Highland Laddie Gone Read Online Free Page B

brochures while several other people sat in lawn chairs under the canopy watching the milling tourists. Elizabeth, who felt that being Maid of the Cat obliged her to be friendly to all festival participants, waved and smiled.
    The woman with the brochures smiled back, but a voice from the tent called out, “Just a minute, young woman!”
    Elizabeth flinched. She recognized the voice.
    A gnome of a man in a green and white kilt marched out from the shade of the tent, squinting and scowling.
    “Would you like to pet the kitty?” asked Elizabeth innocently.
    “I would not,” snapped the old man. “I suppose you’re the Chattan’s Maid of the Cat this year?” Elizabeth nodded. “It’s a lot of damned foolishness. Not traditional at all. But if you’re bound to do it, I think you ought to observe the Highland customs.”
    “Oh, really?”
    “Women … do … not … wear … 
kilts!”
He seemed to be strangling with rage.
    Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed. “And MacPhersons do not take orders from Campbells!”
    “At least we don’t permit our womenfolk to go around pretending to be men,” snapped Dr. Campbell, who was enjoying himself hugely.
    “This isn’t Scotland; it’s America. And a lot of people here would say that
you
were in drag!” Elizabeth jerked Cluny’s leash and stalked off.
    Colin Campbell’s face turned Stewart-of-Appin red. “Young woman, do you know who I am?” he thundered after her.
    Elizabeth looked back over her shoulder. “Yes,” she said. “I recognized you from your picture on the banner.”
    It was a good exit line, Elizabeth thought as she swept off in the direction of the Chattan tent, but she felt guilty about having used it. Mother would kill me, she thought. She had just been—never mind the provocation—openly rude to an elderly gentleman, something that well-brought-up young ladies did not do. But, she told herself with a giggle, Geoffrey will love it!
    Even so, she decided to be more diplomatic henceforth. She was Maid of the Cat, after all, and she saw that role as a variation of the beauty-queen-on-the-float function: be pretty if you can but be charming if it kills you.
    Having resolved to be an ambassador of goodwill, Elizabeth smiled encouragingly at an adorable little boy at the Stewart tent. Little blond boys were so cute, she thought. This one looked about ten years old and he was wearing jeans; she thought he’d look wonderful in a kilt.
    “Hello, there!” She beamed at him. “This is Cluny, the Chattan bobcat. Would you like to pet him?”
    The boy stared at her, his face a cherubic blank. “No.”
    “Oh, it’s all right! He’s had his claws removed, and he doesn’t bite. He won’t hurt you.”
    “So?”
    Here’s a chance to be charming against overwhelmingodds, thought Elizabeth. She tried another smile. “Do you have any questions?”
    “Just one,” said James Stuart McGowan. “If you gain another five pounds, will you have to buy a new kilt, or can they let out this one?”
    Elizabeth’s smile froze into a grimace. “Are you a Campbell, little boy?” she growled between clenched teeth.
    James Stuart shrugged. “I doubt it.”
    “Well, you ought to be!”
    By the time she arrived at the Clan Chattan tent, Elizabeth was feeling more like the Queen of Hearts than the queen of the Rose Bowl. Off with their heads! She had now been rude to old people and children; she felt like a boiled owl in her wool outfit; and so far she had not seen anyone she knew. “Not one of my better days,” said Elizabeth to Cluny. He was washing his paw and did not bother to look up.
    “We’re here!” she called out with as much cheerfulness as she could muster.
    A plump woman in white shorts got up from a lawn chair. Pinned to the shoulder of her white blouse was a scarf of the MacPherson tartan. “Oh, dear,” she murmured. “I’m not sure what to do with the mascot. Betty is in charge, and she isn’t here yet. They had an out-of-town guest, I