Her teacher helped her to dress in her warmest clothes. “Scotland is cold, so put on your heaviest wool.”
“I must get—” Edilean began.
“No! I’ll send it all, your books, your clothes, everything. He is waiting.”
In spite of her teacher’s admonishment, she managed to slip the packet of James’s letters into a pocket in the folds of her skirt.
By the time Edilean was dressed, she was filled with anticipation. Her uncle was so impatient to spend time with her that he was taking her to Scotland before the term ended. Edilean regretted not being able to say good-bye to her friends and favorite teachers, but the excitement overcame her sadness.
Scotland! she thought. Edilean had never traveled much in her life. She’d lived in London with her father and she’d attended school in Hampshire, and she’d visited the country houses of a few of her friends. But she’d never been outside the English borders.
Her uncle was sitting in the headmistress’s office eating bread and honey with a pot of tea. When Edilean came in, he looked her up and down in a perfunctory way, then went back to his food. She went to him as though to kiss him, but he pulled away with a face that made her think he’d be horrified by her touch. That was all right with her, as she was a bit put off by the look of him. His face was red, his skin rough, and his little eyes looked like they belonged on a small animal.
While she waited for him to finish eating—he didn’t offer her any or even speak to her—two of her teachers worked frantically to pack away as many of Edilean’s possessions as possible.
Outside, an old, heavy coach waited for them, and the headmistress told Edilean that they’d been able to pack most of her clothes and they were in the trunk now strapped to the back of the coach. “The books will have to wait,” her teacher said as they parted.
Once Edilean was in the coach with her uncle, she asked him why he’d come for her.
He looked at her as though she weren’t very smart and told her that it was near her eighteenth birthday. “Why else would I want you?”
Edilean thought of a few sharp retorts to that, but she didn’t say anything. She had an idea that it would be better if she made every effort to get along with her uncle and not antagonize him.
It took them nearly a week to get to his stone house. Each night they stopped at some inn for a hot meal and a bed. A couple of the inns were nice, but the others were hideous. The first night, Edilean asked to have a bath brought to her room, and that had caused so much hilarity that she’d never asked again. She made do with what water she could get from any sympathetic-looking maid.
When they reached his house in Scotland, it was late afternoon, and Edilean was tired to her very bones. Her hair was straggling about her face and she was so dirty she itched. She looked out the coach window and saw the tall, narrow old “castle” and wanted to cry. The thing wasn’t a castle such as she’d imagined, but a tower made of stones that looked like they wanted to go back to the earth they’d come from.
On the long trip her uncle hadn’t addressed a dozen words to her and he’d never once made an inquiry about her comfort. By the time they reached Scotland, she knew that whatever he wanted from her, it wasn’t going to be good.
She stepped out of the coach into a stone courtyard, where there were what seemed to be a hundred people staring at her in curiosity. They were all wearing pieces of woolen fabric that had been woven in a pattern of squares and lines. The women had on coarse skirts held in place about their waists with thick leather belts, while the men wore wool trousers and big shirts.
What Edilean liked about them was that a few of them were smiling at her. It wasn’t a full smile, but she could see it in their eyes. She knew she must look awful, but they didn’t seem to mind. An older man came forward and offered his hand to help her down the coach steps. It seemed as though it had been a year since she’d had such kindness. Turning, she smiled at all of them. “Thank you,” she said loudly. “Thank you for your welcome.”
Some of the people looked embarrassed by her words, but some of them smiled a bit more.
Her uncle walked toward the old wooden steps leading up to the second floor of the tower, leaving Edilean to make her own way. Right then she knew that this was her only chance to make a good first impression. She’d always been easy in company, and she felt that these people were open to friendliness. Instead of following her uncle inside, she walked about the courtyard and introduced herself as Edilean Talbot. She admired babies and complimented the women on the huge brooches they wore to keep their tartans on their shoulders. She went into the stables and talked to a wonderful man named Malcolm about the horses.
“I think you’ll like this one,” he said in an accent so heavy that Edilean had t
rouble understanding him.
She followed him to the end stall and there she saw Marmy, her dappled gray mare. Edilean couldn’t help her tears as she nuzzled the horse’s nose. Her mare was the one constant in her life. When she was in school, Marmy was boarded nearby, and when she visited anyone, her horse was sent ahead so Edilean would have her own mare to ride.
“She’s glad to see you,” Malcolm said.
“And I’m glad to see her. We’ve been together since I was just twelve. She likes her oats.”
“Aye, she does.”
Edilean spent several minutes talking to the man, having him repeat things she didn’t understand, then finally, she went into the tower.
That her uncle’d had her horse brought to Scotland made Edilean think more kindly of him and she wanted to thank him. He was nowhere to be seen, but there was a maid there, a tiny woman named Morag, who took Edilean almost to the top and showed her a cold, bare room that was to be hers. Edilean was shocked at the ugliness of it, but she kept her face from showing her feelings as she turned to Morag and thanked her for her help.
For a couple of days, Edilean hardly left her room. Morag saw that she had food and water and was given the necessities, but Edilean needed rest and to prepare herself for whatever her uncle had planned for her. Her intuition told her it was going to be bad.
When he finally called her to him, it was worse than she thought. He bolted the heavy door behind her so no one could hear them, then he sat down between two men who repulsed her. One was old and ugly; the other was young but had eyes like a mad dog. Her uncle told her that on her birthday, at one minute after midnight, she was to marry one of the men. “You’re to choose one of them.” The way he said the word made it sound as though he thought it was the biggest joke in the world.
“I’m sorry,” Edilean said politely, “but I cannot marry either of them, for I’m already engaged.”