Chapter 7
Morning came early to Tyemorn. Rosy fingers of light stretched across the horizon, peering gently over the hills as if to lure the sleeper awake.
Riona was up before dawn, donning her most comfortable gown, an often mended dress of brown linen with half sleeves that she could push out of her way and a skirt that reached only to her ankles.
Her oldest leather shoes were a concession to her mother, who had been horrified the first time she’d gone barefoot like the milkmaids.
She’d slept well, a surprise since she’d thought to be awake all night. But on waking she was suffused with the same feeling she’d had ever since agreeing to wed Harold McDougal—a near-suffocating dread.
Work was the only way to ignore it, otherwise she would spend the entire day in contemplation of her future life and waste the gift of these last days at Tyemorn.
If she had been born to wealth, Riona doubted the farms would be as familiar or special to her. But she had not been reared to believe herself exempt from work, and from the very first, she had wanted to learn everything she could about Tyemorn Manor.
When she’d first arrived, Riona had been ignorant of so much, including caring for the animals.
The chickens were a fearsome bunch, coming at her with their strutting walk and their razor-sharp beaks.
But she had learned that they were more interested in the food she scattered over the yard than in her ankles.
A year had taught her so many things. Now she knew how to move a flock of sheep from one pasture to another and how to divert the irrigation channel from the Wye.
In the evening, when the cows were brought home, she could hook her hand in the collar of one and escort it back to the barn, whereas when she’d first come to Tyemorn she’d been overwhelmed by the sheer size of the animals.
In the spring she’d helped in the planting, walking the rows, dropping seed into holes she made with a tall stick.
Now the long, thin leaves of the seedlings were visible, a tenuous promise of a good harvest. She never failed to delight in a single sprouting seed, viewing life where only bare earth had existed before.
Each morning at dawn she walked the farms, following a routine proscribed for only a year. Today, however, her journey seemed almost bittersweet as she waved to the people working in the fields.
Tyemorn was a prosperous holding, a true legacy from a woman she’d never known. But sometimes, as now, Riona felt close to Mary.
“She loved the land, she did,” Old Ned had once told her. “Up until the time she couldn’t walk she’d take the path of a morning and survey all that was hers. Knew every lamb born, every calf. Even when she was confined to a chair she knew more about Tyemorn than most people who were able-bodied.”
Mary, too, had been wed to a man she disliked. Instead of the marriage mellowing into respect and admiration and even a type of love over the years, it had evidently remained the same as it had been in the beginning, a union of two people with nothing in common.
At least Mary had had Tyemorn Manor.
Times had not changed much since her mother’s great aunt had been a young woman. Women were still expected to marry. A scoundrel for a husband was better than remaining a spinster. A foolish notion, but one society embraced wholeheartedly.
Riona halted at the top of the hill, looking back at the house. A funny-looking place and one filled with history. A book in the library stated that it was two hundred years old, having had at least three owners.
Time was passing too quickly, and this morning was a precious memory. The breeze was cool, belying the heat to come in a few more hours. The cows were being led to pasture after milking, the chickens squawked in a hundred discordant sounds, the pigs rooted around in their pens.
She had become accustomed to the dullness of the air in Edinburgh.
At Tyemorn, it was sparkling clear as if having been cleansed each night.
In Cormech, the sound of seabirds cawing overhead woke her, and the scent of the sea permeated everything.
In both places, she’d grown used to the noises of carriages, and wagons, and people moving from one place to another as if eternally restless.
Here, amid the hills and glens, there was a silent kind of peace, interrupted only by the screech of an eagle soaring above her head.
A place she belonged.
What a pity she was to leave it soon.
Rory MacRae woke feeling like a king. For the past year, the accommodations at Gilmuir had been stark at best, and prior to that he’d spent years aboard ship where a hammock was the most he could expect.
Last night, however, he’d slept on a real mattress, one that felt as soft as a cloud.
Standing, he turned and looked down at it, still in awe.
Not that he’d been treated badly at Gilmuir, but everyone had shared in the deprivations.
Building the old castle meant that they all slept in communal quarters.
All except Alisdair and Iseabal, of course.
Even James had, more often than not, taken to sleeping aboard ship rather than sharing the crowded barracks.
True enough, he shared the chamber with the other man, but the bed was all his.
This room was grander than anything he’d had in his life.
Besides his bed and the one James had slept in the night before, there was a bureau and a place to hang his clothes along with a washstand.
Behind a folding screen was a cunning little chair with a hole cut in the top and a chamber pot affixed to it.
The knock on the door surprised him, enough that he squawked out a greeting before realizing he wasn’t fully dressed. He dashed behind the door as it opened, holding the latch firmly in his hand, pressing against it so that the girl on the other side couldn’t open it more than she did.
Abigail stuck her head in the opening, peering around the door and then darting back just as swiftly, her eyes wide. That’s what she got for not giving a man time to put his clothes on, Rory thought irritably.
“You’re to come and eat your morning meal,” she said, her voice somewhat muffled. He peered around the door to see her standing there, hand over her mouth, eyes gleaming brightly. “Unless, of course,” she said, removing her hand, “you’ll be wanting a tray.”
He shook his head. Last night, he’d not felt comfortable dining with the rest of them, him being a MacRae by default as it were.
He wasn’t exactly sure who his father was, but after his mother’s death he’d been found by Alisdair in a wintry port in Nova Scotia, and given a job as cabin boy.
Ever since then, he’d called himself a MacRae and had been welcomed into their midst as if he truly were one of them.
But when the invitation had come to join the others at dinner, he’d stayed in his room, expecting to spend the night hungry.
Instead, Abigail had brought him a tray of food, and he’d eaten his fill.
“I am hungry at that,” he conceded, “but I’ll not make you wait on me again.”
“Well, come down to the kitchen. But only after you’ve had a chance to put your trews on.” With a muffled giggle, she left him.
Smoke billowed up from the kitchen stovepipe, indicating that the household was up and awake.
All going about their daily business while she wasted the morning away.
Returning to the house and slipping into the kitchen, Riona greeted Susanna with a kiss to her cheek and a smile to Polly and Cook.
Stealing a rowdie from Susanna’s plate, she took a bite of the soft dark brown roll, then stopped abruptly as the door opened and James walked over the threshold.
Last night he had looked the picture of a sea captain, and in the darkness he’d been a wraith, but one strangely companionable.
This morning he looked impossibly handsome, a man steeped in power and authority even without a ship to command.
He was dressed simply, in dark breeches and a white shirt with flowing sleeves.
His tall black boots had been replaced for shorter ones of worn brown leather, and his hair had been queued at the nape with a black ribbon.
But for all the casualness of his clothes, one would never mistake him for a field hand.
He looked, she thought in amazement, like a lord of the manor. As if he belonged here more than they did.
“You’re up early,” she said, startled at his appearance.
He smiled. “I am used to being up at dawn. At sea it seems we’re always pursuing the sun. Let’s say I anticipated morning.”
“As we have anticipated you,” Susanna said, standing and smiling at him. She pulled out a chair, a wordless invitation to sit at the head of the table.
“You will have some oatcakes, of course,” Cook said, loading a plate with the triangular slices along with a few chunks of their own cheese.
A warm venison pastry lay on a platter along with a large portion of ham.
Flanking the meats were several pots, one each of butter, cream, and honey.
A selection of bannocks and a small wheaten loaf completed the breakfast, to be washed down with his choice of beverages, either whiskey, ale, tea, or cider.
“And a cup of tea?” Susanna asked, pouring from a squat little ceramic pot.
“Cook makes the finest jam,” Polly offered, holding out a small silver bowl and a long-handled spoon.
Riona hadn’t seen her mother so solicitous since Fergus lived with them. And the other women? She looked at the roll in her hand and smiled, thinking that she’d never been the recipient of the treatment James MacRae was now receiving.
“Riona will show you about the farms,” her mother said, glancing toward her. “She knows the manor lands better than anyone. You would have thought her born here.”
James looked in her direction, then away. “Wouldn’t it be better if I spoke with your steward?”
“Riona will direct you to him as soon as you’ve seen the farms.”