Kelpie shot him a look which, had she been a properly qualified witch, would surely have caused him to break out with every loathsome disease known to mankind. Unfortunately the only effect of her venomous glare was that Alex’s smile broadened to an insulting chuckle. Och, what a beast he was, then, with the bony, freckled, jeering face of him, and the two jaunty tufts of red hair jutting upward just where horns ought to sprout! She was about to tell him so, and in great detail, but just in time she remembered her role and Ian, who was still showing his pity and dismay.
What a misfortune, he thought, that this should happen now, just when he and Alex were nearly home again after those long months away in Oxford, where he had been savagely homesick. They were about to get home early, and with very important news, and now this had to happen, not five miles from Glenfern.
“What shall we be doing with you at all?” he said. “We cannot just be leaving her here!” he added fiercely, turning on Lachlan, the blond ghillie, who, looking larger than usual on his short shaggy pony, had muttered something from behind.
“Give her a copper,” Alex said, laughing, “and see how quickly she’ll mend!”
Copper indeed! thought Kelpie. It was silver she was wanting. But she didn’t hide the gleam in her eyes quickly enough.
“I’ll show you,” said Alex. Slowly, tantalizingly, he drew a coin from his sporran and held it up. It gleamed silver, and Kelpie stared at it greedily. “See?” Alex chuckled and spun it toward her.
Quick as the flash of bright metal in the air, her brown hand shot out to catch it in flight—then dropped, and the coin fell noiselessly on the path. Kelpie sat staring first at it and then at her own shoulder with dismay that was, for a change, perfectly genuine.
“I—I am hurt!” she said with astonishment and then hastily snatched up the coin with her good left hand before they should change their minds.
“Not too hurt to be picking up the silver,” observed Alex, but the gibe lacked his earlier light tone. Ian had already dismounted and was touching rather gingerly the filthy rags covering the shoulder in question. The lass frankly stank.