The Hiring Fair

by Laura Strickland

  No sooner had the words escaped his lips than a loud rattling came from the window. He froze, superstitious wonder flooding his eyes.

  Annie laughed. “’Tis not fate, that, but Sol coming home.” She scrambled from the bed and went to throw wide the shutters. The owl glided in and fluttered to his perch. She closed the shutters and turned back to the bed. For an instant longer she hesitated, asking a question within herself, receiving an answer.

  “You have one good hand,” she told Tam, “and I two. Between us, I do not doubt we can deal with any challenge, including these wee buttons.” And she unfastened her bodice before letting the dress fall about her ankles and returning to the bed.

  ****

  Tam stirred groggily on the pillow and the remnants of pleasure whispered through him once again. Like the echo of music it was, only far sweeter. Deep as comfort and twice as strong, it seemed to enwrap all his senses.

  His mind groped for the proper word to describe what he felt and came up with the only one that fit: magic. Annie breathed it when she touched him; she had bestowed it when their bodies joined, and now it possessed him whole.

  A woman of magic, his wife who spoke with wild creatures, read the future in a tea cup, and provided him a kind of warmth he had never imagined.

  And did she now sleep, this wondrous wife of his? They lay entwined together in the big bed, both of them naked as born. Her head rested close beside his, and her breath tickled his cheek.

  No going back from it, she’d said, and aye, she spoke true. He had done more than explore her lovely body and pluck her maidenhood this night. He feared he had also given her his heart.

  That had not been part of the bargain either. He did not know that she wanted his ragged heart at all. Sweet kisses, aye. Maybe even this deep comfort. Beyond that, all she’d truly asked for was someone to stand between her and the factor, the protection of being his wife.

  Or, anyone’s wife. That knowledge came to him suddenly, chipping away a little bit of his newly-acquired peace. If not for the fact that she’d made her plea so late in the day and he had been left there still with his mangled hand, it could have been some other man with the place.

  And then he would not be lying here with her, so warm, so blessed, feeling so complete, like a ship come into harbor.

  He protested that idea inwardly—his heart did—and he moved in the bed. Annie roused instantly.

  “Tam?” she murmured. “What is it? Do you ache?”

  She caught his mangled hand between her fingers, and his whole body responded. Somehow he fought back the immediate waves of desire and lay quietly while she massaged and stroked him, only his breath quickening.

  “It does no’ hurt,” he realized, in amazement.

  “No?”

  “You do no’ understand, Annie; it always hurts, more or less. Has ever since it happened. But not now.” He turned toward her in the bed. “Maybe loving you has healed me.”

  “Do you think so?”

  “I do.”

  “’Tis a bonny thought, but I fear the pain will return come morning.”

  “We have hours before morning.” Leaving his right hand between her fingers, he cupped her breast with the other. She caught her breath.

  What miracles her breasts were, mounds of softness tipped with buds that rose to his touch and beguiled his tongue. He wished he could see her standing naked for him with all that glorious hair swirling about her.

  “Beautiful,” he murmured.

  “What is beautiful?”

  “This.” He teased her with his thumb. “You.”

  She laughed softly. “My uncle used to call me ‘wee crow’ for my black eyes and my beak of a nose.”

  “Your uncle is no’ here, and I will call you what I wish.”

  “What will you call me?”

  Magic, the source of all desire, hopelessly beguiling. But he could say none of that and instead told her, “I shall be pleased to call you my bonny wife.”

  Chapter Twelve

  “So ’tis true.” Nellie MacLachlan leaned her head close to Annie’s and lowered her voice even as her eyes followed Tam about the yard. “’Tis all over the district you ha’ got yoursel’ a husband. No one seems to ken where.”

  “We wed in Oban.” Annie smiled to herself. Word had spread even more swiftly than she’d expected.

  Nellie narrowed her gaze. “Well, he is a fine-looking man, I will give you that—save for the hand. Is that how you met him? Did he come to you for a cure or a charm?”

  “Something like that.”

  Nellie switched her gaze back to Annie. “Aye, and you ha’ the glow of a woman newly wed. I should know.” She rested her hand on her swollen belly. She’d wed her Andrew last autumn, and the bairn inside was her first. “’Tis why I ha’ come this day. My back has been hurting me something fierce. Ha’ you a charm for that?”

  Annie inspected her slowly. “I can give you a wee pouch to put beneath the ticking of your bed, but I doubt ’twill help. ’Tis the bairn’s weight making you ache. You’ll give birth within the week, unless I miss my guess.”

  “By heaven, I hope so.” Nellie planted both hands in the small of her back and groaned. “How I wish your mother were here for the birthing.”

  Annie wished it also. “You’re fine and healthy. You’ll do well.”

  Nellie stole another look at Tam. “Aye, and I do no’ doubt you’ll be in like straits to me before long.”

  Would she? The thought startled Annie even though she, who lived as best she might in accordance with the earth, knew it for the natural order of things.

  Yet when she’d conceived this plan, she’d not dreamed of taking to her bed the man she brought home as husband. Indeed, she could not say how it had happened. Those intoxicating kisses of his, no doubt.

  She let her gaze follow him around the yard, a bit dreamily. She’d not expected him to stay about the place this day. Her uncle had always fled, taking some of the dogs walking in the hills when the “troops of women,” as he called them, arrived. Tam worked quietly stacking firewood at the side of the yard, only slightly hampered by his hand, and out where everyone could see him.

  Annie felt glad. Suddenly she wanted all the world to know him for her man. Hers. And not just because of Ned Randleigh.

  “There, now,” Nellie said, “you canno’ even look at him without smiling.”

  Annie hurried into the house to get Nellie her charm. When she returned, she found still more women crowding the yard.

  Nellie gave her a penny for the charm and hurried off. A rough queue formed of women young and old, each with some urgent request.

  “Have you anything for my aching fingers, lass?”

  “Will you speak a charm over the head of my bairn, here? He will no’ stop greeting at night.”

  “My best hen has stopped laying and is pulling out her feathers. Have you a wee charm for that?”

  They all went silent when Kirstie Brodach entered the yard, and every head turned as one. The lass—left alone on her croft save for her aging grandmother after the death of her father—came slowly, her head down, wrapped tight in her shawl.

  Annie’s heart plummeted; this boded ill indeed.

  She left off explaining the uses of a salve to her latest customer and went to the gate at once. Kirstie’s only real claim to beauty was that lent by youth; she could not be above sixteen, with soft, brown hair and a thin face that now bore telltale signs of weeping.

  Annie’s native compassion came to the fore; she seized Kirstie’s hands. “Kirstie, lass, what is amiss?”

  “My grandmother sent me.” Kirstie did not look up and kept her voice so low Annie barely caught the words. “I am in a bad way.”

  Annie glanced around the yard. Everyone stared, including Tam, who had paused at his work. Inside the house, as she well knew, other women waited to have their tea leaves read.

  “Come.” She towed Kirstie around back, halfway down the track to the wee house where her uncle
had set a bench beneath the trees, with only Ruff following. “Sit down.”

  Kirstie did, and Annie seized her hands. Cold as ice, they lay passive in hers.

  “Kirstie, look at me. What has happened?”

  The lass slowly raised her pale blue eyes. Her words came in a sudden rush. “Ye ken, mistress, how the factor has been after us all the winter long, saying I maun pay what we owe or he would be forced to toss us out.”

  “Aye,” Annie agreed even as her stomach clenched.

  “He returned two days ago, said his forbearance was at an end and I maun pay one way or another, else he would put my auld granny out into the cold.”

  Two days ago, when Randleigh had discovered she, Annie, had wed.

  “So, so…” Kirstie began to weep. “I paid his price, but no’ in coin. He has ruined me, mistress!”

  Struggling to keep from betraying the extent of her dismay, Annie said, “You were intact, lass? He took your maidenhead?”

  Kirstie nodded brokenly. “Not only that. He hurt me full well, mistress. ’Twas like a bull mating wi’ a heifer, unco’ rough. I—I started bleeding soon after, and ha’ no’ stopped since.”

  Rage joined the sickness in Annie’s gut. “Is the bleeding bad?”

  “Bad enough. And the pain—I think he tore me open, mistress. I wept and begged him to stop. He would no’.”

  “Och, Kirstie,” Annie breathed. “Do you wish for me to examine you?”

  Kirstie shook her head wildly. “No’ wi’ all these people about.”

  “We will go up to the loft. Come.”

  She towed the trembling girl into the house and up the ladder, telling Sonsie in passing, “Keep everyone away.”

  Kirstie wept throughout the examination, by the end of which Annie’s hands shook with rage. The beast. How could he use a tender young lass so? She attempted to thrust her anger aside and give Kirstie some reassurance.

  “You will heal, lass. Did you tell your grandmother what happened?”

  “Nay, but she heard. She heard it all.”

  “I will give you a potion wi’ which to wash yoursel’, and you must do it most carefully. Also, perhaps something to help you sleep.”

  Kirstie mopped at her pale cheeks. “Aye, but mistress, I came here for another sort o’ potion—one to unseat a bairn if he has left one. Please!” She seized both of Annie’s hands. “Tell me there is such a cure.”

  “There is.” Though Annie had never given it out and her mother had warned most strongly against its use. We are to do no harm, daughter. It is our first law. Now, looking into the eyes of the distraught girl, she warned, “It does not always work, mind, and it may make you very ill.”

  “I do no’ care. I swear to you, mistress, I will take my own life if I come up carrying his brat. Just as I will slay mysel’ before ever accepting him again.”

  “List, lass. Do you want to come here and stay with me?”

  “My grandmother will no’ leave the place and is too ill to move, even if she would. That is why…” Kirstie took to weeping again. Annie pulled the lass into her arms in an attempt to lend comfort, even though rage still drummed in her ears.

  But Kirstie soon drew away. “Tell me, Mistress Annie, you know many spells. Do you ha’ any for keeping him away? Or—or for dealing wi’ him? A fall from that horse o’ his, mayhap…”

  Gently, Annie said, “Kirstie, that would be black magic. You ken I will ha’ no truck wi’ it.”

  “But he deserves—”

  “I ken fine what he deserves, and you speak the truth. Still, such punishment is no’ ours to deal out. You maun let fate and the powers answer him.”

  “But they do not! What do I say if he comes to my door again?”

  “Tell him he has had all he will from you. Kirstie, have you no neighbor or relation, no one who could come and stay wi’ you?”

  “No relations left alive, mistress, and the neighbors dare not cross him.”

  “Would it help if I sent Jockie to stay wi’ you?”

  “Him? The factor would take pleasure in venting his spleen on poor Jockie.”

  “The lad is stronger than he looks, and smarter.”

  But Kirstie shook her head.

  “Come along, then. I will get those mixtures ready for you—and ask Jockie to at least see you home.”

  They climbed back down from the loft into a room now bursting with women who wished to consult the cards or the tea leaves. Annie whispered that Sonsie should try and stall them while she hurried to mix the cures for Kirstie.

  The women chatted like magpies the whole time she worked and only fell silent when Tam entered the room and crossed to Annie’s side. Into her ear he breathed, “What is the matter? You look unco’ upset.”

  “I will tell you later. Find Jockie for me, will you please, and ask if he will see Kirstie, here, home. He is likely hiding in the byre.”

  “Aye.” She felt his gaze touch her brow and chin. “But, are you all right?”

  “I am no’ sure, husband. I am no’ sure at all.” For her faith bade her harbor no ill will. What then to do with this rage?

  Chapter Thirteen

  “And will you now see my future in the bottom o’ one of those cups?” Tam spoke lightly in an effort to distract Annie from the trouble that visibly beset her, bowing her like a weight on her shoulders.

  A long and busy day it had been, but all the women had at last departed back to their own hearthsides, most carrying a bag of herbs and a charm or two. Tam had been surprised to see they paid what they could, becoming insistent about it if Annie tried to refuse. Those who could not pay offered favors in return, but none went away wanting.

  His wife, he decided as he watched her clear away the cups, was a gey kind woman with a generous heart. She felt the travail of those who came to her as if it were her own—he could see the truth of that reflected in her eyes. A hard way to live, he acknowledged, but a good one.

  And he’d won the privilege of having such a woman for his wife. Whatever could he have done to deserve it?

  She paused with two cups in her hands and gave him a look. “Would you see your future, Tam Sutherland? Most men do no’ wish to know what lies ahead for them. ’Tis the women who come worrying over the fate of their bairns and their men.”

  “And can you see the future there, truly? Stars and triangles, trees and animals—that is what I heard you saw this day. What do those tell you?”

  “You would be surprised. All those things ha’ meanings. I learned them at my mother’s knee.”

  “Aye, so.” He paused. “And are you ready to tell me what is troubling you?”

  “I am not, yet. Let me read your leaves instead.” She swung the kettle, still hot, over the fire, carefully washed out a cup, and measured the leaves. He watched how gracefully her hands moved as she worked and imagined them touching him later tonight. His throat went dry with anticipation.

  “There, now.” She set the cup on the table and gestured for him to sit. “You drink that and then turn the cup in your hand three times, thinking about what you wish to know. Turn it over in the saucer and let it drain; we shall see what it reveals.”

  “Sit with me.” He caught her hand in his good one. “You ha’ been on your feet all day.”

  She allowed him to pull her onto the bench beside him and sighed with what sounded like pleasure.

  He gulped some tea and asked, “So why was Jockie needed to see that young lass home?”

  Annie’s face went so still it frightened Tam. Used to seeing her eyes snapping with life and her features reflecting every emotion, he did not know what to make of this.

  Unexpectedly she said, “Tell me, Tam, what do you do wi’ the hate?”

  “Eh?” His gaze flew to hers.

  “The sheer weight of hatred that falls black over the mind. I know you maun feel it. You’ve lost your parents, your good dog—and the use of your hand. But ’tis such an ugly emotion. I do no’ want to harbor it.”

  Tam’s t
houghts flew, trying to ascertain whom this fair-hearted, loving woman might hate so. Ruefully, he said, “Sometimes the hate lends me strength and determination. That, along with my pride, kept me going after it happened. Told mysel’ I would be cursed if I let what they did to me determine the balance o’ my life.”

  “Aye, aye, there is strength in rage and anger, the sisters of hate. But such emotion steals from us, also, Tam. It robs the beauty from us, here.” She touched her breast.

  “I do not doubt you are right, but ’twould take a finer man than I to refrain from it.” He drained his cup and turned it about awkwardly in his left hand before placing it face down to drain. “You ask what I do with it? I push it back, and trust it will serve me well when I need it. Now, you tell me, what has tapped your rage?”

  “Ned Randleigh.”

  “The factor?” Tam’s stomach muscles tightened. “What of him?”

  “That lass who was here today, Kirstie—she told me he took his price from her, to let her stay in her wee bit o’ cottage wi’ her ailing grandmother.”

  “You mean—?”

  “I do. And the man treated her most cruelly, rutting as a beast might. He hurt her right well. She says if she comes up carrying his bairn she will tak’ her own life.”

  Tam started up. “Somewhat must be done about him.”

  Annie met his gaze. “Aye, and what?”

  “A sharp knife in the dark would serve.”

  “Nay. The man is a devil, sure, but none should blacken his or her soul with such a deed.”

  “I am certain someone might be found to take on the task.”

  “Who? You?” Annie’s eyes, so dead a moment ago, flashed to life. “Nay.” She seized his hand in both of hers. “Promise me you will no’ go after him.”

  Nearly choking on his outrage, Tam said, “I will make you no such promise, not one I canno’ be sure I will keep.” He drew a breath. “Men like him—like them—need settling.”

  “Aye, but as I told Kirstie, ’tis for the fates and the powers to deal wi’ them as they deserve.” Her fingers caressed his. “I ha’ been taught that everything we put out into the world comes back threefold. If we send out kindness, we receive still more kindness. Hate, that we will also receive. Randleigh will get what he has coming.”