She didn’t knock on the closed door, just slipped inside. Another bright streak of lightning and she saw her father’s outline in the middle of the massive bed. She eased next to him and wrapped her blanket around her. She was safe now. She could feel his warmth even through all the covers. She snuggled even closer to his back. Nothing could hurt her now. Meggie sighed and went immediately to sleep.
Early the next morning, Tysen awoke slowly, instantly aware that he was in Scotland, sleeping in the huge laird’s bed, and felt his child pressed against his back. He smiled. When the children had occasionally began to come into his bed, he’d learned soon enough to wear a nightshirt. He remembered that Melinda Beatrice had been relieved when he’d donned the nightshirts she’d made quickly for him, a good half dozen. She’d never said anything about his sleeping unclothed, since that was how he’d been raised, but Tysen had known that she was embarrassed when she sometimes saw him naked. He supposed that he too was relieved once he started wearing the nightshirts. He’d matched his wife, both of them covered from tip to toe with white batiste. He also knew that she hadn’t liked performing her marital obligations, for he’d once overheard her saying so to her mother. It had never occurred to him that she wouldn’t want him once they were married, since he’d been desperate to touch her, to kiss her, to come inside her. He’d always believed her reticence, her shyness, were fitting and proper but that she would change once it was deemed by God and the Church to be the thing to do. But no, she’d suffered him. That was the way he thought of it each time he needed a man’s relief. She’d suffered him. She was a lady. He supposed that was simply the way it was. But then he would think of his brothers and their wives and how they were always touching and laughing and kissing behind the door. No, he turned off those thoughts. They were worthless. They were probably ungodly as well, but he didn’t want to examine them closely enough to determine that. Life was life, and he was a very lucky man.
He saw the bright sunlight pouring through the series of eight narrow windows that gave onto the sea. The water was blue and calm. He heard seagulls shrieking as they dove for their breakfast. After the violent storm of the night before, even the air in his huge bedchamber seemed fresher, brighter, drawing in the sunlight. The beauty of it touched him. It was God’s gift after the violence of the night.
He gently moved himself away from Meggie, saw her curl up into a little ball, her sleep unbroken. He eased her under the covers and lightly kissed her forehead. The storm must have frightened her, and the strangeness. The lightning tearing into that turret room must have been a sight. He lightly touched his fingertips to her cheek. So soft she was, and she was his. Even when she disobeyed him he loved her, loved her and her brothers so much that it humbled him, the completeness of it, the infinite richness of it.
He straightened. Kildrummy Castle. It was now his. He was now the laird. He said the words aloud, feeling them roll on his tongue, sing their magic into his mind. “ Kildrummy Castle.” It was his responsibility, no one else’s. It hadn’t really sunk in until this very moment, as he stood there looking out over the North Sea. This would be his home until he died, and then it would pass to Max. He wondered if the harsh beauty of the place would move Max to his soul, or if his scholarly son would just return to Euripides without a second thought and perhaps quote some offhand Latin.
Tysen bathed and dressed behind a screen in case Meggie woke up, then took himself downstairs. The wide front doors were flung open to the enclosed inner courtyard. The morning sun burst through into the castle, filling the vast entryway. Tysen could see dancing motes of dust in that brilliant sunlight.
Pouder, so very ancient that he seemed propped up, was seated in the old high-backed chair right by the large front doors. The old man blinked, scratched his hand, and Tysen wondered if he ever left that chair, even to sleep. He bade him good morning. Pouder gave him a nearly toothless smile that was singularly sweet and said, “Och, my lord, it’s good to have ye here. No valet, I see. I always wanted to be a gentleman’s valet, but Lord Barthwick said I was too old to learn.”
Tysen, who wasn’t stupid, and thought the old man was grand, said quickly, “If you would like to see to the placement of my clothes in the laird’s bedchamber, I would be very appreciative.”
“May I even fold yer cravats, my lord?”
“My cravats need to be arranged as well, Pouder. I thank you.”
“Ah, at last I will be a valet-in-training,” Pouder said, sighed softly, and let his head fall forward to his chest. His white hair settled gently onto his shoulders. He was asleep.
“Aye, a valet-in-training,” Tysen said quietly, savoring the taste and feel of that strange term on his tongue. He went quietly out the front doors, careful not to disturb Kildrummy’s butler.
He stepped outside to see MacNee, a handsome young man who looked after the stables. Rufus was with him, ready, Tysen thought, for his breakfast. But MacNee wanted to chat a bit. “Big Fellow is happy,” MacNee said. “All settled in, ate his oats, drank all his water. Aye, ye slept well in the laird’s bed, my lord?”
“Aye,” Tysen said. He was a “my lord” now. It felt very odd.
“Aye, that bed draws a body down and soothes his brow. Och, me brain’s not pulling its weight, my lord. Mrs. MacFardle has asked me to take all the eggs she collected to Barthwick Village, just down a ways from here, and sell them to the local folks. Too many eggs we have now, ye see, since the chickens squawk and twitter during storms and jest lay and lay. Ye need to go back inside, my lord, and have yer breakfast.”
Tysen was smiling as he went once again into the grand entrance hall, dominated by Pouder, sleeping quietly in his chair. MacNee and Rufus went to the kitchen and Tysen went into the small breakfast room with its impossibly old dark paneling and ancient portraits of dead animals strung up on lines in sixteenth-century kitchens. He would remove all the painted gore from the walls and make them white. The dark old carpet would come up and he’d have the lovely wood floor polished until it sparkled. He blinked at himself. It was the first time he had ever thought like this. He’d always, he supposed, simply accepted his surroundings as they were. Besides, Melinda Beatrice had seen to the vicarage. He didn’t recall if he’d even been asked if he liked this carpet or that piece of furniture. But now, here at Kildrummy Castle—it was all his. Yes, those floors would be polished until he could see his reflection in the wide, thick boards. He also wanted to meet everyone, hire every worker available to clean his house. He wanted to tour his lands, count the sheep, learn what kind of fish the men caught. He rubbed his hands together. England was a long way from Kildrummy Castle. He felt light and happy.
He felt infinitely blessed.
He ate porridge that Mrs. MacFardle begrudgingly served him, found it excellent, and decided his first visit would be to Barthwick Village.
[You are] the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth.
—Shakespeare, King Henry IV
Mary Rose stood in the shadow of the thick pine trees and watched the new Baron Barthwick stride out through the gate of Kildrummy Castle, wearing buff riding britches and a dark brown jacket. He looked very fine, very much an English gentleman, not that she was all that certain, for she’d only seen a few in her twenty-four years. He was young, but that wasn’t a surprise. She’d overheard Uncle Lyon telling about the Fall of Barthwick, now in the hands of a demned Englishman, one too young to know what he was about. Then he cursed Tyronne Barthwick for not ensuring an heir—half a dozen boys weren’t enough and then the old coot had the gall to die when he’d only reached his eighty-seventh year. And then her cousin, Donnatella, had laughed at her father and told him not to worry, she would see to things. Mary Rose knew what that meant: if the English baron was at all to her liking, Donnatella would marry him. At least that was possible. The Edinburgh solicitor Donald MacCray had told them that the new baron was a widower. How sad, she thought, that such a young man had already lost his wife.
The baron appeared tall and lean from Mary Rose’s vantage point, and he had light, thick hair that a slight morning breeze was ruffling on his brow. He was leading a big bay gelding. She watched him swing ever so gracefully onto his horse’s back, straighten in the saddle, and look around him. Then he threw back his head and breathed in very deeply. She heard him say something to his horse, like “Big Fellow,” which was surely an odd name.
She wished she could see him up close, but of course she couldn’t. Nor would he wish to see her anywhere near him, since she was the Local Embarrassment. She watched him ride toward Barthwick Village, just to the south, watched him until he rounded Bleaker’s Bluff, which rose up a good fifty feet, and was lost to her sight.
She turned and began her trek through the pine forest back toward Vallance Manor. She had just cleared the trees when she heard horse’s hooves coming toward her. She ducked behind a particularly fat pine tree.
But she wasn’t fast enough. The horse stopped close by. She heard it blowing, heard a man say, “Easy now, Barker.” There was no help for it. She wasn’t a coward. She wasn’t about to race back into the forest and hide among the trees.
Mary Rose straightened her skirts and came out from behind the pine tree. The sun was bright overhead, everything shone, the greens were utterly green, the wild grass lush, thick, vivid. The storm from the previous night had washed everything to a high shine.
“Ah,” he said, striding toward her, “I thought I saw you come this way, Mary Rose. You always liked watching from the forest, hiding away so you could see but not be seen.”
“Hello, Erickson,” she said, fear and dislike blending to make her voice very cold. “I just saw the new Baron Barthwick ride from the manor.”
“Of course he didn’t see you, did he?”
“I can’t imagine that he would be interested in seeing me,” she said, and took a step sideways.