by Amanda Scott
She looked grim. Tersely, she said, “That is not how it was.”
“We will talk more of this later if you like, my lady,” Kirkhill said. “For now I will say this to you, Hod. Her ladyship will remain safely under my care, sheriff or no sheriff. I am grateful for your concern, and I am sure that she will be, too, when she has had time to consider your words. However, in future, if you have other such concerns, do not trouble her ladyship with them. Come to me.”
“As ye wish, m’lord,” Hod said, bowing. Then, to Fiona, he said, “I do apologize, m’lady, if I offended ye. I tell ye true, I never meant to upset ye.”
“I don’t believe you,” Fiona retorted.
“You may go, Hod,” Kirkhill said. “But do not forget what I said.”
Bowing again, Hod turned on his heel and left them.
“You said I needn’t keep him as house steward if he proved to be unsatisfactory,” Fiona said. “But I don’t want him here at all now.”
“I’m not going to dismiss the man over what may easily have been a misunderstanding,” Kirkhill said. “I do agree that he should not work closely with you, but we can avoid that if you will relay your orders through me. In fairness,” he added, noting her disapproval, “the man has not tried to interfere with the usual routines. I think he is trying to learn his way, but you must not think that I am recklessly dismissing your concern, lass. I saw how you reacted to his explanation, and I believe that you described the incident accurately, as you believed it to be. But you should know, too, that when you fly into the boughs over such things, even over outright insolence, you diminish the effect that your words have on others.”
“I become a hysterical female. That is what you mean, is it not?”
“It is,” he said, meeting her gaze. “You’d do better to keep a calm demeanor, something that I know you possess but that you find difficult of late to present.”
She sighed. “’Tis true enough, that is. Sometimes I do not recognize myself. It is as if I am standing aside watching some strange virago-Fiona snap at people.”
“You have had several great changes in your life,” he said quietly. “It will take time yet to accustom yourself to having lost your husband and good-father and gained a trustee and wee son all in the space of a month or so. At risk of having you snap my head right off, may I suggest that it would help to let Jane’s sister Eliza act as wet nurse, if only for nighttime feedings, so that you can sleep more soundly.”
She looked down at her feet, then back at him. “I’ll think about it,” she said.
“Fair enough. You should come and offer a proper welcome to my too-persuadable uncle and my impertinent sister. But first, tell me if you would like Nan to apologize for asking you such an impudent question. Sithee, she says such things only to see how people will react.”
“Does she?” Fiona said dryly.
“Aye. My father would have punished such behavior in me at once, but he thought she was amusing. By the time he no longer thought her so, she had acquired the habit. I have sought to curb her and believed I was making progress. But, now that I am not at home, my mother and uncle will give her full rein again.”
“Good sakes, sir, you have been gone for only a few days!”
“And you see how faithfully Uncle James followed my instructions. Not that he has ever felt bound to obey me, head of our family though I am. He’d already achieved fame as a warrior when I sought my knighthood, so I was duty-bound to obey him. You see my dilemma now. I asked him to keep an eye on Nan and my mother. Instead, he brings Nan straight to me. The man is hopeless in such a case.”
To his surprise, she smiled, seeming genuinely amused. And when he raised his eyebrows, she said with her delightful, albeit rare chuckle, “My sister would say that I am getting my just deserts by having your sister as my guest.”
“How could she think you deserve such rude treatment?”
“Because saying things to get a reaction was once a favorite pastime of mine. Sithee, I often felt like an observer, rather than a participant at home. No one paid much heed to me there, because I wasn’t the son they wanted.”
“Did your sister feel like that, too?”
“I don’t know how she felt. Mairi rarely shows her feelings, but I was as outspoken as your sister is, and I’m afraid I thought it was a fine thing when I was doing it. I can see now that it is not such a good thing when the words fly from someone else’s mouth. But Nan needn’t apologize, sir. Nor should you.”
“Perhaps you will have better luck with her than I have had,” he said.
Her eyes twinkled, and she smiled again. “Perhaps I will,” she said.
He offered his arm, and as he escorted her to join the group on the dais, he hoped he was gaining a better understanding of her. He wanted her to trust him, but he knew that she did not yet do so. In truth, he doubted that she trusted anyone, and having known her husband and met her good-father, he could not blame her for that.
It did make it hard to get close to her, though, and he wanted to do that. Not only would it make things easier for both of them, but he found her conversation—even their verbal jousts—stimulating.
Fiona exerted herself that afternoon to enjoy their visitors and liked Sir James immediately. He was clearly a practiced flirt and was practicing his art on Phaeline. Phaeline’s chuckling responses clearly delighted him, but he also flirted mildly with Fiona and twice made her laugh.
As for the lady Anne—or Nan, as Kirkhill called her—Fiona reserved judgment. She had taken an uncharacteristic dislike to the girl the instant she had seen her dismounting in the yard but could not imagine why she had, since she had not even known then who Nan was. That she had mistakenly assumed that Nan must be a friend of Kirkhill’s was hardly a sensible reason for dislike.
As she watched the younger girl at supper that evening, Fiona had a discomfiting notion that she had been just as silly at the same age. The realization that, when she had eloped with Will, she had been exactly Nan’s age told her that she had been much more foolish. Nan also delighted in discussing current fashions with Phaeline, and Phaeline smiled often while chatting with her. Fiona had enjoyed similar talks at one time, but she no longer knew anything about current styles.
She was still angry about Hod, and despite Kirkhill’s reassurance, she felt as if he had taken Hod’s word over hers. Still, she could not fault him if he had.
He had been right to take her to task for flying into the boughs. When he’d described the behavior he preferred, she had thought of Mairi, who was always calm and never flustered. But Fiona knew that she could only be herself and strive to regain her own occasional, determined calm.
The next three days passed without incident, and she learned with pleasure on Saturday afternoon that Nan enjoyed riding as much as she did.
“I cannot take a horse out yet,” Fiona said as they strolled together in the yard that afternoon. “But I seem to be having fewer physical difficulties than anyone expected, so mayhap I will be back to my normal activities soon, too.”
“You have recovered your figure right speedily,” Nan said, eyeing her. “My sisters took much more time to recover theirs, and indeed, Margaret has increased considerably in size with each of her children.”
“How many does she have?”
“Just three so far, but I doubt that she can wear anything she wore before she began increasing with her first.”
“Well, it is a good thing that I can get into the clothes I wore before I increased,” Fiona said. “I have no others to wear.”
“Mercy, then why do you not send for a seamstress to come and make you new dresses? ’Tis what I do whenever I get tired of my old ones. Then I tell dearest Dickon, and he rages at me, but he always pays for them just as Father did.”
“You should not tell me such private things about your brother, you know,” Fiona said, stifling a chuckle at the thought of Kirkhill being so easily managed. “I warrant he would not like it.”
“Oh, piffle,
Dickon won’t mind. He knows I just say whatever I think.”
“Do you like others to say whatever they are thinking to you?”
Nan wrinkled her brow. “Not when Dickon does it in a temper. He has a way of speaking when I have displeased him that always makes me wish he would just stop. However, I prefer him to rant than to do aught else,” she added with a grin.
Fiona was dying to ask her what else “Dickon” might do, but she decided she ought to practice the behavior she had just recommended, and contain her curiosity for once. In any event, whatever Kirkhill might do to his sister, he would never dare to do to her. He might be trustee for whatever Old Jardine had left for her upkeep, but that was all he was to her.
Early Tuesday evening, six men rode into the yard at Spedlins as Fiona, Nan, Phaeline, and Sir James were taking the air before supper. They were walking up the gently sloping hill above the tower and could see the riders plainly.
To Fiona’s surprise, Nan stared hard at them. Then, a certain light came into her eyes, as if she had recognized someone. However, as she turned toward her uncle, her expression altered ludicrously to irritation and she said in a long-suffering voice, “Do you see him? I ought to have known he would follow us here!”
“Now, now,” Sir James said. “Likely, he has come at Archie’s command.”
“Who is it?” Fiona asked.
“Sir Antony MacCairill, that’s who,” Nan said. “He is the most annoying man I know, and the most odiously persistent.”
“Faith, do you dislike him as much as all that?”
“I don’t dislike him at all,” Nan said, putting her nose in the air. “I just don’t want to marry him and have him ordering me about for the rest of my life. Still, I expect we ought to go back now, or Dickon will send someone to fetch us.”
Kirkhill had been sitting at the large table in the inner chamber, trying to create an accounting of the past several months from what little information he had gleaned, and learned of his newest visitors with mixed emotions. Tony was still his best friend, but Sir James and Nan had now been at Spedlins for nearly a week, so he was beginning to think the tower contained far too many people.
Therefore, when his porter showed Tony in, Kirkhill greeted him with a curt demand to know what the devil had brought him to Spedlins.
“Archie sent me,” Tony said. “He thought you might want help persuading Jardine’s men to ride with us, or might find cause to return briefly to Kirkhill House, and would want a captain you can trust to stay here and look after things.”
“Mighty thoughtful of Archie,” Kirkhill said dryly.
Tony grinned. “Well, I may have said something to stir his thoughts in that direction. You’ve taken on great responsibility here, after all, and you do still have an obligation to provide men of your own to help defeat an invasion of the dales, no matter who leads it. There was fighting in Roxburgh last week, and Douglas—the earl, that is—would rather fight the English than fight a fellow Scotsman like March, who should go home to Dunbar. Instead, he has angered Northumberland, and the English would much rather fight March than fight the Douglas. So there we are.”
“What about Archie?”
Tony had moved to help himself to whisky from a jug on a nearby side table and looked over his shoulder to say, “Our respected Lord of Galloway is recalling men from his barely begun siege. Whilst the English raids have stayed well east of here, Archie thinks they are trying to draw him east so they can take Annandale.”
“He is likely right,” Kirkhill said. “He usually is.”
“Aye, for if they control Annandale, they cut off Nithsdale and Galloway from the Borders and Douglas. If Archie is with the earl… well, you see how he is thinking. I thought I could help more here, mayhap even aid you in looking after Will’s young widow. Everyone is saying he must be dead, and I hear that she is gey easy on the eyes. If our sharp-tongued Nan gets word that I’m looking elsewhere, mayhap—”
“Nan is here,” Kirkhill said.
“So much the better,” Tony said, grinning again.
“If you stay, I’ll put you to work, but you will treat the lady Fiona with due respect. I mean to persuade Uncle James to return to Kirkhill, and if he goes, Nan goes. But I have learned—not much to my surprise—that Old Jardine and Will were sadly derelict in maintaining their land and looking after their people. The cottages on the estates are makeshift shacks, the thatch is old and bug-ridden, and except for the apple orchards, the few crops they grow are poorly tended.”
“Hold on, Dickon. I’m no farmer. My father still runs things at home. He and our steward would reject any advice that I might be brave enough to offer.”
“Then see what you can do with Jardine’s men. They are good fighters, I warrant, so you need only get it through their thick skulls that we do not call Archie ‘the Grim’ for nowt. He said straight out that he’ll hang any man who crosses him. If you can get them to understand that, I wager they’ll serve him well.”
“How many men are there?”
“About two hundred. Jardine lands lie on both sides of the Annan, and much of the land is arable. But either Old Jardine knew little about planting aught save apple trees or he stopped tending his other crops during the long years of conflict with England. In any event, the English occupation of Lochmaben, less than five miles southwest of here, makes planting west of the river too dangerous.”
“I’m guessing that Jardine kept few accounts then.”
“Nearly none,” Kirkhill said. “He had a partial list of his tenants but apparently confided in none of them, including his personal manservant.”
“If he was close to Old Jardine, I’ll wager he knows more than he admits.”
“Aye, sure, and that is why I’ve kept him on as house steward. Mayhap I can eventually persuade him to talk of what he does know.” Kirkhill left it at that, seeing no good reason to tell Tony how much the lady Fiona disliked Hod.
“Will Jardine was always well dressed and carried fine weapons,” Tony said thoughtfully. “There must be gelt somewhere.”
“I agree,” Kirkhill said. “Moreover, run properly, the estates should turn a handsome profit if we can prevent English raiders and March from laying waste to the entire dale. There is little ready gelt to spend on seed or seedlings, but we have plenty of apples, plenty of cattle and horses, and even a few sheep for shearing. A judicious landlord could make something of this place.”
“Aye, sure, as long as the rightful owners don’t come to reclaim their beasts.”
Kirkhill chuckled, but he knew the Jardines, so Tony’s point was a good one.
“Nan encouraged the lady Fiona to apply to me for new clothes,” he said. “In troth, she deserves some, because she got gey little from the Jardines and is now reduced, Nan says, to rags. It may be that Jardine was just tightfisted or that Will was so expensive that he had no gelt to spare. I told Fiona she can send for fabrics and a seamstress but that she must be gey frugal until I get things sorted out. I haven’t told her exactly how things stand, because I don’t know that myself yet.”
“Well, I’ll do what I can to help,” Tony promised. “If Nan is staying here in the tower, however, you might prefer that I camp elsewhere with my men.”
“Nay, your coming will give me good opportunity to send James and Nan home. She persuaded him to come here to satisfy her curiosity about the place, but they have been here for nearly a sennight. That is long enough.”
“Sakes, have you room for me?”
“Aye, sure. You can have them bring your things in here if you like. Your men will bed down in the hall or out in the yard if they prefer, but you can sleep in Joshua’s room. He sleeps in the stables most nights anyway, being one who shares your belief that the Jardine men prefer stolen horses to those they must breed or purchase. They’ll serve supper in an hour. You might like to tidy up before then.”
Although Fiona had expected Nan to go at once in search of the new arrivals, that young lady informed her that she
had decided to make an entrance at suppertime that would make Sir Antony MacCairill sit up and stare. Therefore, she said, she would change her gown and descend to the hall in her own good time.
Fiona had changed her dress before joining the others for their hillside stroll, but she did exchange her stout boots for slippers more suited to taking supper in company, before opening her bodice to nurse wee David. Then, leaving Flory to rock him to sleep in his cradle, she tidied herself and went downstairs to see that all was in readiness for their increasing number of guests.
As she entered the hall, she noted first a number of scurrying gillies. They had set up more trestles to accommodate Sir Antony’s men, and seeing breadbaskets on all the tables, she decided that the kitchen had things in hand.
A sudden cry from behind her, near the great fireplace, startled her. She turned to see Davy jump between Hod and Tippy, his dirk at the ready. Tippy backed hastily away to the chimney corner as Davy confronted Hod.
Hurrying toward them, she heard Hod say, “Ye’ll take a good skelping for this, ye wee villain. Ye’re nae better than what your da’ were. Now give me that blade or by the Rood, I’ll take it from ye, and then see what ye’ll get.”
“Ye should no ha’ hit me sister, ye great ape,” Davy snapped. “She were just a-doing what me mam told her to do, and ye’ve nae right to interfere wi’ her.”
Lightning quick, Hod snatched the dirk away with one hand, grabbed the boy’s knife hand with the other, jerked him forward, then let go and slapped him hard enough across the face to knock him down—all in a single brief flurry of movement.
“Leave him be, Hod,” Fiona ordered as Hod stepped toward the boy.
“Ye keep out o’ this, m’lady. This be nae affair o’ yours, for I’m the steward here and this lad wants skelping.” As he spoke, he jerked Davy up again, clearly intending to mete out his punishment then and there, but Fiona sprang forward, pushed Davy back with one hand, and shoved Hod away from him with the other.
Startled, the big man stumbled backward but, by releasing Davy and flinging the dirk aside to clatter against the chimney stones, he managed to grab Fiona’s arm and used it to steady himself. Then, jerking her toward him much as he had done with Davy, and ignoring her furious struggles to free herself, he slapped her, striking the side of her head and sending her stumbling away from him.