Chapter Sixteen
The next morning dragged by as she tried to help Lily with the unfamiliar tasks of housekeeping. The small woman demonstrated great patience at Diantha’s clumsy efforts, although she chose to prepare the meals without assistance.
Lily did permit her to help with the washing up, a procedure which caused Diantha to make a mental note to increase wages for the scullery maids.
They had just put away the clean dishes after the midday meal when Nan rushed into the cottage, holding her baby. “Master Barclay is coming with that bully boy of his.” Although pale, Nan spoke calmly. “I’ll collect the bairns.” She hurried out again, calling her children.
Diantha looked round the cottage. The only door faced down the road. If she left that way, he would see her.
“Quickly, your ladyship, climb into the best bed.” Lily pulled the curtains to the master bed aside. “You can slip out the side window. If you stay low, the trellis will hide you all the way to the back gate.”
Wee Archie entered, holding his youngest sister by the hand.
“I’ll take care of Mairi.” Lily picked up the toddler and a clean washcloth. “Lad, go find your grandpa and tell him Mr. Barclay is here. Dinna say anything else, ye ken? Go out the window and through the back.”
The boy nodded as calmly as if his grandmother had ordered him to fetch a pail of water.
“How will he know where to find Archie?” Diantha glanced out the window, fearing to see her cousin by marriage standing in the front garden.
Lily chuckled and pulled out a fresh pinafore for the girl. “Those two could find each other in the middle of darkest Africa.” She shooed the boy on his way. “And mind you don’t get dirty footprints on my clean bed!”
The rest of Nan’s daughters trooped in from the garden. Diantha helped change pinafores and wash off grubby hands and faces, mentally shaking her head at the irony. But both women assured her it would be thought odd if they did not clean the children up.
“And that’s what we want to avoid. Now get in there, my lady!” Feeling both frightened and foolish, Diantha found herself stepping over the bed, mindful of Lily’s admonition about footprints.
Nan whispered last minute instructions to her girls. “So help me, if any of you say one word to Mr. Barclay except ‘Good day’ or ‘I don’t know, sir,’ I’m takin’ my hairbrush to the lot of ye.”
Lily closed the curtains just as the sound of hoofbeats reached them through the open front door. Diantha barely had time to slip out the open window and duck down before Barclay’s smooth voice floated over the hedge.
“Good morning! What a bevy of beautiful girls!” A few childish giggles greeted his sally. She pressed her lips together. Naturally he would first attempt to coax them into giving him the information he wanted.
After he exchanged the usual pleasantries with the Greens, he finally explained the reason for his visit.
“I fear that there may have been a misunderstanding a few days ago between Lord and Lady Rossburn.” He coughed delicately, thus informing his listeners that he referred to an argument of massive proportions.
“It left Lady Rossburn, especially, highly distraught. She told her maid she was going to take a stroll to clear her head.” A lugubrious sigh followed that sounded overexaggerated even from Diantha’s position behind the hedge. “She has not come back.”
Appropriate exclamations of shock and pity broke out from the Green ladies. He accepted their sympathy graciously before continuing.
“As I’m sure you understand, the dowager baroness is beside herself with worry. She has asked me to search the estate for her.”
“Och, the poor distracted wee thing.” Lily should have gone on the stage, Diantha reflected. She could almost see the old woman dabbing at her eyes with her apron. “We havnae seen her, Mr. Upton, but we’ll send a message to you right quick if we do.”
“That is a shame.” His voice took on a mournful quality. “Knowing that she places such trust in your husband, I had hoped she might have sought shelter with you. I’m sure you won’t mind if we take a look around your cottage, Mrs. Green.”
Silence fell.
“Are you calling me a liar?” Lily’s quiet words hissed through the air like cold silk.
“This way I shall be able to assure the dowager baroness that I inspected each cottage. I only want to give her what little ease I’m able to.” His voice hardened. “I’m sure you understand.”
His fingers snapped before the crofter answered. “MacLeish!”
“Sir.” The door to the cottage creaked and Diantha heard heavy steps on the wooden floor. Stifling a gasp, she realized that if he looked out the window, he would see her. The rings of the bed curtains clinked softly as he pushed them aside.
Not daring to breathe, she held herself immobile.
MacLeish must have lacked imagination, for he did not stick his head out the window. She heard him moving about inside, but eventually he left the cottage to report to his master.
“She’s not in there, sir.”
“Ah.” Barclay turned his attention back to the Greens. “You really do have a lovely family, Nan.”
He must have given some kind of signal, for the next moment, the woman screamed.
“Mairi! Give me back my baby!”
The crack of flesh hitting flesh sounded as Diantha inched closer to the hedge and risked a peek through a small hole in the foliage.
She crouched too low to see everything, but she could see Barclay mounted on his horse.
He held Archie’s two-year-old granddaughter securely on his lap with one arm.
The opposite hand held a pistol at the child’s head.
Nan lay at the feet of the bruiser she had heard Barclay speaking to in the estate office. A thin stream of blood trickled from her cut lip, while Baby Andrew screamed in the crook of her arm.
The other girls huddled around Lily, who gathered them protectively in her arms.
“Silence that infant!” Barclay’s irritated order cut through the din. Nan pressed Andrew to her shoulder, trying to soothe him between her own quiet sobs.
Lily tried to reason with him. “Master Barclay, you can’t really mean to hurt the wee bairn.”
Lily’s plea fell on deaf ears. “Please listen carefully. I do not for one minute believe you know nothing about Lady Rossburn’s whereabouts.” He glared at everyone impartially. “Either I leave here with her or with the child.”
“Put her down first.” Diantha stood up, praying that Barclay had enough sanity left not to harm the child anyway. He would kill her, but she could not risk a child’s life.
She wilted with relief when the aristocrat put the gun back into its saddle holster and signaled Lily to fetch the toddler from his arms. The old woman did, careful to avoid contact with his person. Ignoring her, he eyed Diantha with a hint of admiration.
“I could have sworn you had no way out of that cottage. I know MacLeish isn’t bright, but this is ridiculous.” His servant stirred but said nothing. “If I recall correctly, there is a back gate that I cannot see at all from here. Why didn’t you escape while you had the chance?”
“If you truly could not have found me, would you have threatened to kill that child?”
“Of course.” A malicious smile curled his lips. “It smoked you right out, didn’t it.”
At Nan’s renewed sobs, a look of disgust crossed his face. “Stop that wailing, you wretched female. I would have done you a favor by removing a mouth for you to feed.” He looked pointedly at Diantha. “I remind you that I still have a loaded gun and several targets.”
“I’m coming, don’t hurt any of them.” She hurried around to the gate and stepped into the front garden.
“MacLeish, bind her hands.” None too gently, the man tied her hands in front of her with strips of braided leather. She flinched as they bit into her flesh. The man’s sour odor assailed her nostrils as he lifted her into Barclay’s waiting arms.
“I fear MacLeish doesn’t bathe as often as he should.” He rounded his horse toward the road while his servant climbed onto his mount.
She twisted to glare at him contemptuously. “It’s hard to tell which of you smells worse.”
Long fingers tangled in her hair and yanked her head back at a painful angle. “Loaded gun and targets, stupid girl. And at least I don’t smell of the shop.”
His motions confused his horse, who fidgeted back to face the cottage.
“Damnation, I nearly forgot! MacLeish, your neckcloth.” He took the sweat-stained cloth handed to him by his henchman and wrapped it around her head, effectively blinding her.
In the instant before the stinking rag covered her eyes and nose, she found herself looking into Lily’s terrified face.
Run and hide. She barely had time to mouth the words before they galloped down the lane.
She tried to account for the time and distance they covered, but blindfolded, she had no point of reference.
From the way in which the warmth of the sun moved across her head and torso, she guessed they switched directions several times.
The pounding of the hoofs beneath her changed as well, from thudding on turf or dirt to crunching on gravel.
The sound of running water and splashing hooves stayed with them for a time, and she tried to remember the streams she’d seen marked on the estate maps in the library. She did not succeed in guessing their direction, but the exercise helped her push back her fear.
She asked once about Kieran, but Barclay only laughed softly. “You’ll find out soon enough.”
A cold chill ran down her spine at the thought that her husband might already be dead. She bit her lip, hard, to keep from crying out.
At last they halted. Leather creaked and then rushing footsteps approached.
MacLeish’s already familiar odor filled her nostrils as he lifted her down.
She turned her face to one side to keep from gagging.
She staggered a few steps, but righted herself as quickly as possible, wanting to avoid the touch of either man.