The Highlander's Maiden. Elizabeth Mayne
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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