“Sound so fierce? I could never do it.” Elliot tried mimicking Jack’s tone of speaking, and his gestures made Isla laugh harder until her ears and cheeks reddened.
Jack couldn’t wipe his own smile off his face. “Ye make jest of everythin’, Brother,” he said.
“Pardon me. I find that I enjoy the Lady’s company. She kens a lot about history and is a fast learner. Can ye believe she kens about the ruin of Kirkpatrick that happened a hundred years before our faither was born? The disaster that brought the downfall of the entire Kirkpatrick Clan.”
“I mingle with lots of scholars,” Isla chirped in, and Elliot turned to her again to continue the conversation.
“Mind if I steal her?” Jack interrupted his brother. He knew how inquisitive Elliot could get and he did not want to Isla to get into a situation where she would say the wrong things.
“Of course,” Elliot replied and his eyes gleamed. “She is all yers.”
After Elliot walked away, Isla was still grinning and shaking her head. “He is very interesting to be around,” she said. “Can’t remember the last time I spoke to anyone for this long.”
“I am glad that ye are enjoyin’ yerself.”
“Not entirely,” she replied. “I mean the servants here still look at me different, and then there’s your man-at-arms.” Isla sucked in a deep breath before she added, “I do not think he likes me very much.”
“Jamie is a little tough, but he loosens up after a while. He will get used to ye.”
She shrugged. “It doesn’t matter anyway; I don’t plan to be here for long, remember?”
No, he didn’t, but she just reminded him. Jack nodded once, then turned and faced the deep gully of the dried-up moats.
“Ye should be careful of how much ye tell my brother or anyone else here about the thin’ ye ken. They might nay understand this as the people here are a bit—”
“Conservative?” she supplied.
“That is what I mean,” Jack said with a smile. “The words ye use are nae common here.”
Isla chuckled. “Everyone knows what conservative means, come on. There are scholars here too, are they not? Your cousin seems like one, he knows a lot about England.”
“Just try nae to be so different from lasses of our time,” he advised.
“Yes, Sir,” she replied and then they both laughed.
Jack lowered his gaze into the dried moat for a while, and thought about what to say to her next, but Isla’s mind had already moved ahead, so she spoke first. “Do you spend most of your days outside the Castle in the fields?”
He nodded. “I inspect the work in the farmlands, hold council meetings with the high Clansmen to discuss the matters arisin’ in every village on my land, and also settle disputes among my Clansmen.”
“You forgot mentioning hosting of feasts… it is a laird’s thing to do.”
“Ah, yes. I do host feasts,” he replied with a smile.
Isla shook her head, then suddenly stepped away from the short wall she leaned on and did a twirl while holding the skirts of her earasaid. “Is this how the ladies dance at the feasts?” she asked.
Jack shook his head. “Let me show ye.”
He moved to her, took her left hand, and held it up to face his palm flat, then he stepped to her right side while she went to the left, kicked his foot out to show the Highland steps, then moved to her right side again.
“Interesting,” Isla said as she quickly learned the steps and started to dance with him. Jack loved how fast her mind worked. They danced around for a while, then stopped and both laughed.
Isla put her hands on her cheeks after her rippling sounds in her heart subsided, then she met his gaze. His own heart was pounding as he stared at her, and Jack needed to control his breathing.
It didn’t take long for him to do it. When he looked away, he raised his head to the sky and inhaled the dampness in the air that hinted at a coming rain.
“What about ye?” he asked after a short silence. “What do ye spend yer time doin’ in England?”
“I have my morning tea, sit in the garden, and read with my friends, attend orchestras on the weekends, find time to visit the park and walk with gentlemen. I also attend balls and parties. My friends have this obsession with finding a husband, so they always are among the socialites.”