"Oh? Ye can do better?" Tavis drawled with a touch of sarcasm, but his eyes revealed his delight in the small girl. "By all means, make us privy to your knowledge."
"I will if I can, despite your cynicism, sir." She ignored the chuckles of the men and looked around for what she required, spotted it and ordered Andrew to go fetch it.
"I won't," her brother said stubbornly. "I do not see why I should get dirty."
Storm looked at this sign of rebellion in the ranks with contempt and half raised her fist. "Ye will or your stub of a nose will be peeping out of the curls on the back of your head."
Andrew went but tried to salve his pride with a lot of grumbling concerning his sister's many faults. Storm busied herself getting a bowl and clean water and tearing her petticoats into clean strips. She washed her hands, washed the wound and cleansed the needle she would use. When Andrew returned she made her poultice, neatly stitched the laird's wound after dousing it with whiskey, treated it and expertly bound it, even to tying a sling for the laird's arm.
The MacLagans watched with amused admiration. Not only was the child not made squeamish by the ugly wound, but she had a definite skill. As she worked she talked to the dark, scarred Scottish laird just as a nurse to a child, much to the amusement of him and the other men.
Tavis, having recently reached the manly age of nineteen, was fascinated. Storm Eldon was an elfin child, small and slender. Her small, long-fingered hands held a grace far beyond her years. The thick hair speedily escaped the restraint of her braids and looked startling against a skin of alabaster hue. Her face was heart shaped, and the wide, slanted, amber eyes, set beneath tilted brown brows and heavily lashed, seemed to fill it, leaving little room for the delicately shaped nose and full mouth. He could not even begin to catalogue the many facets of her character.
"How old are you, child?" he asked as she washed her hands.
"I turned ten a month past." She handed Iain the remainder of her homemade salve, instructing, "You keep the wound clean, change the dressing thrice each day, and dab a bit more of this on it until it begins to close. In about a week or ten days ye can cut the stitches. I hope Papa did not get hurt, for he likes me to tend to him. The others fuss over him too much."
"There was no sign that he had been," Sholto MacLagan, the youngest of Colin's three sons, said.
They were brought some food, for it was thought that it would take some time for the Eldons and the Fosters to gather the ransom. The six children sat quietly eating, unaware that the MacLagans discussed them. Hilda glanced toward them every now and then, but the captive men needed her attention more.
"Do ye think the lass has poisoned ye?" Sholto jested when he saw the laird touch his bandage.
"Nay. I was just thinking it a job well done. Never seen such neat stitches. The lass has the touch. I have seen me a muckle lot of wee lasses in my years, but none the like of her."
"Aye," Tavis agreed. "I was thinking much the same. Hard to believe she is an English lass."
Colin grinned. "Aye. Too much spirit in her. Stick ye like a pig indeed." He laughed but stopped suddenly, his eyes on the children. "Oh ho. Trouble in the ranks."
Robin Foster was suffering from bruised pride. It was a sore point to recall how he had cowered behind Storm's skirts when faced with the enemy. Now it rubbed to have her holding sway over all of them, a position he felt should be his. When she told him to take his sister's plate it was one thing too many. He leapt to his feet, tossed his plate to the ground and glared at Storm.
"No, I will not. I do not have to take orders from you. 'Tis an insult."
Storm slowly rose to her feet, hearing the insult to her behind his words. "How so, young Robin?"
"I am destined to be an English peer and I'll not take orders from a half-Irish bastard."
"I'm no bastard and well ye know it. My father married my mother ere I was born."
"Minutes before," Robin sneered. "We have all heard the tale. Well, Robin Foster takes no orders from the spawn of some Irish whore," he yelled, his words echoing in a suddenly quiet camp.
His words were barely spoken when Storm's fist sent him sprawling to the ground. She flung herself upon him and began the fight in earnest then, her skirts not hampering her in brawling as well as any lad. They were equally matched. The men moved in closer to watch, thus stopping Hilda from putting an end to it. Matilda watched silently, but Storm's brother and cousins were highly vocal in urging her on to victory. Even the captives took sides.
"Irish blood, eh?" Colin mused as he watched the children fighting. "That explains it. I wonder where and how his lordship found himself an Irish lass?"
"She has him now. This will sore wound his pride," Tavis said, laughing.
Storm had Robin pinned to the ground. "Do ye yield?" she asked with one fist raised near his face.
For an instant Robin hesitated, but his body had already suffered too much from those punishing little fists. "Aye, aye. I yield. I yield."
"Now take back those words ye said about my
