Elizabeth Mayne - The Highlander's Maiden

And he had kissed her.

Cassie found herself blushing to the roots of her hairline. Thank the Lord no one noticed. Even Maggie was much too entertained by the humorous anecdotes the surveyors told of their travels and travails while measuring Scotland.

Listening, Cassie realized very quickly that she was in the presence of a master in the art of dissembling. Robert Gordon never gave one hint why mapping the Highlands was so important to him any more than he missed savoring a heaping serving of the excellent foods put in front of him. Nor did conversation ever stray to what purpose their patron, the Marquess of Hamilton, had in mind for funding their audacious endeavor either.

“Why must ye make a new map of Scotland? What’s wrong with the map we have?” Millie’s clear soprano voice sang out, directly asking the question they all wanted answered.

Robert Gordon laid his hands flat on the table beside his empty plate, turned to Millie and answered her in a serious voice. “Because all maps of Scotland are wrong.”

“How do ye know they’re wrong?”

Children, Cassie knew, would do almost anything to escape being bored. She wanted to applaud her niece, but a quick check of Millie’s parents’ nettling brows kept Cassie silent.

“That’s a very good question, Millicent.” That he remembered her niece’s name took Cassie aback. “How do you usually know if something is wrong, Millie? May I call you Millie?”

Now he had Cassie’s undivided attention. Men rarely took notice of curious little girls, let alone engaged in conversation with them.

Cassie watched his right hand unfasten a horn button on his coat, then settle contentedly on the warm bulge of his lean stomach. She saw that his tapered fingers and nails were as clean as her own and frowned privately because that was another mark in his favor. Drat the man! Why did she keep discovering new things about him she liked?

“Oh, aye,” Millie chirped. “That’s what everyone calls me. I know something’s wrong because my da tells me so.” Millie then thought about what she’d said and added, “Or I ask my mother.”

“And if they can’t tell you the answer?”

Undaunted, Millie responded, “I would go to the Bible.”

“Have you seen any maps of Scotland in a Bible, Millie?” He sought clarity as subtly as an Edinburghtrained tutor.

“No, they didn’t know about Scotland in Our Lord’s time. My grandfather, Laird MacArthur, has maps of Scotland. I’ve seen them, but he won’t let me play with them because he says they’re more precious than jewels.”

“When I was a little older than you, I sailed as my uncle’s cabin boy to the Orneys and learned to navigate the ship, chart the course it traveled each day at sea. I learned to use tools that correctly measure a ship’s position., Let me give you an example. Do you know how far the pond you were skating at yesterday is from your home?”

Millie’s face scrunched up in deep consideration of that question. She looked to her father, then without any prompting said proudly, “A wee stretch of the legs is all.”

“Aye.” Robert Gordon smiled at the little girl, lavishing the child with his undivided attention.

Cassie thought the smile very kind of him. He had a beautiful smile, white, even teeth and a well-formed head. His brown hair was thick and wavy, still damp and curly at the nape of his neck. She tried to imagine him in a court wig and couldn’t.

She clapped her hand to her face and looked out upon the proceedings through widened fingers. Why was she was even trying to fit a vagabond wanderer into her imaginary daydreams?

“Three miles uphill is a wee stretch of any lassie’s legs.” Robert Gordon’s voice interrupted her thoughts. “Or more precisely, it is exactly fifteen thousand eight hundred forty feet or three miles.”

“Lordy! Do ye mean it for true?” Millie quit staring at the mapmaker’s clear blue eyes and looked at Cassie, exclaiming, “Aunt Cassie, no wonder we dinna skate not nearly so much that day!”

“It’s easier to come down than it is to go up,” Cassie replied.

“Not with Ian dragging on yer skirts,” Millie observed as she turned to her father to see if he had known that his wee stretch of the legs was now officially three long, measurable miles.

Robert Gordon looked over the platters of food to Cassie, who was sitting at her sister’s side. They were alike and they weren’t alike. He’d never have picked them as sisters if the similarity of their blue eyes was not so pronounced. He spoke to them both, but his words rebutted Cassie’s rather foolish observation.

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