Seventeen #3
“No need to be frightened. Your brother and Brenna are waiting just below, and they won’t scold you, wee Maeve. They’ll scold themselves for not keeping better watch over you.”
This was the Uncle Angus whom Michael had grown up with, the nice fellow who could put a small boy’s fears and puzzlements into perspective. This Uncle Angus was a source of sense and safety when a lad thought he had few allies and many challenges.
A man of sense and safety should have worn a rope.
“Uncle Angus is right,” Michael said. “I’ve owed you an apology since yesterday, Maeve, over that business with the carrots. I was wrong not to say I was sorry sooner. Do you forgive me?”
He raised the question because he needed the child’s forgiveness, and because he needed to distract her from the peril she faced on her descent.
“I was mad at you,” Maeve said, the wind snatching at her words. “You didn’t even listen. You never take me up on your horse.”
“I’m listening now, and I hope you’re listening to me. Keep hold of Angus’s hand, and don’t try to stand up. I want you to scoot down the roof, slowly, slowly. By inches. Angus will hold your hand as long as he can, and if you slip, I’ll catch you.”
Though on that small, slick conical roof, she might well fall in the wrong direction.
“I’ll be c-careful.”
“You’ll be warm and stuffing yourself with cream cakes in no time,” Angus said. “Down you go, slowly, slowly, like your brother said.”
Maeve heeded Angus when she might not have paid any attention to Michael’s cautions. She clutched at Angus’s hand, crouched, and inched down the roof, one foot, then another, then the first foot again. Michael positioned himself below her, his heart hammering, his arms upstretched.
“Well done, wee Maeve,” Angus said as she hit the limit of his reach. “Only a few more feet, and Michael will catch you. That’s my brave girl.”
Her fingers slid free of Angus’s grasp, and she paused, halfway down the roof. “I’m scared.”
They were all bloody terrified.
“You’re nearly down, Maeve,” Michael said as a stiff gust set the rope to whipping against the pole. “Another three feet, and you can dangle your feet over the edge. I’ll have you then.”
“Will you scold me?”
Please God, allow the child to live so she might endure many scoldings.
“I will not scold you for wanting to see home, but we will talk. You and I and Brenna will talk about how we can make the castle more of a home to you.” Just as soon as Michael put a stout, locked gate across the door to the roof terrace, and hid the damned key from all save Brenna.
His arms began to burn, even in the frigid wind.
“Now get you down, please, so we can all get out of this breeze.”
The rest was easy. Maeve scooted to the edge of the roof, dangled one little boot, then the other over the edge, and tipped herself the last few feet into Michael’s embrace.
“You’re safe,” he said, clutching the girl to his chest as a cheer went up from below. “Thank the Almighty, you’re safe.”
She was also chilled to the bone. Michael let Brenna wrap the blanket around the girl but did not put her down. “Have some hot chocolate, at least, Maeve, and then Brenna will tuck you in lest you develop a lung fever. A tot of whisky might be in order. Lachlan will want to see you too.”
“I can tell him I saw Ireland.”
While in Michael’s worst nightmares, he’d see his wee sister, crumpled and unmoving on the cobbles below.
“You tell him you did indeed see home, and I’ll be by to say good night too.”
He kissed the top of her head and set her on her feet, his own balance as unreliable as if he were standing on a slick roof in a high wind.
“Get Angus down,” Brenna said, taking Maeve’s hand. “And thank him.”
She kissed Michael on the cheek and disappeared down the steps, Maeve’s hand in hers, the tartan eclipsing all but the top of the child’s head.
Leaving Michael to again face the bitter wind.
“Brenna said to thank you,” he called up to his uncle.
Angus remained kneeling at the foot of the flagpole, his gaze fixed on the far peak Maeve had dubbed a bit of home.
“You cannot fathom that, can you, laddie? That Brenna could thank me for anything.” He rose, a bit stiffly, his age showing. “Neither can I. It’s beautiful up here. Captivatingly so.”
Captivating was the word of an artist, not the vocabulary of a scheming, perverted old man, not even the word of an uncle.
“Angus, get the hell down. Now.” The way his uncle gazed out over the hills and peaks as the sun dipped closer to the horizon made Michael uneasy.
“So you can haul me off to the gaol?” Angus asked, taking a cautious step away from the flagpole. “Do you suppose I’ll fare well at the hands of justice, such a one as I?”
“Better than you would at the hands of a half-drunken, righteous mob.”
Another cautious step. “D’ye think so? Felonies are serious business. I’ve had occasion to look up the penalties for several of them. The law does not deal in pleasant fates.” Angus slipped, caught his balance, and resumed gazing out over the loch.
While Michael wrestled back the urge to point out that Brenna’s fate, thanks to Angus, had not been pleasant, and she’d done nothing to deserve the misery he’d visited on her.
Neither had Neil MacLogan. Neither had Jack Deardorff and God knew how many others, at brothels in Aberdeen, or on the Brodie holdings.