Chapter 5
… Do not tell Papa just yet of my news, but do let him know that I am safe. And please, dear aunt, be assured that I know exactly what I am doing.
Yours faithfully,
Agnes (and Lizzy)
Satisfied that the letter said everything that needed to be said about her situation, getting betrothed to the most dangerous laird of all, Agnes carefully folded up the paper and poured on wax.
She had forgotten to bring her own seal, but the Laird’s was right there on the desk. It would have to do. If nothing else, it would provide legitimacy that she had not made anything up.
“Goodness, what is wrong with you?” she murmured to herself, her throat strangely choked up.
Lizzy, who was loosely strapped to her chest, snuffled in her sleep. Sadly, not much of a conversationalist.
“It is not as if you are never going to see your aunt or father again,” she scolded herself as she pressed the seal into the dark green wax. Almost black, in truth.
I hope she doesn’t see it and think it is bad news.
“I mean, it’s not as if Papa wants to see me anyway,” she continued, talking to herself as she might once have talked to her sister.
“He would probably be glad if I married the Laird because he wouldn’t have to think about me anymore.
How luxurious it must be to be able to grieve for as long as you please without having to concern yourself with others. ”
She gently stroked the baby’s fluffy hair—Lizzy was the sole reason she had had since losing Christine for waking up in the morning with a smile on her face.
“It will be his loss if he never meets his granddaughter,” she murmured, just as the study door opened and the housekeeper walked in.
Agnes jumped, her face flushing with embarrassment.
“Were ye talkin’ to someone, lass?” Iona asked with a puzzled smile. “Thought I heard voices.”
“Just mine,” Agnes admitted. “I was… talking to myself. Reading my letter aloud, I mean. For Lizzy.”
Amusement flashed in the housekeeper’s eyes. She clearly didn’t believe Agnes, but she said nothing more about it, beckoning instead.
“Well, if ye’re done with yer writin’, I’ve come to take ye and wee Lizzy for a tour around the castle, seein’ as ye’re likely to be with us for a while,” she said. “Leave yer letter there on the desk, on that bronze tray. Me husband will see to it that it’s sent.”
Agnes hesitated. “Leave it?”
“Och, the Laird willnae read it, if that’s yer worry,” Iona assured her. “He’s a very principled man, our Laird. If it’s sealed, he wouldnae dream of lookin’ at it. Even if it wasnae, he wouldnae glance at it.”
Still somewhat uneasy about leaving the letter there, Agnes eventually puffed out a resigned breath and dropped it onto the tray.
Curling an arm around Lizzy, she got up and went to join the housekeeper for the grand tour.
As it turned out, ‘grand’ was something of a misnomer when it came to Castle Buchlann.
It had ‘good bones,’ as Aunt Tabitha would have said, but there was an air of faded glory about the place.
An oppressive air that Agnes couldn’t quite put her finger on, although it certainly began with the fact that all the drapes were drawn, every hallway and staircase illuminated by wasteful candlelight in the middle of the day, or not illuminated at all.
Finely woven tapestries hung on the cold stone walls, having lost their silky sheen.
All in dark hues, not a bright color to be seen, so dull that they barely counted as decoration.
There were no flowers, no pretty paintings to please the eye, nothing beautiful that was there just for beauty’s sake.
Even the chandeliers and sconces cast an anemic light, as if the gloom of the castle had smothered the might of their blaze.
It all seemed so… dead, and it was not helped by the fact that there did not seem to be any other people around. It might as well have been a big, empty tomb, for all the life and joy that existed within the thick walls.
“Just give me a… moment,” Iona wheezed, pausing to sit in a plain wooden chair tucked in an alcove. “I cannae do the stairs as well as… I used to. Nae so… many, at least.”
Agnes herself was rather out of breath and welcomed the chance to sit down in a chair beside the old woman. “I think anyone would struggle.”
“Och, ye’re kind,” Iona chuckled. “Believe it or nae, there… was a time when I could… run up to the tower and… down without me heart racing… or me lungs strainin’. Nae a single bead of sweat either.”
“I suppose that is the beauty of being a housekeeper; you now get to delegate,” Agnes teased as she gently pulled aside the edge of the wrap to check that Lizzy was still sleeping.
After having her fill of milk thanks to the sweet wife of one of the soldiers that Iona had managed to convince, the baby was in the midst of a very contented slumber.
“Delegate?” Iona frowned.
Assuming the housekeeper didn’t recognize the word, Agnes explained.
“You know, giving all of the difficult jobs to the maids, making them run up and down, tending to all the rooms and everyone in them.”
Iona continued to frown. “I told ye before, Miss Agnes, there are no maids here. Aye, we’ve a couple of lads who sweep the floors when there’s too much dust, and they check the flues for birds, but the Laird willnae have maids in the castle.
There are three lasses that work in the kitchen to keep the men fed, including the cook.
They all live down in the village and come up every mornin’. ”
Agnes felt her own forehead creasing into a frown, for not a bit of this made sense. Clan Buchlann was supposed to be one of the most affluent, powerful clans in the Highlands. How could it be that there was no one in the castle, the very seat of their territory? Where was everyone?
“So, it’s just the soldiers here?” she asked. “The wives don’t live here?”
Iona nodded. “Pretty much just soldiers, aye. Whole place is like a barracks. The wives prefer to live away from the castle, in their home villages. But the lass feedin’ yer niece has agreed to stay as long as ye need, though I daenae ken if she’s all that glad to be nearer to her husband.”
She stretched out her arms and legs, her knees making the most awful crack. “Anyway, ye’ll be pleased to ken that ye’ll have yer own room tonight. I’ve begun preparin’ the Lady’s chambers for ye. And I thought I’d turn the room that adjoins it into a wee nursery for the bairn.”
Gordon’s bedchamber was the only place that Agnes had yet seen that had any vitality and grandeur about it. To her shame, she had been rather looking forward to sleeping in his soft, comfortable bed again tonight.
Alone, of course.
“And ye’ll need furniture to decorate to yer taste,” Iona continued merrily, lost in her own enthusiasm.
“And toys for the bairn, and clothes for the pair of ye, and… och, well, anythin’ ye could possibly want.
Me husband will be happy to fetch whatever ye need.
He’ll go to the village today, since he already has to send yer letter for ye. ”
Agnes smiled, admiring the old woman’s eagerness.
She looked so much younger when she spoke with such excitement, her eyes sparkling, her cheeks pinkening.
Especially when she mentioned her husband, as if they were preparing for their own children to return from somewhere, not arranging things for two relative strangers.
“You really needn’t go to such trouble,” Agnes insisted anyway. “I will be perfectly fine wherever you put me. I don’t need much, and neither does this little one.”
Iona covered her mouth with her hand and laughed awkwardly.
“Apologies, Miss Agnes. Ye must think me mad, prattlin’ on like this,” she said, shaking her head.
“It’s just that it has been years since me and me dear Marcus have had anyone else to care for, other than the Laird, so I cannae help but get carried away.
Ye must permit an old goat a little bit of exuberance, just as ye’ll have to permit me to spoil ye and the bairn. ”
Agnes tilted her head, certain she had misheard. “Years, you said?”
Surely, she heard wrong. The almanac that had brought her here was, by its very nature, revised every year to ensure that everything was accurate. Indeed, it had said that Gordon Declan Niall was the Laird, and the man she had met was him, so it was certainly not out of date.
But once again, how could such a prosperous clan have no visitors whatsoever?
Yes, the almanac entry had stated that all English should avoid the territory, but what about fellow Scots?
A successful clan had to have allies, friends, trading partners, and the easiest way to reinforce good bonds was through hosting people.
Or is that just the English way?
She had no real notion.
Then again, Lady Emma had hosted a gathering or two. It had been in the scandal sheets. Everyone who was anyone had wanted an invitation, driven by pure curiosity.
“Aye, that’s what I said,” Iona confirmed.
“Five years, give or take, since there was any sort of life in this castle. It was a different time, of course, and sometimes it feels like all of that was fifty years ago, but there were gatherings here once. Feasts. Guests. Enough servants that these halls were never silent.”
Agnes leaned forward in her chair, careful to support Lizzy’s back. “What changed? What happened five years ago?”
Evidently, if it could drain a castle of its vitality and servants, it had to have been something big.
As she waited for the answer, a chill crept down the back of her neck, as if she were seated too close to a draft. The kind of gooseflesh-prickle one received when they were about to receive a juicy morsel of gossip.
The housekeeper mirrored her, leaning in too. “Well, it all started with…” The sparkle in her eyes went out, her eagerness sputtering. She wasn’t looking at Agnes anymore, but at something over her shoulder.
Perhaps it was not a draft or the thrill of gossip that had sent that bristle running down Agnes’s neck. Perhaps it was the stealthy arrival of someone else. Someone who was clearly standing behind her.
“I should see to those rooms of yers,” Iona said, her gaze still fixed on whatever, or whoever, was behind Agnes.
I know who it is.
Agnes could feel him, like the dense, warm air before a storm, or the first nip of the changing seasons after a hot summer. She could feel him with the same sense that made her shiver if she found herself alone at night, walking past shadows that seemed to stare back.
She was about to protest and urge the housekeeper to stay when the old woman suddenly recovered her vigor, practically running up the stairwell to the next floor.
A breeze rushed past Agnes’s shoulder as the shadow made himself known, sitting down in the chair that Iona had just hastily vacated.
“Looks like we need to begin the discussion about rules sooner than I thought,” Gordon said icily, his wolf-like eyes devoid of any warmth. “Ye can start with this: never ask questions about things that daenae concern ye.”
Agnes stared at him, a little disappointed to discover that he had found his shirt. She might have been braver if he was more exposed.
If there was something afoot in this castle, something that could be a danger to her or her niece, didn’t she deserve to know about it? Or perhaps it was for the best if she didn’t. She might not like what she heard, considering what had been written about this laird and this clan.
Just then, the same man who had helped Gordon with water buckets the night before came running up the stairs. Rather more sprightly than his wife.
“Miss Agnes,” the man—Marcus, she remembered—said with a quick bow of his head. “I went to fetch yer letter, but I’m afraid I daenae ken where ye put it.”
Where I put it? But it is right there on the bronze tray in the study, where your wife told me to put it.
A little anxious that something might have happened to it, Agnes shot to her feet. “Of course, let me fetch it for you.”
She was about to run for the stairs when she remembered that Lizzy was tucked loosely against her chest. Rushing down to fetch the letter might jostle the baby too much, but she could not delay if the letter was missing.
Hesitating for just a moment, she made her choice.
“Here, hold her for a moment, will you?”
It was not really a question, as she removed Lizzy from the loose wrap and put her straight into Gordon’s arms. Instinct prompted him to cradle the baby against his chest.
Satisfied that Lizzy would continue to nap and not get jiggled from side to side during a sprint down the stairs, Agnes took off, followed by the astonishingly swift Marcus.
Indeed, if the staircase was not so terribly narrow, the housekeeper’s husband would certainly have overtaken her.