Highland Magic by K. E. Saxon

now
disgusted by her. But she was not yet ready to reveal such a thing
to the priest in order to do penance for it, so she’d decided upon
a heart-felt prayer of forgiveness instead.
    A momentary flash of sense memory involving
Callum—and the feel of his invitingly bare nether regions against
her palm—invaded her thoughts just then, but she forcefully closed
her mind to it. What was it about that man that—she begrudgingly
admitted to herself now—appealed to her so? Her heart had actually
skipped a beat when he had walked into the great hall to break his
fast a bit ago. And why did she have to start feeling guilty now for making him so mad that he hurt his shoulder again
when he spanked her bottom? Why should she care if he was now
unable to hold his wee motherless daughter?
    But she did care. A lot.
    * * *
    “She’s such a lovely, wee thing, Grandmother
Maclean,” Branwenn said softly the next day as she turned from side
to side with Laire cradled and cooing quietly in her arms. “Aren’t
you, my wee apple blossom?”
    Laire cackled, her arms and legs flailing
wildly as her bright blue eyes twinkled up at Branwenn with
delight.
    “Aye, she’s got her mother’s look, but
blessed be, not her temperament.”
    “Hmm. Even with all I know of Lara’s behavior
last Hogmanay at the Maclean holding, still I cannot believe
that she actually ran from Callum—ran from this precious
babe—‘tis unpardonable in my estimation.”
    Lady Maclean sighed. “Aye, she was not a good
match for our Callum, and would not have been a good mother to our
Laire. Even so, ‘twas a tragic end to her, which I would not have
wished on her in any event.”
    “Mmm.”
    A glob of slobber trailed down the side of
Laire’s cheek, but Branwenn managed to catch it with the edge of
the swaddling cloth she held in her hand before it made its way
onto the sleeve of the borrowed—and rather cavernous—gown she wore.
She brushed a kiss across the babe’s warm brow and rested her lips
there a moment as she breathed in the sweet babe-smell of the
lass’s skin. After a moment, she turned her head and said to Lady
Maclean, “Must we swaddle her again? Surely, her limbs are not so
fragile now that we must keep them bound to prevent deformity.” She
turned her eye back to the babe in her arms. “Just look,
Grandmother, how happy Laire is to be free of those
restraints!”
    “Aye, but ‘tis not my decision to make—‘tis
her father’s. And my grandson is so careful with his daughter,
making sure he follows every rule regarding the proper care of a
babe, that I doubt he’ll allow us to unswaddle her until she’s
another moon or more older.”
    “Well, I’m not going to do it. If he wants
her bound up like a shank of mutton, then ‘twill be he who can do
the deed.”
    Callum, who’d been silently watching the
exchange regarding the swaddlings from the opened doorway, his arms
crossed over his chest and his good shoulder leaning against the
jam, straightened and took a few steps into the chamber, saying,
“Hand her to me.”
    Branwenn nearly jumped out of her skin.
Whirling, she faced him, but held the babe tightly to her chest.
“Not if you’re going to do what I think you are going to do.”
    “And, what, pray, do you believe I’m going to
do to the lass?”
    “Roll her in this”—she waved the swaddling
cloth in the air—“like some silkworm’s casing.”
    “And, by what right do you take this stance
with me—the babe’s father ?”
    Her chin tilted high, she responded dryly,
“By the right of all women, for ‘tis well-known that we are born
with the instincts for mothering.”
    “You call yourself ‘woman’? Why, you’re
merely a lass. You know naught of the ways of tending bairns.”
Callum had no desire to swaddle his wee one again either, but the
lass didn’t have to know that, did she? “As I said, hand her to
me.”
    Hot color washed over Branwenn’s cheeks. He
believed her callow, ‘twas clear. Callow,