A Minx for the MacKenzie [Highlanders Love #2]

Chapter 11

All Adair McCallan had ever known was an easy life. Back in the castle, he was waited on hand and foot. He never had to lift a finger. Sure, he barely saw his father once a month, and he occasionally wondered what would it be like if he had his mother around, but why would he want to be a sniveling little boy who needed his parents? With his army of servants, he can survive on his own. Adair had always thought he needed no one, and his ego and pride had been cultivated by his father since a young age. In a way, it benefitted him now, for as much as he struggled to keep up with the tasks the older pageboys had to do, Adair refused to show he was winded by it, especially not to that guard which the demon MacKenzie had posted on him. He was not weak, nae he wasn't! He'll show them.

The determined look was all Tristan had seen for the whole morning and half of the afternoon, much to his amusement. It was what he reported to Hammond too, when the redheaded laird came over to check on them. Hammond had raised a brow at Tristan's report, glancing over at where Adair was mutinously staring at the gruel and kippers provided for their lunch by Mrs. O'Leary.

"He is nae eating?" Hammond asked.

Tristan shook his head. "He dinna touch breakfast, and now he isna touching the midday meal."

"Does he wish to faint?" the laird asked incredulously, about to go over when a boy of six, who Hammond faintly recognized as young Darach Chisolm, the son of one of the farmhand's in the main farmlands on the MacKenzie lands. 

"Och, that Darach has always been a friendly one." a passing farmer commented with a genial smile. Hammond turned to acknowledge the speaker, but was surprised when he looked back and found the previously dark-faced Adair actually side-eyeing Darach. The dark haired farmer's son only chattered on one-sidedly, as he picked at his gruel, much to the raised browed looks from both Hammond and Tristan, as they exchanged perplexed looks.

Adair on the other hand, was beginning to find it increasingly hard to keep his aloof manner, as the ten or so page boys around him laughed, joked, played and had fun during their midday break. Was it even possible to feel alone with so many people around them? When Darach had came to sit next to him, the young boy had made it a point to turn away, giving his back to Darach even as the farmer's boy chattered on. Having spent his life growing up alone with naught but servants who were too scared to even look in his eye however, this sensation of having someone actually talk to him was new, if not a little unnerving. Was it normal to want to turn and look at them?

But being as stubborn as a mule, so long as Adair felt the eyes of Hammond and Tristan upon him, he refused to turn to Darach. That is, until two other boys walked up to them, one looking curious, and the other just plain fed up.

"Are ye gonna have that? If not, the rest of us are plain starving." the latter asked in a irritated tone.

"Cal, give the lad a break would ye. He just got here today. And he's tiny." Darach warned.

"Who ye calling tiny!" Adair responded, finally riled up enough to jump up and glare at all of them, almost toppling his bowl in the process had the more curious one not dived to save the bowl. 

"Nae waste yer food lad! Food is scarce in winter. Show some respect would ye." the one Darach had called Cal hissed at him.

"Cal, tisnae help-"

"I dinna need yer help." Adair scowled as he cut in Darach's soothing words again, glaring at them all. 

"Ye obviously do, if ye canna even finish yer food." the curious one peered at his full bowl, and then gave Adair a wry look. "And trust us, ye will want to finish yer food if yer to keep up with us. Evening work is gruelling. Mrs. O'Leary isna a nice task master."