Eleven
“I want to go home,” Maeve declared. Except, where was home? “When I was in Ireland, Bridget didn’t yell at me for walking out to the paddocks, and Kevin gave me carrots and apples to give the horses.”
Preacher was not impressed by this declaration. He continued to sit beside Maeve in the saddle room, licking the daylights out of his left paw. Preacher could eat mice; he did not have to brave a breakfast room with strangers in it—English strangers, who talked very oddly indeed.
“I hate Scotland. I shall run away.”
The door to the saddle room opened, and Patrick, a red-haired groom, stood in the door. Patrick had a lot of freckles and he smiled. He had extra names for the horses, the same way Uncle Kevin had.
“The faeries have left a wee gift in my saddle room, and a great, fat banshee.”
Preacher left off washing his paw and strutted out the door, and Maeve was sad to see him go.
“I’m not supposed to be here. I didn’t tell anybody at the castle where I was going except Lachlan.”
“Then you might scamper right back and no one the wiser.” Patrick looped two bridles over his arm, suggesting somebody other than Maeve was going riding.
“I’m waiting for Uncle Angus.” The idea came to Maeve on the moment, though in truth she’d been thinking to snitch a carrot to appease the hunger in her belly.
Patrick set the saddle he’d lifted right back down on its rack. “What in the world would ye want with that auld bugger?”
No smiles accompanied the question. “Uncle Angus is my friend. He introduced me to all five yearlings and said we could come visit them again, anytime, and he would sketch them for me too.” He’d also teased Maeve about making a sketch of her, because she was such a bonnie wee lass.
The way Patrick glanced at the open door made Maeve wish even more that she’d never left Ireland, because something she’d said was creating a problem. Brenna’s scold yesterday suggested everything Maeve said, did, wished, and forgot to do was always going to be a problem.
“Don’t scold me. Uncle Angus is nice.”
Patrick swore, the same curse Uncle Kevin used when a horse came up lame. Something about the Almighty and bullocks.
Patrick draped the bridles over the saddle and appropriated a place beside Maeve on the trunk. He smelled good, like hay and horses, and he had the long, bony wrists Maeve figured must come from being a groom.
“Wee Maeve, ye stay far away from Angus Brodie, ye hear me? He’s a cranky auld mon who has no patience for others, and thinks only of himself.”
Patrick looked like he wanted to say more, but Maeve was glad he didn’t. She liked Patrick, and she liked Uncle Angus.
Sort of.
“You shouldn’t say mean things. Nobody is supposed to say mean things.” And yet, everybody did.
“I’m saying a true thing, child, and this is also true. The laird is showing off his yearlings out back to the English lord. If ye get up to the castle straightaway, nobody will know ye came down to visit Preacher before brightening Cook’s day with a visit.”
Cook was nice, and Patrick was trying to be nice now too.
Maeve hopped off the trunk and left the barn, but the queerish feeling in her tummy wasn’t entirely hunger. Nobody wanted her here, nobody liked her, and where she might have felt at home—in the barn, with the horses and cats—she wasn’t supposed to go.
Preacher fell in step beside her, probably hoping to dart into the kitchens when Maeve slunk into the back hallway.
“I hate it here, and I’m planning to run away. You can come with me.”
Except Preacher seemed very much at home at Castle Brodie, as did everybody else except—in some way Maeve couldn’t put into words—Uncle Angus.
“Is all to your liking, Lady St. Clair?”
The Scottish baroness was the soul of civility as she sat plying her needle, though Milly had enjoyed warmer welcomes from her cat.
“Our rooms are very comfortable,” Milly replied. “Breakfast was lovely, and you have a beautiful home.” Though visiting the lady’s lovely home now might have been the stupidest decision Milly had ever made—or allowed Sebastian to make.
“You’re tired,” Lady Strathdee said, putting her hoop aside. “Travel can be wearying. Perhaps you’d like to take a nap?”
What Milly would like to do was find her husband and cling to him, though he would pester her with well-intended questions, and Sebastian was very good at getting answers to his questions.
“I am tired,” Milly said. “Sebastian and I haven’t been married long, and though his company is a delight, in the confines of a traveling coach for days…”
Her hostess’s smile bore the first hint of understanding. “Michael was gone for years, and though I am very pleased to have him home, he makes a deal of noise, tracks mud into Cook’s kitchen, and renders the beginning and ending of the day a busier undertaking altogether.”
“As does St. Clair,” Milly said, picking up the lady’s hoop and admiring a scene of a golden hart in clover. “I lived with my maiden aunts before joining the St. Clair household, and becoming Sebastian’s baroness is an adjustment in many ways.”
The solar was a lovely place, full of sun because of its location at the top of the keep, comfortably stuffed with pillows and cushioned chairs, and feminine in its green, cream, and gold color scheme.
“You weren’t—” Lady Strathdee fell silent and rose, crossing to a desk that sported a number of ledgers. “You didn’t expect to become a baroness?”
Milly suppressed a wince, while her hostess tidied up the ledgers, though they’d already been in two neat stacks.
“I still wake up every morning, having to recall that St. Clair has done me the honor of taking me to wife. Are you truly glad Michael has come home?”
The question might have provoked a retreat into Scottish reserve, which made the English variety look tropical by comparison, but instead, Lady Strathdee smiled.
“You used the word adjustment. I’d say it’s more like my entire life has been upended, though it badly needed upending in some ways.”
Another twinge hit Milly in a low, female place, but she’d been having queer pangs and twinges since she’d met her husband. “Shall we ring for tea?”
“Tea for you,” her ladyship said with a significant look at Milly’s raised waistline. “Michael said I’m to cosset you.”
She tugged a green-and-gold brocade bellpull and got a look in her eyes that put Milly in mind of Sebastian on the scent of some answers, so Milly went on the offensive.
“How has your life been upended?”
Her ladyship took the seat at the desk, looking elegant and confident. “Michael sent no word he was coming north, though we knew he’d returned to England and remained with his commanding officer in London. We heard all manner of rumors, none of them pleasant.”
Milly heard the sound of cannon swiveling on well-greased hinges. “That must have been difficult.”
Her ladyship opened a ledger. “I was accustomed to his neglect by then. Michael was not a reliable correspondent.” She ran her finger down the page, fine russet eyebrows knit as if the tally puzzled her.
“But he’s back now, and not likely to leave anytime soon.” Another twinge came, this one worse than the last.
“He’s back,” her ladyship conceded. “Nine years is a long time to roam. Castle Brodie has changed in those nine years.”
Lady Strathdee—Sebastian said her name was Brenna—had changed in those years. Any woman would change between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five.
“Give it time,” Milly said. “I love my husband to distraction, but I still find some matters difficult to discuss with him.”
“My lady, are you well?”
Truly, Brenna Brodie had accurate aim. Milly was saved from an immediate reply by a knock on the door, heralding the arrival of the tea tray. Tea in Scotland apparently included scones, butter, strawberries, and honey, which—unlike the ham, bacon, and eggs at breakfast—had some appeal.
“I am—”
Milly’s hostess put the tray down on the low table before the settee and crossed her arms. She was a tall woman, and wrapped in her dark plaid shawl, she put Milly in mind of a widow or a maiden aunt who’d seen enough of sorrow to withstand a few inconvenient truths.
“I am afraid I’m losing this baby.” Mostly, Milly was afraid, afraid Sebastian would be upset, afraid this meant they’d never have a child, afraid this looming tragedy was her fault.
“Oh, my lady.” Her hostess unwrapped the plaid shawl and swirled it around Milly’s shoulders. The scents of heather and lavender came with it, soothing scents that eased the lingering upset caused by the smells at breakfast. “Shall we fetch his lordship?”
“No, please do not tell Sebastian.” Because Sebastian would blame himself, and God knew what that would do to their marital intimacies. “I’ve been somewhat uncomfortable since I learned I was carrying.”
Milly found a cup of hot, fragrant tea in her hands, with no idea how it had arrived there.
“Are you bleeding?”
Thank God for Scottish practicality. “Spotting. A little, but I didn’t bring any cloths.”
“Cloths we have. Spotting isn’t necessarily a fatal sign. I’ve read every pamphlet and treatise I could find on the subject. The French have some good books, and we’ve a very competent midwife in the village.”
The tea helped, and Lady Strathdee’s brisk pragmatism helped too. Milly suspected notifying Sebastian would not help at all, though withholding this from him hadn’t exactly been easy either.
“Can you send for the midwife and have her visit while the men are out riding?”
Her ladyship split a scone, applied butter and honey, and passed it to Milly on a plate adorned with porcelain roses. “I can send for her. Best I go fetch her myself.”
Though Milly wasn’t sure she even liked Brenna Brodie, she didn’t want to be left entirely alone either. She wanted Sebastian, and that would not do.
“She won’t heed a summons from you? Your husband is laird, isn’t he?” The scone was ambrosial, and yet Milly knew she must not bolt her grain.
“You shall call me Brenna. I know you English like your manners and such, and we’ve just met, but I’ve only ever been Brenna. This baroness business—”