He stared at her for a moment, giving her ample opportunity to study his face. His eyes were green, and the thick lashes she’d admired as he slept glinted gold in the light of the sconce that burned on the wall beside them. Freddie held her breath as he seemed to war with himself and then gave a muttered curse, pushing himself from the wall and walking away.
She allowed silence to fill the room, giving him a moment to dwell on his appalling behaviour. When he turned back to her, she thought she saw something resembling guilt in his eyes.
“Your uncle was a good man,” he said grudgingly as Freddie enjoyed the rumble of his voice. His accent was all soft sounds and rolling r’s and she thought she could listen to it all day, providing he wasn’t cursing her and wishing her to the devil. “But a misguided one. I don’t want company, Miss Wycliffe, and your presence here will do ye nae good. None at all, and I reckon ye know that.”
“I’m not a fool, Captain,” she said, giving him what she hoped was a sympathetic smile. “However, I’m afraid I am every bit as stubborn as my uncle was, and I swore on the bible to do as my uncle asked and befriend you. It was the condition upon which I inherited his house and the small annuity he granted me.”
“Why in the name of….” He pinched the bridge of his nose, wincing a little. “Never mind,” he said, apparently having known her uncle well enough to not need further explanation.
Freddie watched him as he leaned heavily against his desk and realised, he was in pain. No doubt his head was still sore after his drinking bout yesterday.
“I have an excellent cure for hangovers,” she said, tilting her head a little as she regarded him.
The captain frowned, staring at her in consternation. “What manner of young lady are ye? Ye don’t bat an eye when ye see me stark naked, ye dinnae know when to hold your tongue and ye ought not be alone wi’ me like this, and now ye have a recipe to cure this head? Damned if I know what to make of ye.”
Freddie chuckled, amused by his genuinely grieved air of confusion. “Don’t feel bad, most people don’t know what to make of me,” she said, her tone soothing. “And if it makes you feel better, I learned the cure from a butler at my last position.”
“Position? Ye were employed?”
He looked surprised by that and she realised, dressed in Bunty’s finery as she was, she looked every bit the lady she’d been raised to be.
“I was, as a governess.”
“Oh, isn’t that perfect,” he said bitterly. “First a missionary, now a governess. I must hae been a wicked bastard to deserve such a penance.”
“Yes, you really must,” Freddie replied with a sigh, shaking her head in dismay, though it was clear she was laughing at him.
The captain gave a snort of amusement, a glimmer of curiosity in his eyes. “Come along then,” he said, striding towards the door all at once.
“Where are we going?”
“The kitchens,” he said, opening the door for her and gesturing for her to go through. “My head feels like it’s been used as a hammer and I’m nae too proud to try anything. If ye’ve got a cure. I want it.”
Chapter 5
“Wherein… allies, shortbread, and concoctions.”
Freddie went through the door and waited for him to lead the way. She scurried in his wake, trying—and failing—not to watch the way his kilt moved as he walked. It gave intriguing glimpses of his powerful legs, and the golden hair that covered them. Naturally, that led her to remember her first sight of him, and she had to scold herself and force her eyes up to the nape of his neck to ensure she wasn’t blushing scarlet by the time they arrived at the kitchen.
Although his study and the entrance of the castle had seemed in good order, there were parts that needed more than a little work. She looked out of a window that was nothing more than an opening in the wall, a chill breeze rushing past her into the building and tugging at her hair.
“Aye, and the east tower is naught but a pile of rubble,” he said, his tone scathing as he noted her scrutiny. “Nae place for a lady,” he added with a hard smile that dared her to contradict him.
“I was just thinking what a beautiful view it was. It must be spectacular from the upper floors.”
“Are ye angling to see my bedchamber, Miss Wycliffe?” he asked, a wicked look dancing in his eyes. “It’s on this floor I’m afraid, though ye have a taste for spectacular views, I recollect. Perhaps the sight of me has inflamed ye?”
Freddie snorted, well aware he was doing his best to send her running. “Captain Moncreiffe, you bring the subject up so often I can only assume it is you who is mortified by my having seen you naked. I assure you it hasn’t troubled me in the slightest, so do please try and put it from your mind.”
A door lay before them and an intriguing scent of roast meat reached Freddie’s nose. Deducing the kitchen must lie beyond, she ignored the expression of outraged indignation on the captain’s face and walked past him.
Of course, she was lying through her teeth. The sight of him was something she’d never forget if she lived to be a hundred. She didn’t want to forget. Neither, however, did she have the slightest intention of letting him know that.
The kitchen was a massive room, as befitted the castle. Whether it had escaped the passage of time or had been repaired in recent years, Freddie could not tell, but she looked about her with interest.
The room was dominated by two huge features, and it was a while before she could take the rest of it in. The fireplace had a curved lintel of dressed stone and a fire blazed within; a hunk of meat was roasting over the flames, which sizzled and spat as gobs of fat trickled down and sent smoke curling up the chimney. Next, the heavy oak table—which looked as if it had been in use for many hundreds of years, judging by its uneven, scrubbed smooth surface—was covered in a variety of wooden and earthenware bowls. It took a moment for Freddie to notice the short, squat woman who was kneading bread and staring at her with a look of fascination.
“Miss Wycliffe, this is my housekeeper, Mrs Murray.”
Freddie jumped a little as the captain’s voice sounded right behind her.
“Mrs Murray, it’s Wycliffe’s niece, come to call.”
Mrs Murray had white hair and a kind face, with cheeks the colour of a ruddy apple, and dark eyes that suggested she didn’t miss a thing. She wiped her hands on a cloth and dipped a curtsey. “Miss Wycliffe, a pleasure to meet you, and may I say how sad I was at your uncle’s passing, God rest his soul. Never did a kinder man walk the earth, and I was that sorry to hear he’d passed on.”
“Thank you,” Freddie said, touched by her words and her sincerity.
Then Mrs Murray turned to the captain.
“And ye, ye great lummox! What are ye thinking, a lady comes to call and ye don’t send for a tray of tea? Ye may have been raised in a ditch, but ye know better than that.”
Freddie stared, astonished that his housekeeper should speak to him in such a way, and a little stunned at the revelation he’d been raised in a ditch. She knew that was likely a figure of speech, but still. What did the woman mean?
More surprising was the way he rubbed the back of his neck, casting Mrs Murray a wary glance. “She’s not staying,” he said, the belligerence in his tone making the woman glare harder at him. “But she reckons she has a cure for my head.”
Freddie hid a smile, amused by his obvious discomfort and the way he pronounced it—ma heid.
Mrs Murray tsked and lifted a huge black kettle that looked as if it weighed almost as much as she did. She hung it from a hook, suspended over the fire. “An’ has she a cure for ye manners?” she demanded.
This was apparently too much for the man. He muttered a curse and left the way he had come.
Mrs Murray shook her head before turning back to Freddie.
“Men,” she said, as if that explained everything.
Freddie supposed it did, really.
“Will ye have a seat, Miss Wycliffe?” Mrs Murray asked, clearing the far corner of t
he table and wiping it clean before gesturing to the chair at the end.
“Thank you, Mrs Murray.” Freddie sat down, watching with interest as the woman fetched a surprisingly pretty china teapot, cups, and saucers. “I’m sorry, I’m afraid I’m interrupting your day.”
Mrs Murray snorted, her lips quirking a little. “A welcome interruption, I assure you,” she said, carrying over a plate piled high with shortbread biscuits. “Help yerself.”
Freddie did, selecting a golden, sugar-dusted disc and sighing with pleasure as she devoured the sweet, crumbly biscuit. To her chagrin she discovered she’d eaten two and reached for a third before Mrs Murray had even made the tea.
“These are divine,” she said, munching happily.
Mrs Murray nodded, accepting this. “My mother’s recipe,” she said, pouring out the tea. “Never fails. The captain could eat the entire plateful in a matter of minutes.”
“Oh, I was supposed to be giving you the recipe for Captain Moncreiffe,” Freddie exclaimed, feeling awful that she was sat there, stuffing his shortbread when she’d completely forgotten her reason for being in the kitchen. “And all I’m doing is stealing his biscuits.”
“Dinnae fash over that, Miss,” Mrs Murray said, chuckling and placing a steaming cup of tea before her. “There’s more biscuits where they came from and the eejit drank himself into a stupor, it won’t hurt to remind him why it’s a damn stupid idea. Well,” she added, smirking, “it will hurt him, but it’s nae bad thing.”
Freddie bit her lip and decided she liked Mrs Murray.
“Does he do that often?” she asked, before taking a hesitant sip of her tea.
She watched, fascinated, as Mrs Murray tipped a little of hers into the saucer. “I’m an impatient soul and it cools it quicker,” she said with a wink, noting Freddie’s interest. “As for the captain, nae, not often. Only when he’s low in spirit.”
“Mr Digby implied that he missed my uncle, that they were good friends.”
“Aye,” she said, reaching for a biscuit and offering the plate to Freddie once more, which meant she simply had to take a fourth. “Though it might not have appeared that way if ye didn’t know them. The captain would bluster and try and make out like yer uncle was a blessed nuisance. Oh, and Heaven help us all if they got onto bible talk. The row could have brought down the west tower to match the east one.”
Freddie nibbled at the shortbread, trying to make it last as she considered this.
“He doesn’t believe in God?”
“Nae, not since the war, at least.”
This seemed a rather terrifying notion. Whilst Freddie was not a devoted church goer, she did what everyone expected of her and attended church with reasonable regularity and felt comforted by a being greater than herself. Risking your soul and the possibility of eternal damnation by turning your back on divinity entirely was enough to send shivers down her spine. No wonder Uncle Phin had been so desperate to save him. It would have struck at his heart to see a good man so lost.
“Not that he was on his knees a deal before he left,” Mrs Murray added with a wry smile. “But nae, any faith he had in God, in mankind… in anything, seemed to die then.”
“You’ve known him a long time?” Freddie guessed, realising it explained the way she spoke to him.
She nodded, a fond look entering her eyes. “Aye, even before he was a wee clarty boy. Left on the steps of the church at Torkeldy, he was. Nae more than a day old, I reckon. They found his ma three days later. Drowned in the river.”
Freddie gasped, every maternal instinct she had rebelling in horror at the idea, yet how desperate must the mother have been to have left him in such a manner and then to have....
“Oh, no,” she whispered as Mrs Murray sighed and shook her head.
“She’d been away, somewhere in the south, and come back with bairn in her and a haunted look in her eyes.” Her expression turned dark. “Poor lass, she was little more than a child herself, but some vile Englishman had to have her and took her agin her will. The captain knows it and it haunts him. Such a skinny wee bairn he was,” she said softly. “Hard to believe it’s the same fellow, but there you are.”
“What happened to him?” Freddie asked, realising too late that she was leaning across the table in her eagerness to discover more.
Mrs Murray’s face hardened further. “Not a deal of good,” she admitted. “I was already a widow by then, with three bairns of my own and barely a mouthful to share between us or I would have taken him,” she said with a hint of defiance. “But Mrs Young took him. She was a kindly soul, though a deal too fond of a drop o’ whisky. She died when he was two and so they sent him to Mrs Taylor, who’s got a mouth on her. Her husband was a cruel man besides, too free with his fists.”
“Oh, my,” Freddie said, setting down her teacup with a clatter.
Mrs Murray shrugged. “Aye, well, it wasn’t a kindly home, but maybe that’s for the best. It gave him a tough skin and perhaps he’d not be here if not for that. He was there until he was six, when he was apprenticed to the smithy. Now there was a bad tempered, thick-skulled crabbit, if ever there was one. Miserly too. Half-starved the poor laddie. So, yon captain ran away and lived in the hills when the weather was fine enough, which wisnae often, sometimes when it wisnae fine at all if the fellow was in a rage. Until he was big enough to fight back anyway,” she said with a heavy sigh. “Then the trouble really began.”
Freddie decided she didn’t want to hear any more and blinked back tears, her heart breaking for the boy that had grown up to be Captain Moncreiffe.
Mrs Murray seemed to sense her distress and finished her tea. “Now then, Miss Wycliffe, this recipe.”
***
Mrs Murray waved the young woman off with a demand to call again soon, pressing the rest of the shortbread wrapped in a cloth into her hands as she went. A smile tugged at her lips as she watched the pretty girl pick her way down the muddy road that led back to Torkeldy.
“Well then, Mrs Murray. What do you think of our Miss Wycliffe? You’re looking pleased with yourself so I’m assuming you agree she’s our salvation?”
She turned to look up at the lanky Englishman and sighed. “Much as it pains me to agree with ye, Mr Digby, aye. She’s a tender-hearted lass, but she’s got a backbone I reckon, strong enough to give the captain as good as she gets. Old Mr Wycliffe did us all a great service in sending her here, knowing what she risks. We must do everything we can though, to make sure things go as they ought. I dinnae want to see her hurt.”
Digby nodded. “Well, she survived her first glimpse of him in the altogether without batting an eyelid.” He paused, grinning a little. “Actually, I don’t think she blinked.”
“And why would she?” Mrs Murray demanded as he closed the door. “A fine man, the captain, which is why it’s such a crime him burying himself in this musty old castle. A braw looking fellow like that ought to have a nursery full of bairns by now.” She gave a heavy sigh and smoothed out her immaculate apron. “Still, I’ve done my bit and now her poor heart is aching for the wee laddie who never had a soft word nor a soft bed to lie in.”
Mr Digby looked at her with undisguised admiration. “You’re a sly one, Mrs Murray.”
Mrs Murray bristled with indignation at that description and gave a sniff of disdain to illustrate her displeasure. “It’s not like it wasn’t every word the truth,” she retorted, and bustled off to return to her domain.
***
Ross regarded the glass on his desk with deep suspicion.
“What’s in it?” he demanded, eyeing Mrs Murray with a frown.
“What?” she demanded, folding her arms over her bosom with a snort. “Ye think I’d leave it to this late stage had I wanted ye dead? Ye dunderhead. I’d sooner clout ye round the head with a skillet if that was my intention. Now drink it down.”
Lifting the glass, Ross sniffed it and felt his lip curl.
“Oh, does the poor wee man need sommat sweet to take the sting out?�
� she said with a singsong, mocking tone, as she reached into the pocket of her apron and handed him a shortbread.
Scowling, Ross huffed but took it from her all the same. Glass in one hand, biscuit in the other, he glowered a bit more, and Mrs Murray rolled her eyes to the heavens.
“Milk infused with chamomile, fennel seed and mint, a raw egg, a dash of whisky and a good pinch of pepper. Nothing that should scare a big, braw fellow like Captain Moncreiffe, eh?” she demanded.
Well, that didn’t sound so bad, and… whisky. Brightening and deciding it was worth the risk, he downed it all in one go, shuddered and stuffed the biscuit into his mouth, chewing hard before any unpleasant taste could register.
“Is she gone?” he asked, avoiding Mrs Murray’s eye as he licked the sugar from his fingers.
“Aye, but she’ll be back.”
Ross shook his head. “If ye have a care for the lass, make sure she stays clear. Ye are nae to let her in, and that goes for Digby too. I’ll nae have her ruin on my head alongside everything else, so don’t go getting any fool notions. I dinnae want her here.”
“Of course, sir,” Mrs Murray said at once, looking the picture of affront at his accusation. “Though I’ve nae idea what kind of notions ye suppose we’ve been having.”
Ross didn’t have the energy to spell it out. “Ye know as well as I do, so don’t go taking me for a half-wit.”
“I’m sure I dinnae ken what ye are talking about,” Mrs Murray replied, snatching up the empty glass. “And I’d not give ye the courtesy of imagining ye’ve that much brain in that head of yours,” she added with a smirk before stalking away, closing the door harder than necessary on the way out.
Ross groaned and laid his head on his desk.
He was doomed.
Chapter 6
“Wherein ranks are formed.”
Digby pushed open the door to the kitchen, enveloped by the warm scent of fresh bannocks. As an Englishman born and bred, he’d always had a healthy suspicion of anything Scottish.
The Scent of Scandal (Rogues and Gentlemen Book 16) Page 5