The Chieftain's Yule Bride - a Highland Christmas novella (Clan MacKrannan's Secret Traditions #10) by Jonnet Carmichael
Authors: Jonnet Carmichael
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chieftain. All is well."
"Glad to hear it. Do you have enough Yule Brew for Miss Harper's wedding?"
"I could spare two barrels. And there's the Royal Jelly Liqueur, of course. It's always popular for weddings. An aid to fertility, they say."
"Oh we won't want that!" said Freya, appalled and amused all at once.
"Dearie me... do you have plenty of bairns already, then?"
"None. We don't want children. Not for a long while, anyway."
"Ah well, let's hope you can talk him into it while you're still young. No doubt we'll still be doing our Royal Jelly range on mail-order when he decides he's ready."
Tara's cheery disapproval was miles out of line, though nothing worse than Freya would be used to with the normal blunt honesty of her fellow countrywomen. Rustic charm had its limits when you were running a business, and it was luck that Freya was a Scot who tolerated such directness. But Tara had hit the mark with who was holding back.
The lass got flustered and defensive, which seemed out of character. "Zavier is at the top of his profession and we work together. I do a lot of travelling."
Tara wouldn't leave it be. Any who knew her as the Grandam Wisewoman would detect a bit of prophecy coming out when she said, "I'd like to see you home with a brood of bairns at your feet, lass. Two strapping brown-eyed lads and a wee lass as fair and bonny as yourself."
"Oh... interesting. That's what my Auntie Harper used to say but I can't think where the brown eyes would come from when both of us have blue. Well, who knows. Can we talk about candles now?"
"You were wanting the ones in the shape of Christmas Trees." A hint of censure there.
"Zavier did, but we're going for a different theme now. Plain dipped candles in varying sizes would be nicer..."
Tara beamed at that. She'd been against moulding her beeswax in daft shapes no matter how much customer demand there was.
"...And about the Yule Brew. You're sure two barrels will be enough?"
"Oh aye," said Tara. "Though you'll need to speak nice to my bees. They don't let every bride have it, my dear."
Here it was. This was why he wanted to be with Freya at the Brewery, to see how she reacted. Most young brides laughed at this part. A pride welled up in him when her eyes went wide and she nodded in all seriousness. "Of course."
Could Tara be any more chuffed? Her own matronly chest puffed out to fill her labcoat as she nodded right back. "Of course. Aye, you'll do grand."
MacKrannan Castle got weirder and weirder. Or more ordinary by the minute, if Freya reverted to her childhood.
She'd grown up among the fey women of the Highlands with their tea-leaf predictions and horseshoes and omens and daily protection against witches. Where she came from everyone who kept bees engaged in regular conversation with them, and she hadn't missed how pleased both Callum and Tara had been when she didn't argue... or sneer, as many brides would.
The MacKrannans were so traditional in their ways that Freya felt very much at home – the home she'd deliberately moved away from to escape traditions just like these. She'd wanted to be normal. The colossal amount of Second Sight she'd been born with just attracted the wrong kind of friends once she hit her teens, and the more Auntie Harper developed her, the lonelier Freya had become amongst people her own age.
Nobody normal could understand what it was like to walk into the university and see things like an ambulance shadowing a professor, a pushchair in front of a fellow student, a cleaner with a prosthetic leg... and none of those items real yet. But they would be by the time she'd graduated, and many, many more like them. She never told anyone except Auntie. Once in a while she also saw people's deceased relatives standing beside them as bright as the living, and had to check herself from including them in the conversation.
So she'd made her choice. Far better to
"Glad to hear it. Do you have enough Yule Brew for Miss Harper's wedding?"
"I could spare two barrels. And there's the Royal Jelly Liqueur, of course. It's always popular for weddings. An aid to fertility, they say."
"Oh we won't want that!" said Freya, appalled and amused all at once.
"Dearie me... do you have plenty of bairns already, then?"
"None. We don't want children. Not for a long while, anyway."
"Ah well, let's hope you can talk him into it while you're still young. No doubt we'll still be doing our Royal Jelly range on mail-order when he decides he's ready."
Tara's cheery disapproval was miles out of line, though nothing worse than Freya would be used to with the normal blunt honesty of her fellow countrywomen. Rustic charm had its limits when you were running a business, and it was luck that Freya was a Scot who tolerated such directness. But Tara had hit the mark with who was holding back.
The lass got flustered and defensive, which seemed out of character. "Zavier is at the top of his profession and we work together. I do a lot of travelling."
Tara wouldn't leave it be. Any who knew her as the Grandam Wisewoman would detect a bit of prophecy coming out when she said, "I'd like to see you home with a brood of bairns at your feet, lass. Two strapping brown-eyed lads and a wee lass as fair and bonny as yourself."
"Oh... interesting. That's what my Auntie Harper used to say but I can't think where the brown eyes would come from when both of us have blue. Well, who knows. Can we talk about candles now?"
"You were wanting the ones in the shape of Christmas Trees." A hint of censure there.
"Zavier did, but we're going for a different theme now. Plain dipped candles in varying sizes would be nicer..."
Tara beamed at that. She'd been against moulding her beeswax in daft shapes no matter how much customer demand there was.
"...And about the Yule Brew. You're sure two barrels will be enough?"
"Oh aye," said Tara. "Though you'll need to speak nice to my bees. They don't let every bride have it, my dear."
Here it was. This was why he wanted to be with Freya at the Brewery, to see how she reacted. Most young brides laughed at this part. A pride welled up in him when her eyes went wide and she nodded in all seriousness. "Of course."
Could Tara be any more chuffed? Her own matronly chest puffed out to fill her labcoat as she nodded right back. "Of course. Aye, you'll do grand."
MacKrannan Castle got weirder and weirder. Or more ordinary by the minute, if Freya reverted to her childhood.
She'd grown up among the fey women of the Highlands with their tea-leaf predictions and horseshoes and omens and daily protection against witches. Where she came from everyone who kept bees engaged in regular conversation with them, and she hadn't missed how pleased both Callum and Tara had been when she didn't argue... or sneer, as many brides would.
The MacKrannans were so traditional in their ways that Freya felt very much at home – the home she'd deliberately moved away from to escape traditions just like these. She'd wanted to be normal. The colossal amount of Second Sight she'd been born with just attracted the wrong kind of friends once she hit her teens, and the more Auntie Harper developed her, the lonelier Freya had become amongst people her own age.
Nobody normal could understand what it was like to walk into the university and see things like an ambulance shadowing a professor, a pushchair in front of a fellow student, a cleaner with a prosthetic leg... and none of those items real yet. But they would be by the time she'd graduated, and many, many more like them. She never told anyone except Auntie. Once in a while she also saw people's deceased relatives standing beside them as bright as the living, and had to check herself from including them in the conversation.
So she'd made her choice. Far better to
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