Page 77 of How the Belle Stole Christmas

Once the two men were gone, Catriona rounded on Meaghan. “Did ye have to go telling them all that? We don’t know a blessed thing about those men!”

Meaghan gave her a strange look. “What, precisely, do you think is going to happen?”

Catriona dropped her voice low. “They seemed awfully interested in my artifacts. They were asking all kinds of questions—about how much gold there was, and if there were any other valuables.”

Meaghan waved this concern off. “Oh, pooh. We live on the most boring spot of ground in the entire British Empire. As if anything as interesting as a burglary would ever happen here!”

“But—”

“Besides,” Meaghan cut in, waggling her eyebrows tauntingly, “your little trinkets aren’t that important.”

Catriona sputtered a protest, but Meaghan had already turned toward the door. “My hatboxes.” She snapped her fingers and pointed, and a footman rushed to pick them up. “I want them on the seat next to me.”

“Yes, miss.” The footman, Ewan, bent over and lifted the tall stack of boxes.

“I dinnae think there will be room on the seat next to ye. We’re sharing a carriage with Sorcha and Bridget,” Catriona explained, naming two of their Edinburgh cousins.

Meaghan laid a hand on her wrist. “Oh, had you not heard? You’re no longer with Sorcha, Bridget, and me. You’re to ride with Callum and Fergus.”

“Absolutely not!” Their brother, Callum, was twelve, and their cousin, Fergus, was fourteen. They were about as mature as you would expect boys that age to be. “I’m nae riding with them.”

“There’s no room for you anywhere else.”

“Yes. There is. In the carriage with ye and Sorcha and Bridget.”

Meaghan shrugged one shoulder. “Not with my hatboxes.”

Catriona felt her cheeks heating. “Ye can take yer bloody hatboxes and—”

“Is it time to go yet?” Fergus came bursting into the entrance hall with Callum on his heels. “I cannae hold it in much longer.”

Catriona eyed her cousin, dread growing inside her. “Hold what in?”

Fergus grinned. “I had four servings of beans at breakfast this morning. Callum’s going to want to crack open a window, in spite of the cold.”

“Ha!” Callum called, jabbing his cousin in the chest. “Joke’s on you, Fergus, because I had five servings of beans this morning!”

“Ye did not!” Fergus cried, heading toward the door.

“I did so,” Callum replied, loping after his cousin.

“This cannae be happening,” Catriona muttered, rubbing her temple. She turned back to her sister. “Ye have to let me ride in yer carriage.”

Meaghan shook her head. “There’s no room for you.”

“There is so. Ye heard them—they’re planning to pass wind all the way to Portree!”

Meaghan didn’t even have the grace to look apologetic. “Open the window.”

Suddenly, it was all too much. “I’m yer sister! I’m more important than yer b-bloody b-bonnets!” She rubbed her eyes with her fist, furious at the way her voice was shaking, and even more furious that her knuckles came away wet.

Meaghan cast her eyes toward the ceiling. “There’s no need to be so melodramatic. It’s only a half day’s journey. You’ll survive.”

Catriona wasn’t the sort of girl to stamp her foot. But oh, she was sorely tempted! How could her sister be so unfeeling?

The footman, Ewan, reappeared. Or rather, Ewan’s voice emerged from behind a tall stack of hat boxes. “Begging yer pardon, Miss Meaghan. But these are too tall to all fit on the carriage seat. Is there one I could stow outside?”

“Oh, fiddlesticks!” Meaghan began peeking inside the boxes to see which bonnets they contained. “None of them can be stowed outside, but let me see which one could go with Catriona and the boys.”

“No.” Catriona leaned around the tall stack of boxes, trying to catch Ewan’s eye. “Dinnae put any of them inside our carriage. I will be riding with Meaghan, Sorcha, and Bridget.”

Meaghan narrowed her eyes. “No, you won’t.”

“Aye, I will!”

Ewan stood fixed to the spot, looking paralyzed with uncertainty. Catriona reached for the bottom box, intending to take the whole stack from him. “I’ll load them myself if I have to.”

“Don’t you dare!” Meaghan hissed, grabbing the same box.

The two sisters began to tussle over the box, which proved to be a tricky proposition, as there were four more boxes stacked atop it. Nor did Ewan, who was struggling to keep the tower from tipping over, release his hold.

Catriona was stronger than her sister, for all that Meaghan had four inches on her. She therefore expected to wrestle the box away with ease. But Meaghan was tenacious, at least when it came to her bonnets, and clung to the hatbox with mulish determination.

This lent a sad inevitability to what happened next.

Catriona’s fingers, still damp from the tears she had hastily wiped away, slipped on the smooth leather of the box.

This caused the momentum to shift unexpectedly toward Meaghan.

Alas, this proved to be a Pyrrhic sort of victory for Meaghan, because the whole stack of boxes listed perilously to the side.

“My hats!” Meaghan cried.

Just as the first box hit the flagstone floor, their cousin, Sorcha, stepped through the front door. She gasped and leaped back to avoid the falling boxes. Her hand knocked against the heavy castle door with a hollow thump, and she collapsed to the floor.

“My hand!” Sorcha screamed.

In a flash, her father, Catriona’s Uncle Francis, was at his daughter’s side. “What’s wrong? Where does it hurt?”

Panic surged in Catriona’s throat. Oh, God—what if Sorcha had hit her hand at an awkward angle and broken a bone? Such injuries were tricky, and if it didn’t heal properly, her hand would plague her for the rest of her days.

“Sorcha!” she cried. “I’m sorry! Are ye all right?”

Sorcha remained crumpled on the floor. She lifted her head, and her eyes were full of poison. “I’m not all right!” she snapped, holding her hand up. “I’ve broken a nail!”

Catriona’s heart all but stopped at the word broken, but then, she registered the rest of the sentence.

“Ye’ve broken… a nail?” She peered at her cousin’s outstretched hand.

There was no swelling or bruising. The nail on her long finger was indeed cracked, but only slightly, at the very tip.

The tear did not extend into the nailbed, nor was it bleeding. It only wanted a bit of trimming.

“Is that all?” Catriona asked, her voice full of surprise.

“Is that all?” Sorcha burst into tears and began sobbing on her father’s shoulder.

Uncle Francis glared at Catriona. “Look what ye’ve done, ye little eejit!”

“But…” Catriona glanced around the room. Everywhere she turned, a pair of eyes glared at her. She shook her head. “’Tis just a fingernail.”

“Just a fingernail?” Meaghan shrieked. “What is the matter with you? My hats, my hats! My beautiful hats! What am I supposed to do now?”

Indeed, several of the hatboxes had come open, and three hats lay on the floor. But none of them were damaged, so far as Catriona could tell. “Pick them up and put them back in their boxes?” she suggested.

Meaghan gave a shriek of frustration. Sorcha was still sobbing uncontrollably, and Uncle Francis was glowering at Catriona.

Suddenly, her mother stepped into the disarray. “Catriona McCallister! What is the meaning of this?”

Catriona wheeled to face her mother. “She started it! She’s given my seat to her hatboxes. She expects me to ride with Fergus and Callum.”

Her mother crossed her arms. “So?”

Catriona was on the verge of tears. “I dinnae want to share a carriage with Callum and Fergus. They’ve been eating beans all morning. They’re going to have a grand time passing gas all the way to Portree.”

Her mother remained unmoved. “Ye’ll manage.”

“Why should I have to manage?” Catriona’s voice had risen to a shout. “Why am I the one who always has to manage? Why dinnae you tell her that she has to be the one to stow her hatboxes somewhere else?”

Her mother leaned in, dropping her voice low, and Catriona knew that she had done it now. “There are twelve of us going on this trip, and ye’re the only one causing trouble.”

“I don’t even want to go to Paris! I’d rather stay home.”

Her mother gave her a cold look. “I think ye’d be pretty sad if ye woke up on Christmas morning and didn’t have any family to celebrate with.”

“No, I wouldnae either! I’d be glad.” Catriona was angry, but her voice was trembling, and a tear slipped down her cheek. This display of weakness in front of her family made her that much more furious. “Sometimes I wish I never had to see the lot of you again!”

Her mother lifted her chin. “Make sure yer trunks are packed, because we are leaving in ten minutes. Ten minutes, Catriona!”

Catriona gave a great sniff as she turned to face the wall. She took a moment to gather herself, dabbing her eyes with her sleeve and scrubbing at her nose with the heel of her hand.

Once she had made herself as presentable as she was going to get, she glanced around the entrance hall for her haversack, in which she had packed a couple of books for the carriage. Not spying it anywhere, she flagged down a footman. “Have ye seen my shoulder bag?”

He gave her a sympathetic look. “I believe yer sister took it upstairs with yer trunk to repack them both.”

Catriona nodded her thanks then strode up to Meaghan. “Where is my haversack?”

Meaghan wrinkled her nose. “It’s upstairs, and that’s where it’s going to stay. Honestly, Catriona—you’ve dragged that tattered old thing through every bog from here to Portree. It looks hideous and doesn’t smell much better. You can’t possibly be seen carrying such a thing in Paris.”

Catriona nodded, trying keep her temper. Her sister had a point. She did have a newer bag that wouldn’t stand out so much with the fancy dresses Meaghan had packed for her. “I’ll bring my other one, then. What did ye do with my books?”

Meaghan had already turned away and was whispering something to Sorcha, who had managed to recover from the traumatic ordeal of breaking a nail.

“Where are my books?” Catriona asked again.

Meaghan and Sorcha giggled, ignoring her.

Catriona grabbed Meaghan’s sleeve, shaking it. “Meaghan! My books! The ones that were inside. Where are they?”

Meaghan scowled, annoyed by the interruption. “They’re in your trunk.”

Catriona saw that her trunk was by the door, next in line to be loaded. She hurried over and undid the leather straps. She found her books quickly enough, as they were stacked on top of the piles of silk and muslin, and she removed two for the carriage.

But it was immediately apparent that her traveling desk, which contained not just her writing materials but all the letters from Xenophon, was nowhere inside.

She wheeled around, panic making her voice shrill. “Where is my writing desk?”

At least this time Meaghan bothered to respond. “It didn’t fit.”

Catriona crossed the room in three strides. “What do ye mean, it didnae fit? I told ye, I have to have it!”

Meaghan cast her a poisonous look. “Why must you always be so difficult? I can’t imagine that anyone is waiting with bated breath for letters from you.”

Xenophon, Catriona wanted to say. Xenophon actually enjoys hearing from me. He doesn’t think I’m embarrassing or worthless.

But she didn’t say any of those things. There wasn’t time. She only had ten minutes before the carriages departed—probably eight, at this point. And if there was any hope of her getting through this Paris trip with her sanity intact, she needed those letters.

She charged up the stairs, taking them two at a time, then ran down the corridor to her room.

Her sister had left it in a state of disarray.

She found her more presentable shoulder-bag easily enough—her wardrobe hadn’t been overflowing with the latest fashions even before her sister emptied it to fill her trunk.

But she couldn’t find her writing desk anywhere. She rushed around the room, checking beneath the plain wool gowns, flannel petticoats, and practical cloaks her sister had strewn across the floor. But there was no sign of it.

After tearing apart the room, her eye caught on something peeking out from beneath the bed skirts. Leaning down, she reached beneath the bed and pulled out the wooden box that contained Xenophon’s letters.

Clutching it to her chest, she wheeled around and hurried toward the door. She drew her skirts up to her knees so she could run down the stairs without tripping.

The entrance hall was deserted, without so much as a footman to open the door for her. She pushed on the great wooden door herself, breathing hard as she burst into the soft winter sunlight…

… only to watch the caravan of carriages pulling around the bend.

A dozen startled faces whipped around to face her. “Miss Catriona!” the housekeeper, Mrs. MacDonald, exclaimed. “Whatever are ye doing here?”

“I’m wondering the same thing myself,” Catriona muttered as the last carriage pulled out of sight. “My family seems to have forgotten me.”

Mrs. MacDonald wheeled to face the remaining servants. “How did this happen? Ewan, ye loaded her trunk, aye?”

“Aye,” Ewan confirmed. “I loaded it on the second carriage, the one with Miss Meaghan, Miss Bridget, and Miss Sorcha.”

Mrs. MacDonald placed her hands on her hips. “And ye didnae think to make sure its owner had also made it onto the carriage?”

Ewan shot Catriona a miserable look. “I’m sorry, Miss Catriona. Truly, I am. It’s just that yer sister said ye were riding with the boys, so I assumed ye were in the last carriage.”

Crossing her arms, Mrs. MacDonald turned to glare at another footman. “Ye saw to that carriage, did ye not, Robert?”

Robert held his hands up, palms facing out. “I did, but I didnae hear a blessed thing about Miss Catriona taking that one. ‘Twas just Master Callum, Master Fergus, and some of the luggage. I thought she was with her sister and cousins!”

Catriona made her voice gentle. “’Tis not either of yer fault. But hurry and saddle a horse so I can go after them.”

Robert nodded, then took off for the stables at a run.

He returned three minutes later, looking sheepish. “Between the carriages and the outriders, they took every horse in the stables. The only ones left are Bill and Daisy.”

Bill and Daisy were a pair of donkeys used to pull a cart around the peninsula. Her mother and sister would use it when they wanted to go to the nearest village, Teangue. The donkeys were sure-footed and tireless.

But Bill and Daisy were also tiny. They had no hope of outpacing the horses.

Robert wrung the hat he held clutched in his hands. “Shall I hitch them to the cart?”

“Nae,” Catriona said, smiling to reassure him. “There’s no hope of catching them in a donkey cart.” She tried to make her voice cheerful. “I’m sure they’ll come back for me once they notice I’m missing.”

Her writing desk dangling from limp fingers, Catriona stepped back inside the castle to wait.