Conran pursed his lips and then commented, “Do ye sometimes wonder what it means that so many of us have ended up with women who have mad people trying to kill them?”
Greer snorted at the question. “Forget that, what does it mean that so many of us have murderers in our life at all? Ye ken there are people out there who live their whole lives without ever encountering a killer, mad or otherwise? Yet this family constantly runs into them.”
“Aye,” Alick agreed. “’Tis like we’re honey and the murderers are bees.”
The Maclean guffawed at the claim and shook his head. “Bees make honey, lad. If murderers are bees, that would make ye lads flowers.”
“No’ us,” Greer countered at once. “’Tis usually the women they’re trying to kill.”
“Aye,” Dougall agreed at once. “Our women are the flowers that are attracting the killer bees.”
“Just do no’ mention that around Saidh or there’ll be hell to pay,” Greer said dryly.
“Aye, ye might no’ want to mention it around Evina either,” the Maclean murmured, but was smiling faintly.
They were all silent for a minute and then Alick commented, “On the bright side, we’re quite good at handling them.”
“We are?” Conran asked dubiously.
“Well, we’re all alive, aren’t we?” he pointed out. “And we learn from each one. For instance, ye thought to check under the clothes in the chests here because of what happened with—”
“There was nothing in the chests here,” Conran interrupted him to point out.
“Still, ye checked. That’s something,” he assured him.
Conran just shook his head and then glanced to the Sinclair’s young son, Bearnard, when the lad suddenly chuckled. Jo had left the boy with his father when she’d gone upstairs with the other women to meet Evina. The lad had dropped to sit on the rushes behind his father and both of the Maclean’s huge deerhounds seemed to think this a fine game and had stood to approach and lick his face and head. They were giving him a fine bath and the four-and-a-half-year-old was laughing as they did.
Conran shook his head with amusement. Today was the first time he’d even seen the beasts. It seemed the men had been keeping them out of the way down at the barracks while the Maclean was on his deathbed. But now that he was much recovered and up and about, he’d sent for them. The affection between the man and his beasts was obvious. They hadn’t let him out of their sight since he’d come below, following him from the keep and back and sitting by his position on the bench.
“Ah, dear lord, Bearnard,” Cam Sinclair muttered, turning to grab his son by the arm and lift him to his feet. “What are ye trying to do? Get me in trouble with yer mother? Ye’ve got rushes all over yer plaid now, and she’d be fair froth if I let the Maclean’s hounds eat ye.”
“They wouldn’t eat me, Da,” Bearnard assured him on a laugh. “They like me.”
“Are ye sure? It looked to me like they weren’t tasting ye,” he teased with a grin.
“Nay,” Bearnard said seriously, and then cast an arm around the nearest dog and started talking to it instead.
Shaking his head, Cam glanced toward the stairs and then back to the men and said, “I think Jo is with child again.”
“Congratulations,” the group said pretty much as one.
“But what do ye mean, ye think she is? Don’t ye ken for sure?” Rory asked.
“Nay. She’s trying to hide it from me, but is showing all the signs she did each time she was with child,” he said, and then muttered unhappily, “If she is, she most like won’t tell me until she gives birth or loses it like she has the last two.”
“She’s just trying to save ye worry,” Rory said quietly. “And many women lose a bairn or two between the ones that live. She’ll give ye another healthy bairn, I’m sure.”
“I don’t care about another bairn. I mean, I do, but I’m more worried about Jo,” Cam growled, and then added, “Which is why I suggested the surprise visit with Saidh and Greer. I knew at one point or another the women would insist on visits to Murine, Edith and Jetta.”
“Aye,” Dougall murmured. “Murine would be terrible upset if she found out Jo was in the south and had no’ stopped to see her.”
“Exactly,” Cam said, and then turned to Rory and admitted, “I kenned we’d