Amanda Scott (29 page)

I
sabella, Countess of Strathearn and Caithness, rushed past Sorcha and Hugo to Isobel’s litter, demanding to see her grandson.

“Sidony cannot have told her, since she does not know the wee laddie exists,” Sorcha said to Hugo. “You must have sent a message here, as well.”

“I’m no fool, lass,” he said. “I sent it when I sent men to meet Michael. I had to let her know about the birth of her grandson and that Isobel was with me. She’d have handed me my head in my lap had I done aught else.”

“Aye, sure,” Sorcha agreed, eyeing the countess warily.

But Isabella had eyes only for her grandson. She took the baby gently from Isobel’s arms and gestured to several menservants who had followed her outside.

Ordering them to carry Isobel on her litter to her bedchamber, she said to her affectionately, “I ordered a fire to warm your room as soon as I received Hugo’s
message, and my Martha will see that you both have a wash and fresh clothing. Then you can enjoy your supper in quiet comfort, for you will want to rest well before Michael comes.”

“Thank you, madam,” Isobel said with a smile. “He’ll come soon, I think.”

“Aye, he’ll waste no time,” the countess said. Then, turning to Hugo, she said, “Do you mean to sit there on that horse until he does, sir?”

“No, madam, certainly not,” he said as he swiftly dismounted and made his bow to her. “I did not want to interrupt your reunion.”

Returning the baby to Isobel’s arms as four men picked up the litter to carry her into the keep, Isabella turned back to Hugo, acknowledging Sorcha’s presence with a flickering glance. As he moved to lift her down from her horse, Isabella said dryly, “I warrant you have news for me.”

“Aye, madam, but first allow me to present to you Isobel’s sister, the lady Sorcha Macleod. Make your curtsy, lass,” he added.

As if, Sorcha thought with annoyance, she were twelve and backward in her manners. Determined to show that, shabby clothing or not, her manners were excellent, she obeyed him with her head high. Smiling politely, she said, “I am honored to make your acquaintance, madam.”

“I own, your presence here stirs my curiosity,” Isabella said as Sorcha arose from her curtsy. With a twinkle, she added, “Where came you by that awful dress?”

“Hugo made me wear it,” Sorcha said, casting that gentleman a black look.

“I could hardly allow the two of them to ride here in the garments they wore to his grace’s installation,” Hugo said. “Or in the disreputable rags they wore when I found them trying to masquerade as lads near Dail Righ village.”

“I see,” Isabella said, gazing thoughtfully at him for a moment before she added decisively, “I look forward to hearing the whole tale. Sidony has not been entirely forthcoming, you see. She seems worried that you would not want her to tell me about it, Sorcha, but nearly certain that Hugo would. An indecisive child but otherwise quite unexceptionable. You were right to send her to me, Hugo.”

“You relieve my mind, madam,” he replied with a teasing smile. “I was afraid you would be furious.”

“Impertinence is never becoming, sir, but I do see that you have had your hands full. Let us go inside. I’ll wager that you are starving for your supper and that Sorcha will welcome a wash and change of clothing as much as Isobel will. She can attend to that before we eat—no disreputable leggings, though,” she added firmly.

“No, madam, certainly not,” Sorcha replied, deciding that the countess was not nearly as formidable as Hugo had described her.

An hour later, she was not so sure.

In the meantime, Isabella had provided her with a comfortable bedchamber all to herself, clothing from Isobel’s wardrobe, and warm, scented water to wash the worst of the dirt away. She had also sent up her seamstress at once to begin altering a few of Isobel’s garments to fit Sorcha’s slimmer body.

Accompanying the seamstress, Sidony flung herself
into Sorcha’s arms, burst into tears, and sobbed, “I was terrified! Sir Hugo was so furious! I feared if the horrid men who hurt Rory did not murder you,
he
would. Oh, I do hope you are not angry that I told him. But whatever were you thinking to do such a frightful thing?”

“Hush now,” Sorcha said, gently extricating herself, all too aware of the fascinated seamstress. “I’m safe now, and we’ll tell you all about it presently. Have you seen the bairn?” she added as she moved to make use of the ewer and basin.

“Aye,” Sidony said. “I went to see Isobel first, because I could not otherwise have believed she was here. He is beautiful. But she would tell me only that men she thinks must have been in league with Waldron had—What?” she added in bewildered tones when Sorcha turned with a finger over her lips.

“We’ll talk about it later,” Sorcha said firmly. “Countess Isabella said they will serve supper soon. Are you ready to go downstairs?”

“Aye, sure, and my room is across the way if I need anything. Is this not pretty?” she added, showing off the pale-blue kirtle and the sideless, embroidered yellow surcoat she wore over it. “It is Isobel’s,” she added. “The countess told me to choose anything of hers to wear. I thought perhaps Isobel would not quite like it, but she said of course I should borrow whatever I need. Was that not kind of her?”

“Very kind, but you should have known she would not mind,” Sorcha said. “You would be just as generous if she were the one in need.”

“Aye, but all the same, one dislikes taking things without asking.”

Sorcha knew she was tired but thought her sister’s conversation even more tedious than usual. Taking herself sternly to task for the uncharitable thought, she nonetheless looked forward to seeing Hugo and the countess again at supper. His conversation would always be stimulating, and Isabella intrigued her as well.

With Sidony’s help and that of the seamstress, Sorcha was soon ready. With her raggedly cut curls confined in a gold net under a simple veil, she could feel confident that she looked well in the crimson-and-black-striped silk kirtle that Isobel had lent her. Fastening matching crimson silk slippers on her feet and a narrow girdle of gold links low on her hips, she pronounced herself ready for supper.

Not seeing Hugo among those gathering in the great hall when they entered, she felt a pang of disappointment. But Isabella stood warming her hands by the upper hall’s stone fireplace in the east wall near the dais.

“Hugo will return shortly,” she said as Sorcha and Sidony joined her. Without pause, she added, “I thought at first, and despite your dreadful clothes, that you must have traveled with Isobel. I feared, you see, that she had defied Michael and somehow managed to leave Lochbuie on her own. But since that is not what happened, how ever did the two of you contrive to meet Hugo at Dail Righ?”

Sidony nibbled her lower lip. Sorcha hesitated, too, trying to think what to say, but she abandoned the effort at the sound of Hugo’s voice behind her, and turned with mixed relief and trepidation to greet him.

“Quizzing our guests already, madam?” he said with a smile. “Shall we take our seats first and tell the lads to put up the privy screens?”

“Aye, it might be better so,” Isabella agreed. Striding onto the dais, she summoned a gillie and relayed the command.

Then, taking her seat in one of two armchairs near the fireplace end of the high table, and directing Sorcha and Sidony to a pair of back-stools opposite her on the long side facing the end wall, she said, “Take Michael’s chair, Hugo. I doubt that he can get here before tomorrow evening.”

“Aye,” Hugo agreed as he obeyed. “The intent is for his grace’s flotilla to land at Dumbarton tonight, put up at the castle, and form a mounted cavalcade in the morning after kirk. The lads should meet them with my message around midday near Glasgow. But even if Michael leaves the others behind and presses hard, he’s unlikely to get here before Vespers.”

“Or later,” Isabella said. Nodding to the gillie poised to fill her goblet, she said to Sorcha, “Now, tell me all about your adventures and how you met Hugo.”

Hugo said dampingly, “Pray, madam, do not encourage her to think that what she did was aught but foolhardy.”

“Nonsense, ’twas a daring feat!” the countess retorted, smiling at Sorcha.

Thus encouraged but avoiding Hugo’s gaze, Sorcha said with a confiding smile to the countess, “You see, I had reason to believe that my sister Adela would be unhappy in the marriage our father had arranged for her, and so—”

“Why?” Isabella interjected. “Is the proposed bridegroom so dreadful?”

“He is much older and very dull,” Sorcha said, but the
interruption had given her time to realize where her explanation must lead. She could not be confident that Isabella would understand about her messages to Hugo, nor did she want to bring up his responsibility, or anyone else’s, for what had happened.

Therefore, when Isabella agreed that marriage to a very old, very dull man should be avoided, Sorcha said glibly, “That is what we thought, so when someone snatched Adela from the kirk steps and rode away with her, everyone thought it was someone she wanted to marry who had come for her.”

Isabella peered shrewdly at her but said only, “Indeed?”

“Aye,” Sorcha said, her confidence abruptly ebbing. “Only… only then we learned that was not what had happened.”

“And how did you learn that?” Isabella asked.

Sorcha glanced at Hugo.

“Aye, lass,” he said. “Explain that. But first you might take some meat from that platter Ivor is holding for you. The rest of us would like some, too.”

Startled to think she had been unaware of the gillie beside her, she used her eating knife to serve herself two pieces of roast lamb from the platter. A bowl of chopped cabbage with small roasted onions came next, and since vegetables other than nettle soup in springtime were a rare luxury at Chalamine due to the poor Highland soil, she took a generous spoonful of cabbage, too.

Isabella waited patiently, but when Sorcha still hesitated, Hugo said, “You disappoint me, lass. Where is your customary candor? You’ve made no secret before now of where you lay the blame for your sister’s abduction.”

Sidony made a small squeak of protest, but although Isabella glanced at her, no one else did, and she did not speak.

Collecting her wits, Sorcha said, “Sir Hugo is right, madam. I did blame him, and he bears some responsibility for what happened. But I’m the one who behaved badly when we met.” To Hugo, she said, “For that, I do apologize to you, sir.”

“Do you, Skelpie?”

A smile touched his lips, but why the unusual warmth in his voice or that smile should stir a prickling in her eyes, she could not have said. To counter what felt ominously like welling tears, she turned back to the countess and said quickly and with her customary frankness, “I slapped his face as hard as I could, madam.”

“Doubtless a salutary lesson for him,” Isabella said, regarding Hugo now rather enigmatically. “This incident occurred at Dail Righ, did it?”

“It occurred at Kildonan in view of the whole throng at his grace’s installation,” Hugo said. “I wore the wee skelpie’s handprint on my cheek for some time afterward. In truth, though,” he added, looking at Sorcha, “I deserved it.”

“Salutary indeed, then,” Isabella said. “But I’d like to know how you came to think Hugo could so far forget himself as to abduct a bride from her wedding.”

When Sorcha glanced at him again, he chuckled. “She believed it because she had sent messages to me herself to suggest that I should.”

“Nay, then,” Sidony said indignantly. “She did not say that.”

“As near as made no difference,” he insisted.

“
She
sent a message to you?”

The emphatic surprise in Isabella’s voice made Sorcha wince, but Hugo said, “She did, and fool that I was, I did not bother to reply to such impertinence.”

“That was not well done of you, Hugo,” Isabella said severely. “Moreover, sir, if she believed so strongly that you cared about her sister, you must have given someone the notion that you did. As I recall, last summer you flirted shamefully with Lady Adela at Orkney.”

Isabella’s tone, added to Hugo’s instantly sober expression, reminded Sorcha of his description of his aunt, and her wariness returned in full measure.

Sidony, clearly abashed by her own impulsive comment, fixed her attention on her trencher as Hugo and the countess continued to gaze intently at each other.

He, just as clearly, seemed reluctant to defend himself, and Sorcha could think of nothing to say that would not make matters worse.

Breaking the silence at last, Isabella said, “Hugo?”

The quiet way she said it raised hairs on Sorcha’s neck, but Hugo nodded.

“I don’t deny that I behaved badly, Aunt Isabella,” he said, “or that I richly deserved Lady Sorcha’s anger, although I did not think so at the time. But she—”

When he broke off, cocking his head to listen, Sorcha realized that the general din had increased significantly in the lower hall, where servants of the household and Hugo’s men were taking their supper at long trestle tables.

Exchanging a look with the countess, who smiled ruefully at him, Hugo rose and strode to the end of the privy screen as an older man stepped onto the dais there.

Seeing the two together, Sorcha had no doubt who the newcomer must be.

Hugo exclaimed, “Sir! Where did you spring from?”

“Dunclathy, of course,” the other said, clapping him hard on the shoulder and pulling him into a rough hug. “I reached Hawthornden yestereve, and your aunt sent word to me there as soon as she learned of your anticipated arrival.”

“I’m glad to see you,” Hugo said. “I expected you to stay at Henry’s house in Edinburgh at least until MacDonald, Michael, and the others arrived in town.”

With a twinkle that reminded Sorcha of the one she often saw in Hugo’s eyes, the older man said, “I’ll wager that Michael will come directly here, too.”

“He will if he wants to see his heir,” Hugo agreed. “But, come, sir, I must make known to you the ladies Sorcha and Sidony Macleod, Isobel’s two youngest sisters. This is my father, Sir Edward Robison,” he added.

The amenities soon over, the countess having ordered food for Sir Edward and told the henchmen who had accompanied him to find seats in the lower hall, he sat at his son’s side and soon had a full trencher and goblet before him.