The Freemason's Daughter

by Shelley Sackier

  Jenna felt the blood drain from her face. She clutched the front of her skirt, squeezing the fabric into a ball beneath her fists.

  “What are these?” he asked, holding up the cluster of pages. Jenna’s heart thumped madly, her mind whirling to fabricate an explanation.

  “You are searching the wrong box for your bridles, milord,” she stated.

  “Clearly.” He shuffled through the papers.

  Her mouth went dry.

  “These are Newton’s lectures.” He held up the sheaf.

  She raised her brows innocently. “Are they?”

  “Shall we dispense with the tired pretense that you’ve the educational level of a doorpost, Miss MacDuff?” he said sardonically. “And perhaps you can tell me why you, a young lady, possess them.” He thrust forward the text of Latin that was part of her day’s lesson.

  Half of her was desperate to upset his perfunctory thoughts about women. But the more reasonable half, or maybe the more fearful, was telling her to invent a logical fiction for why these things were in her custody. She watched him for signs of danger. Most people, her father had told her, would find it surprising she could read, being of nomadic background. But almost everyone would find it alarming that she could read and understand Latin. That she studied French and German and spoke fluent Gaelic would only compound her problems. The men warned her to err on the side of caution.

  “You’ll be strung up by your wee toesies should anyone find out,” Gavin had told her.

  To study, to be educated, you had to be a man. To the ignorant country folk—the class they mixed with—the only reasonable explanation for her skills would be that she was a witch. But Lord Pembroke? He appeared to be more . . . enlightened.

  She took a calculated breath and cleared her throat. “I possess them . . . because I want to read them.”

  Lord Pembroke took his time studying her, his eyes narrowing suspiciously, and she had the distressing notion he was reading her mind.

  “Who are you?” he asked, his eyes fixed on hers.

  She twisted the fabric in her hands, terrified of revealing too much. “Just someone who is determined to learn, milord.”

  “And so you carry around the works of one of the greatest professorial minds of our day?”

  Her jaw went rigid. Why must it come as such a surprise? Was her brain any less capable than his? “My father, and the men of my clan realized I had an interest and have endeavored to support it with those lectures. They were a gift.”

  “Really?” He made a sad grunt of amusement. “What I wouldn’t give to have my father support my interests. But not for one moment would I fool myself into believing that His Grace would give me permission to pursue my fascination for medicine, or the sciences.”

  “At least you are allowed to pursue something properly. But why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be wandering about the halls of your university?”

  His face darkened, and there was a moment of silence before he looked up to answer. “I’ve been sent down.” He said it flatly. “And so have the other three lads you met at the party. The school will review my papers in the spring. We’ll see what happens after that.”

  Dismissed from school? On what grounds? Jenna wondered desperately how anyone could forfeit such an opportunity, but she was determined to remain on Lord Pembroke’s good side, and held her tongue. “Perhaps once you return you’ll be granted the opportunity to study the art of healing.”

  She saw his mouth twitch, his skepticism growing. “Never,” he murmured, lowering to sit upon the tack box. “My path has been chosen for me. It is one paved strictly with the text of law and politics. I am to serve in Parliament.”

  Jenna leaned back against one of the stalls. “It is a prickly path. Especially now, when so many people have their dander up over the line of succession.”

  Lord Pembroke looked up at her. “Just to be clear, are we talking about the dander of those in your clan, everyone in Scotland, or the all-purpose gripes of the British in general?”

  She smiled. “I doubt I could speak on behalf of all the king’s subjects. Suffice it to say, most complaints I’ve been privy to, have been uttered with a broad Scots dialect.”

  “Fair enough.” He chuckled. “What have you been hearing?”

  She heard Ian’s words echo in her head. Informers snatched two in our chain just last week. They’re headed for Newgate—as will we be if we’re caught.

  She straightened. She needed to act with more caution. It would be easy for her to slip and say the wrong thing, pitching her family toward not only arrest, but also the verdict of treason.

  But at the same time, it struck Jenna that here was an opportunity to express the concerns of a considerable group of people to someone who would eventually have the ability to do something about it.

  She searched his face for the signs of chicanery and, finding nothing, took a leap.

  “Well, from what I gather, the Union idea, the merging of Scotland and England into one kingdom, is a fairly sore point for most people north of here. And then you dismissed our country’s Parliament.”

  “You make it sound as if there was no benefit to Scotland at all regarding the Union,” he interjected. “Don’t forget the worth of free trade with England and all of her colonies.”

  “That wasn’t an advantage to joining the Union; it was used as a threat of loss to us if the country voted against it,” Jenna said. “And you never let us participate in determining Queen Anne’s successor!”

  Lord Pembroke kept his voice calm. “You do understand if England allowed Scotland to choose its own successor, it could prove fatal.”

  “How so?” she demanded.

  “Well, the line of succession Scotland wanted, and apparently still desires, is quite cozy with two countries we have recently been at war with. Both France and Spain would love nothing more than to divide and conquer Great Britain, to stake claim on a country weakened by civil war and unable to defend itself.”

  “And so,” Jenna countered, “England will likely conclude we should fight off these horrid foreigners by banding together in a war against them—a war that would put our Highlanders on the front line.”

  “The clansmen are fierce warriors, and we would need to put our best defense first,” Lord Pembroke offered.

  “Perhaps the English don’t want to get their red coats muddy,” she snapped.

  “Putting James on the throne of Scotland would make your country a back door for kings Louis and Philip, and put England in a compromising position. Tell me, would you rather be speaking French or Spanish than the queen’s English?”

  “To be frank, I’d rather be speaking Gaelic,” Jenna said bitingly, forgetting herself.

  “Then why are you here?” he said, rising from the tack box, bewilderment shadowing his features.

  Jenna flushed, suddenly aware of having lost herself within the heated debate. “I beg your pardon, milord. I have spoken . . . so out of hand.”

  “You only spoke passionately. I see no reason for condemnation.”

  Air rushed out of Jenna’s lungs. “I am accustomed to reproof, sir. And if anyone in my clan gains knowledge that I have spoken to you in this manner—or released the fact that I am granted access to scholarship—limited as it is—I shall be soundly punished for it.” She paused. “They worry. For my safety.”

  Lord Pembroke puffed with a small chuckle. “Few, I’d think, should worry about you.” And then paused, sizing her up. “And what exactly is your access to scholarship—apart from these?” He held up the lectures.

  “We have a few books. Only a couple of stories.”

  “You’re welcome to come up to the house. We have a full library. All the publications you could possibly desire.” His head tilted to one side. “Can you do numbers as well?”

  She gave a slight nod, watching for his reaction.

  Lord Pembroke tugged at the lobe of one ear. “How novel. To be encouraged to stray from one’s cast in life.”
r />   “Angus always says that the road before and behind you matters little if you can push to follow the path that calls from within.”

  He looked at her sadly. “Sage words for a mason. If only it were true.”

  SIXTEEN

  JENNA’S STOMACH GRUMBLED. THE IDEA OF ANGUS’S dinner waiting for her return from town meant casting a blind eye to cunning distractions—such as the whiff of spicy gingerbread.

  Like a bloodhound, once she caught a scent, there was little else she could focus on, and the pungent aroma drew her toward the stall of an elderly woman, bowed as a twisted tree.

  Her cart stood at the entrance of the local tavern and lured people to the fragrant treat. The mellifluous sounds of a fiddler’s tale trickled through the cracked window behind the stall, coaxing passersby. It worked as well as the pied piper’s flute, inviting men to drown themselves in ale rather than in the river. The woman perched like an old bird on the side of an upturned wooden crate. She watched Jenna through tiny black eyes, following her as she passed.

  Jenna felt the gaze of the sharp-eyed women and turned. “It smells wonderful.” She nodded toward the gingerbread.

  The old woman bobbed her head and, taking a hand from its warm hiding spot beneath her woolen cloak, pointed a shaky finger toward the cakes. “The baking is such labor, but the reward is worth the effort.”

  Jenna’s heart was heavy with pity. The woman’s survival was probably dependent upon her sales. She smiled at the figure wrapped in the worn-out brown wool and was rewarded with a fairly toothless grin. She led Henry, who would have been more than happy to help eat the woman’s entire day’s labor, away from the stall and farther down the cobbled street.

  The path bustled with animals pulling carts and people running errands, their breath crystallizing in an ethereal fog around them. With the December days short on light, those working outside scurried from one task to the next and attempted to keep warm in the process. Jenna was no exception. Her father sent her here to meet the boy, Tavish Buchanan. She tried not to think of the bitter ride back to the cottage, the challenge of having to make idle talk with a stranger—especially someone morose over the recent loss of his parents. But she supposed anything new to challenge her mind would be a welcome change. For more than the last few hours, her thoughts had been solely focused on her conversation with Lord Pembroke in the barn. She’d trusted him with information she’d been warned never to reveal. Her instincts told her it was safe to do so. Or was it the flutter in her stomach that encouraged her to share? To impress upon him the fact that she wasn’t as common as he might have once thought.

  Still, his last statement left her unsettled, after she’d offered Angus’s quote as encouragement.

  Sage words . . . for a mason.

  Was he questioning the truth of the quote as it applied to him or the validity of Angus’s stated profession?

  If it was the former, then she felt sorry for him, but if it was the latter, then it might be an ominous clue that he held suspicions about her clan. She pinched her eyes shut to rid herself of the worrisome images flooding her thoughts.

  Concentrate on other things. Like finding the boy.

  She spotted him, as her father had said, waiting in between the ironmonger and the cooper’s workshop. Perhaps no more than nine, he sat hunched on a wooden cask, his strawberry blond head resting on his hands, elbows wedged between dirty knees. Chickens pecked and scratched the ground beneath him. At the sight of her and Henry, he leapt from his roost, a little fist grabbing the ragged satchel at the side of the barrel, and strode right to them.

  “Your hair is truly red. They said it would be red, but I’ve never seen hair as red as yours.” He smiled a freckled face at her, revealing a few missing teeth. Jenna wasn’t sure if it was because they were about to be replaced with new ones or if the gaps were the result of the typical roughhousing of boys.

  “Ye must be Jenna, and I bet that’s your horse. They said to look for a girl wi’ red hair and a horse, and here ye are, so I guess it’s you, aye?”

  Good heavens. And I was worried about having to do all the talking.

  She raised an eyebrow at Tavish. “Yes, you’re correct. It’s the girl with red hair and a horse.”

  “Really red,” he added with emphasis.

  “It’s my mother’s fault.”

  “What do ye mean?” He looked as if perhaps she were suggesting her mother might have dropped her on her head and caused the insult of hair color by accident.

  “I mean she has red hair too—or rather . . . had red hair.”

  “Has it gone gray, then?” he asked, eyebrows knitted with curiosity.

  Jenna smiled. “No, I mean my mother passed away.”

  Tavish’s eyes went soft and clouded.

  “A long time ago,” she added.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” he said, echoing a phrase he’d probably heard a thousand times.

  “And I’m sorry for yours too. Have you been waiting long?”

  “Maybe a time—I hadna really noticed. There’s so much going on round here, people passing wi’ their baskets, and the smells . . .” He paused, closing his eyes. “The smells are enough to drive a man wild.”

  “Drive a man wild?” she repeated, grinning.

  “Aye, it’s taking all the strength I have to control myself. I feel like running up and down the market street, robbing the stalls of what I fancy.”

  She tried to keep a solemn face. “It must have been torture for you.”

  “Well, it would be for any savage, aye?”

  “Savage?”

  “Och aye, all Scots are savages, but mainly the men.”

  Jenna bit her cheeks. “Ah yes, I think I’ve heard that somewhere.” She tried not to come across as humoring him. He seemed too sensitive for that. “Who told you that you were a savage?”

  “My grandmother. She was English. My mother said she was none too pleased having her daughter marrying into a clan o’ wild men who eat their own kin. Wild blood—that’s what I have in my veins, and because of it, I have a terrible time controlling myself.”

  She wanted to laugh until tears came to her eyes, but she pressed her lips together until she could speak again. “I think you’ve done a fair job thus far. You should be rewarded.” She looped Tavish’s satchel onto Henry’s saddle and turned to him. “Do you like gingerbread?”

  “I’ve been doing nothing but thinking ’bout it since I first passed it. Hoping it might somehow make its way into my hands through magic and such like. But my mother always said, A man who lives on hope has a slim diet, and in this case it couldna be truer, aye?” He smiled so excitedly at the mention of the cakes Jenna thought perhaps his face would split in two.

  “Your mother sounds like she was a wise woman,” Jenna said, leading Tavish and Henry back toward the tavern. Lanterns were lighting in the houses above the shops and on the streets.

  “Aye, that she was. Had a saying for all occasions, so I spent a good deal listening.”

  “And your da? Was he as wise?”

  “According to my mother, no one else would have him. She said she din him a favor—and the way he’d look at her all the time, ye ken he believed it.” He stopped to look at the ground and kicked a stone in his path. “They died holding hands. I guess it was a good match after all.” Tavish made a meager smile.

  They walked down the street in silence and approached the smoky tavern where the old woman still sat, wrapped as tight as a caterpillar in its cocoon. Jenna watched Tavish’s face grow with anticipation once the smell of the cakes made its way to his nose. She’d reached out to request two when she heard shouting from inside the tavern.

  She peered through the grimy window and saw several men make their way to the door, hollering farewells. Three of them came through the door, two stumbling out onto the street. She identified them at once as Lord Pembroke’s less-than-well-mannered friends Mr. Fowler, Mr. Gainsford, and Mr. Finch from the engagement party, the first two now well l
ubricated with liquor. One of them, she thought it might be Mr. Fowler, made a wobbling beeline for the old woman’s stand.

  “What have we got over here?” he slurred, trying to remain upright.

  Jenna was glad for the dim lighting, not wanting to be recognized, but seeing the state he was in, his cognitive skills were of little use to him now. She pulled Tavish back so he wouldn’t be stepped upon.

  Mr. Fowler leaned over and put his nose onto one of the cakes. “Ah,” he said, slipping backward and grabbing on to the cart, “jussst what I need at the moment.” He turned to his friend, who seemed a little steadier, and garbled, “Venison pasties.”

  Mr. Gainsford moved closer. “You’re an idiot, Hugh. Not venison pasties . . . They’re likely fish chuits, and they look disgusting.”

  Jenna stared at them in disbelief. It wasn’t so dark one couldn’t make out what they were looking at, and even if their eyes were swimming in brandy, surely their noses still worked.

  “Fish chuits they are, then, thank you very much,” Mr. Fowler gurgled. “I need sssomething to keep the liquor down.” He leaned in, telling the old woman, “And fish love to swim, do they not?” His toxic breath made her lean back. “Pay the man, Charles. I’ll have three—no, four!” He grabbed at the cakes and began loading them into his arms.

  “I’m not paying for that filth,” Mr. Gainsford spat, and tottered away down the street.

  “You’re ssso right,” shouted Mr. Fowler after him. “I’m not paying for it either.” With his arms full of at least ten gingerbreads, he smiled drunkenly at the old woman, who now looked panicked, and sauntered off toward his friend.

  Jenna gasped and watched with disbelief as the two men walked away with stolen goods, no one attempting to stop them.

  “They’re not worth the money she asks for them anyway,” an acidic voice said from beside her. She turned to see Mr. Finch. “They’re probably as old as the hills. They’ll break their teeth on them for sure.”

  “Deservedly so,” Jenna mumbled. She looked down to see Tavish watching her, fear in his eyes.

  “She’s been selling stale goods all month and taking advantage of those who have temporarily lost their wits from drink.” He nodded his head toward the tavern door.