Sixteen
“I told him.” Lachlan’s voice held hope and pride.
Maeve didn’t so much as turn to face him. “You told who?”
“I told the laird you didn’t take the carrots.” Lachlan scrambled up onto the bench beneath the parapets. “You’re not supposed to be up here alone.”
Boys were stupid. Cook was stupid. Older brothers were stupidest of all.
“You’re up here with me, so I’m not alone, and Brenna said I could come up here.”
If Maeve were honest, she’d admit she was glad to see Lachlan, even if he had kept silent while she’d suffered many injustices.
Lachlan picked at a bit of moss growing from a crack in the stones.
“Brenna probably said you could come up here when Prebish was about, or Elspeth. If you fell off the parapets, your head would split open like a tomato. You shouldn’t come up here without Elspeth or Brenna or somebody, and you should wear a shawl because it’s colder than down in the bailey. Don’t you want to know what I said?”
Maeve was cold, inside and out, and she ached the way crying always made her ache. If she were with Bridget and Kevin, Bridget would have asked her to turn pages at the pianoforte while they sang silly songs, or Kevin might have taken her for a ramble to visit the latest batch of puppies.
“All I want is to go home to Ireland. If you knew I didn’t take the carrots, why did you let Cook yell at me, and then let Michael send me to my room?”
Almost as bad as the false accusations was that Lachlan had heard the whole business. To know he’d been able to speak up for her, and had waited until later to do so, made everything worse.
Even worse, when things couldn’t really get any worse.
“Nobody listens when they’re mad,” Lachlan said, standing on the bench to drop his bit of moss into the bailey below. “Besides, I didn’t want anybody to hear what I said to the laird.”
A ray of cheer shone through Maeve’s black mood. “You broke something, in the butler’s pantry. Was it something valuable?”
“I made any noise I could so they’d stop pestering you. I didn’t mean to break the platter.”
Maeve’s upset eased a trifle. “Will you have to pay for the platter? Kevin gave me some money for my own before I left Ireland.” Kevin, who often smelled of horses and might yell at her sometimes, but only when she deserved it.
Lachlan picked another bit of moss loose, a larger patch, and peered over the stone crenellations. Maeve stood too, because the view from up here was very grand.
“I’ll pay for what I broke. Da would want me to, but the laird said it was an accident, and we all make mistakes. I think he’ll apologize to you.” The larger chunk of moss went sailing down, down, down to land in a pot of pansies.
“Apologizing is nice. You shouldn’t throw things into the bailey like that.”
Because somebody could come out of the castle or the stables and get pelted with the moss, and Maeve would probably be blamed for that too.
Lachlan shot her a grin. “It’s fun, but I’m cold. They’ll change the flag when the party starts tomorrow. It takes two men, one to climb up, and one to keep a rope on the climber. For safety.”
The party. All over again, Maeve felt the lump in her throat, the ache that was for Ireland, but not only for Ireland.
The ache was because everybody was excited about that party, and nobody had time for her, not even when she asked if she could help.
She turned her back to the cold stones, watching the pennant above them whip and flap in the stout breeze.
“Climbing up there wouldn’t be so hard. The stones stick out like a ladder. Do you think I could see Ireland from up there?”
“I think you could fall off the roof and split your head open on the cobbles,” Lachlan said. “I wouldn’t like that.”
Tumbling from the roof would be awful, but for a few seconds, it might also feel like flying free.
“I don’t want to go back down to the kitchen.”
Because an apology was a fine thing, for making the wrongdoer feel better, but a few humble words wouldn’t undo the sense of betrayal Maeve felt from Cook, her brother, and even Lachlan.
“I thought I’d find you two up here.” Brenna stood in the doorway to the winding steps, a shawl about her shoulders. “This was my favorite place when I was your age, but that breeze is chilly.”
“I have boots to polish,” Lachlan said, rising and brushing past Brenna. “Good day, my lady.”
Brenna unwrapped her shawl and tucked it around Maeve’s shoulders, bringing Maeve warmth and the scent of flowers. Then she sat beside Maeve and laid her arm across Maeve’s shoulders.
“Did you come up here to cry, wee Maeve?”
Of course, she had, but now that somebody who was blameless and even understanding was at hand, Maeve couldn’t say that.
“Lachlan broke a platter. He might have to pay for it.”
Brenna patted Maeve’s arm while the wind snapped the pennant’s rope against the flap pole in a rhythmic flap-flap-flap.
“What was the boot boy doing, carting a breakable platter about, I wonder? Platters are heavy, and Lachlan has a fair bit of growing to do.”
Platters were heavy, and homesickness was heavier still. Maeve turned her nose to Brenna’s shoulder.
“I want to go home.”
“I know, lass. It’s good that you have some place you love so much you miss it, but missing home and family hurts too. I’m glad you’re here, though.”
Those words helped—some. “Can you invite Bridget and Kevin for a visit?”
Brenna withdrew her arm, and when she straightened, even being wrapped in her shawl didn’t compensate Maeve for the resulting lack of warmth.
“I cannot, because your sister ought not to travel when she’s close to having the baby, and I cannot tarry up here but a minute, there’s so much to be done.”
“I hate Scotland.”
“Come here,” Brenna said, moving to the side of the parapets that looked out over the loch.
Maeve hopped off the stone bench, keeping Brenna’s shawl wrapped tightly about her, because the wind was worse on this side of the parapets.
“Ireland is that way,” Brenna said, stretching out a hand in the direction of the loch.
The water was dark today and frosted with whitecaps, and not a soul stirred on the shore.
“There’s water between Scotland and Ireland, but also lots of beautiful countryside.
You might write to your sister, you know.
Tell her everything you don’t like about this place, tell her you miss her. ”
“That would be a long letter.”
Brenna’s smile wasn’t that of a grown-up indulging a silly little girl. Her smile said she understood that even a silly little girl’s life could be hard and lonely sometimes. “You may use my desk, and I’ll have Cook send up a pot of chocolate. I can’t have you taking a chill.”
That felt good, to be ever so gently scolded for lingering up on the windy heights. Maeve followed Brenna down the winding steps and started on a mental list of all the things about Scotland worth hating.
The upper reaches of Angus’s house were not well lit, the housekeeper, as was prudent, having closed every drape and door to keep out the chill breeze and protect paintings, rugs, and furniture from the damaging effects of the sun.
Michael found his uncle’s bedroom on the third try, the ubiquitous pipe scent even stronger than usual.
The space was not unusual for a comfortably well-off gentleman’s private chamber, though Angus’s personal finances were becoming a mental sore tooth. A large bed dominated the room, raised two steps for warmth, swagged with burgundy velvet and adorned with matching pillows tasseled in gold.
The bed was more imposing than the one Michael shared with Brenna.
The shelves were full of books, some in French, titled in gilt lettering.
A sturdy rocker sat near a large hearth, and a wardrobe occupied an interior wall.
Above the hearth, where Michael might have expected a landscape of the Scottish countryside, a hunting scene, or some grand depiction of a stirring moment of Scottish history, hung another rendering of the children with the kitten.
Unusual, perhaps, but not if Michael’s own mother had furnished the place.
And yet… Why would Angus, who’d adorned his bed with tasseled pillows, keep that portrait as the last thing he saw each night?
The sense of evidence eluding notice resurged, and along with it, a repugnance for the task Michael had set himself.
The search here must be thorough, so Michael started with the wardrobe, intent on working his way around the room.
Angus was well dressed, his shirts beautifully made, his boots a testament to the quality of goods available when a man had coin.
Formal clan attire hung on the inside of the wardrobe door, proof Angus meant to attend the next day’s gathering.
And yet, something was off.
The wardrobe was a massive piece, as wardrobes tended to be. Nearly as high as the ceiling, several feet wide and several feet deep. The floor of the wardrobe was a good foot higher than the rug upon which it sat, however, suggesting…
The false bottom came up easily, revealing a space packed the way a sailor might stow his goods in a trunk. Every inch of the compartment was used, and every article positioned for ease of access. To one side, Michael found yet more books, including what looked like sketchbooks.
A cold foreboding slithered through Michael’s guts, a certainty that this was a central piece of the puzzle that must be put together if Michael was to make his castle a home for those he loved.
Somebody moved about below stairs, a door closed—Hugh, nosing around among the pipe smoke and ledgers. Michael was abruptly glad that whatever lay in the bottom of Angus’s wardrobe would not be revealed to any save Michael.
On closer inspection, the wardrobe held journals, the entries in the same tidy hand as all the ledgers in the office. Michael took a sketchbook off the bottom of the stack and crossed the room to a cushioned window seat, the better to see what he’d found.