Chapter 14
Struan had spent the morning in a cold room hunched over books, along with Mr Kerr, his man of business. Kerr had also been his father’s man of business and thus knew virtually everything about Linneliath, the village, the mines, and indeed the whole region.
Just when Struan was ready to call for a midday meal, Kerr pointed to a small book and said, “I almost forgot. There is the matter of this debt to you, which is labeled as McGregor. It’s been over six years since the money was first loaned, but I don’t see any record of repayment of interest, let alone principal.
I must have missed some information. Who is this person?
How do you wish to proceed with this matter? ”
Oh, hell. Struan had forgotten that the record of the debt would be visible to Kerr.
He prayed that the other would not connect the name to his wife’s, though it was not an uncommon name.
He cursed his own inattention, for not making some innocuous-looking notation to indicate how unimportant it was.
“I’m not concerned,” he said, aiming for nonchalance (which was not a tone he did well, or at all). “You don’t need to take any action.”
“At all? A loan of that size cannot simply be ignored!”
“It’s not as if I’m relying on the repayment of any single loan. You’ve just told me that the mines are doing unexpectedly well.”
“I did, but mines are by their nature chancy. The veins the men are working could run dry next week. You yourself have said you don’t wish to be dependent on any one source of income. It sets a man up for disappointment later on.”
“Well,” Struan said, seizing on Kerr’s words, “if the mines run dry next week, I’ll revisit the matter of this particular debt. But not now. I’ve a lot to think about.”
“Yes,” said Kerr. “Your new bride must be occupying nearly all of your attention. It’s too bad your parents couldn’t meet her. They would have liked her.”
Struan felt terrible when he saw genuine pleasure in the man’s face, because, yes, his parents would have liked her.
But if they were present, he never would have been able to maintain the fiction of how he had come to be her husband in the first place.
Neither his mother nor his father would have approved of the arrangement he’d made with McGregor.
His mother had been a romantic soul, and she had often told Struan that true love was not merely available to every person on earth, but that patience, goodwill, and a little bit of luck would make it happen.
His father was more prosaic, but he too would have been appalled by the idea of buying a bride.
No matter how charming and lovely that bride ended up being.
Struan sighed as he turned to look out the window. “Is there anything else I need to know?”
“Everything is in hand, sir,” said Kerr.
“The mines have been a boon when it comes to the bottom line. The increasing practice of clearing the land elsewhere in the Highlands has worried many of your tenants, who fear you’ll order clearances here.
But farming is only part of our local economy, and we have fishing and the mines to reduce our reliance on it.
With attentive stewardship and with proper investments in new equipment, your land will continue to thrive and the people will continue to make an adequate living. ”
“That’s my aim,” Struan said. “Now that the war against the emperor seems to finally have come to an end, maybe no more young men will feel the need to take the king’s coin.
Soldiering is always an option for the right type of man, but there are too many who have no business on a battlefield, or on the deck of a Royal Navy ship.
I don’t want any lad to feel it’s his only option. ”
“Aye, sir.” Kerr shut the books in front of him, tucked them under his arm, and gave a slight bow. “Inform me if I can be of any further service.”
After Mr Kerr left, Struan considered the land outside the window and how calm it looked.
Yet there were forces moving in the world that seemed hell-bent on shaking the landscape and the people as well.
Strange forces, hovering just over the horizon, whether innovations born of enlightened but sometimes reckless thought, or the ever-shifting political tides of countries far away, or the changing attitudes of his own country’s elite.
The practice of clearances had once seemed fantastical to him, but it was happening with more frequency all over the country, as already wealthy landowners learned that they could evict tenants who had farmed the lands for generations, and turn that same land over to the production of sheep.
Struan had been disgusted when he first learned of the practice, but perhaps that was because he’d never truly felt the bite of poverty himself.
His family had been fortunate, as well as blessed with several generations of careful managers.
Yet all too many members of the upper class had land or title, or both, yet little income to support their lifestyle.
He remembered Elspeth’s reaction to the notion of clearances, and thought he’d go find her to ask her about some ideas he had to make them unnecessary at Linneliath.
But that task proved to be more difficult than he expected.
He first looked in the library and then the eastern parlor.
He asked the cook if Elspeth had requested lunch yet, only to be told that the mistress had not been seen since she finished her morning coffee.
With a slight feeling of trepidation, Struan knocked on her bedchamber door, the one that opened onto the hallway rather than the one that joined his own room.
Though Elspeth was his wife, he’d been raised to believe that any woman’s chambers were sacrosanct, and no gentleman would ever intrude upon them without excellent reason and explicit permission.
But when he knocked, it was one of the maids who opened the door, and Elspeth wasn’t in the room at all.
“Where is my wife?” he asked.
The maid looked at her companion, who shrugged. “I am afraid we don’t know, sir. She may have gone out to the gardens?” she offered.
“I’ll ask downstairs again,” he said, leaving.
There was no reason why a housemaid should know the location of the mistress, and it was certainly a large house, so it was possible that no one knew where Elspeth was precisely at the moment, but Struan couldn’t help but feel a twinge of annoyance, which he knew was his mind’s deliberate attempt to hide a different feeling that surged underneath.
Fear.
Losing track of his companions on the battlefield could lead to injury or worse.
Struan had learned to always be scanning just to make sure that he hadn’t misplaced one of the other men.
They did the same for him. If it hadn’t been for his friends, he never would have survived the ordeal he went through in France.
True, Linneliath was not a battlefield, and true, Elspeth was not a soldier. He had no reason to think that something had gone wrong, and yet he worried. Overtrained. That’s what it was. He wouldn’t feel secure again until he saw her, and that meant he would simply have to find her.
He wasn’t distressed by the first couple of interviews with another maid on the ground floor or the footman, neither of whom had seen her that day. But when he ran into Mrs Negus, who informed him that Elspeth inquired as to the direction into the village, Struan’s concern spiked.
“Are you telling me that she rode into the village?” But wait. Ellie told him she had never learned to ride.
“I couldn’t say, sir,” the housekeeper replied, not showing the slightest worry. “Though if she had, surely the hostler spoke to her when he saddled up a horse, and she probably has one of the stable lads riding behind her as escort.”
Struan didn’t remember if he replied to that, but he did remember rushing out to the stables and he did remember when the hostler and the two stable boys assured him in no uncertain terms that the mistress had not requested either a horse or for the carriage to be prepared.
“She must have taken a walk through the grounds,” the hostler said.
Struan retraced his steps as far as the gravel path that wrapped around the house to the only place even faintly resembling a formal garden, this part of the country not being amenable to the endeavor.
He barely got around the corner when he encountered the gardener wheeling a wooden cart rattling with tools.
Struan asked if he’d seen Elspeth, and the gardener gave him a cheerful nod.
“Aye, sir. Told me how well the hedges looked, and hoped the winter wasn’t too harsh on the more tender plants. ”
He exhaled in relief. “So she’s in the garden now?”
“Oh no, sir. She took a turn and then asked me how far it would be to walk to the village. And I asked how far or how long, for they are not the same. And then the lady said she wished to know both, for she expected to make the journey regularly and she enjoyed walking. So I told her that she could reach the village by foot in less than half an hour if she took the main track out the gate. She bid me good day and walked off. Must’ve been nearly an hour ago now. ”
The gardener took up his cart again and moved away, humming.
Struan stood still for a moment, debating the foolishness of the action he was about to take.
It was stupid to chase after Elspeth. It was broad daylight, the weather was fine, and this was Linneliath.
It was perfectly safe, and the village no less so.
It was laughable to think that any harm could come to Elspeth on a mere stroll to the village.
And yet.
Struan did not like misplacing people.
He returned to the stable and ordered the man to saddle up his horse. It would be a short ride and he would discover that Elspeth was perfectly well, and indeed probably would have charmed the entire village by the time he found her again.
And yet.