Highland Laddie Gone Read Online Free

places in Scotland, but Lachlan, well-traveled himself, could field questions indefinitely. He could always recommend a pub or a bed-and-breakfast anywhere between Orkney and the Borders. He could, with equal ease, recite Burns, tell instantly which tartan went with which surname, and settle arguments about the minutiae of Scottish history. It was all part of his job as a professional Scot. The least agreeable part of this lucrative business was having to suffer fools gladly; but he always managed with a straight face to find a tartan for an Olaffson (MacDonald of the Isles: Viking intermarriage), dredge up a family ghost for any family at all, and listen sympathetically to one more “direct descendant of Flora MacDonald and Bonnie Price Charlie.”
    Lachlan began to dust off his Highland games coffee mugs and straighten his tartan scarfs and ties. The new blue and beige ones should go like hotcakes—the Princess Diana tartan, that was. And the Royal Stewart was always a big seller. Never mind that none of the purchasers had the least right in the world to wear the colors of the royal family. It was pretty, easy to find, and usually cheaper than special-ordering the tartan of a lesser-known clan, so it always did well at Scottish gatherings. Lachlan always laid in a generous supply before the festival, and he had never failed to sell out. Between the ignorant and the deluded“descendants” of the Prince, business was always brisk.
    “Excuse me,” said a woman at his elbow, “could you tell me what tartan my family should wear? We’re kin to Mary, Queen of Scots, on my mother’s side.”
    Lachlan Forsyth smiled. Let the games begin.

CHAPTER THREE
       T HE Western Virginia Scottish Festival was held each year on privately owned Glencoe Mountain, a high-altitude tourist attraction a few miles outside the tiny community of Meadow Creek. For most of the year, Glencoe offered (for a modest admission fee) nature trails, camping facilities, hang-gliding exhibitions, and a habitat zoo; but on Labor Day weekend, the mountain was packed with kilted visitors, and the overflow was lodged in motels from Blacksburg to Pulaski. The mountain’s owner, Margaret Duff-Hamilton (of Hamilton textile mills), presided over the event as honorary games chairman, and welcomed all the clan chiefs at a sherry party in her summer home. Out of earshot, in the campground, lesser folk had tailgate picnics to the accompaniment of pipe-band practice.
    “We’re not staying here, are we?” asked Geoffrey, recoiling from the sound of an untuned bagpipe. “I would have nightmares of moose in labor.”
    “You’ll get used to it,” Elizabeth assured him. “We’re staying in one of those tourist cabins on the creek. The clan reserves one every year for the Maid of the Cat.”
    “If you have to clean up after
him,
you will earn the title,” said Geoffrey, frowning at Cluny. “What do we do now?”
    Elizabeth stopped the car beside a whitewashed cabinwith a tartan ribbon tied around a porch railing. “Chattan colors. We’re in here,” she announced. “Let’s take in our suitcases, and then go to the meadow and register. We’ll get a schedule of events, then decide.”
    “Is
he
coming?”
    “Cluny?” Elizabeth smiled. “He’s the guest of honor!”
    The tourist cabin was sparsely furnished but clean, and its pine beds and dressers smelled of lemon oil. Geoffrey wandered over to the picture above the table and began to study it with interest. In it a kilted young man was bending over the hand of a pretty woman in green.
    “Out, damned spot! Out, I say!”
said Geoffrey cheerfully. “I’d always thought of Lady
Macbeth
as older somehow.”
    Elizabeth set down the ice chest beside the small refrigerator. “Let me see that.”
    “I wonder if it’s unlucky to have
Macbeth
pictures in your room? Of course, I just quoted from it, so we’re doomed anyhow.”
    “Except for your theatre superstitions, you are practically illiterate,”