Page 7 of To Wed a Laird (English Brides and Highland Vows #1)

CHAPTER SIX

Rose was exhausted when it was finally time for bed. After a tour of every nook and cranny in what seemed like the entire castle, Elspeth had been persuaded to have a bath. This was, as Rose had expected, quite an eventful experience, since Elspeth and water were quite a volatile mix!

Shortly thereafter, Rose was able to tuck Elspeth into bed, and within a very short time she was asleep, having worn herself out with the energetic activities of the day.

Elspeth was not the only one who was exhausted, and after a perfunctory wash, Rose collapsed into bed and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep, well satisfied with the day.

The next morning, she rose from bed totally refreshed and ready for the coming day, having enjoyed a deep and dreamless sleep. She felt ready to take on anything, but knew that she would need all her energy to deal with the day ahead.

You can do this, Rose! she told herself sternly, before marching along to Elspeth’s chamber as though she were going into battle.

“May I come in?” Rose asked, as she cracked open the door of Elspeth’s room. She expected to go through the same performance as the day before, when she had practically had to use trickery to get Elspeth to move.

However, to her surprise, Rose heard her cry out, “Come in!”

Rose entered the room, prepared for a doll or a top or a ball to come flying in her direction, but nothing happened as she closed the door behind her. She went to open the curtains and saw Elspeth sitting up in bed, smiling and clutching a doll to her chest.

“Good morning,” Rose greeted her. “Did you sleep well?”

“Yes, I did,” she replied. “And I had no bad dreams at all.” Elspeth looked puzzled.

“Do you usually have bad dreams?” Rose asked. She felt infinitely sorry for the poor child.

Elspeth nodded. “Most of the time,” she replied.

“What did you dream about instead?” Rose asked, and was rewarded with a beaming smile.

“I dreamt that some horses came to see me,” she answered. “But they were not ordinary horses. They were every colour of the rainbow, red, blue, purple, green, orange and yellow, and they could talk.”

“What did they talk about?” Rose asked curiously. She was enchanted by Elspeth’s wonderful imagination.

Elspeth narrowed her eyes, thinking for a moment, as if deciding whether to tell Rose or not. Finally, she said, “I asked them if they would talk to Mammy for me, and they said they would.”

The look on her face almost brought Rose to tears. “Talk to her? In heaven, you mean?” she asked gently.

Elspeth nodded. “I want to know if she is well.”

“Of course she is,” Rose replied, with what she hoped was an encouraging smile. “I am sure she is talking to my Mammy because she is in heaven too.”

Rose knew this would comfort Elspeth, and her intuition was right because the little girl’s face broke into a huge grin.

“What do you think they’re saying to each other?” she asked.

“I’m sure they are talking about us,” Rose replied, and Elspeth giggled.

At that moment, a maid brought a tray laden with food into the room and laid it on the table.

“Thank you,” Rose said politely, but the young woman merely nodded at her while she smiled at Elspeth.

Elspeth, however, was too busy with her porridge to notice. Rose put a napkin under the little girl’s chin, then there was a comfortable silence while they both tucked into their food.

When they had finished porridge, scrambled egg with sausage and black pudding washed down with milk, Elspeth sat back and patted her full tummy.

“I cannot eat another thing,” she declared.

“Neither can I,” Rose agreed. “I think we had better go and do some work.”

Elspeth jumped to her feet. “Can I plant some more parsley?” she asked eagerly.

Rose pretended to consider. “No,” she replied. “We did that yesterday. Let’s find something else to do. But tomorrow, we must go back to doing lessons, or your father will be very unhappy.”

Elspeth’s face scrunched up in distaste, and she sighed, then brightened up as Rose reached out and took her hand. They wandered out into the courtyard and saw one of the kitchen maids picking some herbs, and before Rose could stop her, Elspeth had run over to the young woman and offered to help.

The servant looked up at Rose, unsure if Elspeth should be allowed to perform such a menial task. Rose nodded, but said, “Lady Elspeth, please don’t dirty your clothes.”

Elspeth giggled and went to help the kitchen maid, then came back a moment later with a bunch of fragrant green leaves, which she held up for Rose to sniff.

“Mint,” Rose told her. “Probably for serving with lamb.”

“Mm.” Elspeth smiled. “It smells lovely.”

They delivered the mint to the kitchen, where the cook smiled at Elspeth and gave her a sweet oatcake to eat. She completely ignored Rose, but Elspeth was having none of that.

“What about Rose?” she asked with a deep frown.

“I am still full from breakfast,” Rose told her.

“You can eat it later,” Elspeth said as she grabbed an oatcake from the plate.

Rose looked at the cook, but she had already turned her face away, clearly annoyed.

As she glanced around the kitchen, she could see and feel the hostility aimed at her.

She realised suddenly that it was because she was English, but there was nothing she could do about that; she would just have to learn to deal with it.

Rose turned on her heel and left the room with Elspeth following behind her, and they began to visit the other parts of the castle. Rose had lived in a big house, but it had been nothing like the size of this building, which was almost like a village in itself.

It had a brewery, a blacksmith, a buttery where cheese and butter were made, and an armoury.

A seamstress sewed and repaired uniforms and other clothing, while a shoemaker fashioned and fixed shoes and leather goods.

A chaplain was always in attendance to perform Sunday services in the chapel and for funerals and the occasional wedding.

There were many more tradespeople in the castle and a number of general labourers and servants. Rose soon lost count of them.

They spent the morning wandering around the castle, and they were both fascinated by the cheese making process, which they watched with rapt attention.

At the end, Elspeth was given a sizeable block of cheese to eat for her midday meal, which she shared with Rose.

They had also acquired some apples from the kitchen and sat down in the shade of the biggest and oldest tree in the garden, a yew which grew near the outer wall.

Elspeth told Rose that it had always been one of her favourite places, but the expression of sadness on her face as she said it told her that Elspeth had probably sat here with her mother. Rose decided to say no more about it, and quickly changed the subject.

“You know you are the Mistress of the Castle now,” she said, smiling.

Elspeth looked at her with a puzzled frown. “What does that mean?” she asked.

“Well, it means that you are the lady in charge of the whole place and everyone in it,” Rose answered. “And where I come from, that means you must be treated with a great deal of respect. You really should be taking your meals in the Great Hall so that all your staff can see how important you are.”

Elspeth wrinkled her nose up in distaste. “I hate that place,” she declared firmly. “It’s too big and dark.”

Rose smiled at her and said, “Well, in England the Lady of the Castle and all the other elegant ladies sit at the top of the table dressed in fine clothes made of silk, satin and lace, and the servants treat them like queens. Of course, they are served the finest food and wine that comes all the way from France. What do you think of that?”

Elspeth stared at Rose thoughtfully for a moment. “Maybe that would be fun,” she said, nodding in agreement. She stood up, then smiled at Rose. “I am going to tell Nell about it.”

She ran off to Nell’s room, and Rose knew she had been dismissed. However, she was happy about it, since she had an errand of her own to do, one that had to be done without Elspeth, since it concerned her.

Accordingly, Rose went to her bedchamber, then washed and changed her dress, feeling that she needed to look her best to confront the Laird.

As she made her way to the Laird’s study, she had a strange sense of déjà vu, since it reminded her of the last time she had spoken to her father.

She was just as tense and nervous now as she had been then.

For heaven’s sake, Rose! she thought angrily. Get a grip on yourself. He is not going to eat you. She raised her hand and knocked the door as firmly as she could, letting out a slow breath to try to calm herself down.

“Enter!” called a deep voice from within the room.

Rose opened the door and closed it behind her as she saw Cormac. He had been sitting behind his desk with a pile of papers in front of him, but now he looked up, his eyes wide with surprise as they met hers. Then he frowned, looking slightly puzzled at her sudden appearance.

“Mistress Rose,” he said, standing up. “Is anything wrong? Is it Elspeth?” Suddenly, his whole body was tense and he jumped to his feet.

“No, My Laird,” she replied, hastening to reassure him. She curtsied, then moved closer to the desk. Cormac sat down again, indicating that Rose should do the same.

Rose took the chair on the other side of the desk, but perched nervously on the edge of it.

Since she had come into the room, Cormac’s eyes had not left hers, and Rose found herself unable to look away from him.

His sheer masculinity affected her in a way nothing ever had before, and she found herself unable to speak for a moment.

“Well?” he asked, snapping her into awareness again.

“I asked Elspeth to come and have dinner with me in the Great Hall tonight,” she answered. “I wondered if you would come and join us. I think it will be good for her.”

Cormac sighed and put down his pen, then steepled his hands and looked away from her.

When he met her eyes again, he said angrily, “I heard about you and Elspeth in the garden.” He stood up and leant over the desk till their faces were mere inches apart.

“She is your student, not your playmate,” he said, his voice a deep, threatening rumble.

Rose experienced a sudden flash of fury. “I am trying to help her come back to life,” she protested, then watched Cormac’s eyes darken with rage.

“That is not what you are here for,” he growled. “Know your place.”

Rose would have loved to tell him just what she thought of him at that moment, but she knew that she was in no position to do so. She curtsied, then turned and left.

She stood outside the door for a moment, taking deep breaths and trying to calm the beating of her racing heart before she went to change. She had a very bad feeling inside.

Elspeth sat at the head of the table with a little tin crown on her head, her back ramrod straight, her chin tilted up. Rose had curtsied to her as soon as she entered the room, and Elspeth had spoiled her regal air by giggling.

“Your crown will fall off, Your Highness,” Rose warned. “They are very fragile things.”

Elspeth gave her a playful punch on the shoulder, and at that moment the food was brought in. Cormac had still not appeared, and Rose wondered if they should wait, but she decided not to. Let his food get cold, she thought mutinously.

“You know you will have to get back to lessons tomorrow,” she told Elspeth. “You have to be able to read and write properly, or you will never find a husband.”

“I don’t want a husband,” Elspeth replied mutinously.

“Every girl wants a husband,” Rose told her.

“Then why do you not have one?” Elspeth asked. “You are very pretty.”

Rose was rather shocked, but delighted. “Thank you, Elspeth,” she said warmly, then, because she could not help herself, she squeezed the girl’s hand not wanting to scare her with a hug, and felt Elspeth accepted it, laughing.

“I have not found the right man yet, but I promise that when I do, I will invite you to the wedding.”

Looking at the little girl, it occurred to Rose suddenly that she had not embraced, or been embraced by anyone since she left her sisters, and suddenly, she felt a wave of longing for them. They were not only her sisters, but her best friends.

Rose and Elspeth finished all the smoked venison, raspberries, and cream that was put before them, and then Rose announced that it was time for Elspeth to go to bed. They had eaten all their food, but Elspeth’s father had not put in an appearance, or sent a message that he was not coming.

Rose was not only disappointed, but furious. However, she was not surprised; had she really expected anything else?