“They’ll take new measurements before we come any closer,” John said as a greeting. “The maps we have of Roscraig’s shore are old—’tis as though none have traded with the hold in fifty years.”
“That I can believe,” Tavish allowed. “Had you any trouble from the harbor?”
John Muir nodded curtly, his tanned face stern inside the circle of white created by his close-cropped gray hair and short beard. He was only ten years Tavish’s senior, but a more temperate and wise man Tavish had never met, and Tavish was more proud to call John his closest friend than he was the captain of his ship.
“You may tell your English mate that ’twas right of you to leave ahead of us. The burgess had us boarded and searched. He seemed desperate to find you aboard ship.”
Tavish’s blood boiled. “Did he take anything?”
“Nay. There was little he could say about a cargo of crew and personal goods leaving Leith. I told him where for we were bound, but I expect he didna believe me. We’ll be followed.”
“Let him follow—he’s no power beyond Leith. As soon as Roscraig is outfitted, we’ll not drop anchor there again short of a request from the king himself.”
“There’s more,” Muir said. “The night of your departure from Market Street, the shop caught fire.”
“What?” Tavish said, his anger chilling slightly.
The captain’s face was grim. “Burned to the very cellar, Tav. Naught left but charcoal. Took the two shops to either side of it, as well, before the rain came.”
His shop was gone. The place that held all of his childhood memories, both good and bad. The only place before Roscraig he’d ever known as home, and his failsafe if the king decided against him.
Now there was nothing to go back to.
“Was any one hurt?”
Muir shook his head. “Nay. Rumor in the taverns is that the burgess set his lackeys to it. Not that any would stand up with an oath.”
“Of course not.” Tavish cursed softly and then sighed. “He would have never let up, as long as I was in Edinburgh. Mam will be upset that the place is gone.”
Muir turned toward the land to look up at the backside of the stone keep. “Was she abandoned?”
Tavish mirrored the captain’s pose, glad to change the subject, and both men admired the rocky promontory jutting toward the firth like the giant bow of a mythical ship.
The captain’s query called to Tavish’s mind the deep gouges in the entry door beyond the moat; the way Glenna Douglas had sought to lock him in a chamber.
“Not exactly,” Tavish said. “Naught I canna bring to heel, though.”
“Good,” John grunted. “I’ve brought all you asked from Market Street, and glad I am that we loaded it so soon. Will you be needing more from the town straight away?”
“Aye, Captain—a good deal more. Roscraig hasn’t been properly occupied in years. I’ll be needing to outfit everything from the hall to the dairy.”
John Muir raised his eyebrows.
“And people,” Tavish continued. “Your men on leave are welcome here to work; their families to stay on in my employ in their absence.”
“It’s servants you’re needing as well, then?”
Tavish nodded. “Anyone suitable. Even if they’re not suitable.”
Captain Muir grinned. “I’m not a man to judge house servants, Tav.”
“Perhaps you would find reason to pay a call to Master Keane and relay to Audrey my sudden need for domestic assistance. I’m certain she would know exactly what I require.”
“And perhaps I could happen to mention, by the by, your inheritance?” Muir taunted.
Tavish felt his neck warm, but found he didn’t mind at all. “It’s no secret now, is it, John?”
“Nay, but I’ll warrant Audrey shall be cross that you didna tell her yourself. Quite.”
Tavish grinned. “I’m certain you can convince her to forgive me—she’s always listened to you above any other. Do you need my assistance in coming ashore?”
“Nay—we’ve hands aplenty this short trip. We’ll rebuild the dock straightaway.”
“Good. Send word ’round that half of them may stay when you return to Edinburgh. I’ll pay them their usual sailing stipend with a bonus. I’ve a roof that needs mending and some walls and paths rocked. Several cottages are in disrepair, and the fields need turned right away, should any have a yearning to play at farming.”
“My God,” Muir said. “Is it so bad?”
“Naught I can’t bring to heel,” Tavish repeated. “I’m off to tell Mam you’ve arrived—she’ll be anxious for her hoops and pots.” He offered Muir his hand once more. “Captain.”
Muir took Tavish’s hand but also touched his forehead with his left fingertips and gave Tavish a salty wink. “Laird.”
The dark clouds made good on their rainy promise as Tavish bounded up the three flights to the courtyard. He saw the smoke coming from the kitchen building and dashed toward it, knowing that’s where Mam would likely feel most at home in such a foreign place. He couldn’t wait to bring the news that Muir had arrived with their possessions.
Tavish grabbed onto the doorframe to slow himself as he ran beneath the lintel, feeling the wide smile on his face, the cold rain on his scalp.
“Mam! The Stygian is—”
The smile fell from his lips as he took in the scene before him: the previously dusty, abandoned room now scrubbed clean, its shelves set to rights with the small provisions they’d traveled with. A fire crackled merrily in the enormous hearth, encouraging the simmer of a pot of some delicious-smelling stuff that his mother was ladling into a wooden bowl.
“Ah, you reminded me of when you were a lad just now, Tav, dashing into the kitchen to tell me this or that,” Mam said with a delighted smile as she hung the ladle on a hook and turned toward the square table in the center of the room. “Warms my heart.”
She set the bowl down on the table before none other than Glenna Douglas, who was looking up at Tavish with her green eyes rounded, her hands clasped tightly on her lap.
The two stared at each other for several heartbeats, while Mam shook out a wide napkin and smoothed it over the blond woman’s legs, lifting and replacing Glenna Douglas’s clenched fists.
“There you are, milady. Careful now—’twill be hot. Come have a bite, Tavish—it’s just now ready.”
Milady? Milady?
“What are you doing here?” Tavish demanded in a low voice, ignoring his mother.
If she had been startled by his entrance, she recovered quickly. Her cat eyes narrowed. “Did you expect me to simply vanish upon your command?”
“Aye,” he said with a nod.
Mam tossed him a stern look as she set a wooden cup next to the bowl and filled it from a skin. “Now, let’s nae argue over the meal. Milady, here’s a good heel of bread.”
“Thank you, Harriet.”
The subservient tone pierced Tavish’s brain like splinters. It seemed like someone else’s hand that reached out and wrapped fingers around Glenna Douglas’s scrawny bicep; someone else’s rage that yanked her from the stool, leaving it to topple sideways with a clatter; someone else that pulled her behind him from the kitchen and into the rain while she shrieked.
“Let go of me!”
She resisted with what little strength she possessed, jerking at her arm, digging her heels into the soft courtyard. But Tavish plucked her up as if she were naught but a weed and pulled her into the wide entry hall, splashing through puddles that were already forming from the downpour outside.
“Let go!”
He reached the bottom of the stairs to the east tower and swung her around in front of him before pushing her up the first two risers and at last setting her free. He began mounting the steps, prompting her to retreat up them backward, even though she continued to glare at him def
iantly.
“My mother,” he said, as deliberately as he ascended each step, “is not your servant.”
She nearly stumbled but caught herself and backed up the stairs more quickly as he neared her.
“You don’t have any servants,” Tavish clarified. “Nor have you any food. Nor crops. Nor livestock. Whether ’twas you or your da, someone’s run Roscraig nearly into its grave, and so any courtesy I would have shown you for your stewardship of my home doesn’t exist. You’ve no right to be here at all.”
She lashed out at him with her fists, her claws. He shouted as he raised a hand to his face, and then his other to ward off the next blow. She turned and stumbled up the stairs as if she would escape him, but Tavish was quicker, seizing her bony wrist and whipping her around to press her against the stones of the stairwell.
“Turn me loose, you bastard!” she screamed up at him, her hands flailing, her knees and feet churning into his body. “You common filth! Thief!”
Tavish managed to capture both of her wrists in what he knew must be a crushing grip, and then he seized Glenna Douglas’s chin and jaw, effectively stifling the flow of vitriol from her mouth.
“Shut up,” he growled, nearly nose to nose with her as the thunder crashed beyond the stone walls. Their torsos pressed together, and he fancied he could feel her heartbeat trill within her shallow frame, like that of a captured bird. “You gather your things, and the things of your father, and you both be gone from my house. My house,” he emphasized. “As soon as the rain stops. If you are so inclined to work for your keep, you may have one of the cottages in the village. Princess,” he added with hissing scorn.
He released her jaw and yanked his hand back as she tried to bite him with an outraged shriek. She stumbled sideways and then backward up the stairs glaring at him, her eyes fiery but dry. When she was out of his reach, she stopped, her mouth twisting in a sneer.
“I’ll not be your villager,” she spat. “You’re a common bastard, and you always will be. Words on a page don’t make you noble.”
“On the next dry day,” Tavish repeated. “I don’t want to see sign of you before then, lest I lose my temper and teach you a lesson on how to mind the laird of the hold.”
“You keep your filthy, beggar hands away from me.” She lifted her chin as she turned and left him on the stairs.
Tavish touched his mouth and looked down at the blood on his fingertips. The mad woman had busted his lip. He turned to go back down the stairs and saw Mam waiting at the bottom with a laden tray in her hands and a look of disappointment on her face.
She raised an eyebrow at his pointed glance at the food and drink on the tray. “Nae a word, Tavish Cameron. I’m yer mam and I’ll cuff ye as well, laird or nay.”
Tavish gritted his teeth as he walked past his mother toward the barbican. He could just see the first of the ship hands carrying crates and barrels into the courtyard.
If he’d had any doubt of Glenna Douglas’s nobility before today, her behavior confirmed it without a doubt. She was utterly useless to him. Whatever difficulties she and her father had created for themselves were only Tavish’s problems inasmuch as the Douglases had so outrageously mismanaged Roscraig, and it would be he who must rebuild the derelict hold and village.
The sooner she was gone from his house and out of his way, the better.
Chapter 5
Glenna flung herself across the foot of her father’s bed, her body shaking, her throat choked with gasps. Her arm throbbed where Tavish Cameron had gripped her. She knew that her flesh was so spare now, dark bruises would testify to his touch.
She felt as though she were either going mad or in the malevolent whirlwind of a never-ending nightmare. Everything in her life was being systematically destroyed. The village was gone, the hold was in poverty. What would happen to her after Iain Douglas drew his last breath?
The chamber door gave its familiar, tired creak, and Glenna whipped her head around.
Harriet Cameron stood in the doorway holding a tray in her hands. “I wanted to bring it before it went cold.”
Glenna froze for a moment, her pride warring with her aching, lonely heart. This woman was the mother of the monster who was stealing her home. But she had also prepared her own food for Glenna to eat, and her efforts seemed without rancor.
“Might I come in, milady?”
Glenna didn’t trust herself to speak—indeed, she had no idea what she should say to the woman were she to open her mouth, and so she only nodded dumbly.
Harriet entered and briskly crossed the floor, affording Glenna time to straighten from the bed and swipe at her eyes while the woman slid the tray onto the bedside table, jostling the pathetic bowl and rag that had lived there for what seemed like weeks now. Then Harriet faced the sunken countenance of Iain Douglas and gave a quick bob.
“Laird Douglas,” she said courteously, as if the man were conscious of the goings-on in his chamber. Then she picked up the bowl of porridge and abandoned napkin and turned, offering them to Glenna.
Glenna took the sustenance and eased down on to the edge of the mattress. “Thank you.” She was wary of the woman and embarrassed at the hunger that gnawed at her insides, but as if Harriet Cameron sensed as much, she turned back to the wan figure on the bed, her hands on her generously rounded hips, giving Glenna privacy for her first ravenous tastes of the food.
“How long’s the laird been in his state?” Harriet asked, not looking at Glenna.
Glenna swallowed and cleared her throat before answering. “This morn was the fourth day.”
Harriet’s brow lowered on her profile. “He’s nae woken a’tall? Taken nae drink?”
“Nay.” Glenna dropped her eyes to the bowl and scooped another spoonful while Harriet stepped to the bedtable. “I…I’ve bathed his mouth. With spiced wine. ’Twas all I had.” She lifted the porridge to her mouth but spoke before taking the bite. “Your son thought it fitting to drink the last of it himself last night.”
Harriet turned her head quickly, and her face bore an expression of unabashed surprise. Then her features seemed to calm, steel themselves against emotion. “I apologize in his stead, milady. You are welcome to anything I have to replace it, of course.”
Glenna ignored the comment and looked back to the contents of the bowl as she swirled it with her spoon. Her stomach had filled quickly, the few bites settling like thorny rocks.
“It doesn’t matter, though, does it? He’ll die.”
“Have you a priest?” Harriet asked, in one manner ignoring Glenna’s comment, but also confirming it by the very question.
Glenna set the bowl aside on the still coverlet and twisted the linen cloth between her hands. “There is Dubhán. The hermit monk who lives along the cliff. He sees to the graveyard. The…the burials.”
“Thanks be to God for that, at least. With your permission, I’ll send for him this afternoon.”
Glenna’s throat constricted. “Nay,” she rasped. “Da doesn’t want that. He renounced all religion after my mother died. He—” Glenna stopped, shocked at how readily she seemed to want to share with the woman the horrible memories bubbling up in her own mind—the pounding on the keep door, Dubhán’s voice calling out for mercy the day the villagers began to die…
Glenna took a deep breath. “He wouldn’t want Dubhán’s blessing.”
Harriet winced. “But, milady, his soul—”
“Nay. He is still laird here, no matter what your son says. I will obey his wishes.”
“Of course, milady. Of course. I didna mean to add to your upset. I’ll visit this Dubhán myself soon and take him a basket of food. Beg your pardon, milady, but I’m supposing his supplies match your own?”
Glenna felt her face heat. “Dubhán looks after himself.”
“I see. Well,” she sighed. “There’s likely naught I can do to save your da, you ken, but I mi
ght be able to give him a mite o’ comfort.” Harriet looked to Glenna. “If milady wishes.”
“It doesn’t matter what I wish,” Glenna replied bitterly. “As soon as the rain stops, Tavish Cameron would see us tossed out on the road.”
Harriet Cameron looked at Glenna for a long moment while thunder rumbled gently. “It’s still rainin’, is it nae?”
Glenna nodded dumbly.
“And your da still lives. Let me help you while I can.” She paused. “You might think Tav is only hard-hearted and cruel, but he isna. His mind is foremost for business. And for the time being, his business is Roscraig.”
Glenna felt her temper flare. “Roscraig doesn’t belong to him.”
“That isna my argument to make,” Harriet rejoined gently. “And I willna play you false by saying I doona think my son deserves what his own father has given him. But I would ask you: if you could choose, right now, between Roscraig and your da, which would you have?”
Tears came into Glenna’s eyes, extinguishing the fire that wanted to blaze inside her. “Of course I would have my father.”
“Aye. And so, for now, you have the privilege of choosing which battle you fight. Tavish never had a choice.”
Glenna lifted her chin. “That isn’t my doing. If anyone’s, ’tis yours.”
The old woman dropped her eyes for a moment, and Glenna felt a prickling of her conscience.
“I’ve never had much say myself over the path I’ve traveled, milady. And so I understand a bit of what you’re feeling now, and I’m sorry for you. But I canna stay Tavish’s hand in what he chooses for Roscraig, even if I had wish to. So if you’d rather I leave you and your da be, I will.”
In that moment, Glenna overcame her self-pity and anger to feel shame for the way she had treated Harriet Cameron. If her father had been conscious to witness her behavior, she knew it would have shamed him, too. The woman had been naught but kind and apologetic from the first moment she’d arrived at Roscraig, and she was the only person left who seemed to genuinely care what happened to her and Iain Douglas.
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