“Quiet, Marmy,” she said to the mare. “Calm down. We’re going. Don’t rush me.” As she lifted the reins, Tam stepped away, but Angus just stared up at her. “If you don’t get out of the way, you’re going to get hurt,” she said to him, and there was amusement in her voice.

But Angus still stood there, gaping, unable to move.

In the next second, the girth on the horse slipped and with it the saddle. It slid around the horse, sending the girl to the left, toward Angus. She gave a little cry and tried to hold on, but with the saddle falling to one side, there was nothing to hold on to.

Emergencies were something that Angus was used to and was good at. The girl’s sound of panic brought him out of his stupor and he reacted instantly. He grabbed the reins and pulled them tight to get the horse under control. Still holding the reins, he tried to catch the girl, but she slid to the other side and fell onto the stones.

By the time she landed, Tam had run forward to help with the prancing horse, moving it forward so that Angus and the girl were no longer separated. He reached down to help her up.

“Don’t you touch me!” she said as she got up by herself and dusted at her clothes. She glared at him. “You did this! I don’t know who you are, but I know you did it.”

Angus wanted to defend himself, but his pride wouldn’t let him. What could he say, that he’d seen a clansman sabotaging her saddle and that he, Angus, had tried to save her? Or would he say he should have checked the girth before she mounted but that he’d been so blinded by her beauty he’d completely forgotten about the saddle? He’d rather be flogged than say such things.

“I am the McTern of McTern,” he said at last, with his shoulders back and looking down at her.

“Oh, I see,” she said, her face pinkened prettily with anger. “My uncle stole your property so now you take it out on me.” She looked him up and down, sneering at his wild-looking hair and his full beard, then her eyes traveled down to his kilt. “Is your protest of my uncle why you wear a dress? Tell me if you want to borrow one of mine. They’re much cleaner than yours.” With that, she turned and went back into the old castle.

For a moment there was no sound in the courtyard. It was as though even the birds had stopped singing, then, in one huge, loud shout, everyone started laughing. Men, women, children, even a couple of goats tied along the wall started a high-pitched laugh.

Angus stood in the middle of it all, and what little of his face could be seen was dark red with embarrassment. Turning, he went back to the stables, and all along the way, he heard the comments that renewed their howls of laughter. “He didn’t want to see her.” “No one could tell him anything.” “Did you see the way he stared at her? You could have cut off his foot and he wouldn’t have felt it.” Angus even heard the women laughing at him. “He’s not so uppity now. He wouldn’t dance with me, but she won’t dance with him. Oh, he deserves this, he does.”

It was as though in a single minute he’d gone from being the lord of his kingdom to the jester.

Passing by the stables, he went out through the gate in the tall wall that surrounded the castle and headed toward his own cottage. He wanted to explain himself to someone, to tell his side of what had happened. It was Shamus who had loosened the girth on her horse and Angus had been about to tighten it, but the girl had startled him so that he hadn’t done it. Yes, that was a good word. She’d startled him. She’d shown up wearing her silly little hat and her bright jacket with the big buttons and he’d been so startled by the sight of such ridiculousness that he’d been speechless. And the ribbons in her hair! Had anyone ever seen anything so foolish? Her clothes were so absurd that she’d not last ten minutes in the hills. Yes, that’s what he’d say he’d been thinking. He was looking so hard at the uselessness of her garb that he’d been speechless.

By the time he reached his cottage he was feeling a bit better. Now he had a story to counteract what everyone seemed to think had actually happened.

But when he got within a few feet of the door, his sister came out and she was grinning. She had a dirty-faced child holding on to her skirt, another one on her hip, and a third one in her belly, and she was smiling broadly.

Behind her, her husband stuck his head out the door. He was still red-faced from how fast he must have run to beat Angus back to the cottage. “Did you do it?” he asked. “Did you loosen her stirrup so she’d fall?”

That was more than Angus could bear. “Never would I hurt a woman,” he said, his voice showing his shock. “How could you think such of me?”

His sister said nothing, but she was laughing.

Angus could only stare at the two of them. What had he ever done to make them think he was capable of something this low? He wasn’t about to honor his brother-in-law’s accusation with an answer. Turning, he started walking away.

He only slowed when he heard his sister call out to him, “Have mercy on me, Angus. My belly slows me down.”

He halted and looked back at her. “I have nothing to say to you.”

When she caught up with him, she put her hand on his shoulder. “Either we sit and rest or you’re going to be delivering this baby by yourself here and now.”

That made him sit on a rock, and Kenna sat by him, working to get her breath while stroking her big belly to calm it. “He dinna mean anything bad,” she said.

“Your husband or Shamus?”

“So it was Shamus who loosened the girth. I figured so.”

“You’re the only one. The rest of them think I did it.”

“Nay, they do not,” she said.

“Your husband-”

“Is sick with jealousy over you,” Kenna said. “You know that.”

“What does he have to be jealous of me about? He has a home, a family, the best wife there is.”

“The home doesn’t belong to him and all he seems good at is producing babies. You run everything.”

“Yet I am the one being laughed at.”

“Oh, Angus,” she said, leaning against him, “look at you. You’ve been a man since you were a boy and our father was killed. By twelve you’d taken on everything that our grandfather had gambled away. People have always looked up to you. There isn’t a girl within a hundred miles who wouldn’t have you, beg for you.”

“I doubt that,” Angus said, but his voice softened.

“Don’t be so small spirited that you begrudge the people a chance to laugh at you. Why canna you laugh with them?”

“They think-”

“That you made the girl fall off her horse? Do you truly believe anyone thinks that of you?”

“Your husband…” Angus trailed off because he well knew that his brother-in-law didn’t really believe he’d loosen the cinch on anyone’s horse. If Angus wanted to hurt someone, he’d do it face-to-face.

“Gavin and everyone else either knows or can guess who did that to the poor girl. And as for what she said to you…” Kenna smiled. “If she’d said it to someone else, you would have fallen over with laughter. I wish you’d told her that you have a sister who’d like to borrow her clothes.”

“Would you like to have a silk dress?” he asked softly. His sister was five years older than he was and the person he loved the most. If the truth were told, there was more than a little jealousy coming from him toward her husband. Since Kenna had married, Angus felt as though he’d been alone.

“Would I like a silk dress? Trade you a bairn for one.”

Angus laughed. “If all of them you produce are as bad as your eldest, you’d have to trade six of them for a length of silk.”

“He’s just like you were at that age.”

“I never was!”

“Worse,” she said, laughing. “And he’s the spitting image of you. Or I think he is, but it’s been too long since I’ve seen your face.” Reaching up, she touched his big beard. “Why don’t you let me cut that?”

He pulled her hand away and kissed the palm. “It keeps me warm, and that’s what I need.”