by Amanda Scott
“Do I?” he said. “Then it must be so. I’m thinking that you will not like the decision I’ve made. Is it all right if we talk normally, or will we wake the bairn?”
“He sleeps like he’s deaf, but Mother Beaton says such sleep is proper for newborn babes. He’ll awaken starving, though, and I think it must nearly be time.”
“Then I’ll just say what I must say quickly. I’ve told Hod that I want him to serve as steward of this household.”
“Hod! Nay, I won’t have that.” She glanced at Flory.
Kirkhill said mildly, “You will still have charge of the household, my lady, but Hod can make that easier for you. I have told him he is to seek his orders from you and to discuss any conflict with you. If something arises on which the two of you cannot agree, I will expect you to come to me.”
“You don’t understand,” she said tensely, wanting to shout at him but fearing that if she gave way to temper, she might also give way to tears. At that moment, her emotions seemed entirely unpredictable.
“Perhaps you would explain the difficulty to me,” he said gently.
She shook her head. She couldn’t.
“Then we’ll give him a try. After Old Jardine died, Hod thought of leaving, but I’d like him to stay because he knows much about this place and its people, much more than you can know after just two years here.”
“He hasn’t been here much longer than that,” she said.
“Hasn’t he? He did work closely with Old Jardine, though. Moreover, if he does not give satisfaction, he will go.”
“I don’t know why you say I’m in charge. You’re not giving me a say in this.”
“Not unless you give me reason,” he said. He hesitated then, eyeing her thoughtfully. Then he took the small pouch he wore from his belt, opened it, and extracted a key. “Do you chance to know what this key fits, lass?”
She shook her head. She had never seen it before.
“Well, you do command this household. Have you a chatelaine?”
“Aye, sure, yonder on that hook by the door.” She pointed to the silver-linked girdle, or belt, that she had worn at her waist until it had gotten too small. Attached to it on short chains were the various articles of household use that she usually carried, including her keys, a corkscrew, scissors, and her thimble case.
Taking one ring of keys from its chain, the one with the pantry key, he added the key he’d shown her. “I found it in Jardine’s room. You should keep it with these others until we learn what it fits. There is one other thing,” he added as he hung the belt back on its hook.
She felt wary again, but this time he seemed only wryly amused.
“What is it?” she asked.
“Old Jardine is still aboveground. Evidently, in the hurry to send for me, and with the birth of the newest Jardine, no one got round to burying the old one.”
“God-a-mercy! He died on Saturday! It has been nearly four days!”
“He died Saturday evening, so it is barely three days,” Kirkhill said. “And it has not been hot. They are digging his grave now, and we’ll bury him at dawn tomorrow. I told Hod to arrange it with Evart and let everyone else know so that anyone who wants to attend may do so. He said Jardine would not want a priest.”
“Nay, he would not,” she agreed. “He would spin in his grave if he heard a priest speaking over him. But why did Hod not tell you before now?”
“He thought it was Evart’s business to do so, but Evart strikes me as an old man afraid to speak to his own shadow.”
“Aye, he worshipped Old Jardine but feared him, too. And doubtless he is terrified of you. But Evart suited Old Jardine because he never said nay to him.”
“Well, I want my steward to speak up,” Kirkhill said. “Now, lass,” he added, “your mother has not seen you or her grandson today, and she asked me to say that she would like to do so if you are not too tired. May she come up?”
“Aye, sure,” she said, trying to match his tone but fearing she sounded sullen.
When he’d gone, Flory said, “Ye should tell him why ye canna abide that Hod.”
“Nay, I cannot. ’Tis too humiliating. And don’t you dare tell him, either.”
Flory grimaced but she said, “Nay, then, ye ken fine that I won’t.”
Phaeline soon joined them and seemed for once truly to dote on her grandson. But Fiona was tired and found her mother’s ready advice on nearly every subject that arose only irritating.
At last, Phaeline said, “I can see that you are not feeling yourself yet, my dearling. Truly, I want only to help you in any way I can.”
“I know that, madam,” Fiona said tightly as the baby stirred and began making noises that she recognized as a prelude to loudly announcing his near starvation. She would have liked to ask her mother why she had not attempted to help her during the two years since she had left home, but she was afraid that if she broached that subject, she would lose her temper altogether.
When Phaeline left the room, Fiona felt only relief.
Chapter 8
The next morning, when Kirkhill arrived at the Spedlins graveyard, pale gray dawn mist rising from the river Annan lay thick on the hillside. It gave the place an eerie look, with headstones sticking up through it like posts through a soft cloud.
Two shovel handles showed above the dense, low mist, about six feet apart.
Kirkhill wondered if Hod had thought about a headstone for Old Jardine. He had purposely delayed his arrival, not wanting to look as if he were there for any reason other than to pay his respects to the dead. In truth, he did not care how they buried the old man, as long as the interment was respectful. And with Hod in command of the proceedings, he was sure that it would be.
A group of perhaps twenty people had gathered at the gravesite, looking like dark shadows looming out of the mist. He saw Joshua first, because he had expected to see him there. His man was employing his usual skill at making friends to good purpose. Kirkhill had not, however, expected to see the maidservant Flory standing beside Joshua. Surely, she should be looking after…
His gaze stopped when he recognized the figure next to Flory as her mistress. He felt a surge of irritation bordering on anger before he recalled that he had not forbidden Fiona to attend the burial. Moreover, if she was fit enough to get out of bed, as she had doubtless insisted, the Jardines would expect her to be there.
She looked at him, and he nearly smiled to see the challenging look she shot him. Controlling the urge, he gave her look for look instead.
It would be unwise to let her see that her stubborn determination to defy those who cared for her well-being rather amused him, but he admired her courage.
He walked over to stand beside her, noting that she was wearing a hooded cloak, warm gloves, and leather boots.
Her chin rose at his approach, but she said coolly, “Good morrow, sir.”
“Good morrow, madam,” he said with a slight nod. “Is everyone here?”
“I think so, aye. We were just waiting for you.”
He looked for Hod and saw him talking with Evart. Then Hod saw him and stepped nearer the space between the shovels, as his gaze drifted over the onlookers.
“There being nae one else here wha’ may wish to speak for the old master, unless his lordship has words to say…” He paused until Kirkhill shook his head. Then, drawing a breath, Hod said, “We all ken fine that ye didna ken him well, sir. Sakes, but I served him three years, m’self, and in that time he scarce spoke to any save the young master n’ me. ’Tis Master Will as ought to be speaking for him now.”
Kirkhill noted that two or three men in the group nodded, but most showed no reaction. As he scanned the group, he realized that the mourners were all gillies and house servants, plus a dozen or so men-at-arms, half of whom were his own.
Hod spoke briefly, relating what he knew and admired of Old Jardine.
Kirkhill realized as the mist began to dissipate that the shrouded body was already in the grave, with a mound of dirt wai
ting at one side to bury it. When Hod stopped speaking, he motioned two men to the shovels, and the ceremony was over.
Fiona, standing beside Kirkhill, gave a shudder, and he offered her an arm. As they turned toward the tower, he saw another, smaller figure a short distance away.
“Is that not Jeb’s Wee Davy?” he asked her.
She looked and nodded, frowning. “He should not be here, watching,” she said. “His own loss is too new.”
“’Tis nobbut life in the Borders, lass,” Kirkhill said. “Nearly all bairns suffer loss by the time they are his age.”
“He’s barely nine,” she said curtly. “His sister, Tippy, is only six.”
“Even so,” he said, wishing she would look up at him. “How did Jeb die?”
“A stupid accident. He was helping saddle horses one evening, because Will wanted to ride along the river, and one of the beasts kicked him in the head as he tried to remove some thorns that had lodged in its hoof. It did not even seem as if the horse kicked him hard, but Jeb died less than an hour later.”
“That’s a shame,” Kirkhill said. “A lad needs a father.”
She gave him a look. “My son will do gey better without his, I think.”
He put his hand over hers on his forearm and urged her toward the boy, who seemed to be staring at bare ground, looking at nothing in particular.
As they approached, however, Davy looked up and said, “They put him here, me lady. I ken the place, ’cause the ground be still bare. Me mam said that one day mayhap we can make a stone for him. I’d do it m’self, but I dinna ha’ the ken.”
“Jeb will have his stone, Davy,” Fiona said. “We will see to that.”
Kirkhill said, “Her ladyship is right, lad. If you want to help with it, I’ll arrange that for you. But for now, prithee run ahead to the great hall and tell them we’re coming in hungry. Also, ask Lady Phaeline if she wants to break fast with us.”
“Aye, sure, me lord,” Davy said, running to obey.
“That was kind of you,” Fiona said, looking up at him with approval.
“I’m a kind chap,” he said, “when people do not defy me.”
She looked swiftly down, but he was nearly certain that she smiled.
Fiona stifled the bubble of laughter in her throat. Not only did it seem inappropriate to laugh at such a time and in such a place but also she did not know where the bubble had come from. Surely, she did not want to defy Kirkhill.
Someone with more power than she possessed had to protect the Jardine estates for her tiny son until he was of an age to take them over himself. Kirkhill seemed eminently qualified for the job. So why did the man annoy her so much?
Glancing at his handsome profile, she looked down again before he could feel her gaze on him. Her boots were wet from the damp grass of the hillside, but the dawn mist was dissipating. It was easier now to see where they stepped.
Earlier, as she and Flory had followed the others downhill to the graveyard, she had wondered nervously if someone might fall into the hole that the men had dug there. The image had sent shards of ice up her spine, and she had turned her thoughts abruptly to her child, wondering if he might get hungry before she returned.
As they neared the tower entrance, Kirkhill slowed and looked back over his shoulder to say, “Flory, I want a word with my man before I break my fast, and he is yonder with Hod. I’ll leave you to see your mistress safely inside from here.”
Fiona lifted her hand from his forearm and walked on ahead, not waiting for Flory. She had a sudden fierce yearning to see her baby.
She was hurrying up the twisting stairway beyond the hall landing, when she heard a deep growl above, followed by a gasp and a sudden outraged squall that she recognized as her son’s. The sounds giving wings to her feet, she flew up and around the curve, only to come to an abrupt halt just below the landing outside her bedchamber at the sight of her mother with the baby in her arms, staring at Jardine’s great mastiff, crouched to spring, on the stairs just above them.
“Don’t move, Mam,” Fiona said evenly.
At the sound of her voice, the dog sprang.
Kirkhill, having wanted only to see if Joshua had learned anything new in the graveyard and hearing that he had not, followed Fiona and Flory at once. Entering the tower a few yards behind Flory, he saw her skirts whisk around the curve of the stairs above the great-hall landing, then heard the baby’s cry and a shrill scream.
Taking the stairs two by two, he pressed the shrieking Flory hard against the stairway wall and pushed past her, striving to see what was happening above. At first, all he saw was a swirl of skirts. Then he recognized Fiona’s dark cloak, heard a canine snarl, and moved faster. But he was not fast enough. As he reached for Fiona, she thrust herself between Phaeline and Old Jardine’s mastiff just as the dog, still snarling, leaped.
Terrified for Fiona, and realizing that Phaeline held the baby and that they might all plunge down the stairway under the dog’s great weight, he braced himself with one hand to the wall to hold Phaeline steady while he tried to grab Fiona with his free hand. Phaeline suddenly shifted away, having managed to regain sense enough to open the bedchamber door and stumble inside with the baby.
Fiona had not made a sound, but as she fell back under the weight of the dog, it was all Kirkhill could do to retain his footing and catch her. She grew abruptly much heavier, and as he strove to hold fast, blood spurted all over him.
Fiona cried out, and more terrified than ever, fearing that she had sustained a mortal injury, he clutched her to him, trying to shove the dog off her as he did.
His mind was still on pushing the heavy dog up and away from them when a calm young voice from just above his eye level said, “D’ye think he’s dead, laird?”
Lifting his gaze from the blood soaking Fiona’s breasts and torso, he looked past the dog’s head into Davy’s face. It looked as if the lad were straddling the dog.
“Where did you come from?” Kirkhill demanded.
“Yonder,” the boy said, jerking a thumb toward the stairs above them as he clambered awkwardly off the dog and tried to help drag it off Fiona. “Sithee, I thought the lady Phaeline were still in her chamber, so I went up to tell her that everyone were a-coming in to break fast. She were no there, but that fiendish devil-dog were a-sitting on the stairway. He paid me nae heed, but when I rapped on Lady Phaeline’s door, he bolted down the stairs. Be the lady Fiona hurt bad?”
“I don’t know,” Kirkhill said, forcing himself to speak as calmly as the boy did. “The dog is dead, though. It looks as if someone slit its throat.”
“I did, aye. I saw him leap at her, and I kent fine that I couldna stop him or pull him off her, so I jumped atop him. I had me da’s dirk in me hand when I did, and it stuck in his neck when I landed on him. I just wiggled it around, is all.”
An icy chill swept through Kirkhill at the thought of how easily the lad’s knife might have plunged into Fiona instead, but he said only, “Good lad.”
“You saved us all, Davy,” Fiona said, gasping.
Kirkhill, working from an awkward angle as he supported her and tried to move the dog, was having little luck with the latter task, even with Davy’s help.
“Are ye bad hurt, me lady?” the boy asked. “Ye’re all over bloody.”
“Nay, I twisted as he leaped. And, although he did sink his teeth in my shoulder when he struck me, my cloak is thick and his lordship kept me from falling. I think he also eased the force of Dobby’s impact,” she added, still gasping for breath. She looked up at Kirkhill. “He is heavy, sir. Cannot you shift him off me?”
“Aye,” he said, helping her sit against the wall and then leaning over her to move the dog. Hearing the chamber door open, he looked up to see Phaeline in the opening. He could hear the baby crying inside. “Are you all right, madam?”
“I am, aye, although I don’t mind telling you that that beast frightened the liver and lights out of me. Is it truly dead?”
“It is. I’ll ha
ve some of our lads come and remove it. I’ll also have them bring food to you up here. The babe is hungry, and her ladyship would do well to rest. I shall rely on you to keep her here in her chamber.”
“Help me up, my lord,” Fiona said sharply. “I have some few things to say, and I don’t want to say them whilst I’m sitting here on this landing.”
Fiona waited only for Kirkhill to get the dog off her before getting quickly to her feet and confronting her mother.
“What demon possessed you to take my son out of his cradle?” she demanded. “Faith, to take him out of my chamber! I told you never—”
“Moderate your voice, Fiona,” Phaeline interjected. “I heard him wailing, and when he did not stop, I came to see what was amiss. He was in your room all alone save for that child, Tippy, so I sent her away and decided to take him downstairs to Mother Beaton until you returned, thinking she might prepare a sugar tit or some other sustenance for him. I no sooner shut the door behind me than that beast dashed around the corner, crouched, and growled at me. Where were you?”
“At Old Jardine’s burial, of course, but you had no right to take him from his cradle, Mam. He was safe there and—”
She broke off with a sob when Kirkhill gripped her arm and urged her into her bedchamber. As he released her, she whirled to face him. “What do you mean—?”
“Calm yourself,” he said. “Your bairn is hungry. Go and feed him.”
She opened her mouth to tell him how much she disliked his arbitrary orders, but something in his expression deterred her.
“Before I leave and shut that door to the landing,” he went on quietly. “You might want to thank Wee Davy again.”
She nodded, collecting herself enough to say, “Prithee, Davy, come in here. Flory, go and look after the bairn, will you? Likely, he needs changing.”
As Flory hurried to obey her, the boy came in, looking wary. “I didna let that devil dog inside, me lady, if that be what ye’re a-thinking. The door downstairs were open when I came in, but I shut it behind me, and he were already inside.”