by Karen Ranney
He glared at his uncle, and when Cameron didn’t say a word, turned and sent the same expression in her direction. She wasn’t impressed.
“Nine,” she repeated. Instead of commenting further, Robert left the room.
She would have gone after him, would have demanded Cameron’s support but for one small, almost unnoticeable thing that kept her silent. The small hand that had been clenched beside the table, the one nearly hidden in the drape of tablecloth, had been trembling.
Beatrice watched as he stormed from the room, slamming the dining room door shut behind him.
“You have to understand, Miss Sinclair, my nephew is the Duke of Brechin. He is not to be treated like a normal pupil. Some allowances must be given to the fact of his rank.”
She pressed her hands against her waist below the table and decided she had two choices. She could accede to Cameron Gordon’s wishes, or she could choose a harder path, one that would ultimately benefit Robert.
In the end, however, it wasn’t a hard decision to make.
“I am afraid, sir, I can’t agree with you,” she said. “He should earn what allowances he’s given and not be fawned upon simply because he’s inherited the title. You, yourself, have complained about his manners. He needs discipline, I believe you said. If something isn’t done now, he’ll grow to be a despot, and no credit to his title or his family.”
Cameron looked surprised at her vehemence.
He leaned back in his chair and studied her for a moment.
“I have rarely had my words tossed so charmingly back in my face, Miss Sinclair.”
“Have you changed your expectations, Mr. Gordon?”
“I have not. You’re right to remind me. I was given to understand you have little experience as a governess, Miss Sinclair. Was I wrong?”
“I have a great deal of experience in learning, sir. Also, I assisted my father for many years. In addition to being the schoolteacher for the village, he was a tutor as well.”
“I wasn’t asking about your qualifications, Miss Sinclair, but your experience. They are two different issues.”
She felt cold inside. Is this what failure felt like?
“No, sir, I have no experience as a governess. That doesn’t mean, however, that my opinion is without merit.”
“You surprise me, Miss Sinclair,” he said calmly. “I’d no idea the heart of a tiger beat beneath your rather scrawny abandoned-kitten facade.”
Before she could counter his insult, he spoke again. “I only meant you seem to be quite able in the role. Gaston tells me you were with Robert last night and rushed to his side this morning.”
She nodded.
“I commend you on your duties so far. Do as you see fit. Remember, however, even if rarely, that he is the Duke of Brechin.”
“Will you send word he is not to visit the stables?”
“I will send word you are to be obeyed, Miss Sinclair. That will do you more good, I think.”
He snapped his fingers, and Gaston emerged from the shadows, nodded to her, and placed his hands on the hidden handles behind the tall chair and pushed Cameron Gordon from the room.
Chapter 13
Robert had disappeared. There were a hundred places a boy of seven could hide.
“You might find him at the chapel, miss,” one of the maids said. She glanced at her, stopped, and retraced her steps. The girl was emerging from a cunningly concealed door, a bucket and cloth in her hand.
“How did you know I was looking for Robert?”
The girl shrugged. “His Grace flew out of here like a bat from a cave. I thought it likely someone would be after him. Normally, it’s Gaston.”
“Where is the chapel?”
The girl gave her directions, a complicated process considering Castle Crannoch was so large.
“Does he often go there?” Robert didn’t strike her as a particularly religious child.
“When His Grace is disturbed, he does.” The girl turned to leave. “You know why, miss, don’t you?” she asked over her shoulder.
Beatrice shook her head.
“His parents are buried there.”
Before going in search of Robert, she returned to the second floor, opened the door to Robert’s room, and gathered up his coat and the snake, still on the floor. She returned to her room for her cloak and followed the maid’s directions to the chapel.
She didn’t want to feel sorry for Robert Gordon. He was a thoroughly unlikable child. She didn’t want to remember the sight of his trembling hands, or think about what it must be like for a boy of seven to endure the loss of his parents. She was two decades older, and she’d found the same loss almost intolerable.
The journey to the chapel took a good quarter hour, all the right and left turns through the old part of Castle Crannoch dizzying. An arched pair of double doors, heavily inscribed with a carved cross, marked the entrance.
For a moment she hesitated, wondering if she would find him inside. If she did, what on earth would she say to him? Perhaps now was not the time to be rigid in her requirements. But if not now, then when? Someone had to say no to the boy sooner or later, and it would be better for him if it were done earlier than not. He couldn’t rear himself. Someone must be his adult.
She pushed open the door to find the chapel awash in light. Not from candles this time, but from the light pouring through the stained-glass windows in the chancellery. The altar, set across the entrance to an alcove, was covered in an ivory lace cloth and furnished with two goblets and a series of plates that looked as if they were made of solid gold. In front of the altar was a kneeling bench upholstered in a crimson fabric. At the end of the bench, his head bowed and his hands in a prayerful attitude, was Robert, the twelfth Duke of Brechin.
Beatrice did not want to disturb the child at his prayers, so she sat in a pew in the middle of the room and remained as quiet as she could.
Robert, however, began to pray aloud, his implorations to the Almighty stated rather loudly.
“Please, God, take her away. Take her back to where she come from. A big wind would do it, God. Or a lightning bolt.”
“Dear God, please inject into your servant some humility,” she prayed, in a voice as loud as Robert’s. “Please let him see I intend to do my best by him, and that means insisting upon his diligence with his studies. His parents would not wish for him to be an uneducated boor.”
There was only silence in response, and she glanced up to find Robert standing at the end of the pew.
“No one talks about my parents. It’s not allowed.”
“Whose rule? Yours?”
He shook his head. “My uncle’s.”
“Does he think it will harm you to hear of them? If so, that’s silly. We need to remember those we mourn.”
He sat down on the end of the pew. “I don’t like you, you know.”
“You don’t know me. You just dislike the idea of a governess or anyone telling you what to do.”
“No one else does.”
“Which is why, I don’t doubt, any of the boys from Kilbridden Village could beat you in mathematics or geography.”
He glanced at her out of the corner of his eye.
“Geography, Robert. It’s the study of the world. If you’re to be a duke, you must know as much about the world as you can.”
“I am a duke.”
“Then if you’re to be a proper duke, you must know as much as you can.”
“What do I have to know?”
“What your parents knew. What they would want you to know. How to calculate a field’s production, the tally of your herds, reading the writings of the day, the authors of the past, the Bible. How to reason out a problem, protect your heritage, guard your fortune, and perhaps expand it.”
“How to rid Castle Crannoch of my uncle?”
The question startled her into silence. “Yes, I suppose that, as well,” she finally said.
He nodded, as if in agreement.
“Ignorant is not a go
od title for any man to wear, Robert. Being a duke does not equip you with knowledge. You have intelligence. You must use it to acquire knowledge, and knowledge will help you be the best Duke of Brechin.”
“Did you know my parents?”
“I did not have that pleasure. Will you tell me about them?”
He shook his head.
“My parents died a year ago,” she said. “Within three days of each other. I miss them every day.”
“Do you ever talk about them?”
For the first time, his voice sounded like that of a seven-year-old boy, slightly tremulous, wanting to know but too afraid to hear the answer.
“Sometimes. It took a while for me to do so. I always cried when I did.”
“My parents have been dead six months.”
“That’s not very long, is it?”
He shook his head.
“You’ll find time doesn’t go by very fast when it comes to grief.”
For a few moments they sat silently together. Beatrice didn’t fool herself it was a harmonious interlude. Robert would either revert to being obnoxious, or he would rush off and leave her sitting there.
“My mother had a wonderful laugh,” Robert said abruptly. “It made everybody smile when she was happy.”
Her heart felt as if it would break. She almost wished the child was being difficult again.
“My father always said we should keep her happy because she was the queen of our castle.”
Don’t tell me any more. But she was as incapable of halting the child’s words as she was of halting her compassion.
“She used to come and tuck me in every night.”
“Did you ever have nightmares when they were alive?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he stood and walked away, and for a moment she thought he’d left her. But he called out to her. “Would you like to see them?”
She followed the sound of his voice to where he stood at the side of the chapel, in a nave she’d not seen earlier. The floor looked freshly laid, the mortar binding the stones looking too white and new.
Amee Alison Gordon lay side by side with Marcus Harold Gordon, their birth dates different, but the dates of death the same.
She carefully stepped back, but not Robert. He stood on the stones covering his parents’ graves and looked down at their markers.
“Do you come here every day?”
He glanced over his shoulder at her. “Yes.”
He would never heal if he kept plucking at the wound. Only time would help him understand, at least it had for her. But were seven-year-old boys different? Even in the midst of his tragedy, there must be something interesting him, that excited him.
“What is your favorite place at Castle Crannoch?”
He looked surprised at the question. “The woods. And then the towers.”
“Take me there.”
“Which place?”
“Your choice. But first, we have something we must do.”
“What?”
She went to the pew where she’d placed their coats and handed him his before donning the cloak Cameron had given her.
Beatrice walked out of the chapel and away from Castle Crannoch, acting as if she were unconcerned if Robert followed her or not. In actuality, she was very attuned to the boy, listening intently to his footfalls behind her on the floor.
She went to a copse of trees on top of a knoll. While the child watched, she dropped to her knees, and with a stick began to dig a small hole.
“What are you doing?”
She didn’t answer him. Robert demanded, and the staff of Castle Crannoch immediately gratified his every wish. She was not about to do so.
When the hole was complete, she withdrew the napkin from her cloak and uncovered it.
“The snake.”
She nodded. She bent and very gently laid the dead snake inside his grave and covered it with soil. When she stood, she looked at Robert. “You must say something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. A prayer.”
“I don’t know any prayers.”
“You were praying in the chapel.”
“That was a made-up prayer.”
“Then make one up now.”
“You first.”
She decided since the departed was, in this case, a snake, she should amend the service. “Go forth, dear snake, from this world, in the name of the Almighty Father who created thee. May God receive you in His goodly habitation of light. May the angels lead thee into Abraham’s bosom.”
“Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis.”
Startled, she glanced at Robert.
“Rest eternal grant to them, O Lord, and may light perpetual shine upon them,” he translated, his gaze on the snake’s grave.
“You learned that for your parents?”
He nodded. “For their funeral. My father liked to recite Latin.”
“That’s very nice, Your Grace.”
She stared down at the mound of earth she’d made, a last resting place for a trampled snake.
Robert was continually surprising her.
“Shall I take you to the woods now?”
She nodded and allowed him to lead her down the path and around the castle.
Rowena Gordon folded her hands in her lap, stared out at the sky, and ignored her maid with as much determination as possible.
Mary, however, had made her presence known these last few minutes by making a series of unforgettable sounds: tiny little yelps as if she were being pinched, and deep heartfelt sighs. When those failed to garner her attention, Mary had resorted to moans and then high-pitched squeals. If ghosts truly existed, they must sound the same.
Finally, unable to take any more, Rowena slapped her reticule down on the seat beside her and stared at her maid. “We will soon be home, Mary. There is no need for such histrionics.”
“But, madam, this is such a perilous journey. We could so easily fall down the mountain. Why, this road could be a way to heaven itself.”
Rowena sighed. She’d heard the same thing every time their carriage approached Castle Crannoch.
“It is a very dangerous series of turns. If the horses become tired or frightened, they could easily go over the side.” Mary peered out the window, then shivered before letting the shade fall back over the window.
“How many times have you made this journey?”
“In the last six months? Surely a dozen.”
“The horses know the route only too well, Mary, and nothing has happened to us in all this time. Calm yourself. We’ll be at Castle Crannoch in less than five minutes.”
Mary subsided against the seat, a mulish expression on her face. “Very well, madam. I shall not trouble you any longer.”
Rowena held back her sigh with some difficulty. Mary’s feelings were often hurt. In fact, she had to be the most sensitive creature Rowena had ever known. But she’d had plenty of time to acquaint herself with Mary’s idiosyncrasies since the woman had been in her employ for eleven years, ever since she’d been a young girl in London.
“Mary, there is truly nothing to worry about. If you must be concerned about anything, worry about whether or not all those items we purchased in London survived the trip.”
Mary glanced over at her.
“Remember the shepherdess and the shepherd statues I purchased? And the porcelain fox for the mantel?”
“They were packed in straw, madam.” But the line above Mary’s nose creased in concern. “Unless they did not follow my instructions, madam; and then I’m very much afraid of what we’ll find when we begin the unpacking.”
Good, she’d already begun to worry about the trunks. At least she wouldn’t be afraid of the sharp curves still to come.
Rowena wedged herself into the corner of the carriage and smiled determinedly. As long as Mary had something to occupy her, she was content, and bearable to be around.
The day promised to be a sunny one. Clouds had obscured th
e morning sky, turning it gray, but the closer they came to Castle Crannoch, the bluer the sky. An omen for her homecoming?
She hated Castle Crannoch as strongly as if it were a person and had a personality. She hated the place because it was the scene of defeat, of demoralization, of despair. She hated it because Cameron loved it and lusted after it with more affection and emotion than he’d shown her in the last six months.
The last six months had not been easy ones for Cameron or for her. There’d been times when she’d despaired of surviving from one day to the next. Not that she would ever do anything to harm herself, but there were times when her heart almost shriveled up and died.
Gradually she learned to accept that she and Cameron would never be the way they once were. Whereas previously they had never spent a night apart, now they had two separate chambers, two separate dressing rooms, two separate sets of servants, and gradually, two separate lives.
Regardless of how many times she went to London or to Paris or to Edinburgh, she always came back to Castle Crannoch again, drawn not like a moth to a flame, but like a lovesick woman for the man she adored. Because whether he walked or not, whether he acknowledged her presence or not, whether he cared if she lived or not, she loved him.
The carriage slowed, a sign they were coming close to the end of their journey. Rowena didn’t bother opening the shade. She heard the driver call out to the horses and prepared herself to make an entrance. A few minutes later, the door was opened. Rowena put on her gloves and stepped down from the carriage.
Rowena fixed a smile upon her face and looked up at the edifice of Castle Crannoch with what she hoped could be interpreted as enthusiasm and not the dread she really felt.
“It seems a very long time since we’ve been gone,” Mary said. “Two whole months. Nothing has changed one whit, has it, madam?”
“Castle Crannoch has endured for centuries. Two months will not change it.”
“That’s true.” Mary stared up at the castle with awe on her face. Unlike her, Mary had admired the place ever since they’d moved here from Edinburgh. Romantic, Mary had said reverentially, upon first seeing Castle Crannoch.