Chapter 1 #2
The linen bundle in her arms was large enough to make her look useful and awkward enough to make people avoid stopping her unless they had reason to.
Beneath the folded cloths, tucked where no careless glance would find it, lay Jane’s blue cloth. Violet had carried it all the way from England, through every mile of road and every lie she had told to get this far.
Now Jane’s son was somewhere within these walls; she was sure of it. And that knowledge steadied her more than courage did.
Courage sounded too grand for the way her palms grew clammy around the linen and the way her heart beat hard each time a servant walked past her. Only a fool would not be afraid in the stronghold of a laird feared by half the Highlands.
But fear had not made Jane’s child vanish. Men had.
Violet passed a maid carrying a bucket and gave her the tired half-nod of someone who had been sent on too many errands before breakfast. The maid did not slow down.
Good.
Servants who looked busy became part of the walls, and Violet needed to become stone, wool, and silence until she found the nursery.
That was when she heard it—a thin cry cutting through the passage ahead.
She nearly stopped.
The sound came again, faint through stone and distance, and her fingers immediately tightened around the linen.
Is that him? Is that Jane’s son?
Violet turned toward the sound, determined more than ever to reach him, when a voice snapped from behind her.
“Ye there.”
She took one more step before stopping, as if the command had been an inconvenience rather than a blade pressed to her back. This was just another bump in the road. She just needed to be calm enough to overcome it.
When she turned, a guard stood near the archway, his eyes narrowed beneath dark eyebrows.
“Aye?” she asked.
“Is it nae a bit too late for ye to be roaming around?”
Violet swallowed. Think of a basic lie. “The laundress sent me.”
“The laundress?” the guard repeated.
Violet faltered. Did the castle not have one?
“What is the name?” the guard asked, his voice rising with each word.
Violet shifted the bundle higher against her chest. “Hers or mine?”
His face hardened. The answer had been too quick. Too bold. Foolish, perhaps, but panic made her tongue sharp.
“Yers,” he grunted.
“Maisie.” Violet offered the first name that came to her. “And if ye have a quarrel with the linens, ye may take it up with the woman who gave them to me.”
The guard looked over her plain cap, her borrowed apron, the bundle in her arms. His gaze lingered on her face long enough to tell her that he was trying to place her and failing.
“I’ve nae seen ye before.”
“I’ve nae seen ye either,” she shot back. “Yet here we both are.”
His mouth tightened. “Ye’re a quick one, are ye nae?”
“I must really take the linens back,” she responded, turning around.
“Stop!” the guard called.
Before she could respond, a maid rounded the corner, balancing a tray of cups and oatcakes. Violet let one cloth slide from the top of her bundle and drop at her feet.
“Blast it,” she muttered, bending quickly. The maid shifted to avoid her.
For one blessed second, the tray, the maid, and the fallen cloth blocked the guard’s path.
“I said stop!” the guard barked.
The baby cried again somewhere above, the sound thin and angry.
Violet snatched up the cloth. “If I stop any longer, the woman waiting for these will skin me.”
“Oy!”
“Forgive me.”
She turned down the nearest stairs before he could reach her.
The stairs climbed more steeply than she had expected. Her breath shortened, but she did not slow down. At the landing, she turned left, then halted when the baby’s cry came from behind her right shoulder.
Wrong way.
She spun back, nearly colliding with a little boy carrying a coal scuttle.
“Watch it,” he complained.
“Mind yer feet,” she snapped, then hurried past before he could remember her face.
The cry came again, clearer now.
She followed it into an upper passage where the stone was warmer and the walls a bit cleaner. The servants around this part of the castle moved with more purpose. That meant the nursery was near.
A door stood slightly open near the far end, and from within came a woman’s low voice, gentle and worn at the edges.
“Hush now, wee man. There now. Ye made the whole castle hear yer complaints.”
Violet’s lungs seized as she heard the baby make a softer sound. She took one step toward the door.
“Oy!” The guard’s voice cracked through the passage behind her.
She did not think. She darted into the nearest room and closed the door with care before speed could betray her.
For one moment, there was only her breathing. Then she looked around the chamber, slowly taking it in.
A narrow bed. A washstand. A cup of cold tea on the small table. Baby linens folded on a chair with more care than servants gave ordinary cloth. A tiny garment lay across a woman’s lap, one sleeve half mended.
The woman looked up. She was young enough to have softness in her face, but somehow old enough to have a lot of experience. Her fingers closed over the tiny garment at once.
“Who are ye?” she asked.
Violet lifted her chin. Think of another lie. “Uh… I was sent here.”
The woman raised an eyebrow. “By whom?”
Violet cleared her throat. “The Laird.”
The woman’s gaze sharpened. “For what purpose?”
Violet’s mind raced. The guard would be in the passage. The nursery was close. The baby was alive. She only needed one chance to see him.
“I heard the Laird was looking for a nursemaid,” she said. “For the bairn.”
The woman went very still.
Violet pressed on. “I have experience. I can feed him, soothe him, and mend his clothes. I only wanted to offer me help.”
“Offer it by sneaking through passages?”
A nervous laugh escaped her lips. “I lost me way.”
“Aye,” the woman said softly. “Liars often do.”
Violet’s mouth went dry.
The woman rose, setting the tiny garment down with careful fingers. That gentleness told Violet more than any explanation could have. This woman loved the child, or at least guarded him as if love had become the only work left to her.
“Do ye want to ken how I ken ye’re lying?”
Violet swallowed, her mission blurring at the edges out of fear.
The woman didn’t back down. She took a step closer, her stance suddenly becoming menacing.
“Because I’m the bairn’s nursemaid. In fact, I'm his wet nurse,” she said.
The lie died between them.
Violet took a step forward. “Please. Just let me see him.”
“Why?”
“Because I need to ken.”
“Need to ken what?”
Jane’s name rose to Violet’s tongue, but she bit it back.
She did not know this woman. She did not know who in this castle might send word to Henry. If Jane’s family had sent the baby here, then one careless name could have him moved before Violet drew another breath.
The nursemaid, on the other hand, noticed her hesitation and did not waste time. She opened her mouth before Violet could stop her.
“Guards!” she shouted.
Violet reached for the door, but the nursemaid moved faster. She grabbed Violet’s sleeve and held tight until the door burst open.
The guard seized Violet’s arm. Another caught the linen bundle when it slipped as she twisted hard and drove her heel down on a boot. One of them cursed. She snatched the bundle back to her chest before anyone could search it properly.
“She was in the nursery passage,” the first guard said.
“I wasnae stealing anything,” Violet snapped.
The nursemaid’s face hardened. “Then ye picked a strange place to be honest.”
Violet tried to yank her arm free. “I only need to see the bairn.”
“That is exactly why ye willnae.”
The guards dragged Violet out of the room before she could answer. She fought once more when they passed by the nursery door, but the baby was quiet now, and the closed door gave her nothing.
By the time they reached the dungeons, her cap had slipped loose, and one sleeve had been torn at the seam.
Iron closed around her with a hard clang.
She gripped the bars. The cell smelled of damp stone, old straw, and cold metal. Low torchlight showed two guards outside the door, one irritated and the other uneasy enough to avoid her gaze.
“Open this door,” she called.
“Nae until the Laird speaks with ye,” the first guard responded, his tone so casual that she didn’t know whether she should be scared or not.
Her fingers tightened around the bars. “And when is that going to be?”
The guard shrugged. “Soon. Then ye’ll get out one way or another.”
A chill ran down her spine. “What is that supposed to mean?”
The answer came from the space behind the guard before he could respond, deep, calm, and far too close. “He means alive or dead, lass.”