Chapter 28
She recognized it immediately. Magda’s heart thudded in her chest as she wriggled her way behind an oversized armchair to get a closer look at the painting.
It had been a part of Walter’s anonymous bequeathal.
They’d labeled it merely “Nature Painting, ” a minor, almost crude, work by an unknown artist. Though it hadn’t been one of the works she’d restored, there was no way she could’ve missed it.
It wasn’t every day you came across a seventeenth-century painting, over five feet long, featuring three dogs attacking a bear.
She’d been trying to lay low in the Cameron household, taking breakfast in her room, retiring early at night, and had avoided the other women as best she could.
Most of them spent their days in the great room, gossiping and doing needlework, and Magda was terrified they’d grill her at the first opportunity—about James, about where she came from, about what must’ve seemed like a strange accent and strange ways.
James had deflected such scrutiny as best he could, telling them a story about Magda’s religious father, various missionary expeditions, and vague references to family in Ireland.
She had to laugh at his ingenuity, spinning the name Deacon as he’d done.
Even her father would’ve been genuinely amused at that one.
Skip Deacon was philanthropic, yes. But religious? Not so much.
She felt a pang at the memory of her father.
Her parents no longer existed. They were centuries away from being born.
Yet somewhere out there she did have ancestors who were very much alive, growing their families, making their livings.
It was an eerie thought. Perhaps they had in fact been religious people.
She knew that many surnames originated in such a way, people like millers and masons taking the names of their jobs.
She dampened the memories of her parents and thought again of James.
The one for whom she’d abandoned her blood family.
The person she longed to see more than any other.
The Camerons had been more than hospitable to her, but the polite pleasantries felt empty when the only thing on her mind was James’s safety.
The smiling nods and wishes good-day all seemed so inane when what echoed over and over in her head like a morbid mantra was Walter’s “Captured, imprisoned, and hanged in Edinburgh.”
Eager for something, anything, to occupy her mind, she’d decided to explore the castle.
Her “Nature Painting” was hanging in the library, a room that was its own phenomenon.
Dark-paneled wood, a fireplace large enough to stand in, and a number of books that would be impressive for a modern collector, to say nothing of an old Highland laird.
The thrill of recognition began to subside as she insisted to her herself that, though stumbling into this painting was mind-blowing and against all odds, it was nonetheless an acceptable circumstance.
Just a piece of art, likely with no hocus-pocus or time-traveling portal.
Still, she kept her hands fisted firmly at her side, not about to touch any more strange artworks.
Though the dark colors and masculine theme were well suited to hang in a library, the painting really was quite rudimentary.
The bear’s and dogs’ lips peeled back to reveal perfect white fangs, and none of the animals seemed to bear weight.
They simply floated on the canvas like two-dimensional cutouts.
“What a pleasant surprise, Lady Magdalen.”
“Oh!” Magda jumped, slamming her hip into the side of the chair just behind her. “Ow!”
“Oh dear,” Robert said. The boy looked genuinely stricken. He was one of the very few people she’d encountered in the castle who didn’t bustle around like he owned the place. “My apologies.”
“Please don’t worry.” She sidled out from behind the chair. “You startled me. And, please, just Magda is fine.” “Lady Magdalen” made her feel like some sort of religious figure.
“Thank you then, Magda.” He smiled, and she thought how .
. . pretty . . . his features were. Lithe limbs, shining yellow blond curls, and impeccable grooming set him apart from the average seventeenth-century man in her acquaintance.
Granted, many of those men had been soldiers on the move, so she had to allow them some leeway.
“Pray tell, what is your peculiar accent?” His head canted to the side, questioning, and Magda’s stomach knotted.
“My . . . accent?” James hadn’t explicitly forbidden Magda from disclosing her true origins, nor did she have any reason to doubt the Camerons, who’d seemed nothing but loyal and trustworthy where he was concerned.
Although the story James had woven about her family seemed to explain away things like her accent and bearing, Magda still felt as if she stood out like some greatly displaced and alien creature.
James was the only one she truly felt she could trust. She feared that the others— though they had seemed kind—might just put her to that burning stake James had so cavalierly mentioned when she’d first arrived.
“Aye, I can’t place it.”
Robert leaned in, and she instinctively stepped back, bumping once again into the chair.
If she didn’t know better, she’d think he was about to sniff her, like she was some hitherto undiscovered species of plant.
His eyes swept over her and lingered overlong on her teeth.
Pursing her lips shut, she ducked around him to the middle of the room, making as if to study the books.
The corners of his lips curving up slightly, Robert added, “I suppose it must be from all that travel.”
“Yes,” Magda said, cursing the blush she felt infuse her cheeks. “I suppose it must be.”
He was quiet for a moment. “That is some painting, aye?” Having abandoned his original question, Robert walked over to rest his elbow on the chair. “Do you know much about art?”
“Yes. I mean, no.” She struggled with her reply, thinking that a missionary’s daughter probably wouldn’t have much experience with art. “I mean, I just know what I like.”
“And you like this one?”
She simply nodded, wary of where this was going.
“Did you know bears are actually related to the dog family? Family Ursidae.”
“Um, no, actually, I didn’t know that.” They stood silently, studying it. “Really?” she asked suddenly, incredulous.
“Aye, really.” Leaning in closer, he tilted his chin as if to look down along his nose, and Magda wondered if he was nearsighted.
“It’s always struck me as a rather simple piece,” he said. “Do you see that dog’s tail? It’s longer than the piteous bear’s arm.”
A clipped laugh escaped her. She nodded, warming to this peculiar young man and his awkward candor. “Or that thing.” She pointed to a dark brown form snaking along the ground behind the bear. “Is that supposed to be a bear tail?”
“Or something else entirely?” he asked, awe in his voice.
Magda had to clap her hand over her mouth to silence a very unladylike bark of laughter.
“I imagine your father has done quite a lot of missionary work in the British colonies, in the Americas?”
Magda was thrown off by the abrupt, and dangerous, return to the original topic.
“Yes, some.” Panic flushed her anew, and she wondered frantically at a possible escape strategy.
Just as she was about to stride purposefully over to pull a book from the shelves, he asked, “The southern colonies or northeastern? ” Robert spoke slowly, as if her answer would hold great import.
She hesitated, then said, “Northeastern mostly.”
“Aye.” A strange smile bloomed on his face, and he appraised her with eyes that seemed to hold a secret. “I’d guessed the north-eastern colonies.”