by Karen Ranney
His mouth moved in what might have been a smile. “I will be a brave and stalwart MacRae and say no.”
When it was all too obvious the answer was just the opposite.
“I am so sorry. What can I do?”
For a moment he didn’t answer, and when he did she had the impression the words weren’t those he truly wished to say.
“It will get better in time,” he said, smiling.
She’d never seen anyone look so bad and still be walking around.
His forehead was badly abraded, his left eye bulging and shut, while his right was bloodshot. The area around his cheek was tinted various colors, but mostly crimson.
If she had been Drummond, she would have fled simply from his expression.
“Are you certain you feel well enough to be about?”
“No more onion possets,” he said, holding up his hand.
“Very well,” she said, taking pity on him. “But should you not rest?”
“Your mother said the same.” His glance was filled with irritation. “I was only in a fight, Riona. Shall I do something to prove my strength?”
“What, exactly?” she asked curiously.
“A labor of Hercules. Give me a list and I’ll perform any manner of tasks.”
She shook her head at him. “I think standing would be beyond you. I am already impressed.”
“We MacRaes are hardy.”
A bit of a boast that amused her. Right now he looked less hardy than simply stubborn.
“Have you seen the Roman wall?” she asked suddenly.
He started to shake his head, then resorted to speech. “No.”
“Then that is something we should amend.” Stretching out her hand to him, she said, “You should see one of Ayleshire’s most famous sites.”
“Are you attempting to lure me from my duties?” he said, taking her hand. His fingers curved around hers.
“What exactly are your duties?” she asked.
“Has anyone told you that you’re inordinately obstinate?”
“Only a few people,” she answered. “Those who know me well.”
There was a pause between them that she was in no hurry to fill with words. Neither, it seemed, was he.
“I have things I must do,” he said, pulling his hand away. “Chores I’ve been given by Ned.”
“And your secret task.”
“Yes,” he said, smiling once again.
“Then I will leave you to them.” She turned and began to walk away.
“Where are you going?”
“To the village,” she said over her shoulder. “I have to meet with the elders.”
“Is it wise to go alone?”
“You could accompany me.” She turned and faced him, certain that behind those bruises was a frown.
His injuries had robbed his face of beauty, yet she was even more intrigued by the man. He acted as if the distortion of his appearance was unimportant. James MacRae, for all his attractiveness, was not vain.
Shrugging at his silence, she turned and continued striding down the hill. Glancing over her shoulder, she realized he was following her. There was no longer any doubt about the frown.
“Another way of keeping me from my duty?”
“Whatever that might be,” she said blithely.
“Very well.” An ungracious response, one that amused her. He didn’t like being pushed into behavior. Who was more stubborn of the two of them?
She stood and waited for him, looking out over the vista. To her left were the farms, showing square and perfect in the morning mist. To her right was the manor house. Ahead, the River Wye undulated through the pasturelands. Even farther, a distance of a mile or so, past the woods and down a well-trodden road, was the village of Ayleshire.
Tyemorn Manor was situated, if one was looking at a map, in the southwest quadrant and occupied most of the land to the west of the river. Opposite and across the river was a large hill on which the abbey ruins were located. North of that was the village, the church, and the Roman wall.
“Do you think Drummond is out there?”
“Men like Drummond slink in the shadows, preferring to ambush rather than fight directly. I doubt he’ll show himself in the light of day.”
“Still, we’d be wise to set guards around the property at night,” she said calmly.
“I have already taken the liberty of speaking to Ned about that. They’ll stand watch beginning tonight.”
She glanced at him, surprised. “You and Ned have a great deal in common, then. He takes it upon himself to manage Tyemorn and does. I doubt my mother knows half of what he accomplishes.”
“There’s more to managing an estate the size of Tyemorn than what appears on the surface, I suspect,” he said.
“Could you not say the same about a ship at sea?” she asked. “I used to stand at my window and watch as the ships came into Cormech. They always seemed to glide by as if the water were glass. But if I looked closely I could see the sailors scrambling in the rigging and pulling at the sails. The captain would stand there observing, but I always knew that he had planned the entire voyage and the docking in his mind.”
“If he hadn’t, he wouldn’t have turned a profit.”
She smiled. “Of all the people I might meet here, isn’t it strange that it should be a sea captain?”
“You’ll miss Tyemorn,” he said, his gaze shifting to her. She wished that he hadn’t learned her so quickly. Was it because he studied her with such intensity? Or simply because she had allowed it?
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll miss it.” Turning, she began to descend the path. “I feel at home here as I never did in Cormech. Perhaps each person finds a place like that in his lifetime. Do you think so?” She glanced back at him. “One special place that makes him feel at ease?”
“My brother has. Alisdair has an affinity for Gilmuir that I don’t share. A comfortable place is not always simply a location, Riona, but the people who reside there, too.”
“Perhaps the location shapes the people. In a village you know the people better than in a town. For example, at Ayleshire, there is a certain sticky-fingered lad who has a tendency to take what is not his. And a woman who has a habit of spying on her neighbors. But I think she does so because she is lonely and their lives seem so much more lively than her own.”
“Do you think your sticky-fingered lad and your nosy neighbor are that way because they live in Ayleshire? Would they not have been the same in Inverness or Edinburgh?”
She considered the question. “You could be right. Perhaps I’m the only one who is different.”
“What were you like in Cormech?” he asked, and she glanced over at him, surprised into smiling.
“What was I like?” She thought of the years growing up in the coastal town. In that time she had passed pleasantly enough from child to woman, the span marked only by a feeling of waiting. As if she’d known that life wouldn’t truly start until she’d left Cormech. “Not appreciably different from what I am now. Of course, I knew nothing of farming then. Or of goats and chickens, unless it was something I bought at the market.”
“If you had no such duties then, what did you do with your time?”
Her amusement deepened. “I was as busy even though my chores were different. We took in boarders in order to keep a roof over our heads, a secret Mrs. Parker would be horrified to hear me divulge.”
“You forget that I know your tale from Fergus.”
“And all our secrets?”
He smiled. “Are there any more?”
She shook her head. “Not truly. We lived quietly, another fact Mrs. Parker would hate for me to admit. She believes that anyone not living in Edinburgh is hopelessly countrified.”
“Soon you will be free of her dictates,” he said.
She didn’t want to discuss Mrs. Parker or Harold.
He fell into step beside her as she descended the hill and crossed the footbridge. Below them the river looked peaceful only because i
t had already passed through the mill, slowing in an effort to turn the huge millstone.
Once on the other side, the earth curved up to the hills, creating a natural basin that shielded the area from the most severe weather and fierce winter winds.
Ayleshire was a tidy little village whose prosperity was readily apparent. Adding to the village’s wealth was the fact that a century ago a group of Flemish weavers had settled in the vicinity. Over the years the industry had thrived until Ayleshire linen had developed a reputation as some of the finest and most tightly woven cloth in the world.
“Why are you meeting with the elders?”
“I shouldn’t answer you,” she teased. “Since you’ve not been forthcoming with me. I will tell you, if you divulge your task.”
He remained silent and she realized he wasn’t going to respond.
“They are the ones appointed to hand out tasks for Lethson,” she told him. The elders were the arbiters of all that went on within the village. A marriage needed to be arranged? The elders negotiated between warring parents. A man was a poor provider? The committee arranged for a quiet talk. Any number of complaints was handled by the seven members, and each seemed to revel in the authority conveyed by age. Perhaps their influence was so great since the village had no commanding castle or great house nearby. Nor was there a lord in residence to instill authority.
“I’m to receive my duties from them. Each villager is expected to participate in the ceremony.”
He raised an eyebrow and winced, abandoning that expression. “Haven’t you enough to do?”
“If someone from the manor doesn’t volunteer, there will be no end of resentment.”
“What about Susanna? Or your sister, for that matter?”
She wondered what he might do with the truth—that she truly wanted to stay busy to keep her mind from the proximity of her wedding. Each morning she clenched her eyes shut and prayed that a day had not passed again. But it had, and time was speeding along regardless of her wishes.
Did brides cry? She felt as if she would. In fear, panic, and remorse.
“Maureen will help, and my mother has given the approval for the celebrations to be held on Tyemorn land. But I have volunteered to appear before the committee.” She smiled at one of the occupants of a pony cart. A few curious looks were directed toward James and his battered face, but for the most part the women looked away. Little did they know the surprise they had in store for them once his bruises faded.
“I’m surprised that Mr. Dunant would allow such a festivity,” he said.
“Ayleshire is renowned for its stubbornness. Did you know that once the entire village was shunned by the Synod? Our minister at the time was a freethinker, but much beloved. They came to take him away, but the villagers stoned the church authorities when they approached. Of course, that happened a hundred years ago, but the sentiment still abides here.”
At the inn door she hesitated. “Would you like to come inside with me?” The establishment served a multitude of purposes, from communal meeting place to tavern. At the beginning of June, the meeting rooms were given over to the elders and the procession of villagers began, each one arriving for his assignment. Even now there were a few people ahead of her, a matron she recognized and greeted with a smile, and a young boy who looked rebellious about being forced to participate.
“I have some questions to ask,” he said, accompanying her inside.
“About Drummond?”
He nodded, and she watched him enter the tavern part of the inn. Turning left, she walked into the meeting room and waited her turn.
When it was time, she greeted the elders, taking her place at one side of the long table in the middle of the room. Sitting with knees together, and hands on her lap, Riona felt like a penitent or a child who’d been summoned for her punishment.
Three wizened old men and four equally ancient old ladies sat facing her.
“You are new to Ayleshire,” the eldest of them said. “And you do not know our ways. Is the manor prepared to assist us this year?”
At first Riona had been taken aback not only by the curiosity of the villagers but by their blunt way of speaking. Now, of course, she understood their suspicion and their fear. Tyemorn was an important employer and source of income.
“Indeed we are, sir,” she said respectfully. “We would have done so last year had we known of the ceremony.” They’d not moved here until after Lethson, but she didn’t remind him of that fact. “It is an oversight that will not occur again, I can assure you.”
The gentleman, who had a long flowing white beard not unlike Old Ned’s, surveyed her critically as if testing the mettle of her words. Finally, he nodded, before turning to look to the others for their assent. Approval came soon enough in the quavery voice of an elderly lady who managed to smile at the same time she spoke, unfortunately giving her kind face an almost malevolent appearance.
“We will, of course, use Bonfire Hill.”
Riona nodded. The property, the highest point of land near the village, belonged to the manor.
“Do not forget the peat wagons,” another elder contributed. “They need the right of way on Tyemorn’s roads.”
Again Riona nodded.
“What duties do you wish to perform?” the elder asked.
“Whatever you feel might be of benefit to the village,” she said diplomatically.
“You will gather the birch branches,” one old lady said, and the first gentleman nodded sagely. “We will need a hundred of them, collected a few days before Lethson.”
“They’re to be nailed above the doorway of each house, but you needn’t be concerned about that. You must, however, get them to the villagers on time.”
She nodded, thinking that with some help from the farm boys the task would not be so difficult. She hesitated, wondering if questions were permitted. Finally, curiosity won out over prudence. “What is the purpose of the branches?”
One of the elders looked at her approvingly. The others, however, seemed disconcerted by her question.
“We’ve always done it.” A consensus of nods.
“A way of demonstrating our thanksgiving for a bountiful first half of the year,” one man added.
“And to demonstrate our hopes for a good harvest,” another contributed.
“Is that all?” she asked, relieved to have been given only one chore.
“No,” came the answer. “You must bake the cake.”
“A cake?” she asked faintly. “For the entire village?”
“For the elders,” one of the men stated.
“The making of the midsummer cake is a sacred duty.” This admonition came from one of the women at the table.
“Very well,” Riona said, attempting to smile, but failing at it. “I will do the birch branches and the cake.”
“The cake shall be made of the finest flour,” another elderly woman said. “And made with the dew gathered the morning of the last quarter moon before Lethson. Mixed with honey, eggs, and spices, it will produce the most superb cake in all of Scotland.”
Riona thought there might be more optimism in that statement than warranted but nodded anyway. What was the punishment for failing in such a task? Would she be banished from the rest of the festivities?
What Riona wanted to do was to beg for mercy, ask for a reprieve, argue that she would be better suited for almost any other task. But she stood and smiled weakly, thanking the elders for their time and their faith in her.
She hoped that James had greater success in his errand.
Chapter 14
A yleshire was crowded, the inn filled to the rafters with people, most of whom had come to the village for the horse fair. James stood in the tavern, the object of a few curious stares. But no one ventured a comment about the state of his face. Nor were there eyes filled with hatred staring back at him. He was hampered in his task because he’d never seen the man who attacked him in the daylight. He might be talking to Drummond and never recognize h
im.
His discussion with the innkeeper yielded nothing in the way of information.
“Have you seen a man recuperating from a knife wound?”
“A knife wound?” The innkeeper scratched his grizzled chin as he thought about the question.
“Well, now, I cannot say I have. But I’ve got every room rented, and even the attic is being shared by twenty or so men. The villagers are making a pretty penny for themselves offering a bed and a meal. The man you seek might well be staying with one of them.”
“Are they all here for Lethson?”
“No, for the horse fair. If I were you, I’d go to the fair. It’s the first event of the Lethson celebrations. You’re bound to find the man you seek there.”
James nodded, deciding to do just that.
A few moments later, Riona emerged from the meeting room, a dazed look on her face.
“You look miserable,” he said gently when she joined him. “Did you receive your task?”
“Yes, but what about you? Did you find Drummond?” She looked less worried about Drummond than the duties she’d been given.
“No. It’s been recommended that I attend the horse fair.”
“Will you?”
“If Drummond doesn’t appear before then.”
“Can you spare the time from your duty?”
He sent her a sideways glance as an unspoken rebuke for her curiosity.
“Tell me this, if you can do nothing else. Is your task something that would worry me if I knew?”
He studied her. “No, I don’t think it would.” She would, he thought, simply solve the mystery of the thefts and then handle the problem of what to do about the thief.
“Very well, then,” she said. “I shall not ask any further, but when you can, will you tell me?”
“I can agree to those terms,” he said, touched by her loyalty to her family and Tyemorn. “But tell me what the elders said.”
“I have two duties. The first is not onerous. I have to gather birch branches for all the village doors. The second, however, has me troubled.”
He remained silent, waiting.
“I have to bake a cake.”
They left the inn and began walking back to Tyemorn. The path she took, however, was not the same as the one that led them to Ayleshire. He wondered if she were taking him to the Roman wall after all.