Chapter 1
Warm, steaming mash stretched out before her on the drying rack.
It was a familiar warmth and a familiar scent.
Hannah was fairly sure she’d breathed it in daily, starting from when she was knee-high, toddling after her father through their distillery.
Every inhale drew the scent of peat and damp grain.
The gentleman before her, with a head full of thinning hair but a full beard fit for King David himself, squinted his dark eyes at the mixture.
“Needs more time,” he remarked confidently.
Hannah almost agreed with him out of reflex. She was still used to her father being the authority in the room, even almost a year after the morning when he hadn’t woken. Even knowing that Matthew had worked at his side for many years.
Instead, she reached out, scooped a handful of the barley up as she’d seen the Leon patriarch do countless times, and chose to trust herself as well as the fact that she’d grown up in the distillery.
She inhaled deeply, drawing in the familiar sweet scent and brushing it between her fingers.
She didn’t even need to taste it to know the answer.
“More time, and it’ll be bitter,” she stated. “Send it now.”
The older man paused, shooting her a quick, surprised glance. The glance lasted for just long enough that her back straightened, ready for action. She felt her jaw clench, braced to argue. But then he smiled enough to crinkle the corners of his eyes.
“Aye, lass. Right ye are. I’ll make the arrangements to send it now, then.”
The breath she’d gathered to defend her stance left in a soft puff, and she relaxed as he turned.
“Thank you,” she managed, her breath coming out in a low gulp. “Samuel, Thomas! Mash is ready. Hop to.”
The pair of tawny-haired apprentices, one two years older and a good head taller, scampered from their corners of the distillery, and Hannah watched them start scooping the grain into containers to be transferred to the boiling water that waited.
Occasionally, one of their younger siblings would come along for the ride, helping out with small chores, or fetching and carrying in the distillery.
Today, one of Samuel’s brothers was here, skipping happily along behind his brother as if it were all a good game.
Hannah watched to make sure they were being careful with the grain, then she glanced up at the man beside her with accusation in her gaze. “Ye did that on purpose. Ye deliberately said that it wasnae ready.”
“Aye,” the older man said shamelessly, not turning his attention away from the apprentices as they worked.
“I did. The key isn’t just to have the knowledge in yer head, lass.
The trick is having the confidence to stick by it.
Knowing the right thing to do is no good if ye haven’t the spine to stick by yer own convictions and make the right things happen. ”
“What, ye think I’m too sparing and frail with me opinions?” she snorted.
“Ach, I never said that. I just want to be sure, aye? Yer father taught ye well, but it doesnae mean ye’re unwatched and on yer own. He’d want to know that his daughter was being looked after.”
Her initial instinct was to snap at him for doubting her, and to remind him that she did not need looking after. If anything, she was the one who looked after others. Violet, for example, or even Father.
However, the instinct she followed through on was to appreciate his quiet challenge being his way of making sure her whisky was as reliable as her father’s had always been.
She couldn’t afford to lose the reputation afforded to her family’s distillery, not with Violet to care for and the safety of their mother and father no longer an option.
He’s right. I do need more confidence. If Matthew had insisted that it wasnae ready, if he’d argued and stood his ground, how far would I have gone? Would I have given in, believing that he could see something that I couldnae?
That was a question she didn’t particularly need the answer to. Time would tell, and confidence was a skill that required time to build.
Lots of time, and lots of experience. She would have time, hopefully. Presuming that nothing terrible went wrong with the distillery.
“Matthew, the herb ye mentioned before that helped yer wife,” she said to the man beside her as they watched the boys at work. “What was it called again? Ye said it helped with her dizziness, aye?”
“Angelica.” His response was immediate and confident.
“Eased her stomach, helped her strength. We tried tansy, mint, and even a bit of ginger that we saw brought up from the coast. Angelica is the only thing to have worked. She didnae have much to say for the taste, just that adding honey helps. I’ve about run out by now; it fights the soil here. ”
He let out a sigh, shaking his head tiredly.
She could see exhaustion lined around his eyes, the sure signs of a long, tiring stretch of worry.
His wife had been badly sick for a while, and Matthew nursed her diligently.
He must have been thrilled to find an herb that helped, and equally horrified to learn that it was hard to find, and hard to grow.
“The only place I’ve heard it seen lately is the Calder gardens,” he added, disdain dripping from each word.
Like everybody else, he pronounced the name Calder like it was a curse.
Well, maybe it was a curse, in a way. Hannah pressed her lips together at the sound of it.
He made to spit, before he remembered where he was standing and thought better of it.
“We cannae get it from there, of course,” he added sourly.
“Like that selfish…” He cleared his throat and thought better of it once again.
“Like the Laird would be bothered to make sure we saw a leaf of it. I’ve nae even stirred meself to ask.
He’d throw me out on me head just for the fun of it or gather the herb together and make a bonfire out of it just to stop us asking for it. Something spiteful like that.”
Hannah glanced at the old man, more an uncle than a worker, and chose not to make a fuss about his wording.
When the previous Laird had died, they’d all hoped his successor would be more concerned with their well-being.
Instead, it seemed he’d forgotten they existed even more aggressively somehow.
Now, the illness that had taken her parents seemed to be trying to wrap its cold fingers around her little sister’s throat as well.
Violet was only nineteen summers, but she had become a shell of herself when their parents had died, and nothing Hannah did seemed to help, coddling or stern.
Now, she was fighting an illness that soured her stomach and made it so that food and water would not stay in her belly, and she had grown weaker by the day as a result.
But if that herb had helped Matthew’s wife…
It didn’t matter. The herb couldn’t be got. It didn’t grow well here, and the laird at Calder would certainly not share.
The door to the stillhouse burst open with such ferocity that it bounced off the wall behind it and rattled glass and stoneware jugs so hard Hannah was momentarily concerned she would be mopping whisky from the floor.
She bit back an oath, eyes flicking from the rows of wobbling crockery to the figure that had entered as though pursued by hounds.
“Hannah!”
The young man who burst through in a flurry of dark hair and dark eyes may have been her dearest friend, but Duncan, clumsy, thoughtless Duncan, was one broken bottle of whisky away from finding himself on the business end of her temper.
Before she could do more than open her mouth to scold him, he continued. “It’s Violet.”
He stopped speaking to heave for air, hands clasped to his chest, doubled over and red in the face. He was a strong man, but had never been much for sprinting.
And if he has sprinted now, there must be something seriously wrong. An emergency.
Harsh words died on her tongue, and she swallowed back a rush of fear.
Nay. Calm, she warned herself. Get the facts first.
Clearing her throat, she gestured with both hands, fighting down exasperation. “Well, daenae just stand there and pant for breath, Duncan! Quick, out with it!”
He gulped in a breath, worry flaring in his eyes.
Dread settled low in her belly and made the heat of the stillhouse impossible to feel over the chill that spread through her bones.
The boys stopped transferring the mash in her periphery, and Matthew placed a hand on her shoulder.
Handfuls of grain fell through their spread fingers, making a gentle rustling, rattling sound in the silence.
“She fell in the market,” Duncan explained rapidly.
“Tripped?”
“Nay, fainted. Dropped clean to the floor, went pale as a spirit. Never let out a scream or a cry, just fell.” He gestured quickly toward the cottage visible through the stillhouse door, and then, at the look on the faces of everyone in the room, he hastened to continue.
“She’s unhurt. Home.” He pointed again toward the nearby cottage, panting once again.
Hannah didn’t need him to explain more than that. It wasn’t the first time Violet had fainted, and certainly not the first time she had left the house without warning her, despite her repeated admonishments for precisely that.
“Saints above, when will she learn that I’d go with her if she asks?” she muttered, shaking her head, and set off at a brisk walk.