Chapter 18
Clara leaned against the curve of the stairs, desperately fanning her face. She felt as red as a beet, as if anyone who glimpsed her face would know that she had been hopelessly lusting after the master of the castle.
Surely no one could read her eyes. Or her expression. Yet she felt as if there was a sign on her forehead announcing . . . announcing what?
That the laird was recovering from his grief? That wasn’t entirely accurate—Caelan still couldn’t bear to hear Isla’s name—but he was coming back to life.
She had to leave, and soon. She wasn’t the coldhearted Englishwoman Mrs. Gillan had in mind. It would destroy her to be forever compared to a beloved first wife, especially after she’d spent her life failing to become the perfect daughter whom her mother felt she deserved.
Yes, Caelan desired her. He had kissed her. And proposed . . . a marriage proposal of sorts, her very first one, even though Caelan hadn’t technically asked her. He’d muttered “marriage,”
as if she were so desperate that she’d say yes to anything.
He had doubtlessly dropped to his knee in front of Isla, vowing love and adoration.
At that thought, she snapped herself upright and walked down into the kitchen. The floor was looking much better, and four maids in sturdy white aprons—including Elsbeth and Maisie—were busily scrubbing the walls.
“Mrs. Gillan’s household staff arrived to help, bringing cleaning supplies,”
Elsbeth reported. “Sally and Meg, this is Mrs. Potts, the laird’s housekeeper.”
Clara took a stab at her mother’s housekeeper’s austere expression, but when the girls curtsied, she gave it up and smiled instead. “It’s so kind of you to help. I know the castle isn’t in the best shape, but I have every faith that you will make it shine.”
“We will,”
Elsbeth promised. “Perhaps you should join the laird’s sister in the courtyard. Mind how you go: we had to prop a board at the threshold to keep those dogs from coming inside.”
Clara stepped over the board and walked into the sunshine. Caelan’s sister, Fiona, was a tall woman with flaming red hair, and the boy sitting on the flagstones with two puppies in his lap had to be Alfie. She suddenly remembered that she was a housekeeper and wiped away her welcoming smile. Instead she dropped a deep curtsy and murmured, “Good morning, m’lady. I am Mrs. Potts.”
Fiona rose and walked toward her. “Good morning.”
“You’re quite dirty.”
Clara blinked down at Alfie. He had his mother’s hair with a curious little face, not handsome but expressive. “I have been cleaning.”
“This house is filthy,”
Alfie informed her, nodding.
“Mrs. Potts, may I introduce my son, Master Alfie?”
Fiona said.
Alfie jumped up and bowed, spilling puppies on the ground.
“One doesn’t bow to a housekeeper,”
Clara said, smiling at him. “You might wish me good morning.”
“You don’t look like our housekeeper,”
Alfie observed. “Mrs. Wilson has an apron and a great many keys hanging around her waist. And her hair is different. And she’s older.”
“Alfie, do not make personal remarks of that nature,”
Fiona commanded.
He wrinkled his nose and scampered after a puppy.
“Breaking my own rule, I am rather surprised to discover how well you have aged, Mrs. Potts, based on the agency’s précis of the many posts you have held.”
A smile flickered at the corners of Fiona’s mouth.
Clara had the feeling that she would have liked her very much had they met under different circumstances. “English rain is good for the skin,”
she offered, wondering how old she was supposed to be.
“It rains all the time here, so it must be only London rain that offers a fountain of youth. My name, by the way, is Lady McIntyre. I’m the laird’s sister.”
Clara curtsied again. “M’lady. May I bring you a cup of tea?”
“No, no, I came to work,”
Fiona said, pulling a cap out of her pocket, slapping it on her head, and starting to jam locks of red hair under its gathered edge. “I have trouble getting all my hair confined by a cap, but from the looks of it, you have double the amount. Perhaps I should give up on caps and use scarves. To that point, I might warn you that some of your hair has escaped.”
Clara raised her hands and discovered a wayward pouf of curls. “Mine is not always this frizzled,”
she said, pulling the fichu in place before adding quickly, “That is, your hair is lovely, m’lady.”
“Oh, for goodness’ sake. You’re no more a housekeeper than I am,”
Lady McIntyre said, grinning at her. “You can call me Fiona; what’s your real name? I presume you’re planning to marry my brother. Don’t think I’ll—”
“Are you serious?”
Alfie exclaimed, popping up with a puppy in his arms. “My uncle is brokenhearted, you know. He wouldn’t be a good person to marry. He told me himself. He’s a broken man.”
“Ah well, broken one moment, whole the next,”
his mother said. “In fact, Alfie, when it comes to love—”
Clara interrupted. “I have no desire to marry the laird.”
As far as Alfie was concerned, that settled the question. He held up a plump, wiggling body. “Mama, did you see this puppy has two different colored eyes?”
“The laird described him as the smallest and naughtiest of the pack,”
Clara said, grateful for a new subject.
“I love him,”
Alfie declared.
His mother put her hands on her hips. “But you also love Wilhelmina . . . who is a chicken,”
she added for Clara’s sake. “Dogs and chickens are not natural friends.”
“That’s true.”
Alfie put the puppy down. “He’s very sweet, but he’s not a chicken, is he? It’s not the same.”
“I’ve never met a chicken, only eaten them,”
Clara revealed.
He frowned at her. “That is not a kind remark, Mrs. Potts. My parents try to avoid the subject.”
“We’ve been eating a great deal of duck,”
Fiona confirmed. “Now, it’s time to begin cleaning. Shall we start at the very top, in her ladyship’s inner sanctum?”
“What does that mean?”
Alfie inquired.
“The room that your former aunt made in her own image,”
Fiona said.
“That’s a funny thing to say. I’ll stay here and play with the puppy, even though he’s not a chicken.”
Back in the kitchen, Maisie was scrubbing the chimney over the fireplace, while Elsbeth held the ladder steady.
“There’s grease up there,”
Elsbeth said, waving at the chimneypiece. “We’re going after it with cleaning vinegar, and if that doesn’t work, a groom will have to go to the village and buy pumice paste.”
Fiona walked ahead of Clara up the tower steps. “In time, Elsbeth will be an excellent housekeeper. My brother merely needs to hire a cook, a parlor maid, another scullery maid, a laundry maid, and a bootblack. Oh, and some footmen and a butler.”
“A butler?”
Clara tried to imagine all these people running around the castle. It would be very crowded. Very loud.
“Isla had four footmen and a butler, dressed in livery and silver-inlaid buttons,”
Fiona replied.
Clara couldn’t make out her tone, but it didn’t feel right to gossip about Caelan’s wife. When they entered the upstairs bedchamber, Fiona looked around, eyes narrowed, as if she was about to burst into commentary. Clara headed her off. “Shall I summon grooms to break up the furniture and bring it downstairs?”
Fiona nodded. “This will be very satisfying.”
She walked over and shoved one of the remaining bedposts until it crashed to the mattress. “Very satisfying. Do you suppose this bed will fit through the window? We only have a few narrow windows like you see in most castles. One of our ancestors refused to believe that any clan would be stupid enough to shoot arrows at a CaerLaven castle, and so far, he’s been right.”
“The bedstead would have to be broken to pieces,”
Clara said doubtfully. She opened the wardrobe, which held garments laid out as if awaiting their mistress, except the mice had come along first. “Dear me.”
“Those have to go,”
Fiona said decisively. “I’ll put my coachman and groom to work, because Caelan’s are doubtless lounging around the stables. I’m sure you’ve noticed that he prefers to have staff nowhere in sight.” She pushed open the plated glass window and hollered down.
“Are you sure we should throw everything out?”
Clara asked. “What if Caelan wants to keep some of his former wife’s clothing as a memorial?”
Fiona’s mouth curved. “Caelan, is it?”
Clara bit her lip uncomfortably. “When it was only the two of us, it was easier to address each other as friends. I don’t intend to be a housekeeper for long,”
she added in a rush.
“No, because you intend to be a lady,”
Fiona said, chortling. “I shan’t stop you. I think it will be marvelous for Caelan to put his woeful first marriage behind him.”
“I wasn’t referring to marriage. I already am a lady,”
Clara protested, deserting Mrs. Potts altogether.
Fiona patted her shoulder. “No one could mistake you for anything else. I’m on your side! Mind you, Mrs. Gillan may have some difficulty accepting that this is no longer ‘Isla’s castle,’ as she’s forever calling it.”
Clara could feel herself turning red with embarrassment. Caelan’s sister had obviously concluded that she had taken the position as housekeeper in order to finagle her way into marrying a lord. The very idea of people thinking she would “set her cap”
at a handsome laird made her feel sick.
“Why on earth would Caelan want a garment like this?”
Fiona held up a tattered bodice with silver lacing all down the front. “It’s not good enough for rags. Isla was like a magpie, forever pecking at shiny things without knowing what had true value.”
Thankfully, two men clattered into the room before Clara had to respond to that bald statement.
“Break up all the furniture,”
Fiona directed them. “Throw it down the stairs or out the window, whatever’s easiest. Rug as well.”
“No, carry the large pieces down the stairs,”
Clara interrupted. “Throwing pieces of wood out the window will crush Isla’s flowers.”
“Hmm,”
Fiona said. “Why don’t I supervise emptying this room and the sitting room? You force Caelan to clean his study. Tell him that if he doesn’t, I shall throw his papers out the window. They won’t squash the flowers.”
Clara opened her mouth to argue, but Fiona smirked. “You wouldn’t dare to question me, would you, Mrs. Potts? Being as you are the housekeeper I hired all the way from London?”
At that, Clara turned around and ran down the stairs. The door to the study was open, and when she peeked inside, she found Alfie sitting on his uncle’s lap, listening to a book. Her heart skipped a beat. The little boy had his cheek against Caelan’s shoulder, his thin legs dangling as he listened intently.
“‘The company were struck with terror and amazement,’”
Caelan read.
He was reading aloud The Castle of Otranto! And—even better—the helmet would plummet down any moment. Caelan looked up and caught her eye, and suddenly all the knotted feeling in her stomach subsided.
All was well with the world when the laird’s eyes were full of laughter.
Clara slipped through the door and closed it behind herself, because upstairs Fiona was directing the men to smash the bed.
“‘Some of the company had run into the court, from whence was heard a confused noise of shrieks, horror, and surprise,’”
Caelan read.
“Why?”
Alfie interrupted.
“You have to wait and see.”
He read until Manfred strode into the courtyard and discovered a mountain of sable plumes. “‘What a sight for a father’s eyes!—he beheld his child dashed to pieces, and almost buried under an enormous helmet.’”
“Are you serious?”
Alfie cried, straightening up. “Mama won’t be happy that you read me this story. I didn’t sleep after she read me Little Red Riding Hood. I couldn’t stop thinking about the wolf’s ‘ravenous teeth.’”
Clara couldn’t stay silent because she knew that story by heart. “Don’t you mean ‘great teeth and ravenous appetite’?”
Alfie blinked at her. “I didn’t see you come in. That’s probably right.”
He leaned into the crook of Caelan’s arm. “I kept thinking about teeth all night, and I was a nightmare the next day.”
Caelan tussled his hair. “Proud of being a pain in the arse, are you?”
“Little Red Riding Hood is a different type of story,”
Clara said, coming over and perching on the edge of the desk. “That story teaches you not to walk around by yourself because any forest might harbor wolves with ravenous appetites.”
“Yes, that’s what Mama said. Little Red Riding Hood got eaten up by a wolf that would like to eat me and Wilhelmina.”
“But do you truly need to fear a helmet falling from the moon and crushing you?”
“I never considered the possibility before,”
Alfie pointed out logically.
“I’m much older than you,”
Caelan put in. “No helmets have tumbled out of the clouds, nor have any other pieces of armor.”
“I suppose you can keep reading,”
Alfie conceded, “although my mother will not be pleased if I don’t sleep.”
“What about if Mrs. Potts reads to you?”
Caelan said. “I have a lot of work to do, Alfie m’boy.”
“Your sister is threatening to throw all your papers into the moat,”
Clara told him.
“She is not Mrs. Potts,”
Alfie stated, sliding off Caelan’s knee. “A Mrs. can’t become another Mrs. If she marries you, she’ll be a lady, same as Mama.”
Clara felt her face turning red with embarrassment. “Your sister jumped to an erroneous conclusion,”
she told Caelan.
“What was that?”
he asked, his whole face alight with mischief.
“Lady McIntyre believes that I pretended to be a housekeeper in order to marry you,”
Clara said, gathering her dignity.
“Didn’t you?”
Alfie asked with interest. “Because there was another lady who did that last fall. When I decide to marry, I’ll put out a sign, the way Papa did when he wanted to buy a new bed.”
“Did he?”
Clara said, desperate to change the subject.
On the other side of the door, a piece of furniture bounced down the steps with a tremendous splintering and cracking noise, followed by a pair of thundering feet.
“The wardrobe should go out the window,”
Caelan said. “Since we’re on the subject, Mrs. Potts, do you recommend that I hang up a sign asking for a wife?”
“Only if you’re desperate for a spouse,”
Clara said, choking back a nervous, breathy laugh. She felt hideously embarrassed.
If Mr. Cobbledick were here, she would climb into his carriage and leave this very hour.
Caelan stood up, setting Alfie on his feet. “I asked you to marry me before—”
“You announced your intention after kissing me. You did not ask me,”
she retorted.
“That worked for Sleeping Beauty,”
Alfie put in. “He kissed the princess, and then she woke up and got out of the glass coffin. That didn’t happen to Uncle Caelan’s wife, though,” he said to Clara. “He loved her, but no one could kiss her awake.”
Caelan’s face closed like a trap at the mention of Isla. “Clara, would you please read aloud to Alfie? I have work that must be done.”
Clara looked down at Alfie. “I would be happy to read to you.”
“If Uncle Caelan is sitting at his desk, we’ll have to sit on the floor, because two people can’t sit on a bed together unless they’re married,”
Alfie said.
“We’ll make an exception,”
Caelan said, standing up with his nephew. He tossed him onto the bed. Alfie squawked with laughter—and the bed crashed to the floor.
Clara shrieked and ran toward the bed, but Alfie was laughing even harder. “Do you have no sturdy furniture in Scotland?”
she asked, exasperated. Through the door, she could hear grooms thumping up the stairs again.
“I took this bed from one of the outbuildings,”
Caelan admitted, plucking his nephew out of the wreckage. “Actually, these parts are famous for furniture making. Plain pieces, but beautifully made.”
Clara threw open the door and called, “Lady McIntyre! Your son has been in an accident!”
Fiona ran down the steps and stopped in the doorway, hands on her hips. “Alfie! I warned you before about jumping on beds.”
“It’s Uncle’s fault,”
her son reported, pointing to the nest of dingy sheets and splintered wood. “He threw me, as if he was tossing me down from the moon.”
“Were tossing me from the moon,”
Clara corrected him before she thought.
“Stop tossing my son about,”
Alfie’s mother ordered her brother. She turned to Clara. “I thought you were going to call me Fiona, though you somehow neglected to tell me your name.”
“Uncle calls her Clara,”
Alfie said cheerfully. “He started reading me a book about a helmet that dashed a man to pieces. It even crushed his eyeballs.”
Fiona raised a brow.
“It’s a work of literature,”
Clara said hastily. “A novel by Horace Walpole.”
“I could never see the point of literature,”
Fiona replied. “Where does it get you in the end?”
“To a place where giant helmets fall from the moon and squash people,”
Alfie said. “I’d like to be there. If I was a helmet, I would crash down on top of Mrs. Lowe.”
“His schoolteacher,”
Fiona explained. “That’s not kind, Alfie. I thought literature was supposed to have a civilizing influence.”
“I want Clara to read to me, the way Uncle said she might,”
Alfie said.
“All right, Clara, would you please read to my son? You can sit in the desk chair, since it’s apparently strong enough to hold two. I need you upstairs, Caelan.”
She would have been a good general. “I need to supervise the maids as they empty and scrub the dining room. You can oversee clearing the drawing room.” She caught Caelan’s arm and dragged him out of the room and up the steps.
Clara sat down and picked up the novel.
“Perhaps I’ll stand next to you rather than sit on your lap. You are a strange lady, even if you may become my aunt,”
Alfie said, coming to her shoulder.
“I think that’s an excellent plan,”
Clara said, tapping him on the nose. “Though I won’t be your aunt. I plan to live in my own castle, which you would be welcome to visit anytime. Wilhelmina too,” she added.
“That would be nice,”
he agreed. “We don’t have a castle, but our house is much bigger than this, and Mama likes it better.”
Clara couldn’t imagine liking a plain house better than this fanciful castle. She opened the book. “‘The horror of the spectacle, the ignorance of all around how this misfortune had happened—’”
“That’s a good point,”
Alfie said, interrupting. “How did that helmet fall? It couldn’t seriously happen, could it?”
“It could in the same world in which one can wake a sleeping princess with a kiss,”
Clara said. Outside the door, something that sounded like a heavy trunk was bumping down every step of the stairwell.
“If the princess was ready to wake, anything could have woken her,”
Alfie said in a knowing tone. “Like a bee sting, for example. That would be faster than a kiss. She might have slept right through a kiss. My mama kisses me at night when I’m asleep, and I never know.”
Clara read aloud, with frequent breaks to discuss important points such as the fact that a big suit of armor implies a head. A big head. Alfie was very interested by her account of the giants in Gulliver’s Travels, and Clara barely bit back an offer to read it next.
After that conversation, he climbed into her lap, admitting that his legs were getting tired. A few minutes later, his head grew heavy on her shoulder; she glanced down to find that he had fallen asleep.
In order to have a child, she’d have to marry, which meant she had to buy a husband, as her mother had suggested. She shouldn’t have kissed Caelan. It was giving him the wrong idea. It was giving her the wrong idea.
Fiona pushed open the door and beamed at Clara. “Napping, thank goodness. Alfie had a bad dream and a wakeful night.”
Clara looked down at the small hand flattened on the page, as if to stop her reading without him. “He’s a lovely boy, thoughtful and intelligent.”
“I think so.”
Fiona sat on the desk. “So, Miss Clara not-Potts, what are your intentions toward my brother?”
“I don’t intend to marry him,”
Clara said flatly. “In other circumstances, I might, but I don’t want to marry a man who is still grieving his first wife.”
“It’s been two years,”
Fiona said, leaning forward as if she was about to offer an argument. “Clara—”
“No,”
she said, cutting her off. “I don’t want to hear that it’s time Caelan moved on, or that he needs an heir. Mrs. Gillan has already shared her views—and yours—on that subject. I’m not the right woman. I may be English, but I’m not stonyhearted.”
Fiona opened her mouth to argue, but Clara narrowed her eyes.
“Rot,”
Fiona muttered. “I only know one other Englishwoman, and she has the same way of cutting off the simplest question. I was wondering if you—”
“No,”
Clara stated.
Fiona sighed. “Then I’ll be taking that boy back home, because at this point the bedchamber, kitchen, dining room, and sitting room don’t have more than a few sticks of furniture between them. Elsbeth is a treasure, but I suggest you confine the puppies to the courtyard. She was most unhappy when one snuck back inside and urinated on the hearth.”
Clara felt a bolt of happiness, because though she’d had little to do with it, she was keeping her vow to Mrs. Gillan. By tomorrow, Isla’s castle would be shining, albeit empty. “Thank you so much for helping. I feel guilty that I spent such an enjoyable hour reading to Alfie while the rest of the household was hard at work.”
“It was only fair,”
Fiona said. “The castle was a CaerLaven disaster, so Caelan and I had to take responsibility. I should never have let the place lapse into a hovel. Listen, Clara, for all Mrs. Gillan proclaims this mess is the result of grief, she’s wrong. Caelan has never had the slightest interest in showing off his wealth, and that includes maintaining a decent staff.”
Clara looked down at the tousled red hair against her shoulder. She had the distinct impression that Alfie would take after his uncle in not caring for worldly displays.
“What about living in comfort?”
she asked, unable to stop herself. “I do understand if the laird has no taste for luxury, but isn’t it more pleasant to live in clean surroundings?”
“He was comfortable enough,”
Fiona said. “He’s happiest when there aren’t servants running about. He works all the time, you know: CaerLaven has long been the most prosperous estate in these parts, in terms of potato fields and livestock. Then he got interested in whisky, and now all the crofters are making money that way as well. He’s the local magistrate, and he’s writing two books.”
Clara nodded.
“Caelan likes peace and quiet. I hope for his sake that his next wife doesn’t hire a flock of grooms the way Isla did.”
She looked as if she could have added more but thought better of it.
Clara had the idea that Fiona had been about to ask her if she wanted to leave the castle and sleep in their house. Which made sense, of course. Mrs. Potts might not need to be chaperoned, but Miss Vetry?
Yet she didn’t want to leave.
She wanted to stay in the castle. She’d never had—never dreamed of—a friend like Caelan: someone to whom she could talk so easily, who made her laugh. Spending time with him was intoxicating.
“I am not going to marry your brother,”
Clara stated, so that Fiona understood. “He’s great company. I just . . . like him.”
“That will be a new experience for him,”
Fiona said wryly, standing up and shaking out her skirts before she bent over and touched her son on the cheek. “Wake up, sleepyhead. It’s time to go home.”
“Seriously?”
Alfie mumbled. “No, thank you.” His eyes didn’t even open.
“What did you mean by that last comment, Fiona?”
Clara asked.
“It was merely a comment on marriage, Mrs. Potts. Surely you agree with me?”
Her mischievous expression was a perfect copy of her brother’s. “Half the time I don’t like my husband. You haven’t met him yet, but Rory can be the most irritating man in the Highlands.” With that, she woke up Alfie and took him downstairs.
Clara stayed where she was, trying to be rational. Mr. Cobbledick was due to return on Sunday, at which point she and Elsbeth would climb into his coach and leave to explore Scottish castles. If he was delayed along the route, she decided to move to Lavenween until he arrived.
That left one question: How much adventure did she want?
Caelan would kiss her again. She got up and straightened the line of potato boxes, still thinking about it. She was curious as well as desirous.
What if she never met another man like Caelan? She didn’t want to break her own heart by marrying him, but surely . . .
Everything she had in mind was so shocking that her mother would faint. No, Lady Vetry would have hysterics, followed by a heart attack.
Of course Clara couldn’t lose her virtue. For all his ruggedness, Caelan was still a gentleman, and he would insist on marrying her if that happened. She was lucky that no one except for Fiona knew she was staying at the castle. All the same, she had to leave in three days, when Mr. Cobbledick returned, because she had a suspicion that over time, Caelan could persuade her to do anything.
But a kiss or two? As long as she made sure things went no further?
Why not?