by Imani King
"Sometimes I wonder if asking Diane to leave was a mistake. At least if she was still here I could keep an eye on her."
Wary of saying the wrong thing to my employer and of sticking my nose where it didn't belong, I said nothing and Cameron broke the silence by racing back over to us and noticing the flower in the Laird's hand.
"Daddy! Tell me if I like butter!"
She sat down beside her father and stuck her chin out and I watched as he held the yellow flower under her chin.
"Aye, Cameron, it seems as if you like butter very much."
"Now check Miss Robinson! Check if Miss Robinson likes butter!"
Darach leaned towards me and, seeing that I wasn't sure what this game was about, explained:
"You hold a yellow flower under your chin. If it reflects yellow, it means you like butter."
I tilted my chin up and smiled at Cameron, who was watching the proceedings with great attention and let Darach hold the flower up to me.
"Yes! You like butter too, Miss Robinson!"
I was glad of her presence. If she hadn't been there, I may well have failed at keeping my composure as Darach held the flower up to my face, trailing the cool, soft petals across my chin. He was so close to me I could feel his breath on my cheek.
"Daddy! Do YOU like butter?"
Cameron took the flower gently out of her father's hand and held it up to his chin, giving me a moment to catch my breath. It felt so good being that close to Darach. It would have been so easy to lean into his hand, to feel his fingertips tracing their way down my neck...
"Daddy! You don't like butter!" Cameron's voice was full of mock-disapproval.
"It's not true, child, Daddy loves butter, he just forgot to shave this morning."
I didn't allow myself a glance - even a very quick one - at Darach's strong, square chin, covered as it was with about a day's worth of sandy beard growth and looking dangerously kissable.
Satisfied with her survey of our individual tastes for butter, Cameron lay down on her back between me and Darach and, within minutes, was fast asleep. It didn't take long for the warm afternoon and the sunlight filtering through the haze to get to me, either, and I nodded off a few minutes later.
When I woke up I had no idea what time it was - the sun was still high in the sky so it can't have been too much later - Cameron was still curled against me, breathing slowly and evenly in her sleep. Her father, though, was nowhere in sight. I stayed where I was and watched the little gray pony tearing up clumps of grass and chewing contentedly until the sound of footsteps made me look up. It was Darach, walking back towards us with something in his hand.
"What are those?" I whispered, not wanting to wake Cameron, as I saw that Darach was carrying a handful of flowers, none of which I recognized.
"Wildflowers," he replied, also whispering and kneeling down beside me as if to show them to me. At the last second, just before I expected him to start telling me what they were, I saw something change in his expression. He put the flowers down beside me and looked me right in the eye. That time, I couldn't turn away. There is no turning away from Darach McLanald when he's looking at me the way he did that afternoon beside the Treacle-Eater's Tower. So instead of looking away I met his intent gaze as he bent down over me and opened his lips against mine.
Rationality doesn't come into it when I'm kissed like that. Darach wasn't tentative, but he wasn't pushy either. He kissed me slowly and deeply, so that all it took was a few seconds until the only thing I could feel was the pliancy in my own body and the only thing I could taste was his hunger.
"Oh my God..." I murmured, breathless, as he kissed my chin and then down my neck until my body was on fire with needing his hands on me. He pulled me towards him and I was just reaching up to his shoulders, to pull him down on top of me when Cameron stirred. We jumped apart as if we'd both simultaneously realized we'd been touching hot stoves instead of each other.
"Daddy? Miss Robinson?" Cameron's voice was thick with sleep and she was rubbing her eyes - she hadn't even turned towards us yet and I breathed a sigh of relief that she hadn't seen a thing.
"We're here, Cameron, we're right here," I said, brushing her hair - which was full of bits of heather and grass - off her face.
She looked right at me.
"Miss Robinson are you alright?"
Then she looked at her father.
"Daddy? Your faces look funny."
Darach chuckled at his daughter's questions and picked up the flowers as I hid my embarrassed smiles in my hands. "We're fine, wee girl. Look what Daddy found for you. Can you tell me what the names of the flowers are?"
We made our way back to the castle slowly - even Cameron commented on how slowly we were walking. Darach told her it was because the pony Marshmallow was tired but I knew better - Darach and I were both trying to prolong the spell of the afternoon. I felt like Cinderella anticipating the stroke of midnight. The Laird walked between his daughter and I, and every time he touched me - something he hadn't done before that day - it sent a hot little shiver of lust jolting through my body.
"Are you alright?" He asked me at one point, placing his hand on the small of my back and just allowing his fingertips to graze the bare skin under my shirt.
If Cameron hadn't been there, sitting on her pony and offering up a running commentary on everything she saw, I think we wouldn't have had any choice but to wrap ourselves around each other and make love right there in the heather. But she was there and it was probably a good thing. I wasn't a complete naif but Laird McLanald wasn't anything like any of the men - boys, really - I had ever developed feelings for before. Even as his big hands tormented me with their too-short caresses the little voice in the back of my head was warning me to be careful. You don't know him. You've seen his temper. This is a complicated situation and you have no experience with anything like it.
Mr. Clyde greeted us when we finally got back to Castle McLanald and led Marshmallow the pony back to his stable. Mrs. Clyde was waiting inside, stepping out of the kitchen and bringing with her the smell of something delicious for dinner.
"Och, we thought you'd all gotten lost!" she exclaimed, eying the three of us with what felt like particular concentration. I couldn't quite meet her gaze and took the opportunity to tell everyone I was going to wash up for dinner. I could feel eyes on my back as I ducked under the stone archway to the staircase that led to my room. Cameron's eyes, Mrs. Clyde's eyes and, most of all, Darach's eyes.
When I fell asleep that night it was with the kind of tiredness that comes only from spending hours outdoors. I recognized it vaguely from the summer days of my childhood - the deliciousness of snuggling into a soft bed with the warmth of the sun still sinking into your skin. Of course there was also the warmth caused not by the sun but by the look on Darach's face when he'd leaned down over me by the Treacle-Eater's Tower, not to mention the hot, needy kiss we'd shared before Cameron woke up. Alone in bed, I blushed a little at the memory of my soaking panties, which I'd only noticed when I took them off for my pre-dinner shower. No man had ever had that effect on me before. It frightened me, but it also just stoked the fire Darach had caused in my belly even higher. He did that with a kiss. A single kiss and a few little touches. What could he do to me if it went further than that?
Chapter 8
I was woken up by the next morning by a series of knocks on my door followed by a small, plaintive voice:
"Miss Robinson? Miss Robinson?"
It was Cameron. I found her standing alone in her pajamas with a very worn-looking stuffed dragon clutched in her arms. Instead of saying anything to me when I finally opened the heavy door she just reached both her small arms up and curled her body around mine when I picked her up.
"What are you doing here, little one?" I asked, "Isn't Mrs. Clyde making breakfast for you?"
But I knew why she was at my door. It was the day she was to fly back down to London. And none of the fake cheer I forced into my voice fooled her.
"I don't want to go to London, Miss Robinson. Please let me stay here."
I put her down on my bed and sat beside her.
"I want you to stay here, too, Cameron. But it isn't my decision. It isn't your Daddy's decision either. If you don't go to London your Daddy might get in trouble."
She knew she had to go. I could see it written all over her face and in her trembling lower lip. Once again the question of what any mother could be doing to a child to make them so reluctant to see her leapt into my mind. I had yet to see any marks on Cameron other than a small bruise on her left thigh that she herself had told me she'd gotten when she slipped and fell on the mossy rocks beside the loch. She didn't strike me as a storyteller, either - she'd owned up to sneaking into the kitchen and gorging herself on shortbread earlier in the week when Mrs. Clyde and I had been surprised by an uncharacteristic refusal to eat dinner.
"I don't want to go."
Cameron's voice was a barely audible whisper. I felt completely helpless.
"I know you don't want to go, honey. But today is Saturday and tomorrow is Sunday - you'll be back tomorrow night! Mrs. Clyde will make stew for dinner and you can eat it with me and your Daddy. And then next week it's going to be hot so we can go swimming in the loch."
"And then next weekend I have to go to London again. And the next weekend and the next weekend."
Cameron was the child of a very wealthy man. When she started school it would be the best private school in Scotland. I knew she would never want for the best of anything materially or educationally. Emotionally, however, she seemed as deprived as any child I've ever seen - and I grew up hovering around the poverty line. Her desolation made me angry. All the visits to London were court mandated and as far as I knew even in the United Kingdom custody decisions were made based on the best interests of the child. Who had made the decision that Cameron McLanald had to visit a mother she clearly hated every single weekend of the year?
She refused breakfast so I took her to her room and helped her get dressed and then I carried her across the courtyard and out to the helicopter landing pad that sat just outside the castle walls. The Laird was there waiting for us and the look on his face exactly matched my own feelings.
Cameron wailed when her father pulled her out of my arms. She fought a little, too, snatching at my shoulders and holding onto my body with her legs but giving up within seconds, going limp and allowing herself to be strapped into the backseat of the helicopter. Her father leaned in to kiss her and whisper something into her ear. Just before the door closed I reminded her:
"We'll have dinner together tomorrow night, Cameron! We'll see you soon!"
She didn't look up, though. Even when the door closed behind her and the pilot started the rotors. She didn't see me and Darach waving and smiling as hard as we could as the copter rose into the air and careened off to the south, leaving us behind to stand in the cool fog of the morning for a few moments, saying nothing.
"Do you want to go to the pub later this afternoon, for a pint?" Darach's voice was low and he sounded defeated.
"A pint?" I asked, "sure, that sounds nice."
Darach started to walk back towards the castle first and I decided to let him go, sensing that conversation was probably the last thing he wanted. If I felt terrible about watching Cameron's tiny little blonde head bowed in defeat as the helicopter took off - and I did - it could only have been that much worse for her father.
There was a pall over the castle and its grounds without Cameron there. It wasn't just the lack of her joyful shrieks as she went on various adventures and discovered new and interesting bugs and amphibians in the fountain's pool, it was the fact that everyone in the castle knew the circumstances of her departure, and we all hated it. Even Mrs. Clyde was in a somber mood when I found her in the kitchen a few minutes later.
"Jenny. You'll be wanting breakfast? How does toast and poached eggs sound?"
I wasn't even hungry but I wanted company so I told her toast and poached eggs sounded perfect and sat down at the long wooden table where I'd sat the first time I walked into Castle McLanald. It felt like a long time ago even then, although in truth it had only been just over a week.
"DAMMIT!"
I jerked my head up at the sound of Mrs. Clyde swearing and saw her holding half a wooden spoon in her hand. The other half lay on the floor at her feet.
"Och, Jenny, I'm so sorry lassie. I don't know what's gotten into me."
I knew what had gotten into her. It was Cameron. There was no point in even pretending it wasn't.
"Does this happen every weekend?"
Mrs. Clyde looked up and I watched the expression on her face change when she realized I wasn't talking about the wooden spoon.
"Aye, Jenny. Every weekend. It's getting worse, too, it is. God knows what that arsehole woman is doing to that poor child but there doesn't seem to be a damned thing any of us can do about it and I think it's going to drive her father mad."
I tried and failed to hide the shock on my face at hearing the word 'arsehole' coming out of Mrs. Clyde's mouth.
"I'm sorry for the language. She's a monster though, Jenny, a real monster - the kind of human being you don't think exists until you're unfortunate enough to run into one."
It was clear Diane was a figure of hate for everyone at Castle McLanald but I had yet to hear any real details about what exactly it was she'd done to earn her reputation. It wasn't that I needed details to believe it - Cameron's fear was more than enough to prove that Diane was, at the very least, a terrible mother - it was more an attempt to understand just how one person could be so seemingly and wholly repugnant.
"What exactly did Diane do when she lived here?" I asked Mrs. Clyde slowly, hoping I wouldn't immediately get shut down - Mrs. Clyde, while friendly and warm, also gave off the vibe of someone who could keep a lot of secrets. To my surprise, though, she simply poured two cups of tea, carried them to the table and sat down opposite me, looking out the window.
"Have you ever met someone, Jenny, who seems sweet and kind on the surface but turns out to be as rotten as a winter crabapple on the inside? Someone who never really does anything out in the open so it's almost impossible to even know how to ask them to stop because you know they'll ask you what they should stop and you won't quite have a response for them?"
I did at one time know someone like that - my own mother, who had finally disappeared from my life when I was seven without ever telling me who my father was. I nodded at Mrs. Clyde, confirming that I knew exactly the kind of person she was talking about.
"That's how Diane is. Except she's worse than most people like that. Even horrible people usually have a good side, or a soft spot or something in their past that can help you to get feeling a little sorry for them. Diane doesn't have any of that. She slithered in here like a snake and got her fangs into everyone around her. By the time the Laird figured out just how far she'd gone we'd lost three members of staff, the Laird was half insane, the bairn was barely able to sleep at night and she - Diane - was pregnant again, by the gardener. She didn't keep it, mind. A gardener's baby is not worth near as much as a laird's."
"Why did he marry her?" I asked, incredulous. Darach was not a stupid man.
"Aye. Why did he marry her? Because she's as good at fooling people as anyone I've ever met. When she fell pregnant she told him her pills must have failed, which I feel safe in calling a lie. And she's from a good English family, mind, a highborn family - the Laird's mother thought she was the bees knees."
The Laird had never mentioned either of his parents before, except to tell me that they lived abroad and rarely came back to Scotland. Mrs. Clyde continued:
"So she helped Diane talk the Laird into marriage, scaring him with the possibility of scandal and the shame of an illegitimate child. Besides, if they hadn't married, Cameron wouldn't be in line to inherit. Of course the Laird didn't want that. And as soon as the ink was dry on the marriage certificate Diane lost any reason to keep up her pretenses."
Mrs. Clyde went through three cups of tea as she told me the whole story - at least as much as she knew. And at the end of it Diane did, indeed, sound like a monster. She'd presented herself to Darach - and to his family and everyone else at Castle McLanald - as a sweet, fragile flower, a woman longing to settle down in Scotland with the love of her life and their soon-to-be-born baby. After the wedding she'd returned to the Castle a different woman. A minor disagreement with the stableman over her horse's care had led to an accusation of sexual impropriety and his immediate firing. A maid had followed the stableman after apparently having the temerity to draw the attention of a man in Diane's presence, calling Diane's own allure into question. Mrs. Clyde confirmed that the maid had been fired for nothing more than an admiring glance being aimed in her direction, before anyone knew the full extent of Diane's malevolent narcissism.
When Mr. Clyde caught Diane and the gardener in an outbuilding without their clothes on, she had tried to play it off as another lascivious Scotsman forcing himself upon her but that time, it hadn't worked. Everyone knew the gardener - everyone knew his parents, too. When he told the story of how he'd rejected her advances over and over until the fateful afternoon, it included a cup of tea he'd shared with an oddly friendly Diane and a sudden feeling of extreme intoxication that came over him. All he remembered, he said, was stumbling back to the garden shed and blacking out until a few hours later when he woke up to an enraged Darach shaking him and shouting at him to never show his face at Castle McLanald again.
It had been Diane's undoing to mess with the gardener, who was well-loved by all the staff. Mr. and Mrs. Clyde, as well as everyone else who worked on the estate, had started to keep a very close eye on her after that. It was Mrs. Clyde herself who had peered through a crack in the door as Diane lowered a screaming baby Cameron into a bath of ice water over and over until the baby's skin was red and she was shivering so hard she could no longer cry.