Fourteen
“The post is full of letters from afar,” Michael observed over a mug of summer ale.
The posting inn was the heart of the village, both geographically and otherwise, and a dozen people were scattered about the common, sipping their pints and waiting to see if any of the letters Martin Dingle sorted were for them.
“Post is usually from all over—it being the post,” Dingle muttered, making two tidy stacks of about a dozen epistles each.
“Let’s see who’s been mindful of their correspondence,” Michael said, scooping up the nearer pile.
By interfering with His Majesty’s mail, Michael was arguably committing a felony. By interfering with Michael, Dingle could provoke a confrontation that would split the room—and the village—asunder and require direct opposition to the laird whom the shire had waited years to see returned home.
“Here’s one for you, Goodie MacCray,” Michael said, holding a thin missive up to the window as if he might see the contents the way a candled egg revealed what lay within the shell. “Maybe you’ll let us know how your boys are doing?”
He wasn’t about to bring the letter to her. The blasted woman could walk eight paces to hear how her family fared. She pushed to her feet, tugged a plain wool shawl about thin shoulders, and snatched the letter from Michael’s hand with her thumb and forefinger.
“How are they, Goodie? Are they starving on the streets of Aberdeen? Are they so hungry their wives are doing the unthinkable to keep them in neeps and tatties?”
His tone was light, while the room had gone silent as a tomb.
Michael’s people were a canny lot, and clearly, the laird was in a mood.
“They prosper,” Goodie said. “Eagan has a farm, and he and Meg are expecting another little one this fall.”
“Delighted to hear it.” He swiped another letter off the counter. “And here’s a thick packet for you, Mairead. Maybe it includes a bank draft?”
He subjected it to the same scrutiny, holding it up to the light, shaking it, drawing as much attention to the letter as if he were a magician preparing to perform sleight of hand for his rapt audience.
Mairead rose, slowly, her gaze glued to the epistle in Michael’s hand. Whatever was within, she needed it badly.
And that was fine, because she had something Michael needed badly too.
“How fare your sons, Mairead? I’ve been meaning to ask.” He tapped the letter against his palm, the way a headmaster might tap his birch cane before administering discipline to a miscreant.
“They’re in Pennsylvania.”
“Pennsylvania? Not the wilds of Illinois? The woods of Kentucky? How are they managing in Pennsylvania?”
A masculine voice came from the door. “They’re managing wonderfully.
” Hugh MacLogan came striding into the common, kilt flapping.
“Dingle, pull a man a pint, if you please. Mairead’s boys are both married, and they’re farming not far from my brothers.
If we get to exporting beef, we expect they’ll sell some for us. ”
“So our crofters’ sons are now contemplating international trade? How things have changed while I was off larking about in service to the King.”
For good measure, Michael passed out three more letters, and all the while Hugh sipped his ale and watched from the snug. By the fifth letter, little old Vera MacDonald had caught on.
“My granddaughters are all married and raising their bairns in Boston,” Vera said as she hobbled up to get her letter.
“Wee Sara can draw anything, and she sends me the sketches of each child. It’s not the same though,” she said, jutting her chin in Michael’s direction.
“It’s not the same as seeing them, hugging them, hearing their prayers each night. ”
She was half Michael’s size and close to three times his age. She’d been a child when the ’45 had turned Scotland into an oppressed province of the Crown, and she knew the value of survival.
“Madam, if you’d like passage to Boston, your laird and his lady can arrange it for you, just as your lady has arranged it for anybody else with the gumption to make a new life in a new land.”
He’d surprised her, but better than that, he’d challenged her, and Vera did not disappoint.
She cackled, revealing four teeth optimally situated to holding a pipe. “You’d miss me, Michael Brodie. There’d be no one to tell the stories on your grandfather and his da. No one to tell Dingle when he’s mixed a nasty batch of ale for rushing the process.”
She shot Dingle an admonitory glower, though the poor bastard probably hadn’t served a bad batch of ale for thirty years or more.
In the snug, Hugh tried to hide a smile behind his ale.
“We’d muddle on,” Michael said. “We’d muddle on without anybody who misses their family too much to stay here with us, and we’d be happy to help them arrange their travels.”
He slapped the rest of the letters down before Dingle, shot a look at Hugh, and headed for the door. When he’d gained the sunshine of a pretty summer morning, he stood for a moment, listening.
The murmuring started up within two seconds of the door swinging shut, and that was good. Let these people comprehend that they either stood with their laird and his lady, or they stood in line for a ticket to the New World.
Michael’s next stop was the minister’s cottage, where he’d suggest some sermon topics that deserved consideration over the remainder of the summer.
“What was that all about?” Hugh MacLogan asked.
MacLogan hadn’t emerged from the posting inn that quietly, but Michael had been that intent on his list of homilies.
“I’m angry,” Michael said, striding off. “Mad enough to knock heads about, pitch those ungrateful biddies off their…tenancies, and relieve the parson of his living.”
“It’s a fine day to be in a temper,” Hugh remarked. “Anything in particular set you off? You’re not known to be hotheaded but then, any fellow who was at war as long as you were might have a few quirks.”
“We’re going the wrong way,” Michael said, stopping in the middle of the High Street. “The minister lives south of the inn.”
“Do you feel a confession coming on?”
“I’m more in the mood to cast the moneylenders out of the temple,” Michael said. “Brenna told me about being robbed all those years ago, and the small-minded, ungrateful, worthless fools who are my people have held her responsible for every sick calf and dropped stitch since.”
For though Brenna hadn’t said as much, Michael knew the Scottish temperament, and knew how badly a scapegoat could suffer when the regiment was feeling mean and no enemy obliged their destructive appetites.
“So you’ll change their minds about Brenna by threatening to cast them off their land? Interesting approach.”
Hugh was a brave man, and like many truly brave men, he was casual about his courage. Given the state of Michael’s temper, one might even call MacLogan cavalier.
“I’m none too happy with you, either,” Michael said, changing direction to head for the trees. “What the hell were you thinking? Allowing a young woman, alone, to take off on horseback when you knew she was carrying a year’s worth of profit in her purse?”
Now Hugh’s expression shuttered. “I don’t get free of this place that often.”
For no good reason, Michael wanted to hit the man. “Everybody in this shire has lost the gift of plain speaking. What the hell does leaving the village have to do with abandoning Brenna and jeopardizing her safety?”
“I wanted to bring my Anne a token, and Aboyne is a market town.”
More indirection. Michael contemplated howling at the moon, except the sun was well up.
“Aberdeen is a damned trading port, and you couldn’t find your lady a hair ribbon there?”
“Hair ribbons in Aberdeen would come dearer than hair ribbons in a market town.”
Michael started up the incline toward the castle, and MacLogan showed no inclination to leave him in peace.
“You mean to tell me you allowed Brenna to risk the roads without escort because you were pinching pennies over a bloody hair ribbon?”
Hugh paused in the shade of towering evergreens.
“You needn’t shout. We were thirsty, the barmaid was friendly, and Brenna was in a tearing hurry.
I didn’t know she had the coin in her purse, I thought it was in her saddlebags, and those we’d brought in with us.
Brenna rides well, and we thought we’d catch up to her within the hour. ”
They’d reached the clearing with its ancient bench. Michael contemplated wrenching the thing from its location and using it to bludgeon MacLogan.
“Why didn’t you make any effort to defend Brenna? Why no investigation? Why has she been pilloried for this year after year?”
MacLogan appropriated the bench, the dappled forest shadows nearly camouflaging him in his work kilt, boots, and plain shirt.
“Because for once, I agreed with Angus.”
Michael kicked at some ferns encroaching on the path, then felt rotten for it. “Explain.”
“Angus said any defense of Brenna would only make her look more guilty and raise more questions. The fact of the matter was, she chose to go on alone, she chose to take the risks of continuing unescorted, and she chose to take the money with her as well. She was a woman grown and in a position to make her own decisions.”
“Did your wife console you with that logic as well?” MacLogan looked so miserable, Michael concluded Anne MacLogan had railed at her husband at length over that very same pile of tripe.
“I regret that decision now, Laird, but when I’ve raised the issue with Angus, I’m admonished to let sleeping dogs lie.”
“Somebody’s lying. Brenna did not steal that money.”
“How can you say that? You weren’t here.”
“MacLogan, if you believe Brenna stole from her own people and used the money for her own comfort, then you and yours are welcome to leave as well. I’ll pay your passage anywhere, provided you leave before the summer is out. Brenna Brodie did not steal that money.”
Something crashed through the bracken above them, a deer likely, startled out of its midday nap—not that Michael was yelling. Quite.