Chapter 3
Lachlan could not sleep that night, but it had nothing to do with the imprecations the healer’s daughter had uttered at him.
He had never been kept awake by thoughts of a woman before, and it worried him that the young healer’s image had taken such strong possession of his mind.
When he lay on his back, memories of her lithe body swaying as she spat her curses at him stimulated Lachlan’s mind and body like it had never been before.
If he lay on his side, he saw transparent phantasms of her face on the walls.
But when he tried to turn onto his stomach and close his eyes, all he could imagine was the redheaded healer lying, writhing underneath him.
That was nay curse! That was an enchantment! I cannae get Ada Calvin out o’ me mind.
He would have done anything to go back in time and tell the beauty he had made his pronouncement only for the chance to get to know her better, but he knew it would do nothing to remove the scorn he had seen in her eyes.
Eventually, he gave up and went to chat with the gatekeeper guards. It was better than tossing and turning in his bed.
“Good evening, lads.” Lachlan got straight to the point. “How is it possible that news of the fair healer’s daughter has not traveled further afield? She is a rare beauty indeed.”
The gatekeepers laughed, and one took a quaff out of his water skin before answering. “Aye, but the girl is a shrew! It’s all ‘Mither, Mither, Mither,’ with her, and she has no love in her heart left for anyone else.”
Lachlan was sanguine. “She’s a wee bit sharp, I’ll give ye that, but she’s still young. Chances are she’ll outgrow her affection for the auld healer.”
The two guards scoffed, one saying, “Fat chance, MacNair. The Fair Ada has had her pick o’ every upright man in the Highlands an’ turned every one o’ them down.
She’s always been a mither’s girl since anyone can remember.
The auld healer was well into her sixties when she risked her life to save the bairn.
“Her wee Bean Ruadh, as she called the bairn, was her pride an’ joy.
She came to the Castle as a stranger sixty-five years ago or so, the wife of one o’ those travelin’ peddlers who sell trinkets all over the land who was clan to some of the folks here.
Her husband set up as a farrier with our blacksmith.
And when a sickness spread amongst the horses in their third year lodging here, the wife, Iona, who could not have been much more than the same age her daughter is now, healed the horses with a cordial she mixed in with their water.
They were given a bothy on the hills as a reward, but the farrier did not enjoy it for long.
He was waylaid by bandits on the road an’ they slit his throat for his coin pouch.
“I guess what I’m trying to say is this: Ada is Iona’s darlin’ poppet, and it would kill her to be separated from the girl. What husband is going to put up with that kind of competition under his own roof? We’re happy to wait until the crone is dead, which should no’ be too long from what we hear.”
Lachlan thanked the men for their chat and turned to head back to the Castle. But the guard stopped him.
“Hie, MacNair, afore ye go. The healer tells every suitor who comes sniffin’ around that nay man can claim her daughter’s hand in marriage until they cast a glamor on one another.”
“What does that mean?” Lachlan raised an eyebrow; he could not make head nor tail of the prediction.
“It means,” the gatekeeper said, “that the lovely Ada must love and desire the man who wants to marry her just as much as he loves and desires her before the marriage can take place. An’ so far, the girl shows herself immune to every fellow’s advances. Like I told ye, she’s a shrew!”
That gave Lachlan plenty of food for thought as he tramped back to his bedchamber.
The next morning dawned fine and clear. Lachlan dressed with his usual careless style, a MacNair plaid unevenly pleated just above his hips and belted so that a sporran could hang down slightly off center from the middle; a fine lawn shirt with the cords at the wrists and neck open.
It was a warm summer’s day, too warm for tight restraints, a pair of woolen socks casually pulled on and then leather boots tied over them.
A quick look in the shaving glass told him he could wait a few days before scraping his chin with the sharp hunting knife again.
After ducking his head under the washbowl water and flinging his wet hair back over his shoulders, he deemed himself good and ready for the day ahead.
He had never been one to put much value on his strapping body and fiercely good looks, but then again Lachlan had never been turned down by a woman in his past, so he had no expectation of it happening in the future.
Visiting the healer to see how he could assist her was high on his agenda, but he must break his fast first. The cook had sent fruit preserves up to the table again.
Lachlan bowed to his grandfather and then wasted no time before tucking into warm bannocks smothered in sweet preserves.
He would take the occasional pull at a mug of small ale, but his concentration was on the food.
“Ye’re such a magnificent trencherman, Lachlan. I swear ye could give the hungriest pirate a run for his money when it comes to devouring a lass’s…warm cakes.”
It was Cousin Morag, one of his mother’s many cousins on the Calvin side of the family.
She had taken one look at the MacNair heir when he came to visit and would not give up the hope that his attention would turn to her.
Which it might very well have done so if the healer’s daughter had not woven her spells around him the day before.
Morag was a comely lass and well up for more than a coorie in the corner if Lachlan was any judge in the matter, but her homely appearance could not compete with the red fire that now burned in Lachlan’s heart.
Lachlan answered with his mouth full, eager to be done with eating so he could go make himself useful at Mistress Calvin’s home.
“’Tis bannocks, Morag. It’s no’ cakes.” His mind was so busy with thoughts of Ada that he was immune to Cousin Morag’s innuendos.
Her smile turned to a frown. “How now, ye are so distracted, Cousin. Could it be yer mind is consumed with worry about the healer’s daughter’s curse?”
The steward, Master Alvanley, interrupted the conversation to give his opinion.
“It might have been a very effective curse but for one thing, Miss Morag: Ada Calvin got Lachlan’s name wrong.
He’s a MacNair, no’ a Calvin. And as we all ken, a curse is worth naught unless it is brought home to roost on the right doorstep. ”
The breakfast table conversation turned to the rules of cursing someone, but the voices faded away as Lachlan made his excuses to his grandfather and dashed out of the dining hall.
After asking a maid for directions, he walked to the healer’s house in record time, his long legs making such eager strides that one of Laird Calvin’s guards shouted at his retreating back, “Where’s the fire, Lachlan? ”
The fire was in his heart and his loins, and the sight of Ada sweeping the front doorsteps of the cottage only inflamed it more.
“Apprentice Ada Calvin.” Lachlan made a low bow, sweeping off his woolen bonnet and holding it to his chest. “Well met on such a bonny day.”
She had her hair braided today, and the two long knotted tails hung down her back like red serpents. Lachlan had to restrain the desire to touch one of them.
Finishing her sweeping, Ada took a step back and looked at him up and down.
“Ye’re late,” was all she answered back to him.
Lachlan was put off-balance by this abrupt dismissal of his greeting. “Late for what?” he wanted to know.
Ada called over her shoulder into the cottage, “The mean oaf who made the ruling against our retirement and called ye an auld crone is here to carry ye to the forest, Mither.”
Then she turned on her heel and went inside, ignoring Lachlan and his question. Lachlan had no choice but to follow her.
The inside of the cottage was as neat as a pin.
The front room was where the two women sat.
They cooked their food over the small fireplace set back into the stone chimney.
The door opposite led to the bedchambers, indicating to Lachlan the laird valued the ladies’ services so much he was willing to allow them to expand their home outward, not upward.
Iona was seated in a comfortable armchair by the fire; there was no sign of Ada.
The healer noticed Lachlan staring at the door. “That’s our sleeping quarters, young man, but the cellar under the floorboards is where we do most of our work.”
Lachlan bowed to Iona, but when he stood up, he asked, “Cellar? Why?”
Iona patted the stool beside her. He sat down, but only after checking the stool’s strength. The last thing he wanted to do was further Ada’s animosity by breaking her furniture.
“We must keep the air clean where we brew. It’s easier to do that if there are no windows lettin’ in the dust motes an’ biastags.”
Lachlan, who always enjoyed the fresh air, raised his concerns. “How can that be? Ye need air to thrive, especially if ye are brewing over a fire.”
Iona cackled. “We have a chimney that sucks the fumes out o’ the cellar, young man. Now, putting aside me daughter’s hatred o’ ye, how d’ye plan on carrying me around? I was nae lying when I told yer grandfaither I cannae walk nay more.”
Lachlan, who had planned on spending his morning wooing the healer’s daughter, found nothing encouraging in what he had just been told. From lover to pack horse in one moment.
“Er, Mistress Healer, I dinnae…I mean, I cannae… The truth o’ the matter is that…”