Chapter 3
CHAPTER THREE
“Ye mustnae do anythin' rash, lassie,” Patrick warned. “I’ll tell ye what I ken about MacSween, and there’s nary a good thing to be said about him.”
“Me mind is made up,” Beatrice responded, wanting only to be alone in her own bedchamber and away from the hounding of her parents. “I shall write to Laird MacSween.”
The day had been long, as had her parents’ pleading and argument that she must just accept the husband she was offered. There was nothing more to say, at least from Beatrice’s perspective. She had other things on her mind now, other plans and pieces of the puzzle.
I can get to Laird MacSween’s castle on foot by daybreak if I leave early enough. I can explain me plan to him in person. If Father doesnae ken, he cannae stop me.
“A lassie cannae go writin' to a strange man and proposin' marriage,” Patrick restated the same objection he had made all evening. “To a laird, too? It would be a disgrace upon me. Be fair to us and accept yer fate without such behavior.”
“We are where we are because of ye,” Beatrice reminded him. “Now I’m expected to give up me life to fix yer mess. Does that sound fair to ye?!”
She sighed after this outburst, realizing that she had only sparked another fresh row that she had no time or patience for.
“Daenae speak to me like that! I am yer father and deserve yer respect. I didnae ken those investments were bad and I wasnae the only man deceived out of money. At cards I was only unlucky, and I wouldn’t have had to take the mortgages if I’d been treated fairly by me neighbors…”
This time Beatrice did not answer. She had heard it all before. Staring at her father, she was flooded with sadness rather than fear or anger at her situation.
“I didnae mean to blame ye, Father. I’m sorry,” she said with a contrition that was temporarily genuine. “We should both go to bed. It must be one in the mornin'.”
“Aye,” he agreed unexpectedly, rubbing his own tired eyes. “We should sleep on this and speak again in the mornin'. There are three weeks yet and all might look different to ye tomorrow."
Bidding her father goodnight, Beatice watched his retreating back. They were both helpless, both flailing and angry at what had been decreed. Beatrice could only weep and wail and gnash her teeth. Her mother could only lecture and snap. Her father could only rant or brood in morose silence.
If they couldn’t bear the thought of Beatrice writing to Laird MacSween, her parents certainly wouldn’t be able to cope with what she really planned to do once the household were well-settled in their beds…
With Patrick Whitmore’s departure, Margo looked up from the wardrobe where she had been hanging up Beatrice’s clothes.
“I’ll set out yer night things now, Miss,” the maid told her. “As yer father said, this will all look better in the mornin', I’ve nay doubt.”
“It willnae look better, Margo,” Beatrice said, with a humorless little laugh at the thought of the adventure ahead and what the next day would bring her parents whether she succeeded or failed. “But it will look different.”
“As ye say, Miss,” Margo agreed affably, always more inclined to acquiesce than to argue.
Once Beatrice was washed and in her nightgown, Margo still lingered. On another night, Beatrice might have been happy to talk but tonight she had been hoping for her maid to leave her promptly.
“What is it, Margo?” she asked eventually, after the young woman had stood there looking tongue-tied for several minutes and clearly seeking Beatrice’s permission to speak about something.
“Well, miss, I heard ye mention Laird MacSween,” Margo began hesitantly.
“Aye. What of it?”
“Have ye seen him up close? Do ye ken what he looks like?”
“That’s nae really me concern right now, Margo. I’ve seen him ridin' about and can say he has two arms, two legs and a head. What more do I need in a man to marry him?”
At this, Margo’s smile changed, becoming secretive and knowing. It was as though the maid knew of something admirable about the laird her parents evidently regarded as coarse and brutish. What could that be?
“Ye’ll see. Goodnight, Miss.”
Bobbing a curtsy after this mysterious statement, the maid went out and closed the door of Beatrice’s chamber behind her.
Redressing, gathering the few items she needed for the journey and pinning her long auburn hair up inside a hat, Beatrice waited until the entire house had been silent for several full hours.
Only then did she pull on a long grey cloak and creep on tiptoe out of the house entrance furthest from her parents’ chambers, and far away too from where the nightwatchman kept his post.
Outside, the colorless world of the pre-dawn still awaited the kiss of the Scottish sunrise. Only a band of faint silver yet told of the new day’s arrival. Beatrice knew that she had no time to stare at the sunrise any more than she had time to wonder about Laird MacSween.
Soon, the servants would be up, preparing breakfast and starting their chores for the day. Beatrice must be long gone by then.
Despite knowing the roads, the journey looked very different at this hour, and when traveling alone. Beatrice was sometimes sure that she must be almost there and then convinced only a few minutes later that she might not be on the right road.
Her ears pricked up at the clip-clop of a horse’s hooves coming down the path of stone and dirt to the west. A bolt of panic shot through Beatrice and she threw herself into some bushes.
Had she been missed from home already? The sun had only just risen and she doubted that anyone would go to her chamber before nine.
In the bushes, Beatrice calmed herself. The rider was moving in a slow leisurely fashion, more like someone out for early exercise than hunting a runaway. Her fears were allayed further on seeing that the rider was another woman.
As Beatrice regained the road, she saw the woman stop and appraise her in a similar manner. After only a few moments, the horse was moving again and soon pulled up alongside her.
“Good morning to ye, lassie,” the woman greeted her, looking more curious than suspicious a lone girl abroad in the Highlands on foot at this hour. “Are ye well?”
“Aye, well enough. Thank ye.”
A handsome, capable-looking lady of some thirty years, the woman laughed as though Beatrice had said something funny. Still, it was a friendly laugh and without malice.
“Ye’re out early and it looks like we’re goin' in the same direction. Would ye care to join me? It will be quicker on horseback, if that matters to ye.”
The woman gestured at the winding road through the landscape ahead and Beatrice paused before answering. A ride would help her but she must be sure of their direction first.
“I’m on me way to MacSween Castle,” Beatrice told her new acquaintance.
“Are ye indeed?” asked the woman with an amused lift of her eyebrow. “Do ye have business there?”
“Aye, with Laird MacSween. But that is private business.”
Again the woman laughed, this time throwing back her head and pealing with merriment.
She looks like she’s havin' a fit. God help me if she falls off that horse…
“Laird MacSween? Well, there’s a good man to have private business with,” the woman said, after recovering her composure. “A beautiful beast of a man, that one.”
A beautiful beast? What manner of man was he that other women should talk of him as they did?
Beatrice’s mouth ran dry, and her heart fluttered in her chest. She had spoken the truth in saying that Laird MacSween’s appearance did not matter to her.
Was there something in him that would make her revise this position? It was hardly a question she could ask.
“Get on, lassie,” said the woman, now holding down a hand to help Beatrice up on to the saddle behind her “I’ll take ye the rest of the way to the castle.”
Leo had not slept following the council meeting. He hadn’t even bothered trying and had instead paced the castle walls and then his own chambers for the entire night, faithful Tyler at his side.
“We'll find someone suitable, me Laird,” Tyler had tried to assure him several times as Leo alternated between pacing the floor and glowering out of the window into the darkness. “We’ve time enough to find ye a wife who will be loyal and true and a good mother to Effie and…”
Each time Tyler spoke such nonsense, Leo silenced him with a glance, his man-at-arms knowing well enough when to stop talking in his laird’s presence. If only his council were so wise.
“Someone is at the castle’s entrance,” Tyler suddenly spoke up, raising himself from the window seat where he had been dozing, and peering out for a better view. “It’s a woman!”
“Have ye nae kent many women yerself, Tyler?” Leo retorted in ill temper. “Ye sound like this one is the first ye’ve seen. The castle is full of women.”
“Nae like this there’s nae,” returned Tyler, unabashed by Leo’s gruffness. “It’s a young woman, a lady, alone. Oh me, look at her, Leo! I think she’s a beauty under that hat and cloak.”
Leo declined to look. He was in no mood to appreciate the beauty of strange women at the castle gate. She was likely only the daughter or sister or one of the senior guards or stewards and Tyler was only thrown by whatever outlandish hat she wore.
“If she’s really alone, ye’d better go downstairs and make sure nay one gives her any trouble,” Leo dismissed his man-at-arms. “Conduct her to wherever she’s goin' and then ye may go to bed yerself.”
“Aye, me Laird.”
Expecting that he would not see him again until the afternoon, Leo was surprised when Tyler returned a very few minutes later. He was even more surprised to set eyes on the strange young woman at Tyler’s side.
Now carrying her hat and grey cloak, this visitor’s auburn hair fell in a tumble about her shoulders and her hazel eyes sparkled with a most peculiar energy.
While not usually a lecherous man, Leo could not prevent his eyes from glancing appreciatively over her curvaceous figure before he reined in his gaze and confined it to the woman’s face.
She was indeed a beauty but why on earth had Tyler brought her here?!
“Ye said to conduct her to wherever she was goin',” Leo’s man-at-arms told him mischievously. “She said she was coming to see ye.”
“Me?!” Leo blurted out in astonishment. “I’ve never seen her before in me life, Tyler! Ah….I daenae ken ye, Madame. Why should ye come here seekin' me?”
Tyler had rapidly absented himself from the scene, leaving the laird alone with his visitor and utterly disoriented.
While she regarded Leo quietly, saying nothing until now, the woman’s eyes were lively and disconcerting.
There was a purposefulness to her, a daring, that intrigued him.
He had addressed her as “Madame” but saw no ring on her finger.
What kind of bold young woman turned up alone at the laird’s castle and demanded to see him as a man of equal rank might do? No, bold was not the right word for this woman, Leo decided as he studied his guest further. There was a sense of shy desperation radiating from her too.
Married or unmarried, this was no shameless strumpet come seeking the laird’s bed and favors. Whatever purpose had driven this young lady here to MacSween Castle, it had been important enough to overcome her natural feminine reserve.
“Laird MacSween,” she greeted him, breaking the silence between them at last. “Me name is Beatrice Whitmore. I have come to ye with an offer.”
“An offer?” Leo queried. “I had just decided that ye werenae that kind of woman. Was I wrong in me judgement?”
“Pray, on yer honor, daenae tease or insult me, Laird MacSween, though I am here without protection,” she replied with dignity, immediately chastening him. “I am in direst distress and had nae choice but to seek ye out.”
“Forgive me,” Leo said quickly. “I speak too rarely to young ladies in distress. Whitmore…I do ken that name. Who is yer father or brother? Do I ken yer family?”
“Me father is Patrick Whitmore and he owes ye more than he could ever repay, and other lairds besides. I need urgent assistance, and I believe none could help me as ye could, if ye accept me offer.”
Leo’s excitement over his mysterious visitor subsided a little with the name of her father. There were all kinds of reasons, either mundane or sordid, that a debtor might send his beautiful daughter to speak to a laird.
“What offer could ye possibly have for me?” Leo asked. “Or is this offer from yer father? I warn ye that I think little of men who hide behind women’s skirts.”
“The offer is me own and a simple one, me Laird,” she told him, her countenance solemn. “It is like this, I am in need of a husband…”