that with some spare parts he might be able to build a small satellite dish and contact a passing ship or maybe even a nearby planet.
“I don’t know, but it’s more hopeful than leaving our coordinates at the site and praying it’s Captain Kindros who shows up at Lochwood Castle to rescue us.”
“For the last time, I would have spelled out the coordinates!”
Several of the other riders turned to look at them.
Egads, he might have said that a tad bit louder than he’d intended, but Louie was infuriating sometimes.
“The IN can read French, and even if they can’t, they have computers that can.” She sighed and shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now, and besides, you have other things to worry about.” She gave him a pointed look. “Mainly telling Marcus and Patrick about Trouble.”
Ugh! Leave it to Louie to bring up the one thing he really didn’t want to think about right now. He’d been thinking about it all night. And the only thing he was sure about in regards to it was that he’d made things harder for himself by not telling them immediately. “Why me? You could tell them, you know.”
“Me? I’m just a humble servant.” Her chin lifted into a position that was anything but humble.
“Humble, my arse!”
Louie smiled at him. “Your kilt is riding up.”
Ugh! Of course it was. Bannon glanced down, and sure enough his plaid had crept up to midthigh again. Every step his horse took made it do so. With a sigh, he tugged the fabric down, toward his knees, for the hundredth time in the past quarter hour. He still wasn’t sure why he had to wear a kilt, but Ciaran had insisted. Other clans were not going to be fooled into thinking him a MacKay by the fact that he wore a kilt. His short, fashionably cut red hair made him stick out, since all the MacKays had long hair. “To quote Winstol, you suck! And stop changing the subject!”
Wait. I thought we wanted to change the subject?
Oh, you suck too, Timothy!
Louie raised a brow at him as if sensing his inner argument with himself, then smirked at him. “That doesn’t sound like something Marcus would say.”
Bannon growled. Damn it, he was going to have to stop calling Trouble Winstol. “A humble servant doesn’t call a marquess and a marquess-consort by their given names.”
“She does if they insist.”
Well, she had him there. Marcus and Patrick were both quite insistent that he and Louie call them both by their given names, protesting that they hadn’t felt like nobility in quite some time and that titles were significantly unimportant, given what they were dealing with. Bannon certainly couldn’t argue with that logic. Trouble would approve; he hates titles.
His horse tried to speed up, and Bannon had to pull back on the reins so his voice came out a little bumpy when he said, “I don’t know how to tell them. It just didn’t seem appropriate to blurt out ‘Your son is alive. Oh, and by the way, one of those IN admirals who you hate is raising him as his own.’”
“They never said they hated Lord Deverell.”
“But they don’t trust him. Even after we vouched for him.”
“Can you blame them? They trusted Jenkins and look what he did.” Louie gave a mock shudder.
Bannon’s shiver wasn’t so mock. He still couldn’t believe that Jenkins was in on all of this. Father was going to have an apoplexy when he found out.
“You’re being overdramatic.”
Reining his horse around a craggy boulder in the middle of the pass, Bannon glared. “I am not.”
“Are too.”
“Am n….” Ugh, why did she always make him argue with her?
“They are reasonable men. They will understand and even be grateful that Trouble has been so well cared for and loved.”
“Will they?” He wasn’t so sure. Maybe he could tell Ciaran and let Ciaran tell them. They seemed to adore Ciaran.
And who can blame them?
Glancing up the line, he found Ciaran.
Blast, the man was gorgeous, even if he was still barbaric.
It really is a shame we don’t have a sketchscreen with us.
Timothy was right. It definitely was a shame, but somehow Bannon doubted it mattered. Ciaran was not a man easily forgotten. He certainly haunted Bannon’s dreams last night. He didn’t know whether to thank the witch otherwise known as Maggie or add her interruption yesterday to his list of reasons he didn’t like her. What was he saying? Of course, he was thankful—his self-restraint was not one of his positive qualities….
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