Amanda Scott (38 page)

“I haven’t seen her since we had breakfast,” Mary said.

“She went out soon after you and Duncan left the dining parlor, saying she could tell when she wasn’t wanted, which was an extremely foolish thing to say. I’m sure I never said anything to make her think such a thing.”

“I’m sure you didn’t, ma’am. She is upset about Juliet’s baby. Furthermore, do you not think it possible that she still resents Duncan’s having married me?”

“I don’t know what Serena thinks, my dear,” she said, smothering another cough. “From what I have seen of her these past few days, I should think she has set her cap for your cousin, Sir Neil. Perhaps she has gone in search of him.”

“Perhaps,” Mary agreed, “although I supposed he had gone with Duncan.”

“Did he?”

Realizing that the only reason she had thought so was that she had seen them in her dream, Mary flushed and said, “I don’t know who went with him.”

They worked for another half hour, and since Lady Balcardane kept up her usual stream of chatter, Mary had little to do but listen, add a comment from time to time and attend to her work. If her thoughts strayed from time to time, her lack of attention did not disturb her companion in the least.

When the drawing room door opened and Serena swept in, her cheeks aflame and her eyes bright with strong emotion, both women regarded her with surprise.

“Goodness, have you been outside, my dear?” Lady Balcardane said.

“I have, and what I was doing is quite my own affair, and not
any
affair of people who seem to think I ought to beg their permission for everything I do.”

Feeling instant sympathy with the complaint, Mary said, “Oh, dear, Serena, have you suffered a run-in with Duncan?”

Serena lifted her chin. “I have not. Duncan has nothing to say about what I do. He had his chance. But if a person wants to go for a walk outside the gates, I cannot see why that should disturb anyone.”

“But if it wasn’t Duncan, who was it?”

“Indeed, Serena,” Lady Balcardane said, “you ought not to go beyond the gates alone. Whatever possessed you to do such a thing?”

“Mary did it, and no one said anything,” Serena said sulkily, “and I …”

“You know that is not true,” Mary said when she appeared unlikely to finish the sentence. “You know perfectly well that it’s not. I went out when you were ill, ma’am,” she explained when Lady Balcardane looked bewildered. “To gather things to help you sleep so you would feel more the thing.”

“And so I do, my dear, to be sure, and I shall take another cup of soup tonight, but you must have known Duncan would not like it.”

“I knew the men on the walls could see me,” she said. The words stirred a memory of the adventure her cloak had taken the day before, and putting it together with Serena’s unfinished sentence, she stiffened. To cover her reaction, she added quickly, “Duncan was merely being overprotective, ma’am, that’s all.”

Before Lady Balcardane could reply, they heard a masculine voice shout, “Serena!” It was Balcardane’s voice, and the earl soon followed it in person. “What the devil were you doing out there, lass? Have you lost your mind?”

“I am quite safe, sir, I assure you. I did no more than walk a short way up the hill to stretch my legs.”

“You can stretch them well enough in the hall, or in the courtyard!”

“It’s not the same,” she said, lifting her chin. “The courtyard cobblestones are slippery, and in the hall one does not benefit from the fresh air.”

“Then, devil take it, ask me or Duncan to provide you with an escort. Who was that lout who accosted you up there?”

“He was no lout, I assure you, sir. It was but one of the villagers from Ballachulish who desired to assure himself of my safety. He said he was not accustomed to seeing young women of quality out walking alone.”

“Nor should he be, damn his impudence! Who was he?”

“I’m afraid I do not recall his name, but I can point him out to you in kirk tomorrow if you like.”

“By God, I hope you are telling me the truth, lass. I remember that Neil—”

Before he could finish, a childish shriek from the hall startled them all. “Miss Mary, Miss Mary, come quick! Oh, where are you? Where are you?”

Recognizing Pinkie’s anguished voice, Mary leapt to her feet and dashed for the open door. Balcardane stood still, apparently too astonished to react, but she pushed past him into the hall, crying, “I’m here, darling! What is it? Is it Master Duncan? Oh, Pinkie, has something happened to Master Duncan?”

“He said tae fetch ye,” the child cried, flinging herself at her and trying to drag her toward the door. “Our Chuff’s gone and fell in tae the burn. Oh, miss, I couldna get him oot when he fell. He was trying tae catch fish tae give the laird, and his foot slipped and he went straight in. He near drowned, our Chuff did, but Himself dragged him oot. He tellt me tae run and fetch ye straightaway.”

“Himself!” Balcardane had caught up with Mary. “What the devil is the child blethering about?”

“It’s what the children call Duncan, sir. There was a slight misunderstanding at the outset, I’m afraid.”

“Did she say the wee lad was trying to catch fish for me?”

Pinkie gazed solemnly up at him and said, “Aye, laird. Chuff did say we must earn our keep, so we’d no be a charge on your wee puny purse.”

Balcardane groaned. “Come, Mary, we must hurry to see what can be done.”

“If you don’t mind, sir, you go, and take blankets from the stable. I will go to the kitchen, and take Pinkie with me. If Duncan has got Chuff, he does not need me there, but he will need my help if the boy has taken a bad chill or injured himself.”

“Himself did say Chuff hurt his leg, Miss Mary,” Pinkie said urgently. “When I hurt mine, ye made it better. I think ye should go tae him the noo.”

Putting an arm around the little girl, Mary said quietly to the earl, “Tell Duncan to treat the leg just as he would if one of his men were injured, sir. Then, if it’s all right with you, he can carry Chuff up to the old nursery.”

“Aye, he can do that, right enough.” The earl still sounded distraught.

“Thank you, sir. I can look after him more easily there, and Pinkie can stay with him there, as well. They will want to remain together, and although some may think it odd to consider children’s feelings in such a way, I have a special interest in these two, you know.”

“Never mind what others think, and don’t spare any expense, lass. May the devil take me, but I never thought my frugality could result in the death of a child.”

“He won’t die, sir. Not if I can help it. Now, go.”

“I’ll go, but you see before you a changed man, damme if you don’t.”

Mary believed him. Never had she seen a man so shaken.

H
AVING ORDERED FIRES KINDLED
in both the schoolroom and the nursery, and a kettle of hot water carried up so that she could brew a hot toddy to warm Chuff after such a dangerous chilling, Mary sent Pinkie running for her remedies. Then she set blankets to warm in front of the fireguard for the little cot in the night nursery.

Duncan himself carried Chuff into the schoolroom a quarter hour later as Mary was taking the kettle off the hob.

“Strip off his clothes,” she said, “every stitch. I don’t know what we can put on him, but he can’t stay in those wet clothes. And mind his leg.”

“I don’t think it’s broken,” Duncan said, “but he gashed it when he fell in. He nearly drowned. It’s a deuced good thing I was delayed leaving, lass, or we would never have heard Pinkie calling for help, though she screeched like a banshee.”

“She’s a good lass, Pinkie,” Chuff muttered without opening her eyes.

“She is,” Duncan agreed in a harsher tone, “and I shall want to know before you are much older, just what you were thinking to take her near that burn. For that matter, I told you after your last encounter with the MacCrichton that you were not to go out again without permission. Did you ask anyone’s leave to go?”

Eyeing him warily, Chuff shook his head.

“You can talk about all that later,” Mary said firmly. “We’ve got to get him warm, Duncan, or it won’t matter that he didn’t drown.”

Duncan did not argue, carrying the boy into the nursery, stripping off his wet clothing, and toweling him dry. Chuff protested that he was hurting him, but when Duncan would have stopped, Mary urged him to be sure the boy was dry. “There is some linen there to wrap around his leg, sir, to stop the bleeding.”

“Do you want to look more closely at it? His ankle is swollen, too, but I think he merely sprained it.”

“Then I need not examine it yet. Just put him to bed so he can get warm. I have warm blankets. Have you got an old shirt that we can put on him?”

“Aye, I’ll find something.”

Pinkie returned with Mary’s satchel as Duncan left to find a shirt, and Mary left the little girl to keep Chuff company while she went to brew him a toddy. He still seemed very cold when she carried it in to him, but he sipped obediently.

He was resting more comfortably when the earl surprised them by coming all the way upstairs to see for himself that the lad had taken no lasting injury. “You young fool,” he growled, smoothing Chuff’s hair back from his face, “I can look after my people here without your interference.”

“I thought I could help with a fish or two,” Chuff said, looking at him warily. “I didna mean tae fall in tae the burn, laird. My foot slipped on some ice.”

Shooting a rueful look at Mary, Balcardane said, “You’re a good lad, Chuff, but if I gave you to understand that I think it’s too expensive to keep you and your sister here, I apologize. I’m an old fool, that’s all, and I hope you will forgive me.”

Flushing, Chuff said, “Nay, then, ye mustna say such things, laird. ’Tis right that Pinkie and I should earn our keep. Flaming Janet alius said so, and our daddy would ha’ wanted it that way, as weel.”

“Who was your father, Chuff?”

The boy shrugged. “Flaming Janet calls him George, but we say Daddy.”

“And he’s dead?”

“Aye, he died in the fighting, Flaming Janet said. That’s why she said it were the laird’s job tae look after us.”

“He must have been a MacCrichton tenant,” Mary said quietly. “Ewan mentioned a handfasting, but he said Chuff came well after the year and a day.”

“Aye, well, you are not to worry now, lad,” Balcardane said. “I’ll look after you and your sister. You just rest and get better now, you hear?”

“Aye, laird,” the boy answered sleepily.

Although Balcardane had sworn that he would change his ways, no member of his household really expected him to do so, least of all his undutiful son. Thus, the earl caused a sensation Monday at breakfast when he announced that he would go to Maryburgh, the little town that supplied the garrison at Fort William, to buy a christening gift for Juliet’s baby.

Duncan expressed everyone’s amazement. “Today, sir? But the herds are predicting heavy weather in the next few days. We’ll be lucky if it clears before Saturday so we can get to Inver House.” He saw Mary hide a smile, and hoped no one else realized that he was far more interested in restoring Serena to the bosom of her family than he was in celebrating the birth of Juliet’s son.

“Faith, lad, I have lived with heavy weather all my life,” the earl said heartily, turning to demand of his loving spouse, “Have I not, my dear?”

“To be sure, sir,” she said promptly, “you have survived many a Highland winter in fine style, but do you think it necessary to travel so far? Surely, for a lad so young, a wee gift from the shop in Kentallen would do very well.”

“Ah, but I cannot purchase a silver christening spoon there. Moreover, would you think fabric from Kentallen’s wee shop would suit you as well as fabric from Cameron of Maryburgh, my lady?”

The countess stared at him as if she regarded an apparition rather than a human male. “Fabric from Cameron of Maryburgh, sir? For me?”

“Aye, madam. You won’t have time to make up a new gown before we depart for Inver House, but I warrant you can find a use for some prime stuff nonetheless, and perhaps a few ribbons and furbelows, as well.”

Speechless for once in her life, she gaped at him.

Plainly taking pity on her, Mary said, “To be sure she can, sir. How kind of you to think of that! She can use a new shawl, I know. A pretty blue one to go with the gown she has refurbished would cast all the other women in the shade.”

“You both will put them in the shade, my dear, for I mean to rig you out in style, too, if your husband don’t forbid it.” He grinned at Duncan.

Duncan said mildly, “Do you want me to accompany you, sir?”

“What? Don’t trust me to dress your lady? I ain’t even asking you to pay for it.” He patted him on the shoulder, adding, “You have matters to attend to here, lad. Moreover, with Sir Neil here, one of us must act as host. I don’t want Caddell accusing me of allowing his daughter to be taken advantage of under my roof.”

Neil blushed fiery red, making Duncan glad that Serena had not joined them yet in the breakfast room. Exchanging a glance with Mary, he said, “I’ll stay then. There are certainly things I must attend to, since we will be gone for several days.”

“Then you won’t object if I choose for Mary, too?”

“No, sir, certainly not. Choose something pink.”

Balcardane snorted, turning to Mary. “Have you any preferences, lass?”

Smiling, she said, “None at all, sir. I trust your judgment completely. How very kind you are.”

“Tush, now,” the earl said, coloring. “I am nothing of the sort. Where are young Chuff and that small shadow of his this morning?”

“They had their breakfast in the schoolroom,” Mary said. “Chuff is still not up to dashing about, so Pinkie is bearing him company. The schoolroom is warm, and Duncan agreed that he would be more comfortable there than on his pallet.”

“Duncan was right. I like the thought of children in that schoolroom again. There is something about young Chuff, too, that makes him seem to belong up there amongst books and such like, rather than in the servants’ quarters.”

“Well, don’t put that idea in his head,” Duncan said. “Frustration and trouble are all that lie ahead of him if he develops notions above his station in life.”