The clansmen in the hall chuckled, only to be silenced by a fierce glare from their master.

"Angus." James Gordon spoke low so that only his brother might hear him. "Don't be so stony-hearted. If the cattle are indeed ours, then the lassie was damned clever to have stolen them from beneath our very noses. Ye have more cattle than ye can count. Without them her sisters will not get their husbands. Ye canna take them back now. Besides, there is the chance they might be hers, and then ye would do a great injustice to the Hays."

"The cattle are mine," Angus said in a near whisper to James. "For God's sake, Jamie-boy, look about ye. 'Tis a poor excuse for a chieftain's house, this tumbling-down tower. And look to the girl. Beautiful, but as thin as a sapling, and the old woman, too. I will wager there is nothing in the stable even worth stealing. Did ye look?"

"An ancient plow horse and a pony, both as thin as their mistress."

"Then how, ask yerself, could they have a herd of eight fat cattle?" the laird said reasonably. "The cattle are mine. If I allow the lass to steal them and I don't punish her, or at least collect payment for them, every petty thief in the district will come to try and steal my cattle. I will forgo punishing her, for she is but a lassie, but she certainly canna give me their worth in any kind. So I have no choice but to take them back."

"At least give her the option of purchasing them," softhearted James said.

"Yer a kind lad, Jamie-boy," his elder brother said. Then he turned back to Fiona Hay. "The cattle are mine, Mistress Hay. We both know that is the truth of the matter. I will argue it with you no more. If, however, ye wish to purchase the beasts from me, I will gladly sell them to ye." He looked her directly in the eye.

She stared back. Tall with a hard-looking frame he was, Fiona Hay thought. Hair as black as hers, and green eyes, too, but a dark green, not the emerald of her own eyes. He couldn't take the cattle, she thought desperately.