The Wish Club

by Stella Cameron

  “And everything about ye says ye do. It’s t’be near him that ye’re wantin’ to go, isn’t it?”

  She was a poor liar, but she couldn’t admit the truth. “I’m goin’ because I’ve a chance t’better mysel’ and t’help my family.”

  “Mayhap,” Niall said. “I’ll pray ye don’t ruin our family. But I’ve the sight on me, and I don’t like what I see. If ye leave us t’go there, ye surely will ruin us all.”

  Chapter Three

  If ye leave us t’go there ye surely will ruin us all.

  For the rest of their journey together Niall didn’t speak at all. Kirsty smothered the temptation to plead with him to support her decision. She wanted to be a mistress of her own fate, her own decisions. In turn she must allow Niall his own decisions.

  They drew closer to home, and she saw her father’s slight but unmistakable form in the doorway. He raised a hand and waved, and called out, “There ye are. Ye must both be starvin’. And your mother’s no’ pleased t’have her dinner ruined.”

  Father couldn’t sound angry even when he tried. “Sorry,” Kirsty called back. “We’ll eat it cold, won’t we, Niall? As punishment, although it’ll still melt in our mouths anyway.”

  “Ye wee flatterer,” their mother said, appearing beside her husband and wiping her hands on her apron. “Ye think ye can flatter your way out o’ anythin’.”

  “Can’t I?” Kirsty asked, and laughed.

  “Och, get away wi’ ye,” Gael Mercer said. “I’ve kept it hot. Now wash your hands and get inside, the pair o’ ye. Robert and I have both waited for ye, and your father needs his dinner when it’s time, so don’t keep him waitin’ again.”

  She was too old to be ordered so. Startled at the thought, Kirsty obediently washed her hands in the trough outside the front door and dried them on the rough, wind- and sun-dried cloth her mother gave her.

  Inside they sat at the same wooden table where they’d sat as long as Kirsty remembered, and watched their mother ladle barley broth into enameled tin bowls. Their spoons were wooden, carved by their father, and scoured diligently after every meal.

  The broth was hearty, and, despite her apprehension, Kirsty found herself hungry. As was their custom, they ate in silence, mopping up the broth with oatcakes.

  Each time Kirsty looked up she found Niall watching her. He was waiting for her to tell her parents her news. Her mouth grew dry, and suddenly she was no longer hungry. She pushed her bowl away.

  “Whist?” Mother said. “There’s plenty. Ye’re too thin, my girl.”

  Kirsty smiled. “A puff of a breeze would toss you from this hill,” she told her mother. “It’s a marvel ye’ve all the energy that goes into your day.”

  “I’ve reason to have plenty o’ energy. I’ve the finest husband in the land, and we’ve the finest children. Lookin’ forward to seein’ ye at the table of an evenin’s enough to keep a body strong.”

  Once more Kirsty met Niall’s eyes.

  “We’re to have a visitor this evening,” Kirsty said, stumbling over the words. “Mr. Rossmara asked me t’tell ye he’ll be comin’ for a few words wi’ ye.”

  Father stopped eating and set his spoon down slowly. “I didna know ye were on friendly terms wi’ Max Rossmara, Kirsty.”

  “I’m no’ on friendly terms or otherwise,” she said. “He’s responsible for the runnin’ o’ this estate, and he asked me t’bring ye a message. Was that wrong?”

  “Of course it wasn’t wrong,” Mother said, patting Father’s hand. “We’ll be glad to entertain Mr. Rossmara won’t we, Robert. His uncle thinks verra highly o’ him, and that means we think verra highly o’ him, too.”

  Father made a grumbling sound.

  “I knew there was something you weren’t telling me,” Niall said. He pushed back from the table and stood up forcefully. “It is somethin’ t’do wi’ him, isn’t it? How could ye be so stupid?”

  “Niall!” Mother said, her hand at her throat. “Don’t speak t’your sister so.”

  “What’s afoot here?” Father asked. “Out wi’ it, miss. Out wi’ it now.”

  “Let’s be sensible,” Mother said. “Sensible and calm. I’m sure Kirsty will tell us if there’s something we ought to know.”

  “Oh, there’s somethin’ ye ought t’know, isn’t there, Kirsty?” Niall’s expression was thunderous.

  “I’ll thank ye t’let me speak for myself,” Kirsty told her brother. “There’s nothing afoot that’s cause for unhappiness. I’ve been asked t’take on more duties at the castle, that’s all. It’ll be good for me. An advancement. I know ye’ll be glad for me.”

  “Tell them,” Niall pressed.

  Kirsty frowned at him, but said, “I’ll be living at the castle, so I can be readily to hand when I’m needed.”

  “Oh, Kirsty,” her mother said softly, dropping her hands into her lap and lowering her eyes.

  Niall threw open the door and stood with the dusky sky painting a backdrop for his big body. Anger etched every line of that body. “Ye’ve ruined it all,” he said without looking back. “See what ye’ve done to Mother?”

  Kirsty looked from her mother to her father. “It’s a wonderful opportunity,” she told them. “I’ll learn more things, and in time it’ll make a difference to all o’ us. Please be happy for me.”

  “Your place is here with us,” her father said gruffly. “Your mother needs you.”

  “Leave her be,” Mother said. “She’s a life o’ her own t’make, and if this is what she wants, well then, I’m happy for her.”

  “And I’ll be home all the time, I promise I will.”

  “When it suits ye,” Father said.

  Niall stiffened in the doorway. “I think our company’s coming—unless one o’ our neighbors managed to get himself a great Thoroughbred.”

  Kirsty’s heart flipped, but she made sure no sign of her excitement showed on her face.

  A horse’s trotting hoofs sounded on the hard-packed earth outside, and, very shortly, Max appeared in the doorway. Niall didn’t budge or greet the visitor.

  “Niall,” Father said, his usually cheerful voice flat. “Welcome our visitor properly, if ye please.”

  Niall’s response was to step back into the room and withdraw to a shadowy corner.

  “Good evening to you, Mr. and Mrs. Mercer,” Max said, ducking his head to enter the croft. “I expect Kirsty told you I’d be calling.”

  “She did that,” Father said.

  Mother got up and quickly cleared the table. “Will ye have something with us, Mr. Rossmara? A wee dram?”

  “No, thank you, Mrs. Mercer. But you’re very kind. I came to make sure you fully understand my proposal for Kirsty’s future. Understand and approve. Kirsty would always want your blessings for anything she undertakes.”

  Niall made a choking noise in his corner, but Kirsty wouldn’t look at him.

  Max’s hair was ruffled from his ride, and color showed in his face. His vibrancy overpowered the shabby little dwelling, something she’d never felt as strongly as now. He didn’t belong in a place like this. His manner and bearing, his forcefulness, were of another world—the world of privilege.

  “Kirsty tells us she’s to live at the castle,” her father said. “I’m surprised ye bother yoursel’ with such minor domestic arrangements.”

  “This is a domestic arrangement that affects me deeply,” Max said, looking at Kirsty rather than her father. “She is very important to me.”

  She flushed instantly and didn’t trust herself to check her family’s reaction to Max’s statement.

  “Did you explain what the manner of your new duties are to be?” he asked her.

  She shook her head.

  “Well,” Max continued, “you’ll remember how I told you that Kirsty was a most capable student. I taught her a great deal when she was growing up. Anything I learned, she wanted to learn, and she did so more than ably. Your daughter is a highly intelligent woman, and I want her to have an opportunity to put
a very fine mind to work.”

  “It’s no’ a woman’s place to flaunt learnin’,” Father said. “Her place is in the home. We’ve been happy enough with her helpin’ out Miss Lamenter with the children since it’ll be good experience for when she has children o’ her own.”

  Kirsty bowed her head to hide her face. Father didn’t sound at all himself.

  A silence followed until Max said, “But Kirsty has explained that she has accepted a position with me?”

  The sound of a sharp movement brought Kirsty’s head up. Niall stepped out of his shadow, and said, “What kind o’ position would that be? A position wi’ ye?”

  “As my assistant,” Max said calmly. “She will do an admirable job and make my own life so much the better.”

  “An interestin’ manner o’ expressin’ yoursel’,” Father said, and his voice shook.

  Kirsty looked at him and filled her hands with her skirt. He was angry, more angry than she’d ever seen him. His face was red, and he made fists at his sides. Niall moved beside his father and the two of them glowered at Max.

  “Leave this t’me, Father,” Niall said. “Mr. Rossmara can deal wi’ me. And if he thinks the likes o’ us are too stupid t’understand his wiles, he’ll wake soon enough. We’ll settle this as men.”

  Mother felt her way to a chair and sat down with a thump. “Stop him, Robert,” she said. “He’ll be hurt.”

  “I’ll not be the one—”

  “Enough, Niall,” his father said. “We must hear Mr. Rossmara out.”

  “Thank you,” Max said. “I intend to train Kirsty into my ways. I trust her implicitly. I know she will serve me well.”

  “Where will she work?” her father asked. “When she’s servin’ you?”

  “In my own study.”

  “Wi’ ye? In your study? Alone?”

  After a brief pause Max said, “No one will question the arrangement, I assure you.”

  “Because my daughter’s a peasant and of no account?”

  “Because she is my choice and I am of some account. And I’m surprised you speak of Kirsty in such a manner.”

  “We’re simple people, Mr. Rossmara,” Father said. “But we know our place. And, in case ye thought otherwise, the children o’ the poor are as important t’them as the children of the rich. Mayhap more so. We keep our children with us from choice. We’d no’ like t’be sendin’ them away t’the fancy schools when they’re little more’n bairns.”

  “You’ve known me since I was a boy, sir, and you’ve known my father much longer. Your hostility shocks me. I’d thought you’d be pleased to see your daughter have a chance to better herself.”

  “My daughter has never given me any reason t’feel ashamed o’ her.”

  Max stared at Kirsty. She felt his eyes upon her and eventually had to look at him. “It wasn’t my intention to make trouble for you,” he said quietly.

  Her family shamed her. They were not rational. “I know that,” she told him. “They haven’t had time to get used to the idea yet.”

  Mother shifted in her chair. “I’ve no’ seen the inside o’ the castle, ye understand. But I’ve heard enough o’ it. A great place. Kirsty’s no’ used t’the likes o’ such a place.”

  “I’ve worked at the castle for several years,” Kirsty said, her embarrassment deepening. She wasn’t a child to be treated so by her parents. “I know Kirkcaldy well, and a fine place it is. Mr. Rossmara is giving me the kind o’ opportunity ye should be glad of for me.”

  “And her quarters,” Father said. “In some warren o’ little places where all the servants sleep. Alone, and wi’ no one o’ her own t’turn to.”

  Max approached her father until the latter was forced to look up to see the other’s face. “I’ve known Kirsty since she was a child and myself little older. I think of her in a very special way. Her rooms will not be in the servants’ quarters, and she will not be alone unless she chooses to be alone. She can always come and go as she pleases. And if she needs someone to turn to at the castle, it shall be to me.”

  “Kind o’ ye,” Niall said. “If she’s no’ t’sleep among the servants, then where is she t’sleep?”

  “Kirsty will have rooms in Eve—Eve Tower. And most comfortable they will be. Whatever she desires for her pleasure there, she shall have.”

  She looked from face to face among her family and felt she did not know them. They had closed out what Max was telling them. Their hostility formed a wall between them, and any chance of reason.

  “Eve Tower,” her father said. “Is that where some o’ the staff lives?”

  Max narrowed his eyes, and his face tightened. In a quiet, harsh voice he said, “That is not where members of the staff live.”

  Father fidgeted, running his scarred fingertips along the edge of the table. “I thought the marquess and his family lived in—Revelation, is it?”

  “It is. And Adam Tower is where guests are usually housed.”

  Niall took a step toward Max, but Father grabbed his sleeve, and said, “Hold ye, Niall. So will my girl be alone in that great big tower, Mr. Rossmara?”

  Max’s jaw worked. A nerve twitched at the corner of his left eye. “My rooms are also in the Eve Tower, Robert.”

  Kirsty felt sick and weak—but determined. The men in her family were suggesting Max was about other than the stated business with her. They were degrading her in front of him by presenting such foolish ideas.

  “I came here this evening because Kirsty wanted—as is only proper—for me to obtain your approval for the arrangement I presented. If I don’t have your approval, then I shall, of course, withdraw the offer.”

  All feeling fled Kirsty’s legs. She trembled, then realized she trembled not from fear or any emotion she had ever felt before, but from fury that her future could be manipulated by others. She was a mature woman and could make up her own mind about her future.

  “Mr. Rossmara is to be married,” she announced, and took a sharp breath at the loudness of her own voice. “He is to marry Lady Hermoine Rashly, who is the niece of Countess Grabham.”

  “Is that so?” Father said.

  “It is so,” Kirsty said. “Isn’t it so, sir?”

  “Sir,” Niall muttered. “Now she has to call the whelp she played with, ‘sir.’ And he’ll house her where she’s no one t’turn to but him.”

  “He’s to be married, I tell you.”

  “And then what will ye be?” Niall asked. “Somethin’ worse than ye’ll be before he’s wed if ye stay in that place and continue behavin’ as he’s clearly got a mind for ye t’behave.”

  Max pressed his lips together, then said, “And how is that exactly, Niall?”

  “Doin’ your biddin’. We may be simple folk, but we can well imagine how easy it would be for such a man as ye t’have your way wi’ an innocent like my sister.”

  Mother cried out, and Kirsty covered her own mouth.

  Niall continued, his voice low, “And when ye’ve ruined her and she’s nowhere else t’go, what then? If ye choose t’keep her for your own purposes, she’ll be nothing but a ladybird, a kept woman in the same house as her keeper’s wife. It’s a foul plan, and well ye know it. Only ye’ve not reckoned wi’ me.”

  “Say no more!” his father stepped forward, and said to Niall, “Ye’re no’ t’speak o’ such things in front o’ your mother.”

  “And you, Robert? What do you think my motives are where Kirsty’s concerned?” Max asked, mildly enough to send terror toward Kirsty’s heart.

  “I think we both know. There’s no call to repeat what’s already been said. Ye’ve always had a liking for Kirsty, we’ll no’ deny that, will we?”

  “We certainly won’t,” Max responded.

  “But she’s no’ good enough for ye. If she had been, ye’d no’ have been so willin’ t’leave her behind ye when ye’d given her reason to hope for more.”

  An urge to run away all but sent Kirsty from the house. This was the most terrible moment of her life,
yet she was helpless to stop what was happening.

  “Have a care,” Max said. “You are concerned for your wife’s feelings. I suggest you have a care for your daughter’s.”

  “It’s my daughter who has all o’ my concern the now. I must guide her, for she canna guide hersel’ where she’s no experience.”

  “And your experience,” Max said, “is all gleaned from the gossip of others, from idle chatter around the tables of men with no experience at all in such areas. I would never hurt Kirsty.”

  “You’ll not get the chance,” Niall said. “Kirsty willna be goin’ back t’Kirkcaldy. Not for any reason. So ye can get back on that fancy horse o’yours and away wi’ ye.”

  “Is that your decision, Mr. and Mrs. Mercer?”

  Mother continued to cry softly.

  Father raised his chin, and said, “I’ll speak wi’ your uncle about this.”

  “My uncle already knows,” Max said.

  A great rising up of emotion all but overwhelmed Kirsty.

  It had always been so. Men decided the fate of women, and women were supposed to say nothing while they allowed themselves to be placed as men chose to place them.

  “I’ve accepted Mr. Rossmara’s offer,” she said, breaking the silence. “And I’m a woman o’ my word. I’m honored t’be asked t’serve him. I’m honored he thinks me capable of filling such a responsible position.”

  “As his trollop?” Niall demanded. “I’ll kill him before he uses you so.”

  “Niall,” she said, “hold your foolish tongue. He’s t’be married. I’m t’be his assistant. What can ye be thinkin’ of?”

  “I’m thinkin’ that it’ll be convenient for him t’take a wife suitable t’his station while he has the woman he’d rather bed right where he can bed her at will. Men o’his class always have other women. It means nothin’ t’him. And it’ll mean nothin’ t’his lady since she’ll be amusin’ hersel’ elsewhere as soon as he’s got her wi’ a bairn.”

  Kirsty’s horror turned her cold. That her own brother should suggest such monstrous things was beyond belief. And that her father should make no attempt to stop his son must mean he agreed with him.