by Karen Ranney
That is, if she was allowed to stay.
Charles Talbot couldn’t believe Mary had left him to run the shop alone. For hours after she’d closed the door behind her, he waited for her to return. When she hadn’t, he’d finally understood that a stranger had taken precedence over him.
His surprise at her desertion had begun to change to anger.
Today, he’d finished his commission for one of the wealthy matrons of Inverness and had carried the tureen to her home himself, needing to get out of the shop for a little while. When he’d returned, he found two customers standing on his doorstep, neither one of them amenable to waiting, and each wanting to be served at the same time. If Mary were there, such a situation would not have occurred.
Mary was much more suited to welcoming their customers than she was to traipsing all over Inverness and beyond. But she never saw that it was a more worthwhile use of her time to cultivate those who could afford their wares instead of spending so much time trying to heal those with no way to pay for their treatment. He’d told her that sickness would always be with them, and so would the poor, but she’d only laughed in response, as if he’d made a jest.
She was two years younger than Charles despite the fact she’d been married to a man twice her age for a decade. Still, she’d have to learn, once she married him, that he wasn’t as easily swayed as Gordon.
After Gordon’s death, he’d said nothing, allowing her to mourn for a year like a good wife should. For twelve months, he’d hidden his feelings, only to have her say goodbye to him without a backward glance, taking herself off with no thought to her reputation or his concerns.
Charles closed up the shop, taking care to muffle the bell attached to the latch. At night, sometimes a draft would make it sound, and he’d be roused from sleep in his room in the back, thinking that a customer was demanding entrance.
He looked around the shop, pleased that it all but belonged to him now. The mahogany counters with their etched glass stood at right angles, displaying a few samples of his wares. A scarred bench sat in front of a sloping table. Here, Gordon had sat hunched over until his shoulders were permanently stooped. A magnifying glass and an eyepiece he had habitually worn around his neck now sat in a drawer beneath the table. The wooden floor was gouged in spots but otherwise well polished.
Gordon hadn’t left him title to the place, but Charles felt he’d earned the ownership of the goldsmith’s shop. He deserved it because of twelve years of diligent labor. None of the good residents of Inverness understood that yet, perhaps because Gordon had treated Charles as if he’d had no talent. Not once had the older man ever given him credit for his work.
Charles frowned at the memories, extinguishing the lanterns and moving toward the stairs.
Toward the end, when Gordon had been too ill to sit at his bench, he’d finally given Charles some of his commissions, critiquing every movement of Charles’s chisel and pointed awl from a chair arranged in the corner. When Gordon gave his grudging approval, Charles knew he’d done his best work. The McPherson christening cup was one such piece. He’d delivered it himself that evening.
McPherson had approved of it with a great glowing smile, but he’d talked more of Gordon’s design than Charles’s execution of the work.
“An artist. A genius. How will we ever do without him? And Mary? Is she coping with her loss?”
Charles had smiled, rubbing the tips of his fingers together in a gesture he’d borrowed from Gordon. “She’s doing as well as can be expected. She misses him each day, I’m certain. Although it’s better for both of us if we don’t speak of Gordon, he’s in our thoughts always.” He hadn’t mentioned, however, that Mary was feeling so much better that she’d taken off for the Highlands.
He stood at the bottom of the stairs, listening for noises above him. Both Cook and the maid, Betty, were asleep in their room. Their accommodations were almost luxurious compared to what he’d had as a young apprentice.
Gordon had cleared out the storeroom for him, and it was there he still slept. A few years ago, however, he’d installed a latch on the door, a lock that Gordon surprisingly respected. Perhaps age or marriage to Mary had mellowed him. Gordon had been happy toward the end of his life, which was more than many men could say. He had the respect of his peers and wealth, along with the love of a beautiful woman. What else could a man want?
Charles opened his door with the key on his watch fob. Despite the fact that the shop was empty, he locked the door as a precaution. He went to his bed and sat on the side of it, reaching into the bedside drawer for one of his most prized possessions. A lad with talent in his fingers had sketched Mary’s picture one day at the Inverness market, and Charles had taken it from Gordon’s room when he was ill. Here it rested, in a place no one ever came, waiting for him. Every night he pulled it from its hiding place.
Mary was his muse and his inspiration, but now the words he spoke were fueled by anger.
“You need to realize, Mary, that your time of wandering around Inverness is over. You must heed those who say that you take too much upon yourself. But most of all, you must realize that Gordon was lax with you. I’ll be more attentive to your behavior.”
She continued to smile back at him in her sweet and somber way, her eyes sparkling at him as if laughter was trapped in their depths.
He placed the picture back in the drawer, moving something aside so that it fit more easily. He palmed the vial, smiling down at it. The container was another item he’d taken from Gordon’s room when the older man had been too ill to protest.
If Mary balked at his instruction, or his plans, he had another idea. One that would force her to comply.
Chapter 3
M ary returned to the gate to find Micah unloading the wagon. Hester labored beside him, the couple working in silent tandem.
They’d met at dawn and spent only a few moments together throughout the day, but Mary found the other woman pleasant and helpful. Hester was a tall woman, her frame nothing more than jutting bones draped by sagging skin. Her complexion was bronzed, her face etched and lined like the ruts of the road they’d traveled to Castle Gloom. Hands that picked up a cask of ale were knurled and scarred. Her hair was laced with strands of silver. Only her eyes were young, bright blue, clear and accepting; they measured others with interest and intelligence.
Micah was as old, but the years had treated him with more grace. His hair was a thick brown, his blue eyes were deep-set in his face, and wrinkles stretched outward from his mouth to meet those around his eyes, resulting in a merry expression. He looked as if he’d been caught too long in a smile.
Brendan came out of the tower and began to help them unload the wagon in silence. They each carried their individual burdens up the eighteen shallow steps to the gate.
Going to the back of the wagon, Mary withdrew a small cask and tucked it beneath her arm, resting it against her hip.
“I’ll carry that,” Brendan said a few minutes later.
“Nonsense,” she said. “There are other, heavier items that you can carry. Allow me to help where I can.”
He grinned at her, the expression making her wonder if his brother had ever been so affable.
“Are we going to be allowed to stay after all?”
He nodded once.
“Without being fired upon, I trust?”
“You mustn’t mind Hamish, Mary. He seems a lot fiercer than he truly is.”
Turning, she smiled at Brendan, genuinely amused. “He doesn’t frighten me.”
She would’ve been wiser to be frightened, wouldn’t she, instead of having this strange feeling that she’d embarked upon an adventure. How foolish of her.
At the top of the steps, she added the cask to the small pile of crates stacked in the middle of the grassy area.
“I found a larder in the castle area,” she said. “And a kitchen.”
“It’s not in ruins?” Brendan lowered the crate he carried, glancing toward the main building.
“Not at all.”
She led the way, the three of them following.
“It’s a wonder,” Hester said, tilting her head back to study the arches of the kitchen ceiling. “But it’s a good thing we brought dishes and pots and pans with us.”
Hester was a pleasant woman but didn’t speak often. When she did, however, her words gave Mary the impression that she’d listened intently to the opinions of others before forming her own.
“Have you known them long?” Mary asked as she and Brendan went to retrieve more crates from the wagon.
“Only about a week. But they come well recommended by my brother and his wife. As you did.”
She smiled, remembering Alisdair and Iseabal MacRae well. She recalled her husband Gordon’s descriptions of their home, Gilmuir. A place that seemed romantic and dramatic, somewhere she’d longed to see. Now it seemed she’d gotten her wish in a way, since she was in her own isolated fortress in the Highlands.
The extent of Brendan’s foresightedness was evident during the next hour when Mary helped Hester unpack some of the crates and barrels. He’d purchased candles, spoons, pots, pans, and large mixing bowls, everything that might be needed to set up housekeeping. He evidently expected Hamish to reside at Castle Gloom for a long time.
Hester inspected the kitchen fire, peering into the chimney and pronouncing it free of birds’ nests or debris.
“I cannot help but wonder where your brother has been cooking his meals, sir,” she said to Brendan when he and Micah delivered a heavy cask of ale to the larder.
“If I know Hamish, he has a brazier and wok. He learned the Oriental way of cooking years ago and sometimes subscribes to it.”
Hester looked interested, but rather than ask him any questions, turned her attention to the lack of firewood. A moment later, both men were dispatched to the line of woods to fell a tree.
“It’s strange how large the place is,” Hester said, planting her hands on her hips and looking about her. “It looks like a ruin from the road. Even more curious is that there’s no sign of life.”
“I wonder why they left,” Mary said.
Or why a man like Hamish MacRae would take up residence here.
After their meal was prepared and eaten, and darkness had fallen over Castle Gloom, they began to make preparations for sleep. Since the tower was deemed to be the most hospitable place at Castle Gloom, Micah and Brendan began to move a few cots they’d found up to those rooms. Micah and Hester surprised her, though, by choosing to sleep in the main part of the castle.
“There’s a corner of the Great Hall we can make cozy-like,” Hester said, and she slanted a glance toward her husband that Mary envied. In that look was fondness, and the hint of a promise.
“Hamish occupies the top floor,” Brendan said as they left the kitchen. “Which do you want, Mary? The first or the second?”
“The first,” she said quickly. The fewer stairs she had to mount, the better.
He nodded.
“Does he never leave the tower?” Mary asked, looking across the courtyard. He’d remained there all evening, never once emerging. Brendan had carried a dinner tray to him, returning without comment.
“He doesn’t like the company of strangers,” Brendan said.
“Has he always been that way?” He shrugged. Brendan could be very irritating occasionally. Sometimes he divulged too much information and sometimes not enough.
“You should tell me what I need to know if you want me to help him.”
She glanced upward to where the lone window was open, seeing the flicker of a candle. Did he watch them from his aerie?
“Do you know anything about India?” Brendan asked.
She shook her head. “Only where it is, and that, I confess, is only an idea.”
“The British East India Company has been making inroads there for the past thirty years. That’s not to say that they’ve been welcomed at every turn.” His expression grew somber. “There are those who would be just as pleased if the British turned tail and left their country. Among them are the Atavasi, the native people of India. They’ve been rebelling against the British incursion for the past five years. They captured Hamish’s ship, killing his crew. Hamish was their prisoner for a year.”
“A year?” she asked faintly.
They were at the tower now, and Brendan hesitated outside the narrow doorway. “A few months ago, he and two other men—Englishmen captured by the Atavasi—managed to overpower their guards and make their way overland. He was the only one to finish the journey.”
Brendan put his hand on the door but didn’t make a move to open it. “We’d given up any hope of him being alive after the rebellion was put down.” Brendan looked directly at her, but she couldn’t see his expression in the darkness. “I didn’t recognize him at first. His eyes were the same color, and his features were the same. There’s a scar on his knee from where he’d fallen from a tree as a boy, and a mark on the base of his thumb from a MacRae blood oath. But everything else was different. He didn’t talk the same, and he doesn’t act the same.”
“Perhaps he blames himself for the loss of his crew. But that doesn’t explain why he’s a hermit.”
Opening the door, he stood aside for her to precede him. Once inside the tower, he looked heavenward as if he were restrained in his comments by the man who was the subject of them.
She waited as he lit a candle, grateful for the light to study his face. Brendan’s gaze on her was intent, but she would not have expected his next words under any circumstances.
“He was tortured.”
She stared at him. “Tortured?” Her voice was low, but the stone walls sent the word back to her jeeringly. She shivered, feeling a coldness creep through her as she looked up at the winding stairs.
“He needs you, Angel,” Brendan said.
“You promised,” she said, shaking her head at him, “not to call me that name.”
“Was it a promise? I thought I said I would try. My wits must be slipping.”
It was truly difficult to remain angry at him. He had such an engaging grin. Nor could she help but admire him. Take this mission, for example. He’d been determined to obtain medical care for his brother, however much Hamish refused it. Such brotherly devotion was to be commended.
But despite his lively smile and cheerful hazel eyes and the goodness of his character, Brendan wasn’t the MacRae who interested her.
He was tortured.
She glanced up the stairs again and shivered.
Chapter 4
B rendan grabbed her valise and a candle, leaving Mary to follow. She gripped her medicine case with her left hand, flattening her right against the wall for added support as she mounted the steps. If she were careful not to look to her left or above her, she’d be free of that strange disorientation she always experienced when climbing stairs.
How easy it was to identify her flaws. She wished it were as simple to eliminate them. She had an intense dislike of heights and darkness.
And death.
Perhaps that’s why she waged a war so single-mindedly against illness and disease. Death had seemed to be a constant presence in her life, perching on her shoulder and cackling wildly when she was happy or carefree. In addition to her husband, death had taken her three-year-old brother after he had contracted measles, and her sister at age nine from influenza, the same disease that had taken her parents a few months apart, not long after her seventeenth birthday.
At the landing, she looked around her. To her right, the stairs continued upward. To the left was an opened door.
Mary realized that remaining in this desolate castle might be a trial, indeed. But no act was completely wasted. Being forced to climb the stairs might make it easier for her to continue to do so.
Brendan entered the room, and she followed, unsurprised to find that the chamber was nearly empty. A small brazier sat in one corner, along with a large trunk and a few empty crates. The only furniture, besides the cot Brendan and Mica
h had brought in earlier, was a chair, similar in style to the two below.
Brendan put the candle on the chair and placed her valise on the floor next to it.
“I’m sorry it doesn’t look better,” he said, looking around the room.
A broom had not been taken to this floor for years, it seemed. Dust filtered through the air so thickly that she could reach out her hand and grab it.
She waved away his apologies. “It’s better than some accommodations I’ve been offered,” she said.
“Then I’ll leave you,” he said awkwardly. “Unless you need something else?”
She shook her head, and then smiled. “I’m fine, truly.”
When he was gone, she placed her medicine case on the lid of the trunk and readied her small chamber as well as she could, making the bed, unpacking her valise, hanging her clothing on the pegs beside the door. Standing in front of one of the archer slits, she wished she had something to close the opening. The Highland wind carried a bite to it although it was only autumn. The sky presaged snow, and both the loch and the sea seemed silvery in the dusk. She shivered, turning back to the room.
She was considered a wealthy widow, but she’d never appreciated Gordon’s fortune as much as now, as she lit one of the thick beeswax candles she’d brought with her from Inverness. Money accomplished little in life other than to purchase comfort. It didn’t bring her happiness or an end to the loneliness she felt in the long hours between dusk and dawn. But neither would she choose to be destitute. She’d seen, firsthand, what poverty could do to a person.
Cupping her fingers around the flickering flame, she wondered how the inhabitants of Castle Gloom had managed to survive the winters. Perhaps they did so wearing furs and wool, or they simply had become used to the blustery wind.
Above her was the sound of footsteps on the wooden floor, and she wondered if Brendan was settling down in his tiny chamber.
She looked around the room again and wondered what Gordon would think of her presence there. He would have counseled against it, but then he’d never known of her secret yearnings. How could she confess to her husband that she’d dreamed of faraway places? Or that she always felt that something was missing in her life? Those were not thoughts to be confided to anyone, let alone a husband, and certainly not to Gordon in those final years.