Chapter 9
The Sisters' Return
On the morning of the third day, Inverness appeared under a low mist and a sky the color of pewter.
Diana studied the first houses through the opening of the cart.
The journey from the place where the clansman had left them had been short, but long enough for the mud to dry on the hem of the borrowed gown.
Eliza sat facing her, tightening the ribbons of her hat with a concentration she usually saved for bad decisions.
"Your accent," Diana said.
"My accent is impeccable."
"You said 'road' the way our mother did."
"Our mother was English."
"Not when she was angry."
Eliza repeated the word under her breath, this time with the vowels closed down.
"Better?"
"Less Scottish."
"A sad quality, but a useful one."
The cart turned the corner that led to the house Penelope had taken. Diana ran her fingers over the new glove. The old one, torn at the wall, was hidden at the bottom of her father's case, which had stayed with Iain at the shelter.
She had left Alistair feverish, awake, and furious about the departure.
Iain had promised the stitching would hold and forbidden any exertion for at least four days. Alistair answered that he did not accept prohibitions from healers. Diana asked Iain to repeat the order in Gaelic, in case the difficulty was linguistic.
The memory nearly changed her face.
She had it under control before the cart stopped.
Penelope's house had three floors, a pale front, and narrow windows onto the street. Nothing about it suggested danger. That was one of the reasons Penelope liked it so well.
The servant who opened the door recognized both sisters and went still.
"Miss Whitmore."
Diana stepped down.
"Good morning, Ellis."
His eyes went over the plain gown, the small traveling bag, and Eliza's face.
"Lady Hawthorne…"
"Is she at home?"
"Yes, miss."
The pause said Penelope was waiting as well.
Eliza paid the driver. The cart pulled away and took with it the last chance of pretending they had arrived by mistake.
Ellis opened the door wider.
"You must come in."
The hall smelled of wax, coal, and dried flowers. Diana knew every sound in it: the clock by the stairs, the silver tray being moved in the back room, the housekeeper's short step in the upper corridor. Coming back should have been familiar.
It was an entry into enemy ground.
Penelope was waiting in the drawing room.
She sat by the window in dark blue, with an untouched cup of tea on the table. There was an open book in her lap. The same one Diana had been reading in the carriage before the wheel broke.
No one truly worried would have arranged all that with such care.
"Miss Whitmore," Penelope said.
Diana stopped in front of her.
"Lady Hawthorne."
Eliza stayed half a step behind, as she did when she attended her sister in company. The position let her appear secondary while she watched the whole room.
Penelope closed the book.
"Six days."
"Five days and part of a morning," Diana said.
Penelope's eyes rested on her.
"How reassuring to know that you have retained your sense of time."
"It was necessary."
"I imagine so."
Penelope indicated the chairs by the window.
Diana sat. Eliza stayed on her feet until the lady offered her the second chair.
"Begin," Penelope said.
There was no advantage in ornamenting the lie. Diana had learned that from her father, though he had used the principle for diagnoses and not for infiltration.
"I found a wounded man behind the wall. When Robert came back with the water, I said I would take him to the small house."
"That I know."
"Before we arrived, two Highlanders appeared. One of them knew the wounded man. They said I had seen too much and compelled me to go with them."
Penelope looked at Diana's hands.
"Compelled."
"An armed man tends to make the word more precise."
"And your sister?"
Eliza folded her hands in her lap.
"I went out to look for Diana when she didn't come to the inn. A boy brought me a message saying where she was."
"The message written by your sister while she was being held by armed men?"
"Written before she knew there was more than one."
Penelope raised the cup to her lips. She still did not drink.
"Most convenient."
"Least comfortable," Eliza said. "The cart had a worse wheel than yours."
Diana did not look at her sister. Neither did Penelope.
"Continue."
"I was taken with the wounded man to an abandoned mill," Diana said. "Eliza arrived soon after. During the night they moved us. On the morning of the second day there was confusion among the men. We got away."
The story had been built on facts. That made it easier to hold and harder to break.
"Where did you run to?" Penelope asked.
"To an empty holding to the north. We stayed hidden until we were certain no one was following."
"And you sought no help?"
"We did not know whom to trust."
Penelope set the cup down.
"Not even in me?"
Diana let the silence run exactly as long as it needed to.
"The men knew your name."
The sentence produced the first unplanned movement in Penelope's face. Small. A hardening at the eyes.
"What did they say?"
"That you were asking questions about a map."
Penelope sat back in her chair.
"And you believed it?"
"I believed that violent men knew details of your household."
"That does not answer."
"It answers what made me wait before coming back."
Eliza worked at one of the ribbons on her cuff.
"We also needed clothes that didn't look as though they'd been through a mill, a ditch, and half of Scotland."
Penelope examined her gown.
"I see you partly failed."
"Scotland is persistent."
Diana recognized the mechanism. Eliza was turning tension into logistics, as she always did. Penelope usually found it amusing when the humor was aimed elsewhere.
That day she did not.
"Who was the wounded man?"
Diana had expected the question.
"I do not know."
"Did he have a name?"
"Most people do."
"You treated him."
"I treat people before requesting an introduction."
"And the Highlanders?"
"One of them was called Graeme."
Penelope went too still.
The name was true, which made it dangerous. Some of Malcolm's men knew it. To deny it altogether would have created an unnecessary weakness.
"Graeme what?"
"I did not hear it."
Eliza let out a breath through her nose.
"He didn't say much. When he did, it was usually to tell someone to be quiet."
"I imagine that was a difficult experience for you."
"Exhausting."
This time Penelope's mouth nearly moved.
Nearly.
"And why did they permit you to escape?"
Diana looked at the closed book in her lap.
"Perhaps they did not permit it."
Penelope raised her eyebrows.
"Explain."
"There was a change of carts. Two men argued. A third went out to check the road. Eliza let the back catch loose and we ran."
"You have told it the way one describes a visit to market."
"Fear does not improve with repetition."
Penelope studied her long enough for the clock in the hall to mark a quarter of an hour.
"Are you hurt?"
"No."
"Your glove was torn."
"I replaced it."
"There was blood on your sleeve."
"From the man I treated."
"And mud on your skirt."
"The road was covered in it."
Each answer met the question and stopped there. Diana caught the moment when Penelope decided she would get no more by direct confrontation.
The lady stood.
"You were gone six days, you return with an improbable narrative, and you expect to resume your places in this house."
Eliza stood as well.
"I was hoping for a bath before my place."
Diana stayed seated until Penelope turned her eyes to her.
"We depend on our wages," she said. "We have nowhere else to go in Inverness. If you would prefer to dismiss us, we will understand."
That was the most important part of the story: need. Penelope believed that people without means accepted humiliations others would refuse. Diana was offering her exactly that woman.
Penelope walked to the window.
In the street, a cart was unloading coal. The noise covered a few seconds.
"Ellis says you went back to see to Thomas before you disappeared," she said, still with her back to them.
"The arm needed splinting."
"And even so you returned to the man by the wall."
"He would have died if I had not gone back."
"Did that matter to you?"
Diana thought of green eyes, fever, and a voice that had asked about rivers.
"He was a patient."
Penelope turned.
The answer did not convince her. It did not need to.
"You may remain."
Eliza kept her face still.
"We're grateful."
"Do not be grateful yet. Miss Eliza will resume the messages and the rooms. Miss Diana, I need to finish the book that was interrupted on the road."
The order sounded like an ordinary one. It was a collar with the appearance of routine.
Diana stood.
"Naturally."
"Your rooms have not been changed. Ellis will bring hot water."
Penelope returned to her chair and opened the book.
The conversation was over because she had decided it was.
The sisters went up together.
On the first landing, Eliza moved ahead so that a maid could come down with a basket of linen. She said nothing until the bedroom door closed behind them.
"She didn't believe a word."
"She believed the parts she can use."
"She'll have someone follow us."
"Yes."
Eliza took off her hat.
"She'll search our things."
"That as well."
"And she still wants me to sort the dresses."
"Penelope never allows a suspicion to interfere with the wardrobe."
Eliza started on the buttons of her coat.
"How long do we have to stay?"
Diana looked out the window. From the third floor a strip of the river showed between the roofs. Farther on, past warehouses and smoke, Malcolm kept men, information, and the fragment of the map.
"Until we find out when the parchment leaves this house and where it goes."
"And if Penelope separates us?"
"We turn the tasks into errands. As we did before."
Eliza nodded.
"Graeme will check the chapel stone at nightfall."
"Not today. It would be too soon."
"He'll go anyway."
"Probably."
"Ill-tempered men have difficulty with instructions."
"That appears to include every MacLeod."
The bath came a little later.
Diana put on clean clothes and went back down to the drawing room before noon. Penelope was in the same place, though the book now lay on the table.
"Read," she said.
Diana sat and opened it at the marked page.
She read for nearly an hour. Penelope asked few questions, all of them about the text, none about the Highlanders. The absence was deliberate.
Early in the afternoon, Eliza came in with two boxes delivered by a supplier. The second carried the seal of Boyd, the merchant seen with Malcolm.
Penelope had it taken to her rooms.
Diana went on reading.
At nightfall, after a silent meal, Penelope closed the fan she had been examining.
"We will have guests tomorrow."
Diana marked the page.
"How many?"
"Few. A small reception, useful people only."
Eliza, at the tea table, did not change her rhythm as she poured.
"Shall I lay out the navy gown?"
"The gray silk."
Penelope looked at Diana.
"Mr. MacPherson will be present. I imagine he will have an interest in meeting the woman who spent days among Highlanders and managed to come back without a scratch."