Chapter 10
CHAPTER TEN
Leo had been waiting longer for Beatrice to arrive than he had expected. Was she still primping and preening herself or had she got lost on the way? Surely, Shona and Tyler would not have left her wandering so long.
The door to the Great Hall was half open, and his ears pricked up at the sound of small footsteps before he saw Effie approach the table.
“Where have ye been, child?” he asked as she took a seat at the massive table, some distance from him today rather than the place beside him where she usually sat.
“Only playin',” she laughed, as though at some secret joke. “Bea is on her way but I ran ahead to tell ye she was comin'.”
“Is that so?” Leo remarked with a smile.
Being late because Beatrice had been playing with Effie was a different matter and perhaps the only kind of lateness that wouldn’t bother him. Moments later a footman entered and opened the Great Hall door for Beatrice, with Shona on her heels, still fussing over her new lady’s hair.
Beatrice’s auburn locks glowed like dark fire and her deep green dress suited her perfectly in color and fit, setting off the hazel of her eyes. Effie brightened on seeing Beatrice and then laughed delightedly as she chose a seat beside Effie rather than sitting nearer to the laird.
“Thank ye for invitin' me to dinner,” Beatrice said, her smile directed at both Leo and Effie. “And for the dress. Never in me life have I had a dress as beautiful as this.”
“Ye look like royalty,” Effie complimented. “Like a princess or a queen or an empress.”
“Aye, it suits ye fine,” the laird said, wondering if the surging of his blood when he first set eyes upon Beatrice in that dress had been as obvious as it felt.
He hoped not. He did not want to be like certain of his councilmen. Leo lifted a hand, and the servants waiting at the edge of the hall began to move. One after another, they were served their food.
Beatrice sat with her hands folded in her lap until Leo had cut into his haggis and taken a bite. He noticed, again that Effie didn’t so much as reach for a fork until Beatrice had done so.
“Have ye heard any news from me parents?” Beatrice asked, lightly poking at the boiled cabbage on her plate. “Or me cousin?”
“Nay, it’s too early yet.”
A faint disappointment showed on her face. The message to her cousin might take some days to be seen and get a reply, but her parents lived within easy riding distance. They could easily have written back by now if they wished it.
I shouldnae be surprised that a shiftless man like her father would take his time answerin' a message. Even a message as important as his daughter getting married…
The messenger had returned from the Whitmore House with only the report that he had delivered a parchment to a friendly and very concerned maid. No one else had come to the door, and the maid had told him in no uncertain terms that Beatrice’s parents were unavailable.
Poor lassie to be saddled with that dobber of a father and then be stuck here with me.
Still watching Beatrice, Effie took to stabbing at her cabbage, but then grew bored with the daintiness. She lifted one soggy sheet of it off her plate and tossed it on the floor, giggling as it landed with a wet slap.
“Effie!” Leo said warningly.
He sighed. The child was overexcited and no wonder with such changes in her little world right now. He supposed he must summon the nursery maids and have Effie put to bed.
“We daenae do that, Effie,” said Beatrice before Leo could rise, her voice low but firm. “Only babies in the nursery do that. Big girls in the Great Hall never throw their food. Do ye understand?”
“Oh,” said Effie uncertainly. “I forgot.”
“Ye’re nae goin' to forget again, are ye?” Beatrice asked pointedly and the child shook her head.
“Sorry,” she whispered and Beatrice patted her hand.
“Daenae worry,” she said. “Just try again.”
As he watched this interaction, Leo relaxed back into his seat. Again now, Effie was watching Beatrice and copying how she ate until the final mouthful. Her patience and kindness were natural and admirable. Not every parent could show such forbearance…
Unbidden then, an old memory stirred in Leo MacSween’s mind buried deep there for more than twenty years.
Here, in this hall, at this table he had sat with his parents and some of his father’s friends, pleased to be included in an adult dinner and doing his best to please his father so that it might happen more often.
Then he recalled his father’s voice, almost as clearly as if the old man himself were standing beside him and yelling into his ear as he had done that night:
What are ye doin', damned fool boy! Throwin' food on the floor like an animal? Are ye a dog?
With a clank, Leo set down his tankard of ale and loosened his collar. Why think of this now? He didn’t want to but could not stop. With an unstoppable rush, the scene in his head continued, his mother’s voice now pleading.
Leo dropped the bread, it was an accident. Please daenae do that, he’s just a boy!
How strange now to remember once being small enough that his father could drag him up by the wrist and hurl him onto the stone flags. Leo rubbed at his left wrist now, recalling even the pain and beginning to sweat profusely.
His mother was screaming and Leo was screaming as he tried to drag himself up from the floor, his father’s feet and fists striking both of them despite Leo’s tender age and the child in his mother’s belly.
Nay, Daenae! Father! Nooooo!
Pushing back his seat so forcefully that it fell over onto the stones, Leo got to his feet, gasping.
“I am unwell, excuse me,” he managed to say through gritted teeth and then rushed from the hall as quickly as he could.