by Lisa Berne
Then she turned her eyes to the drawn-out cavalcade of which she was a part. Inevitably, it seemed, she looked, first and again, at Alasdair Penhallow. Wearing a tartan kilt and a close-fitting black jacket, he led the group riding his big handsome bay, with pretty Janet Reid alongside him perched on a horse she had chosen from the Penhallow stables. To Fiona’s experienced eye it did not seem that Janet had full control over her spirited mount, but there was no doubt that Alasdair Penhallow could very quickly assist her should she require it. Seldom had Fiona seen a more capable horseman, even among her own North Highlanders who were justly renowned for their equestrian skills.
Wynda and Mairi, as did the other women, traveled up the winding path in carts drawn by sturdy donkeys, with servants sitting on a high bench at the front guiding them. Wynda seemed bored, and Mairi, wrapped in an amethyst velvet cloak whose hood she had drawn about her golden head (creating a fetching halo-like effect), clutched her little dog to her and stared fearfully at the precipitous drop that loomed to one side, a scrubby sloping expanse littered with rocks large and small, as if carelessly tossed in a giant’s game of chance.
At length their party came around a bend in the path, and gathered on the broad, level crest which housed the old monastery. Despite her sardonic reply to Cousin Isobel last night, Fiona was, in fact, impressed by the Keep o’ the Mòr—by its sheer size, the looming immensity of its crenellated towers, its brooding splendor. The countless gray, rough-hewn bricks were very faded now, many of its windows only gaping holes, yet still it was impossible not to be struck by a powerful sense of its former dignity, solemn and grand.
Wynda Ramsay yawned.
“How charming!” cried Janet Reid, and flung herself off her horse with such gusto that Alasdair Penhallow just barely had time to catch her, and help set her feet, in scarlet morocco slippers, onto the ground.
Two dimples peeped on alabaster cheeks as she smiled up at him. “Oh, thank you, laird! What are we going to see first?”
“The lower two levels only,” he answered, “as the upper ones may not be safe.”
“Is there a dungeon? I would love to see a dungeon! Chains, and pincers, and all manner of nasty things!” Janet gave a dramatic shudder which set her emerald ear-bobs flashing in the sun.
Fiona couldn’t help it. She just couldn’t. She said chattily: “Yes, for our ancient monks are renowned for their cruel practices toward the worshippers they’d so often throw into their dungeons, aren’t they? And on the slightest of pretexts, too! A late arrival to services, a misspoken verse from a hymnal, and so on. I expect,” she added to Alasdair Penhallow, “the Keep’s dungeon has the customary walls that drip, bloodstains on the floor, bones scattered about, and rats?”
Mairi emitted a little shriek of horror and clutched at her father’s hand, Janet gave Fiona a hard look of dislike, and Alasdair Penhallow laughed.
“Alas, there’s no dungeon. I spent many a night as a lad camping up here with friends, and how we’d have rejoiced in such a thing! We had to satisfy ourselves with ghost stories, though, and the occasional brick falling down as we slept, scaring us out of our wits.”
Janet moved to Alasdair Penhallow’s side and slid her hand around his arm. “I’d be so frightened to do something like that! Unless I had someone to protect me, of course, and then I’d simply love it.”
Goaded beyond endurance, Fiona said: “As long as a brick didn’t fall on your head.”
“Shall we move on?” Janet sidled closer to Alasdair Penhallow, pointedly ignoring Fiona’s remark, and Fiona had just enough time to see the laughter fade from Alasdair’s eyes and into them come a somber, faraway look, as if he’d just remembered something that caused him pain—and then that expression vanished, he smiled down at Janet, and they both turned away.
Everyone dutifully followed in the laird’s wake and it took what little forbearance Fiona had left to remain silent when the subject of hermits came up and was animatedly discussed for a full half-hour; when Mairi (who felt a little dizzy looking down the twisting stone staircase) claimed Alasdair’s arm and crept along with such hesitancy that it took another half-hour for the group to finally convene on the ground floor; when, as they went outside to a pleasant sunny spot where the servants had laid down blankets and set out all the inviting elements of a picnic, Wynda, predictably, exclaimed:
“Dining on pleen air! Comment enshantee! And so fashionable! One might even fancy oneself at the Regent’s Park! That’s in London, you know,” she explained kindly.
“You are a veritable fount of information, Miss Ramsay.” Janet Reid, her face alight with mischief, sank gracefully onto one of the blankets.
“Merci,” said Wynda, as one benevolently acknowledging a compliment from a pitiful ignoramus.
“Yes, a fount.” Janet burst out laughing, and accepted from one of the servants a tall crystal flute of champagne.
Fiona sat by herself on a blanket at the furthest edge of the group, and proceeded to peacefully enjoy some very nice ham sandwiches as well as a generous serving of strawberries and two thick delicious slices of a fruit cake densely studded with almonds, currants, and raisins.
“My!” Janet Reid commented sweetly from afar. “You have quite the appetite, don’t you, dear Miss Douglass? And yet you’re so very slim! One might almost call you skeletal! I wonder, really, if you might not have a tapeworm.”
“Very possibly,” Fiona replied affably, and helped herself to a large wedge of buttery golden shortbread.
“I suppose,” Janet went on, a little less sweetly, “you’re sorry not to see haggis today, or the offal pot. Aren’t those the traditional dishes you Highlanders love to eat?”
Fiona wavered within herself. Mind your tongue, rise above. Her resolution held for exactly three seconds and then she said:
“Oh, dear me, no, Miss Reid. You mistake us for a clan that actually cooks its food. We normally eat our food raw. Why, we snatch the fish from Wick Bay with our bare hands, and eat it just like that, barefooted on the beach. Head, skin, guts, and tail. Still wiggling. Yes, it’s a simpler life we lead in the wilds of the north.” Reflectively she concluded, “I daresay that’s where we get the tapeworms from. Eating live fish. Or perhaps it’s the carrion. So hard to resist.”
Hastily Cousin Isobel put in: “Now, Fiona dear—”
She was interrupted by Janet Reid as a servant, refilling her champagne glass, misjudged the speed at which he poured and the frothy liquid overflowed, dripping onto the hem of her soft woolen pelisse. “Fool! Get away from me at once!”
Apologizing profusely, he stepped back, and another servant quickly came forward with a cloth to dab at the hem.
“It was but an accident,” said Alasdair Penhallow, pleasantly, and Janet smiled at him, saying with unshaken self-confidence:
“Oh, indeed, laird, but Mother says one has to be firm with the servants, or they’ll try to take advantage. Drinking up the spirits and thieving from the larder, you know.”
“On the other hand,” interpolated Fiona, in that same reflective manner, “one may, it’s said, catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Or is that only your philosophy with the opposite sex, dear Miss Reid?”
Janet narrowed her green eyes, but before she could reply her mother said proudly, “My Janet is as clever as can be, laird! Once she caught a maid with a roll in her apron pocket and dismissed her on the spot—with such an authoritative air for one so young!”
Janet’s father added, with a fond twinkle in his eye, “She’s a brave one too, laird! Not the least bit afraid of bugs. Always squashing them, as bold as you please!”
“And so lively!” Mrs. Reid went on. “She insisted on making her debut at fifteen, and argued her case so convincingly, how could we refuse her?”
“Never saw such a girl who could hold her breath for so long without passing out,” said Mr. Reid, smiling at Janet.
“Oh, Papa, do stop boasting! It’s dreadfully embarrassing, and I simply loathe putting myse
lf forward. The last thing I want is to make the other young ladies feel inadequate.”
“No use hiding your light under a bushel, puss.”
“It’s very true,” Isobel said judiciously, “but speaking of bugs, it seems only right to mention that they are all too often found living in bushels. Or would it be more accurate to say bushel baskets?”
“Well, if we’re to talk of bugs,” said Wynda Ramsay, “it’s outré to squash them, in my opinion.”
Fiona took another wedge of shortbread, and bit into it. She considered pointing out that certain types of spiders, for example, were actually very useful and ought not to be harmed, but why inject a note of dull common sense into this diverting conversation?
“And yet, Miss Ramsay,” Janet said sweetly, “what would you do if someone dropped a bug down the front of your gown?”
Wynda looked amazed. “A lady would never permit such a thing. Mon doo! It would be very poor form.”
“Then let us hope it never happens to you.”
“Now, Janet, I know your playful nature,” said her mother, laughing. “It’s so delightful! But surely you wouldn’t …”
“Oh, Mama, of course not,” replied Janet at once, demurely. Too demurely, and Wynda said, losing a little of her stateliness:
“At Miss Eglinstone’s Finishing School for Young Ladies, one of my acquaintances attempted to apple-pie my bed, and was very sorry afterwards.”
“And while we’re on the subject of apples, I once bit into one and found a worm,” Isobel said, with the air of one determined to steer the conversation into less controversial channels.
“Half a worm?” immediately inquired Duff MacDermott.
She glared at him. “An intact worm.”
“Lucky for the worm.” He laughed.
Then, rather to Fiona’s regret, Mairi said in a small, piteous voice:
“Laird, I’m getting cold. Please may we go?”
“You’re cold?” Janet swung around. “But it’s so delightfully warm up here in the sun, Miss MacIntyre!”
“Yes, but I’m delicate, you see, and very sensitive to the weather.”
“What an affliction you must find it,” Janet said, looking at Mairi as if she were a clump of thistledown about to blow away in the wind and scatter into a thousand little pieces of fluff. “I never feel the cold,” she added casually, but rather spoiled the effect by turning her glance meaningfully on Alasdair Penhallow.
She might as well have declared, thought Fiona, something like: Only a robust young lady will do for the wife of the great Penhallow!
Alasdair stood up. “Of course, Miss MacIntyre, we’ll leave at once,” he said courteously, and extended his big hand to her to help her up, her small white one seeming to disappear within it.
Lithe as a spring doe, Janet Reid jumped to her feet, shaking out her skirts, and said dulcetly, “Laird, do send a servant to assist Miss Douglass to stand. She’s not as young as she used to be, I fear.”
“Dear, dear, how right you are, Miss Reid,” responded Fiona, and allowed a servant to help her rise. She thanked him, and went on pensively, “I do hope I don’t expire of old age on the way back to the castle. So outré.”
“Yes,” agreed Janet, with poison in the sweetness, “I hope so too.”
As their group slowly made its way toward the horses and donkeys, Janet gaily darted about, joking with Duff MacDermott, flirting with Alasdair, hanging heavily on her father’s arm. Then she danced off to a low stone retaining wall and jumped onto it. As they advanced, the wall rose steadily higher until Janet was nearly over their heads but easily she balanced upon it, arms held out wide, her skirts fluttering in the breeze and displaying (for those who were interested) quite a bit of her shapely legs in elegant silk stockings.
“Janet!” called Mrs. Reid, a little nervously. “Do come down, darling!”
“Yes,” added her father, “go back, puss, to where the wall is lower.”
“I don’t believe in going back!” answered Janet, laughing. “I’ll come down at once.” And fearlessly she jumped, landing on her feet with the agility of a rope-dancer.
There were screams from some of the ladies and Duff MacDermott cheered, exclaiming: “Ach, the spirit of the lass! As bold as Scáthach herself!”
At this comparison of Janet Reid to the legendary warrior woman of Gaelic lore, Fiona said nothing, only looked on thoughtfully as a crowd gathered around Janet, praising, remonstrating, admiring, congratulating. Fiona went past them to where Alasdair Penhallow supervised the grooms as they made ready the horses, the donkeys, and the carts. He himself was checking one horse’s billets and girth, but straightened when she came close and quietly said:
“Laird.”
Alasdair looked down into the slender face of Fiona Douglass. Her eyes, he noticed, were now gray and grave.
“Aye?” he said neutrally.
She paused. “How do I say this tactfully? I’m not certain that Miss Reid selected the ideal horse for her abilities, especially since she’s now in a very—ah—high-spirited mood. Perhaps you might keep close to her on the ride back, as you did on the way here?”
He had had that very thought, but said, silkily, “And perhaps you might wish to ride on the other side of Miss Reid? Not only could you supervise her, you could continue to bait her as well.”
To his surprise, in Fiona Douglass’s expression there flickered what seemed to be genuine remorse. “Yes, it was very wrong of me. I shouldn’t have done it. As for Janet, I don’t suppose she can help herself, especially given how monstrously her parents indulge her. And she’s so young.”
“Here again we find ourselves discussing age. Why is that, I wonder?”
Her expression abruptly hardened. “That’s a very good question, laird, and it reminds me. Why aren’t you married? Being well on the way toward middle age, after all.”
“As a wise and mature lady once said to me, Miss Douglass, it’s none of your business.”
“True. Though naturally I’m curious. By the way, do you suppose Janet really will drop a bug down Wynda’s gown? If I were Wynda, I’d watch out.”
Alasdair looked at Fiona Douglass, standing so straight before him, so tall and slim, with that unusual silvery-blonde hair in a fat, shining braid down her back. He was conscious of a feeling of annoyance, and in the back of his mind he took a moment to ponder exactly why he felt that way. Felt bothered. Especially since he’d already made up his mind that she was off his list. In weeks, or even days, she would be gone from Castle Tadgh. Gone forever, and good riddance, and life would resume its easy, enjoyable, predictable course. He answered:
“The way Janet’s been looking at you, she may well drop a black-widow spider in your vicinity. And possibly apple-pie your bed, too.”
Surprising him again, Fiona laughed. She said, “You could be right. I’ll have to be on my guard.”
By now, annoyance was positively rippling through him. “As much as I’d like to stand around here all day chatting with you, Miss Douglass, I should probably go back to checking on this girth.”
“You’re right again,” she replied, unperturbed. “Don’t forget the billet.”
“I won’t,” he said coldly. “When I’m done with it, would you like me to inspect your rig?”
“No, laird, thank you. I prefer to do it myself.” And off Fiona Douglass went toward her big white horse, who greeted her with a friendly nicker.
As the cavalcade wound its way down the steep path, Fiona, from her vantage toward the back of it, swept her glance over certain members of the party. Sitting tall and straight in his saddle, Alasdair Penhallow kept Janet Reid close to him, and she, in turn, seemed to amuse and delight him very much, for very frequently did his laugh ring out.
Mairi sat huddled in her velvet cloak, her little dog on her lap, her mother’s arm snugly around her.
And there was Wynda, on her face once more a rather bovine look of ennui.
She looked again at Alasdair. She liked how
he had, before the return journey began, gone over to talk a little with both Wynda and Mairi. Irritating he might be, but he did have good manners. Goodness, how red his hair looked in the bright sunlight!
She heard a faint little clucking noise, and realized it was Cousin Isobel, sitting alone in one of the pretty carts. With her graying curls flying loose from her coiffure, she was having a conversation—an argument?—with Duff MacDermott who rode alongside her, and he alternately chuckling and gesticulating frowningly. Isobel, in turn, looked rather like a plump little hen pecking at him.
A wry smile curved Fiona’s mouth. Now there was a well-suited couple, each of them, evidently, equally itchy. All that was needed was for him to scratch her arms, and her to scratch his beard, and it would be a match made in heaven.
When her amusement at this silly notion faded away, Fiona’s thoughts drifted on without direction.
Her visit to the stables, early in the morning, had been a fruitful one, for she’d been pleased to see that they were well-kept, well-staffed; the Douglass horses were well-tended. And the head groom, a grizzled, barrel-shaped fellow named Begbie, had stoutly promised to rid her carriage of fleas.
When it was time, Cousin Isobel could travel home in comfort.
Home.
Was she herself looking forward to being back there? To the massive old keep in Wick Bay, always turbulent with Father’s shifting moods, ever filled with the shadows of her own disappointment?
She heard in her mind Alasdair Penhallow’s voice:
Here again we find ourselves discussing age. Why is that, I wonder?
Was it possible that she was, in fact, rather jealous of Janet Reid? So young, so lovely—so attractively plump—and with so many years of promise, of potential, ahead of her?
Fiona rolled this unpleasant idea around in her mind.
Good heavens, had she somehow become a sour old maid?
She was only twenty-seven.