Chapter 2
It had taken her a few tries and some of the sparse coins she’d brought to head in the right direction for Calder Castle.
MacBain Castle had been her first assumption, given that he was the Laird, but she had been incorrect and had been lucky enough to be sent in the correct direction when she’d stopped to ask if she was on the right path.
The laird never lived in MacBain Keep, apparently, even though that was the place that whoever held the title of Laird MacBain had lived in for generations.
She wondered briefly why he’d chosen to set up his own castle, when there was a perfectly good keep just waiting for him to use. Bigger, too, by all accounts.
Not that it was her business, of course. She couldn’t care less which place the laird lived in, so long as he was willing to help her out with her troubles.
Not a single person she asked bothered to enquire why she would have any interest in heading that way, and in fact seemed somewhat perturbed by the thought of giving her any directions at all.
They didn’t seem to want to know. It was like the Calder name was a curse, just like she’d thought before.
People shied away from it like nervous horses, trying to end the conversation and edge away, eyes rolling.
She had managed to convince them through sheer tenacity.
Well, what other choice was there? Eventually, it seemed that they gave up convincing her not to go to the castle and decided if she was so determined to act as a woman grown and see herself to the front step of a man known among the clan as a fearless killer, she could see to her own consequences.
Just fine with me. I can handle the consequences. I know what the consequences of doing nothing will be, and I’m nae prepared to handle them.
Calder Castle sat far from the center of the throng of villages that made up their clan lands. Whereas MacBain Castle was just past the second village beyond her own, Calder Castle took the remainder of the morning and a portion of the afternoon to reach once she’d been set to the correct path.
It was located through a thick forest, one of the many sprawling, never-ending forests which covered the Highlands hills.
The path was mercifully clear and trodden well enough to keep her from wandering and getting herself turned around.
The castle, as far as she could tell, backed up to a large body of water that made her think that might be part of why this area was so lush.
It could explain why the angelica by which Matthew swore seemed to appreciate growing here and refused to place its roots closer to her village and the well upon which it relied.
There were fewer patches of thick forest near the village, the trees having been cleared away for homes and farmland.
Finally.
She was standing in front of a set of gates that she had secretly expected to be half-rusted and in disrepair. Instead, when she gently pushed, they swung open easily and almost silently. Not locked.
There was no heavy gate, no drawbridge, no archers on the walls.
In short, the place was not like a keep at all, and certainly not like the sort of place a laird would live.
Why would he leave the gates unlocked? Weren’t lairds in danger?
Didn’t people try to kill them, or take them for ransom?
Or at the very least, they barged in to make supplications, to ask for help or beg for favors. Who could be bothered with that?
Not this laird, judging by what she’d heard of him. He didn’t seem to care what happened to anyone, least of all himself.
“Ah, of course,” Hannah muttered to herself as she stepped slowly through the gates. “Who would dare come for this laird—attack or visit?”
She glanced around as she moved carefully beyond the gates, not noticing any signs of life beyond the well-tended garden peeking around the side of the stonework that tucked itself up against the stone wall surrounding the castle.
There, in the corner of the garden, she caught a glimpse of something.
Aha! A smattering of the exact plant she was here for, with its strange bulbous blooms. Her breath hitched, and her fingers curled into fists.
She longed to rush forward and gather as much of it as she could.
She could cram the plant into her pockets, fill up her satchel, and even hitch up her apron to serve as a makeshift basket.
And then I’ll lose both of me hands for stealing the laird’s herbs. Be patient, ye fool.
She forced herself to keep moving, one hand clutching her horse’s reins, the other hugging the satchel at her hip. Feeling like she was stepping into forbidden territory but still having good manners about it, she reflexively closed the gate behind her.
Seeing nowhere reasonable, and knowing her pony would come if called, she simply dropped his reins and patted his neck. The garden had a fence, and the grass felt like it was available if nobody was going to be keeping guard over it.
Drawing another breath to steady herself, Hannah kept walking through the courtyard and glancing around in the hope of finding someone, anyone, to reassure her that she was in the right place.
Or even a lived-in place. The only reason she kept going was the fact that everything was in such a state of fine repair.
At the front door, she knocked. Once, twice, thrice. She called out.
Finally, unable to resist the urge to explore and a guilty touch of impatience, she tried the handle.
The door opened without hesitation, and she couldn’t hold back another scoff. “Oh.”
She stepped through the door, deciding that perhaps the lack of staff was the problem and the Laird simply couldn’t hear her.
Though she had never imagined a laird simply not knowing what was happening in his own castle.
Then again, he didn’t seem to be paying much attention to the villages nearby either.
Her somewhat unkind thinking stumbled when she made her way inside and found a clean home.
Warm. Tidily appointed and obviously strongly considered.
A large targe was displayed on the wall across from the entrance, the clan’s crest boldly painted across the leather that covered what she knew would be wood.
Above the shield rested a pair of broadswords that looked like they could be snatched from the wall at any moment, crossed over one another. Beneath the shield hung a horn that looked like it had seen use.
Hannah’s steps slowed as she moved through an entryway that spoke to power and practicality.
“Is anyone there?” she called, pausing for a response, and then trying again.
Part of her felt guilty, as though she had invaded a space she had no business entering, and part of her was frustrated that it was so hard to find anyone to answer her.
She kept moving, finding a room just beyond the entrance with a respectable number of books.
Her steps stuttered on flagstone, and she couldn’t help the soft gasp of appreciation that slipped past her lips as she glanced up at shelves that would require even her reasonable height significant help to reach.
She could see that help was available in the form of a sturdy wooden ladder affixed to a pole that ran along the top of the shelves.
After warring with herself during a moment’s pause, she couldn’t help the impulse and stepped into the room, carefully picking up a nearby book.
Her father had taught her to read. It made no sense to leave his distillery to an illiterate girl, and he knew that after Violet, their mother could not tolerate another pregnancy, so she was his choice. That meant she learned words, she learned numbers, and she was grateful for his foresight.
After skimming the title, she returned it to its location and picked up another book with an ornate leather binding.
She was distracted from the title when, out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of the large table near a window that offered a much more generous view of the garden she’d seen hints of from the front of the castle.
She stepped around the small table she’d been perusing and made her way across the room to the larger one.
There was a massive parchment map pinned to the table.
It looked like it had been rolled and unrolled dozens or hundreds of times, the ink faded and the page worn.
Her gaze was drawn quickly to the most faded part of the map, where MacBain Castle announced itself with a sketch of a building that indeed looked like a rough sketch of a castle.
Her gaze slid from the most faded notation on the map to the newest in a different hand: Calder Castle. A more careful sketch of a castle that denoted where she stood now.
Switching the book to her other hand, she leaned closer, scanning the map and seeing a familiar word. When her father had taught her to read, he’d done so with a multitude of texts, including those from the church. Her Latin was rudimentary, but she recognized Septentrio immediately. North.
Using that as a reference point, she reached out and slid her finger across the map, recognizing the name of a river that ran near her village and spotting nearby clusters of buildings marked with village names until she found her own.
She was strangely gratified to see that they were remembered on the Laird’s large map of the land.
Suddenly, an amused chuckle sounded from behind her. Close enough that it raised the hairs on the back of her neck, and she barely had time to chide herself for not noticing the presence sooner.
“Daenae let me interrupt yer visit.”
The book in her hands fell to the table with a thud, and she whipped around, finding the table holding the map suddenly an immovable force as she realized she was nearly nose-to-chest with a man who had to have a full head plus a little extra on her, and who was built broadly enough that her breath caught.
She couldn’t recall the last time she’d had to look up, then up again.