Page 66 of Stealing Sophie

The words were out before she could take them back. Blushing fiercely, she rubbed Fiona’s huge snout, the pink nostrils moving gently with the cow’s warm, odorous breath.

“I am sorry,” she murmured. “I do not think less of dairymaids, or farmers.”

“No need to apologize. Besides, when you were young, I was my father’s heir.” He frowned down at her. “And you? Did you want to be dairymaid, a fine lady, or a nun?”

“I wanted to be a gardener,” she said. “My mother invited a French garden designer to Duncrieff when I was a girl. He created beautiful terraced gardens for us, and a maze, and a rose garden too. I would watch our groundskeeper and his sons tending the beds and roses, and they gave me a little corner of my own to plant some seeds. I had pansies and pinks and carnations, and I raised marigolds under glass until they were ready to be put in the soil. The groundskeeper even set a fountain at the center of my little patch for me. But Papa said he did not want me digging about in the soil like a farmer. Tending roses was lady-like enough, but he did not want his daughter to dirty her hands. He had the garden tilled over, but for the roses and the fountain, and put benches there so we could read and study.” She sighed.

“But you had a gift for it,” Connor said. She shrugged. “You may do what you like with the gardens here. But you will be disappointed in the end, I fear. Things do not grow here. It is the sadness about the place, they say.” He glanced around.

She touched the crystal at her throat. “I do love to garden, and so I will try.” She drew a breath. “When my father was exiled and we all went to the Continent, I soon went to the convent school. Then my father died, and the next year my mother remarried, and Kate and Robert returned to Scotland. I stayed in the convent to finish my education. Partly I stayed because I could work in the gardens there. I disliked studying, and I did not want to marry a man who would not allow me to work in the gardens. I knew Papa would choose a man who expected a fine lady.”

“You are a fine lady.” Connor rubbed the cow’s head. “But not a bookish lass, I think? But you must have studied Latin and Greek, poetry and sums, and perhaps history and philosophy.”

“I did. But I most loved working in the herb and flower gardens, and one of the elderly sisters took me as her helper and taught me much. It was paradise for me.”

“You mentioned potted tulips that you brought back with you. And I promised to fetch them for you.” As she nodded thanks, he tipped his head. “I was sorry to hear of your father’s death in exile.”

“He was forced to leave Scotland because of his sympathies with the rebellion and died before he could return. He was a good man, though very strict with his daughters. He refused to disarm, and he would not collect arms from his tenants.”

“I know,” Connor murmured.

She looked up in surprise. “Did you know him well?”

“Not myself, but my father did. My father also refused to disarm. But he went farther with it, hiding weapons for the rebels during the 'Fifteen.”

“So your father was exiled also,” she said. “Who was he? Where is he now?”

“Executed three years ago for treason.” Tugging on Fiona’s lead, he walked away.