Lady Nuala jumped at the sudden noise outside. “Oh no, what’s happening?” She slid back into the corner and pulled her knees up into her chest.
“Stay here, m’lady. I’ll find out.” Anya was already out the door. Nuala sighed. She was so tired of being afraid.
Lady Nuala watched out the window. Sean, the stable manager, was standing with the other servants on the bank of the river.
“There, give it to her. She’ll get it to the lady.” Lady Nuala peeked out the curtain as the driver of their carriage pointed at Anya.
“Sean, what’s going on?” Lady Nuala heard Anya ask.
“Just a message for the lady, is all.” He handed the folded parchment to Anya. Lady Nuala sat back as Anya took the parchment and got back into the carriage.
“Well, at least it isn’t Lord Niall or bandits,” Lady Nuala said.
“Just a messenger with a letter for you, m’lady.” Anya handed the folded paper to Lady Nuala.
She tore through the seal and quickly scanned it. Her eyes grew wide, and she read the letter three more times, each time slower than the last. She raised her left hand to her throat and crushed the parchment in her right.
“M’lady?” Anya was obviously frightened by Lady Nuala’s reaction. She reached across the carriage to comfort her mistress, but Lady Nuala flung herself out the door. She nearly fell onto the ground in her haste to breathe in fresh air.
“Squire Drustan!” Lady Nuala sounded on the verge of hysterics. “There has been a slight change in plans.”
“What’s that, m’lady?” he asked, confusion evident on his furrowed brow.
“We need to take a detour.” She was staring down the road. “You and I will take my carriage to Oidean. The rest of you,” she said, turning to the other servants in the party, “can continue on to Dòmhail, and we will join you there shortly. Is that understood?”
“Yes, m’lady,” everyone mumbled, stealing sideways glances at each other.
“Good. Then let’s get going. The sooner we get to Oidean, the sooner we can get to Dòmhail!”
21
Dolidh awoke to the sound of familiar horse hooves in the predawn morning. Heaving a sigh, she shook her head sadly and rolled onto her side.
“Thursday already?” Barra asked, staring at the ceiling. “Why does he torture himself like this?”
“I don’t know, Barra. I just don’t know. But at least he’s given up lookin’ for Moira. I never thought I’d see the day he’d give up on finding her. So maybe there’s hope someday he’ll stop going to see Isobail.” Dolidh put her feet on the cool wood floor and stood up to dress for the day.
“Why’s he never told her who he is? Why does he just sit an’ watch her all day and never say one word to her?” Barra wondered aloud for the millionth time.
“An’ just what’s he gonna say to her? ‘Hi, I’m your real daddy. I watched your mama abandon you and never had the guts to come and get you myself.’ That would destroy the poor little girl. No, he knows she’s better off with the Blyths. They love her just as much as he does. And you know just as well as I do that he couldn’t have brought up a baby after the way Moira ripped out his heart.” Dolidh shook her head sadly. She was so mad at what Moira had done to Brian. If I ever get my hands on her, I’ll wring her pretty little neck!
* * *
Brian looked up at the inn as he passed in the early morning light. He had so many memories wrapped up in that old two-story building. His heart was tied to this little inn. Barra and Dolidh weren’t just friends, they were his only family. What did he have to show for his life? He had let his farm go and he had distanced himself from most of Oidean. All he had was Isobail, but she didn’t even know he existed.
Maybe today would be the day. After all, she wasn’t a child anymore. She was old enough to understand why he had never come for her. Today was the day he would tell Isobail who he was. Brian felt lighter as he rode down the street. He began whistling an old tune his mother hummed when she cleaned. He was happy, truly happy for the first time in sixteen years. He even smiled and nodded at the driver of a large regal carriage that passed him on the road as he rode toward Teich.
* * *
Lady Nuala felt like she had been in the carriage for days. Her back was sore, her rear end was numb, and her head ached from being jostled around because of the high speed they were traveling over the rough road. She didn’t know how much more she could take. She needed to stop and walk around for a few minutes. Lady Nuala pulled back the heavy red curtain blocking out the morning sunlight to holler to Squire Drustan. Just as she opened her mouth to shout over the noise, she noticed a commoner on a horse headed in the opposite direction. She immediately pulled her head back into the carriage and dropped to the floor.
“M’lady? Are you all right?” Anya asked, her brow furrowed in confusion. “Why’re you on the floor?”
“I just saw . . . he was . . . right out there,” Lady Nuala stammered breathlessly.
“Who was out there?” Anya asked, lifting the curtain to look for herself.
“No!” Lady Nuala screamed. “Don’t let him see me!” Violently she pushed her lady-in-waiting back into her seat. Anya quickly dropped her gaze and mumbled an apology.
“I’m sorry, Anya, but this is important. I want you to carefully look out the window and see if there is a man on a horse following us.”
“M’lady, no one’s following us. You’re just tired from the ride. Now let me help you get back on your seat.” Anya leaned forward and Lady Nuala took the younger girl’s face between her hands.
“I’m not crazy or tired. Just look out the window like I asked you, please!” Lady Nuala begged.
Prying her face from Lady Nuala’s hands, Anya cautiously leaned toward the window, watching Lady Nuala the whole time. Slowly she lifted the curtain and leaned her head out the window. Lady Nuala held her breath for an eternity.
“No, m’lady, there’s no man following. Just one heading in the direction we came from.”
“Thank heavens. Now tell the driver to hurry up. I don’t want to be in Oidean any longer than I have to be. I have never liked this village.”
* * *
Isobail counted as she pulled the brush through her chestnut hair. “One hundred strokes from the brush,” her mother always said. “You want to look your best. You never know who you might see.” Just who does she think is going to stop by, the queen? Isobail laughed as she set the brush back down on her dressing table.
“Iso, come and eat breakfast. The wash is ready to go out on the line,” her mother called from the small kitchen in the back of their modest farm house.
Isobail jumped to her feet, excitement filling her chest when she remembered it was Thursday. He’ll be here today, she thought. Blane wouldn’t be happy if he knew how excited she got to see the strange man that watched her from the woods, but she didn’t care. He was familiar to her, like an old blanket. He had always been there and she felt safe having him there with her.
She hurried down the hall to the kitchen, stopping just short of the doorway to calm her breathing. She didn’t want to alarm her mother. Calmly she strode through the door and sat at the table, quickly swallowing down her porridge.
“Good morning. How did you sleep?” Her mother turned from the sink where she was washing dishes and saw her gulping down her food. “What on earth are you doing? Why are you eating so fast?”
“Um,” Isobail mumbled over a mouthful of porridge. “I, um, want to get the clothes on the line so they can dry quickly.” She smiled innocently at her mother.
“I see, and this newfound fondness for your chores wouldn’t have anything to do with a certain man, would it?” Her mother folded her arms over her chest and waited for an answer.
Isobail stopped short with her spoon halfway to her mouth. Her eyes went wide in shock. How does she know? Has she seen him? she wondered, unable to make her hand move. “W-w-what man would that be?” She tried unsuccessfully to swallow
the lump in her throat.
“Don’t try to be coy, lassie. I know just as well as you that Blane Andersone comes by here every Thursday morning to offer his assistance with your chores.” Her mother smirked at her.
“Oh, Blane!” Relief flooded through Isobail, and she finally managed to put down her spoon. “Why would I be excited to see Blane?” She turned her attention back to her breakfast, her thoughts full of the mystery watcher.
“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe because he has loved you his whole life. Maybe because he’s a nice young man that’s a hard worker and comes from a good family, or maybe because he’s not bad on the eyes either.” He mother watched for Isobail’s reaction.
“Loves me? He does not love me. Besides I have never thought of him like that. He’s just . . .”
“Just what?”
“He’s just Blane.” Isobail quickly put her bowl in the sink and grabbed the basket of clothes by the back door. She was anxious to leave this conversation behind. For some reason it was making her stomach hurt. She pulled the door shut behind her, leaned her head back against it, and sighed.
Blane doesn’t love me. He comes every Thursday because he doesn’t trust that man. What is she talking about? Not bad on the eyes, I’ve never noticed. She opened her eyes and turned to the woods. Somewhere in the trees was the mystery watcher. A smile touched the corners of her mouth but quickly left when she heard whistling coming from down the road. “Blane,” she whispered as a knot formed in her stomach.
22
Lady Nuala put her hand up to shield her eyes from the waning afternoon sun as she stepped from her carriage.
She was momentarily blinded by the intense sunlight. She stopped on the step of the carriage and waited for her eyesight to return. A rundown farmhouse slowly came into focus. The front yard was severely overgrown, the fence was in dire need of whitewashing, and the house looked like it had been abandoned for a decade. Confused, Lady Nuala looked next door and saw the familiar inn. She was at the right place, but this was not the farmhouse she remembered. Brian loved his family home too much to let this happen to it. What happened here?
“M’lady, do you want me to go with you?” Lady Nuala jumped as Squire Drustan’s question broke her thoughts.
“No, that won’t be necessary. I would prefer to make this visit alone.” She finished descending from the carriage and made her way to the front door. She lifted her hand, stopped it in midair, and put it back down. What if he is mean? Brian isn’t like that, is he? No, but sixteen years may have changed him. Unsure of the reception she could expect, she turned and yelled, “Drustan! I may need you after all. Please bring your knife.”
“Aye, my lady. As you wish!” The squire pulled his dagger from its sheath. Lady Nuala nodded to the grizzled man and turned her attention back to the door. She took a deep breath, held it, knocked loudly three times, and waited. There was no answer. Lady Nuala relaxed her tense shoulders. She looked around and then back at her carriage and waiting driver and maid.
Nuala stepped away from the door. “I just want to take a look in the back. I’ll be right back,” she called over her shoulder to Squire Drustan. Picking up the skirt of her simple traveling dress, she tripped through the tangled overgrown yard to the back of the house.
She rounded the house and found the backyard was much worse than the front. There were no crops planted in the garden; there were only waist-high weeds. There were no chickens happily pecking the ground. Shaking her head, she entered the barn and found it empty: no horses, no cows, and no sheep—not a single animal anywhere. “What happened here?” Lady Nuala asked the cobwebs and dust.
“Nothing!”
Lady Nuala jumped. Afraid to turn around and find out who was there, she closed her eyes and tried to slow her racing heart. Slowly, she turned to face a ghost from her past. Standing before her and blocking her escape was Barra. He was older, a little saggier, and definitely grayer, but it was Barra. She ducked her head, trying to avoid his eyes. “Pardon me?” she asked into her chest.
“Nothing. That’s what’s happened here. Not a thing in sixteen years,” he answered sadly, surveying the dilapidation.
“I was looking for the man that used to own this house. I believe his name is . . . um, let me see now . . . Brian?” Lady Nuala pulled out a fan to hide her face.
“Oh, you won’t find him here on a Thursday. He’s never here on Thursdays.”
“Then he still lives here?”
Barra nodded. “Aye.”
“Why does this place look so . . . so . . . vacant if he still lives here?”
“Who’d you say you were?” Barra asked suspiciously. “An’ what d’you want with Brian?”
“Oh, I’m . . . that is, my name is Lady Nuala. I was just, um, looking for stable help, and I heard that this Brian was the best farmer in the village.” Her lie didn’t even sound convincing to her, but it was the best she could come up with on short notice. “But if he’s not here, I shall come back another time. Thank you for your help.” She quickly brushed past him and didn’t stop until she was safely in the carriage.
“On to Dòmhail now, m’lady?” Anya asked, once she was settled in the carriage.
“No, my friend wasn’t home. We have one more stop we need to make,” Nuala answered. She stared out the window watching Barra walk back to the inn.
“One more stop?”
“Yes, please tell the driver we’ll stay the night in the first inn we find down the road. Then in the morning we will be going to go to the village of Teich.”
“There’s an inn right here, my lady.” Anya motioned out the window.
“No,” Lady Nuala said, cutting Anya off. “Not this inn. Any inn but this one.”
* * *
Isobail picked up the final shirt in the laundry basket for the fifth time. Every time she tried to hang it up, it kept slipping from her shaking hands. Since she and her mother had talked about Blane this morning, her fingers and her brain just wouldn’t cooperate.
“What’s the matter with you today? That’s the tenth time you’ve dropped that shirt.” Blane abandoned the stick he had been whittling and jumped down from his usual spot on the woodpile. He leaned over the clothesline and cocked his blond head to one side, studying Isobail. She was standing still, lost in thought with the shirt still in her hands. Blane walked to the other side of the clothesline and ducked so they were standing eye to eye across from each other. “Iso, what’s wrong with you?”
Isobail jumped at his sudden nearness. She hadn’t heard him move. “N-n-nothing’s wrong. Why?”
“Well now, you just jumped out of your skin, you haven’t been able to hold on to anything all day, and it has taken you three times as long as normal to hang the laundry.” Blane stood and waited for a response. Isobail could feel his blue eyes boring into her forehead but she couldn’t raise her eyes to meet them. Why did Mama have to ruin our friendship? It made sense, it worked, and now . . . now I can’t stop thinking of how attractive he is.
“Just having one of those days, I guess.”
“I think there’s something you’re not telling me.”
“Maybe I’m coming down with something.”
“Yea, maybe a case of a question dodging. I hear it can be really bad!” Blane laughed.
Isobail huffed. “I’m insulted that you would even say such things. I’m not dodging questions.”
“Liar! Do you know what we do to liars here in Teich?” Before Isobail could react, Blane ducked under the line, threw her over his brawny shoulder like a sack of potatoes, and carried her toward the laundry water.
She began kicking when she realized where he was heading. “You wouldn’t dare!”
“Tell me the truth and I’ll put you down.”
“No!”
“All right then.” He effortlessly lifted her off his shoulder, ready to drop her into the soapy water.
“Wait!” she wailed. “I’ll tell you! Just put me down.”
“It started with my ma this morning. She started teasing me about you being . . .” She dropped her eyes to the ground and couldn’t continue.
“Me being what?” He folded his tan arms over his chest, waiting for her to continue.
“You being . . . being, you being i-in . . . love with me.” She took a deep breath and continued at breakneck speed. “But I told her she was silly and that we were just friends and that we’d known each other our whole lives and that love was the furthest thing from my mind. I mean you, you’re . . .”
“I’m what? Too ugly, too stupid, too short? No, it’s that I’m too poor. The youngest son of a poor farmer. I won’t inherit anything—no land, no house, and no money. So I’m not worth your time. Is that what I am?”
“No, Blane, that’s not it.”
“No to which one?” He turned and looked at the strange man in the woods. Frustrated, he roughly ran his hand through his hair, causing it to fall into one eye. Isobail reached up to gently brush it back. He caught her hand and pushed it back down. “Don’t. I know what it is. I’m too young, and you’re in love with the strange old man that watches you from the woods, right?”
“No, Blane. That’s not what I meant.”
“Save it.” He turned on his heel, jumped the fence, and hurried toward his family’s farm.
“Blane, wait!” Isobail called after him, but he was gone. She dropped to her knees, then slumped onto her side and sobbed hot angry tears into the shirt she was still holding.
She was angry at her mother for putting such ridiculous thoughts into her head, she was angry at Blane for taking what she had said the wrong way, but mostly she was angry with herself because she knew she was in love with Blane and she may have just driven him away forever.
After what seemed like hours, Isobail pulled herself upright and wiped the tears from her puffy red face. She decided she had to do something. She needed to keep her mind off the mess she had made. First things first! she thought as she went to the laundry tub that she had almost been tossed into. She quickly rewashed the shirt she had dirtied with her tears and hung it on the line. Unsure what her next step was, she went into the house to find something to keep her busy and keep her mind off Blane.
Midnight Runner: A Novel Page 13
