“How are you today, Kyla?” he asked, taking the matching worn, wooden chair to the one she was sitting in, swirling it around and straddling the back of it as he faced her.
“Just fine,” she said, “and you?”
“All is well,” he said with a small smile. “What are you doing in here?” he asked. “I’m sure there is someone else who would be better suited to the task.”
“I volunteered,” she said with a sigh, wishing now that she hadn’t. “I had some ideas I wanted to contemplate and thought this would give me ample opportunity. Only, I overestimated the time I needed to ponder, and now I’m itching to begin putting my idea into being. Instead, I’m here peeling potatoes. Alone.”
“What were you pondering?” he asked, interest gleaming in his eyes. Adam was a thinker as much as she was, and she knew he would appreciate her thoughts. He actually listened to her as though she had some sense in her brain and gave credence to her ideas.
“It’s the great hall,” she said, keeping her eyes down as she didn’t want to come in and upend everything. “I thought perhaps there might be a way to maintain the McDougall presence while making it slightly more… welcoming.”
“Do tell.”
She began to describe her thoughts on the layout, which led to ideas on better access to the gardens, and then she launched into all of the research she had done on what grew the best in this climate, when the vegetables needed to be planted, and what had thrived at the MacTavish holdings.
“In fact,” she said, holding up a finger, “perhaps I could even replant some of what is currently at home—at Darfield that is. I was thinking—” she stopped, her face warming. “But I am getting too far ahead of myself. I do not even know if my ideas would be welcome. I am in no way suggesting that anything currently in place here is not good enough. I was only—”
Adam chuckled as he held up a hand.
“It is not as though you are a stranger to us, Kyla,” he said gently. “You have always been part of our family, and we have always known that you would one day truly become a McDougall. And the fact is, I think you have some genuinely good ideas. Speak to my mother about them.”
“Really?” she said, looking up at him, hope blooming within her that perhaps, if Adam was open to her thoughts, Finlay would be too.
She heard a step at the door and looked up to find the man in question standing there within the doorway. His expression was unreadable as he looked from her to Adam and back to her again. Somehow his gaze gave her cause to feel as though he was displeased with her, that she had something to feel ashamed of.
“Finlay,” she said, swallowing such ridiculous thoughts, “I—”
But he was gone without a word, and Adam only shrugged at her apologetically before continuing on his way himself, leaving her with the pile of damned potatoes she had brought upon herself.
She received an even worse reaction a couple of days later when she was sitting in the library at the desk that had become hers, reviewing the ledgers of the food that had been grown, gathered, and stored for the winter. They were coming to the last of the season to harvest potatoes and other vegetables. She stood up to find Finlay to discuss the livestock, her head still inclined over the ledger she held within her hands. As she took a step forward, she collided into a solid chest, and looked up to Roderick’s smiling face.
“Hello, sister,” he said with a grin. “Head in a book? It seems you’re just as studious as our Adam. Anything of interest in there?”
“Only if you have a love of potatoes,” she said, responding to his ever-present smile.
“Ach, potatoes, never been my favorite, unfortunately, though heaven knows I have not much choice in the matter. If ye can find something else with which to fill my stomach, well, then, I’ll be forever grateful,” he said with a bow.
As she laughed at him, she sensed movement to her right, and turned to see Finlay at the doorway, his eyebrows knit together in a grimace.
“Finlay!” she said, forcing a smile of welcome on her face, though she was worried, as always, of just how he would greet her today. “Were you down in the village?”
“Does it matter?” he asked tersely, glaring at both of them before asking Roderick to excuse them so he could have a word with his wife. Roderick looked expectantly from one of them to the other before leaving with an exaggerated bow without asking any questions, though he did send Kyla a quick wink on his way out.
“I was simply wondering where you had gone today,” she said in an even tone, answering Finlay’s earlier question. “And aye, I suppose it does matter. I’m interested.”
“It seemed Roderick was holding your interest well enough. He has much more propensity for storytelling than I do.”
“Perhaps he does,” she said cautiously, not wishing to enter into an argument but neither willing to put up with his barbed comments and veiled annoyances any longer. “Finlay, have I done something to offend you?”
“Nothing at all,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Though perhaps, if you could not have had Callum, you would have preferred one of my other brothers?”
She leaned back against the desk, closing the ledger and letting it dangle from one hand.
“Your brothers have been my friends for years,” she said, slowly and quietly, realizing she would have to be the one to maintain reason. “Am I not supposed to enjoy a conversation with them now and again?”
“A conversation?” he raised his eyebrows. “Every time I seek you out, you are either sharing secrets with Adam or being charmed by Roderick. At night after suppers,
