The Making of a Highlander (Midnight in Scotland #1) - Elisa Braden Page 0,1
kind. She’d seen Finlay, acknowledged Finlay, when no one else did.
Feeling the laddie’s cool, dark hair slide through her fingertips, Annie sighed and leaned against the open door, trying to stifle the fear that clutched with a cold, relentless grip.
At midday, the sky was like iron. Drizzle had started up again. Had it ever stopped?
She gathered her plaid tighter around her, folding her arms across her chest and watching mud deepen along the lane. “Have ye enough bread to see ye ‘til Wednesday, Mrs. MacBean?” she asked over her shoulder, eyeing the basket of loaves she’d brought.
“Oh, aye,” came the vague reply. “I’m obliged to ye, dear.” The chair near the fireplace creaked its familiar groan as the old woman sat. “The brown book with the acorn on the spine might say somewhat about spiritual afflictions. Now, where did I bury that one?”
Annie caught Finlay’s gaze and crossed her eyes. He glanced toward the muttering Mrs. MacBean and smothered a laugh.
“We’ll return in a few days, then,” Annie said, plucking her hat from the hook.
The old woman scratched her head. Then her leg. Then her elbow. She stood and searched beneath her cracked wooden chair.
Annie raised a brow at Finlay, who shot her a crooked grin. She was pleased to see it. He’d been so unwell of late she’d begun to despair of ever seeing that Fin Grin again.
Perhaps this would be one of his better days.
As she left the cottage, he remained tethered to her side. She tugged her hat lower, cursing the sullen rain and the wilting brim. She’d inherited the worthless thing from her stepbrother Broderick, who’d inherited it from her eldest stepbrother, Campbell.
Blasted MacPhersons had heads the size of washtubs.
Huffing as she resettled the hat on the back of her head, she added four strapping stepbrothers to her silent cursing and tromped through deepening mud.
Down the lane that ran from the foothills along the loch toward the village, two MacDonnell women lingered outside a tidy cottage. The younger Mrs. MacDonnell resettled a bairn on her broad hip and grumbled to her mother-in-law, “Cousin Dougal says work at the kelp beds has dried up. Next, I expect he’ll be bletherin’ about Canada again. That wife of his, no doubt. Glaswegian tart.” The bairn fidgeted until his mother pinched his leg. He whimpered but stopped squirming.
Grisel MacDonnell was Annie’s age, four-and-twenty, and already had four wee ones. Annie pitied those children. Grisel had a spiteful temper. Two of Annie’s scars had come from her teeth. They’d been lassies no bigger than Finlay when the injuries occurred, but still. Spiteful.
The elder Mrs. MacDonnell glanced up at the rain. “Warned him, I did. Naught remains in the coastlands but seabirds. Canada might offer better prospects.”
Grisel’s full lips twisted. “My fool husband says the same. Mayhap we should all board a ship, then.” Her gaze snagged upon Annie. “Christ’s blood,” she hissed, shifting her bairn to the opposite hip and backing toward the garden gate. “’Tis Mad Annie. She’s been to see the MacBean witch again.”
Her mother-in-law spun with a darting, wary stare in Annie’s direction. “Best get inside,” the older woman muttered, gesturing with nervous fingers. “Out the rain.”
A devilish impulse took hold of Annie. She caught Finlay’s eye.
Ah, there was that Fin Grin again.
She winked then whispered, “Watch this.” Spinning mid-stride, she began walking backward as she passed the two women. She extended her arms, letting the folds of her plaid drape like wings. “Och, ’tis the rain that delivers the curse, Mrs. MacDonnell.”
“C-curse?”
“Aye. Dinnae ye feel it?” While the two women watched with saucer eyes, she raised her arms above her head as though calling down the powers of heaven. Her voice dropped to a thrum. “Whosoever causes a bairn tae greet an’ wail shall suffer the selfsame miseries twelvefold. Beware. Beware. Beware!”
Grisel’s ruddy skin whitened with each “beware.” She frowned at the tear-stained bairn on her hip then eyed Annie with disbelief.
Annie didn’t blame her. If she were the sort of mother Grisel was, she wouldn’t want to believe in retribution curses, either.
Fluttering her fingers for added effect, Annie didn’t have to tell Finlay to join in the fun. He crossed the lane and tickled Grisel’s back. The woman shuddered and paled further. Finlay darted back to Annie’s side, covering his laughter.
The elder Mrs. MacDonnell ushered her stricken daughter-in-law through the