by Jackie Ivie
“What is this for?” Lisle pointed at the heather.
“Fresh cut. From the meadow. We thought you might like it.”
“We?”
“You mustn’t sit and dawdle so, my lady. You’ve the seamstresses to see still. There’s patterns to approve, and dresses to decide, and then you’ve got instructions to give.”
“To whom, please?”
“Your staff. I’d start with that Mabel Beamans. I’d make her give me the key to everything. That woman has too big a head. It’s dripping over to her mouth, and her words. I only wish someone had something bad to say about her housekeeping. She thinks she’s perfect.”
Lisle looked levelly across at where Mary was smiling and bobbing her head, and kept the words inside. All she had to do was speak of dust on the beams and Mary would have her ammunition. She didn’t.
“Now go, Martha. Check on the towels. Knock when returning.”
“Towels?” Lisle asked.
“We’re having a stack of them warmed for you, my lady. It’s what His Lordship ordered for you. Every morn. He’s hired an extra laundress to make certain you’re treated to such.”
“Every morning?” Lisle asked.
“Oh my, yes. He says you’re worth whatever his gold can buy. He wants you to have a heated morning bath delivered with your breakfast, a stack of freshly laundered, heated towels, and anything else you need. It’s quite impressive, it is.”
“What?”
“How much he cares about you.”
Lisle put her tongue between her teeth and held it there. It wasn’t care. It was diabolical deception and worse. It was confinement and gaol-keeping, and adding insult, as well. Langston Monteith was making very certain she didn’t disappear anywhere, and reminding her that he’d found her filthy at the same time. One thing she had to admit, though. He got his way. She wondered if he ever didn’t get it.
“And he wants all your laundry done in this wonderful scent. He wants it to surround you. It has the scent of jasmine to it. And something he called opiate. I doona’ know what that is.”
Lisle clenched her jaw, and when that didn’t work at allaying the emotion, she moved her gaze down to the breakfast that was beautifully arrayed on her lap, and toyed with pitching the whole lot at the wall. Perhaps if she aimed sufficiently, she could make more work that would earn someone more gold by having to do more laundry, and they might even need to pay to get the wall redone, besides.
She settled finally for cleaving her way through her cakes with a two-pronged fork, and making very little bites on her plate before she started eating.
“He keeps it locked up because it’s so special. They kill each other for it in that Persia place. It’s called aphrodisiac. I believe that’s the word, although I doona’ understand what it is. Mabel Beamans thinks she knows. She’s always laughing beneath her breath at me over it, too.”
Lisle’s eyes went wide and she choked on the bite in her throat. She only wished she had enough experience to hide any, or all, of that.
“But you mustn’t sit, listening to me. Your bath’s cooling, and Martha will be back shortly with your towels. Come along, now.”
Lisle put the plate aside. She wasn’t hungry, and even if she was, her throat wouldn’t open enough to get anything down. Langston was clothing her in a scent designed to titillate, create sensation, and heighten sensual pleasure? Daily? She was shivering when she slid out from beneath the covers, and it didn’t have anything to do with the water’s temperature.
The sensation of being beneath silken water, warmed so it pleasured, rather than water so cold it made her gasp, was such a new experience, Lisle almost forgot that she should be hating every moment of it. Mary MacGreggor helped her with her hair, giving her another potion to rub into it, and when she finished, the woman was handing her large, warmed towels, directing her to the fireplace, and making Lisle so comfortable she almost forgot her hatred again as the woman worked on her hair.
Langston Monteith was a devil. He had to be. No other man could make her feel secure, comfortable, and pampered, and able to fall in love with every sensation, even though the inner Lisle was cringing at the waste, and screaming her hatred of all of it.
Lisle watched the fire. She should be trying to do something, but her mind wasn’t working as quickly or efficiently as it usually did. That was odd. She felt Mary making a braid, lacing a blue ribbon throughout the length, and saving the ends for a bow at the bottom of it.
“Where is Shera?” Lisle asked when the woman finished the braid and was just getting ready to stand.
“Shera? I doona’ know any Shera. Is there one we should search out for you?”
“Aye,” Lisle replied, and bit down on her own tongue.
“Is she a village lass, my lady?”
Lisle looked at Mary MacGreggor’s face, decided she wasn’t capable of hiding a thing, and wondered if Langston had chosen her for that quality, before knowing instinctively that he had. The only thing she didn’t know was why it didn’t bother her like it should.
“I believe Shera would have been with His Lordship when he arrived back…from Persia.”
“My lady! I’m shocked!”
Lisle looked at her. She did look that.
“His Lordship never travels with a female, and had he done so, I would na’ be for telling his wife, now, would I? I doona’ think I would keep my position long if I went about telling such tales.”
She looked like that was the truth, too.
“Besides, I was na’ hired until the auld laird passed on. Lord Monteith immediately set about improving the estate, knocking out walls to make the rooms larger, and having more ceiling supports put in to make certain it was stable. He set about paying for men to fell trees and have them made. He’s turning the castle into a place of luxury and beauty. ’Tis enough to make the auld laird roll over in his crypt. That it is!”
The woman broke into giggles at the end of her words. Lisle smiled, although her face wasn’t making much of the effort. She actually didn’t feel like taking the effort to do anything. She licked her lips. Such languor wasn’t going to get her what she wanted to know.
“What of a war chest?” she asked.
“War chest, my lady?”
“For his personal effects. For safekeeping. Lairds keep them. At least, I know of one who did. Did the auld laird keep one of these?”
“The only thing the auld laird Monteith kept was a weak spine. He had that in abundance. That, he did.”
“A weak spine? Was he deformed, then?”
Mary giggled more. “Oh nae, my lady. That isn’t the type of weakness I speak of.”
“He was a coward.” Lisle didn’t ask it. She already knew it, anyway.
Mary nodded. “So much so, his only son would na’ claim him. You should have seen the row when that happened.”
“What?”
“Laird Langston’s return. You could hear it out on the moors—or so they tell me. I was na’ hired yet.”
“They fought?” That was interesting information, Lisle decided. She just couldn’t decide why.
Mary nodded. “Oh, aye. The auld laird retired to his rooms. These rooms, actually. Or mayhap it was the laird’s rooms on the other side of that door. I canna’ tell, although back then they were cold and made of stone and there was nae hint of luxury about them.” She looked about. “They were also smaller. His Lordship wanted space. He’s got fancy ideas of things, but it’s his coin.” She shrugged.
Lisle licked her lips. “A family Bible, then. Does the family have one of those?”
“Family Bibles, and such, are kept in the chapel.”
“We have a chapel?”
“Oh my, yes. We attend service each Sunday, too. Those of us that know what thankfulness is and what it isn’t. Take that Mabel Beamans. That woman hasn’t been to church in over a month of Sundays. Why, someone should talk—”
“Where is this chapel?” Lisle interrupted. It had to be the scent he’d had
them use. Her mind wasn’t working like it should be, and Mary MacGreggor was turning into a font of useless and trivial information.
“On the east side. That way, they catch the morning rays through the stained windows. Those windows go back so many years, nobody knows the count of them. I’ve heard that if you sit in one particular pew, and the sun is coming in just right, you’ll actually have it looking like Mother Mary is sitting right there with you.”
“What?” Lisle asked, shaking her head.
“The place is full of statues, and one of them is of Mother Mary, holding the bairn. It’s said when the sun comes in through the right portion of that stained glass, it looks just like—”
“What does this have to do with the family Bible?” Lisle asked.
“Oh. That. I doona’ ken where they keep it, but I would check the chapel first. You’ll need to ask for the key, though. It’s kept locked.”
“We lock our own chapel? Whatever for?”
Mary shrugged. “I doona’ ken the whys of Lord Monteith’s reasons. All I know is he keeps it locked. I doona’ know where the key is. You could check with that Mabel Beamans….”
Lisle groaned. It didn’t stop the woman.
“You’re the lady of the house. I’d make her give you every key she has. That should take her head down a size or two, it should.” All of which sent Mary into giggles again.
The day went by in a blur of activity, punctuated by feminine titters of amusement, gossip, the shimmer of material called silk, embroidered panels of cloth from China, gasps of amazement at designs, and yet the strangeness kept growing. Lisle had never been around so many women in her entire life, and there didn’t seem to be a man among any of them.
By the time they brought a tea service in, with enough small cakes and scones to keep all of them from drowning in their tea, it was getting irritating. Lisle had already decided she wasn’t going to get any more information from Mary, because she didn’t have any more to give. She was going to get her answer, though. The feeling of euphoria and lassitude had melted away, leaving her stubborn again, and about one thing. She was going to locate this Shera, and she was going to make the woman claim Langston. Then Lisle was going to run as fast and as far from him and his conniving and manipulations as she could.
It wasn’t going to be easy. She was surrounded by women. They were better than gaolers. They had to be, and the lack of men anywhere about the estate was grating. She hadn’t seen one fellow since the three of them had lugged out her hip bath, after the used water had been laboriously drained, bucket by bucket, in order to use it on the castle’s herb gardens.
Lisle begged a moment for her privacy, gained herself Mary MacGreggor and another young lass at her elbow, and left what had been a sitting room, but was now resembling a torture chamber full of women and pins, needles, and nonsensical gossip.
“I would like to visit the chapel, Mary,” Lisle informed her the moment they were out of the sitting room.
“Oh nae, my lady. That is not possible. I have na’got the key.”
Lisle thinned her lips. “Then, show me where it is. Surely we doona’ lock the halls on the way.”
Mary looked at her with a blank look. “Nae body can lock a hallway, my lady. ’Tis na’ possible.”
“Very good. Show me, please.”
More halls and turns and twists later, they arrived at a set of wooden doors that had been carved by a master, buffed to a sheen of warm, shiny brown, and were almost reaching the ceiling more than two stories above them. Lisle tipped her head.
“His Lordship had this wood shipped over, my lady. Quite a row ensued due to that.”
“Someone argued with him over it?”
“Oh my, nae. There’s not a soul argues with His Lordship. It just took extra help to get it from the port at Inverness to here without damage done to any part of the wood. It was na’ carved then, either, and His Lordship dinna’ want one bit of it scratched, before the carver he selected touched it. They had to design a special wagon bed, they did.”
Lisle craned her neck, checking and finding where at least two beams split the space above the doors. She shivered, wondered at her own sanity, and stopped her own reaction. She’d never been so high, and she still had to find out which room she would need to use to access them.
“As you can see, there’s the scene of the Creation near the top, and the lines coming down represent Knowledge.”
“They look more like sunbeams,” Lisle commented absently, moving her eyes to check both sides of the walls on either side of the monstrosity Langston had created. There wasn’t a step in sight.
Mary sighed. “That’s the beauty of it. It looks like the sun is shedding its light. ’Tis actually Knowledge coming down to us. See. That’s us. At the bottom.”
Lisle moved her head down. There were Highland personages about the bottom, most of them in kneeling positions. It was incredible, and very artistic, and looked difficult to break through, if not impossible.
“How thick is it?” she asked.
“Thick, my lady?”
“Deep. How deep?”
“Oh. Very. About a man’s arm length. Very heavy, too. I already told you the trouble they had getting it here.”
Lisle stepped forward and turned one of the long handles down. It was locked. She shrugged and tried the other.
“I told Your Ladyship, he keeps it locked,” Mary said from behind her.
Lisle sighed. “You still haven’t told me why. Does he keep his gold in there?”
“He has a treasury, my lady, for such a thing.”
Lisle picked up one of the heavy door-knockers and dropped it, making a thud that echoed through the hall behind them.
“Now, my lady, you’re scaring Betsy. She’s new, you ken?”
“Your name’s Betsy?” Lisle turned about and smiled at the younger of the two. She didn’t look frightened. She looked young, and excited at new employment, and pleasant-tempered, and not a bit curious about anything they were doing. Lisle ground her teeth. Langston had chosen her specially, too.
“It never hurts to knock,” Lisle noted, and then they all heard a bolt lifting, followed by a chain, and then there was the distinct sound of one of the handles moving.
Chapter Fifteen
If the trio of gentlemen facing them were clergymen, they had chosen the wrong profession. Lisle looked over the three large, well-defined men, and wondered why even here, where no man was supposed to need more muscle than it took to turn a page, or lift a quill, the men looked fit, strong, and healthy. She was almost surprised to see them in long, black-cassocks, rather than kilts.
The last tone of a note filtered down from the heights of the Gothic-designed chapel, easily recognizable as the same note she always heard, although it hadn’t come from a horn of any kind. It had come from the organ that another clergyman was just rising from.
“Thank you…for opening the door,” Lisle said, although she had to clear her throat midsentence.
“You should na’ be here,” the older of them said.
“Why, please?” Lisle asked.
“And we should na’ have opened the door.”
Lisle smiled slightly. “You’re right. Such a thing is monstrous to consider, because you should have had it opened and unlocked to begin with. Such a thing is normal with houses of worship.”
He frowned. “We weren’t aware of visitors.”
One of her servants giggled. Lisle could see why. Men who were this fit, muscled, and smooth of voice and charm were difficult to find, especially in the lower echelons of Monteith Castle on this morning. Lisle looked askance at Betsy, who had been the perpetrator of the giggle. She was also rosy with a blush.
“I am nae visitor, Father. I am the new lady of Monteith,” she announced. The sound of her words carried upward, sounding like they gained in volume, and showing the acoustic qualities of the room, as well as how gifted the designer had been. She was just surprised it hadn’t been one hired by Langston.
“Oh.”
The other man had joined them, making a united front of four men facing them. Lisle told her imagination to hush. “So, you see, I have every right to be here, right here. Right now. I have every right to every room in the castle.”
The older one, who had been speaking, reached out to pull on his collar. Lisle watched him gulp before speaking.
“We had heard the laird had taken a wife.”
“Good. Your hearing is fine. Now, if you’d be so good as to assist me with my business? I’ll na’ be long.”
“What is it you’re wanting?”
“To look about.”
They all looked like they’d been expecting her to say something horrible, and her words were it. She watched as eyes widened, they all looked to each other, and then to the floor. Only the speaker was watching her. Lisle tempered the satisfaction she felt. She’d known they were hiding something. She just didn’t know what. She smiled.
“I’m looking, in particular…for the family Bible.”
“The Bible?” His face was carefully blank as he asked it.
“We do have one, doona’ we?”
“All clans have such,” he agreed.
All four men were nodding in agreement. She sensed it was with relief, although she couldn’t prove it. All of which could mean anything, but she guessed it meant that whatever they were hiding wasn’t anywhere near the family Bible.
“Good. I would like to see it then. Now.”
“Now?”
Lisle smiled again. “The sooner I see it, the sooner I will leave you to your duties. We’d all like for that to happen, I think.”
“I’ll see it fetched.” He inclined his head.
“Where is this window you spoke of, Mary?” Lisle asked, turning to her servant, who looked more prepared to run than stand behind her mistress.
Mary walked farther into the chapel and pointed to where blood-red hues, vivid green, and yellow washes touched onto the floor directly below it, before taking the eye to the work of art responsible for them. Lisle followed to it, smiling inwardly that time. The motion of looking up had her eyes following beams, checking for steps. If she wasn’t mistaken, they had to be secreted near the massive organ that was framed in the middle of one wall, and topped by one lone beam.