“But no’ legal. Our bairns would be considered bastards in England and unable to inherit.” She turned to her father, heat rising in her face as she clenched her fists. “And ye agreed to this?”

Malachi shook his head. “Och, no, Daughter. No’ unless ye were willing. But the mince pies ye baked softened him to our cause, and we are desperate…”

Lord Fulton, the English earl who owned most of the surrounding property, had wanted the Craiggs to oversee his estate. Since he didn’t wish to spend much time at his newly inherited property, Fulton preferred to employ the chieftain as steward. But Archibald Craigg had eliminated that possibility after his first tirade directed at the younger nobleman. It seemed the son didn’t like being compared to his father. Her uncle had tried unsuccessfully to placate both men. But Fulton’s pride had been hurt, and the older Craigg would not see reason. Instead, the earl had employed the MacNaughtons and had no desire to cancel the arrangement just because the elder Craigg was dead.

“It was more than the pies, lass. He thinks ye’re quite bonnie and—”

“Do ye hear yerself, Uncle? My poor mother is scratching yer name on her list.” She looked up at her mother’s portrait that so resembled her. The auburn-haired beauty looked down on them with smiling green eyes. “Ma, do ye hear what they want yer only daughter to do?”

“Ye wouldna be the first lass to have an arranged marriage for the sake of the clan. And if ye were a Sassenach, there would be no argument when yer father told ye what to do.” Uncle Enoch’s wide chin stuck out from his broad, ruddy face. He’d always thought her father had indulged her. Archibald then said, “As the chieftain of this clan, I demand ye marry the man.”

“This is no’ an arranged marriage. Ye’re asking me to be a whore, and I willna do it.” She stomped her foot, catching her heel on a stray thread from the worn and faded rug. She kicked it off, frustrated. “Now, I have work to do in the kitchen.”

With that, she picked up her skirts and stomped from the room. At twenty, she was well aware it was time to find a husband. But by the saints, she would be a wife not a kept woman.