Loch Ness cruise be canceled due to foul weather.
“Hey, check this out,” Isobel Kronk instructed us, apropos to nothing. She hovered over an over-sized tome that she’d set on one of the room’s many reading tables, her forefinger stabbing a line of text halfway down the page. “According to this History of the Scottish Clans, the chieftain of my family’s clan became the Duke of Argyll. Pretty impressive, huh? Wait ’til my kid hears there’s royalty in the family. He might have to switch from drinking beer to something more snooty, like wine coolers.”
“Is the Duke of Argyll the fella who started that nice line of clothing and accessories for both men and women?” asked Margi. “I love his socks.”
“The Duke of Argyll?” Bill Gordon’s voice boomed out from the corner, prompting all eyes to swivel in his direction.
He was ruggedly built in an “over-the-hill” kind of way, with a bristly red beard, chest as broad as a beer barrel, and a head full of coarse, ginger-colored hair that was shot through with silver. His brows stretched in wild disarray above his eyes, like thorns in an overgrown thicket. His fists were big as mallets. His body language hinted that he was long on pomposity and short on patience, which probably explained why he looked as if he were about to set his hair on fire.
Breaking away from his team, he strode to the center of the room, where he drilled Isobel with a menacing look. “That would mean your clan name is Campbell.”
Stella Gordon plopped onto a settee and tossed her head back, offering the heavens a mournful look. “Here we go.”
Margi gasped. “Are you the soup people, too? Oh, my goodness. I love your new cheeseburger chowder with loaded baked potato flavor.” She squinted thoughtfully. “Or is that the generic brand?”
“My maiden name was Campbell,” Isobel said proudly, her gaze fixed on Bill. “What of it?”
“If you’re a Campbell, you’re no friend of mine.”
Isobel looked him up and down, as if he were an engine that needed crushing. “Gee, pops, I’m devastated. But the feeling’s mutual, I’m sure.”
Bill stood statue-still for a moment before whirling around to address the room in a voice that swelled with righteous anger. “Shall I tell you the tale of the crooked Campbells?”
Unh-oh. I was getting a bad vibe that the tale of the crooked Campbells was going to be a lot more grisly than the tale of say, Benjamin Bunny.
“They’re land-grubbing charlatans,” he spat, “from the first to the last. There was never a good one born, and not nearly enough that’s dead. They instigated. They persecuted. They outright lied. And the highlands ran red with blood because of them.”
Isobel braced her fists on the table, eyes slatted, lips pinched. “I wasn’t alive back then, and neither were you, so here’s a little advice. GET OVER IT.”
“The Gordons will never get over it! Hating Campbells is in our blood. We’ll never forget Glen Coe, or Argyll’s betrayal, or the massacre at Culloden. We know you for what you are, you traitorous, murdering sons of bi—”
“Mom should be here at any minute,” I broke in, glancing desperately toward the door. “So if you’d all please find a seat, we’ll be ready to hear the results when she—”
“Where are you digging this crap up?” Isobel shot back at Bill. “Glen Coe? Culloden? Who’s ever heard of this stuff ?”
Stella tossed her head back, groaning. “You should attend one of their family reunions. It’s all they talk about.”
“You have the nerve to stand there and tell me you’ve never heard of Glen Coe?” Bill accused. “You’ve never heard how Campbell foot-soldiers repaid the hospitality of the MacDonalds by slaughtering every man jack of them? Not on the battlefield, mind you. They didn’t fight like real men. They slew them as they rose from their beds, unaware and unarmed. And when they were done with the men, they punished the womenfolk and their babes by burning every house in the glen, leaving them with no food or shelter, in the middle of winter. Leaving them to die in the ice and snow. But the Campbells didn’t care about innocent children, the bloody savages. They couldn’t stop boasting about what they’d done.” His tone grew ominous, his eyes threatening. “There’s a special place in Hell for you and your kin.”
“My mother was a MacDonald,” Dolly Pinker announced with a stunned expression that deteriorated into utter contempt as she regarded Isobel. “Are you telling me that her relatives