were not very convincing with the way they kept staring in his and his mother’s direction. They were straining to catch every word.
He approached the butcher’s block where his mother stood and lowered his voice. “Would you like to know just what advice of yours I’ve decided to follow?”
His mother shrugged without looking up from her task. “Why should I care what you do? You’re a grown man now. You dinnae need a mother telling you what to do.”
Now she was just being sulky and throwing his words back at him, but he wouldn’t rise to the bait. “True. I dinnae need a mother ordering me about, but what about a wife?”
Her knife clattered against the butcher block. “A wife?”
A smile eased across his mouth. “Aye. A bonnie wife who knows her way around a kitchen. I’ve come to ask Mistress Gallagher to marry me.”
His mother gasped, her hands flying up to cover her mouth. She watched him warily as if uncertain she should believe him. His cousins abandoned their posts to join his mother at the butcher block. Finella slid her arm around his mother’s shoulders.
“You like Mistress Gallagher, do you nae, Mother?” He leaned forward, eager for her approval, and a little anxious her silence meant she wouldn’t grant it.
Tears welled in her eyes, and she dropped her hands from her mouth. “Fergus McTaggart, you’ve made me so verra happy.”
She circled the butcher block to gather him in a hug. “This is the best Christmas gift any mother could receive, other than making me a grandmother by giving me a wee bairn to hold.”
He laughed and hugged his mother close. “We can discuss bairns some other time. Mistress Gallagher hasnae accepted me yet.”
“She will if the lass has any sense, and Mistress Gallagher strikes me as a smart one. Have you thought about how you will ask her?”
“Is there more than one way? I’ll simply ask her.”
“Of course, there is more than one way,” his mother said. “There is the wrong way and the right way.”
His cousins slowly shook their heads as if pitying him. He frowned at all three women. “Well, I’d prefer the right way.” He’d already botched his proposal once. This time he wanted Eddi to say yes. “Can you help me?”
His mother grinned. “Oh, we can. And your sister will want her say, too.”
“I’ll go find her,” Finella said and dashed for the kitchen door.
He chuckled. He expected he was going to receive more advice than he could use, but he wouldn’t turn away help from the McTaggart women. Eddi wasn’t the only smart one at Aldmist Fell.