A Highland Folly by Jo Ann Ferguson Page B

name?”
    â€œYes.” Anice’s eyes grew wide when he snapped an oath under his breath. “Lucais, I have never had much of a family before I came here. Sometimes my mother was married and I had a stepfather. Then she was not.”
    â€œShe seems to have had her share of husbands.”
    â€œAnd the misfortune to fall in love with adventurous men who risked their lives foolishly.” She bit her lip, then whispered, “Her last husband risked his life and hers and lost them both. Then I had no family but Pippy and Bonito. The letter from my grandmother’s estate had been following me around the world and found me shortly after Mother’s death. It offered me a family I had never had.”
    â€œAlong with the obligations of supervising it.”
    â€œThat I did not know until I arrived here. What I have is not perfect, but a family is something I never believed I would have.”
    â€œSo you say now. Will you feel the same when the obligations of family become tiresome?”
    Anice was spared from answering when she heard a sharp whistle from above them on the hillside. Before she could look up, dirt and small pebbles rained down on the path. Lucais grabbed her and pulled her away from the miniature avalanche.
    Parlan jumped down to the path, holding his gun easily. He scowled as he looked at Anice. Ignoring Lucais, he said, “I thought my eyes were mistaken, but they were not. What are you doing out here on this side of the river?”
    â€œI was paying a call,” she answered.
    â€œOn whom?”
    Anice slid her hand out of Lucais’s grip and stepped around the horse. “I have not done Lord Chesterburgh the courtesy of calling on him.”
    â€œWhy are you going to Chesterburgh?” growled Parlan. “Have you no pride?”
    â€œPride? What does pride have to do with anything?”
    He jabbed a finger in Lucais’s direction. “Look at him. He’s smiling, so he knows what you, as the head of our family, should. No Kinloch goes offering a petition at the Chesterburgh door.”
    â€œI was not offering a petition. I was seeking his opinion on the road project.”
    Parlan bristled. “Opinion? If he is not against it, he simply proves that the present marquess is as useless as the rest of his family has been for generations.”
    Lucais’s lips grew straight, but he said only, “I bid you good day, Anice. It has been an interesting afternoon.”
    â€œThank you,” she replied, not looking at her cousin. Why did Parlan have to take advantage of every opportunity to offend Lucais? This time Parlan had done Lucais a disservice by ignoring him instead of apologizing for sending the rocks and dirt down on them. Seeing her cousin’s smile as Lucais wiped dust from his coat, she wondered if it had been an accident.
    Parlan paid no attention to Lucais, who continued along the riverbank. With another growl he asked, “How many more ways can you shame our family, Anice? I thought you knew better.”
    â€œAbout what? If you explain, I might understand.”
    â€œYou do not need to understand anything but that the Kinlochs and those who live at Chester Hills have nothing to do with one another. It has been that way since those traitors sided with the English king in the English Civil War.”
    â€œThat was almost two hundred years ago!” She stared at him in disbelief. “Are you telling me that the two families have not spoken to each other in all that time?”
    â€œThey stay on their side of the river, and we stay on ours. I saw the marquess once when he came riding through Killiebige.” He spat on the ground. “That is what I think of him and his family.”
    â€œBut if the present marquess and his family have done us no wrong—”
    â€œMemories are long in the Highlands, Anice. Even a single mistake is never forgiven.” He looked toward where Lucais was disappearing