“Needed to?” Merrick questioned softly.
“I was...I was being hunted,” Francine said, swallowing hard. “I couldn't see anyone, but I could feel it. A need for urgency. A sense that if I didn't go on, something terrible was about to happen.”
“Oh.” Merrick frowned. “What happened next?”
“I went on ahead, because I couldn't see to choose a path. I just tried to stay on the one I thought I was on.”
“And?” Merrick supplied gently.
“And, well, nothing happened,” Francine said, feeling silly. “I just had this sense of someone saying to mind the path. Like a voice speaking out of the fog. Mind the path. As if it mattered somehow, a lot, which way I chose to go. Though I couldn't see it.” She shrugged, trying to grasp words to convey the meaning of what she'd felt.
When she looked at her mentor, the woman had an intent look in her eyes.
“You felt like your decision was very important, but you couldn't see to make it? The future wasn't clear?”
“Yes,” Francine nodded, feeling frustrated and sad. The vision had bothered her ever since she had it. The sense of urgency was so great, the sense of hunting and needing to run. She couldn't explain it.
“Well, then,” Merrick said after a long silence. “The way forward is important. No matter what you feel, how urgently you need to make a decision, pause. Don't make a choice lightly.”
Francine frowned. “Lightly?”
“You'll know what I mean,” Merrick said, and, to Francine's surprise, the older woman’s hand rested gently o her own. It was rare for her mentor to show affection and Francine smiled, appreciating the uncommon warmth of the exchange.
“Thank you,” Francine murmured. “I am relieved to know.”
“Visions are like that,” Merrick nodded when the silence had stretched, quite comfortably, between them. “They bother you, day and night, needing you to understand them. Until you do. Then you stop worrying.”
“I suppose I should feel more worried,” Francine said with a nervous smile. “I mean, now I know how important it is, it should disturb me more.”
“The most frightening things are the shapeless, faceless things,” Merrick said. “The things we don't name. Those are the things that haunt us: What we don't understand. The understood is very quickly remedied.”
Francine nodded, feeling relieved. “Yes. Thank you, Merrick.”
“Don't mention it,” her mentor said.
Francine smiled and they sat quietly, until Greere, one of the older maidservants, came to join them.
“Milady, I, er...”
“Yes?” Merrick answered for her, giving the woman a hard look. Greere winced and started over.
“I was wondering...my aunt's poorly. Milady, have you any of that tea you made?”
“The mallow tea?” Francine frowned, already standing. “It's in the still-room. I'll get some.”
“Thank you, milady!”
When she'd left them, Merrick turned to Francine. “You take care, milady,” she said, squeezing her hand.
“I will,” Francine nodded, blinking in surprise. It wasn't like Merrick to be this explicit in her care.
She was more like a mother to me than anyone I have known. Even so, she wasn't affectionate, really.
“If you need aught, you know to ask,” Merrick said.
Again, it was so unlike the harsh, austere Merrick she knew that Francine frowned. Did she think something was going to happen to her?
“Nothing'll happen to ye,” Merrick said, as if Francine had asked aloud. “I just mean that the choices you make are hard.”
“Oh. Thank you, Merrick,” Francine murmured, wondering if her teacher had seen a vision also, and whether she would share.
“Don't thank me,” Merrick said, characteristically laconic again. “You won't thank anyone when it happens, I think. But never fear. Fear clouds the mind to all things. It blinds the heart. Remember that.”
“I will try to remember that,” Francine nodded.
She left the kitchen feeling at once happier for having seen her friend and teacher, and nervous for her future.
I won't be frightened. Fear...what did she say? It clouds the mind and blinds the heart.
Taking a slow breath to steady herself, she went up the stairs and into the house.
The still-room was around the back of the manor, a quiet place that seemed half-forgotten, a relic of another time. It had been part of a tower, once, she reckoned – part of the curious architecture that stemmed from Duncliffe having once been a fortress and a castle.
I wonder who used to work here?
Francine felt her hands busy themselves at preparing the mallow for Greere's aunt, her mind asking the question it often asked in here. The place had been a storage room before – in fact it was likely designed as one, she thought, looking at the shelves that now held rows of bottles and racks of drying flower-bunches.
I should have got violets in earlier this year – they're so good for congestion of the nose.
Her mind ran through the stock of winter remedies, checking the walls for things even as she worked. The calm of the still-room descended on her and she felt, as usual when she worked in here, a profound sense of tranquility.
Without really thinking about it, she hummed a tune as she worked, a merry song with funny words about a woman who went to market to fetch a cheese and collected and traded successive things all through the market, coming home at the end of the day's purchasing with her beloved instead.
And no cheese, she thought, recalling the words her sister used to sing along with at the end of the tune.
Arabella used to love it here.
She sighed, recalling her sister and how much she, too had enjoyed this quiet space. She had spent countless hours helping Arabella grind preparations in here, using the same pestle she now used.
It's lonely without her here now.
Her mind fed her an image of Arabella, auburn hair tied back with a cord of leather, oval face frowning as she worked. Her heart ached with the memory, and she realized how much she missed her.
Well, mayhap she could stay with her now.
The thought of going north, to where Arabella stayed with her husband Richard, an English nobleman, filled her with hope.
If she could go to visit Arabella, she could escape this dreadful sentence of a week that she'd allowed her father to impose on her.
“I need to get away from here; go north.”
Her mind was made up and she said it with some conviction. She turned to place the well-ground herbs into a bottle.
“Milady?”
“Greere!” she jumped as the maid appeared in the room. “Sorry. You startled me.”
“Sorry, milady,” she apologized instantly. “I was just coming up from the kitchens on an errand and recalled you'd said you'd make the tea for me, so I thought, well, I'd...”
“Of course you came to check if I was preparing it,” Francine said, reassuring. “Well, I just did, as it happened. Here it is.”
She handed Greere the bottle. The woman nodded, bowing low as she took it.
“Thank you kindly, milady. Oh, thanks.”
“Not at all,” Francine said sweetly. “Off you go. You had an errand?”
“I had to fetch something for The McGuinness, but it seemed like he got it hisself,” the woman explained.
“Well, then, off you go,” Francine said. “It's cold up here. The kitchen's warmer.”
“Aye, milady,” Greere chuckled. “It is. I'll hurry back.”
When she had gone, Francine set about tidying up a little. She cleaned out the dish she'd made the preparation in, letting the dried flakes of plant-material fall into the fireplace. Then she dusted the top of the table, replacing the bundles of dried herbs and flowers she'd had out back on the racks.
She was just taking off the apron she wore when she froze. Someone was watching her.
All her hair stood on end. It wasn't that she'd seen someo
ne, more a sense of someone waiting in the doorway, looking in, watching her.
“Who goes there?” she called, terrified.
Nothing. It might have been her imagination, but she thought she saw a shape shift in the shadow, detaching itself from the darkness. Then whatever it was moved on.
“Who is it?” Francine said. Her voice shook. She steadied it, and tried to turn her fear into rage. “How dare you hide there?” she shouted.
No answer.
She stayed where she was, limbs stiff with fright. Whoever it was had disappeared. She had no idea if they had even been there. Mayhap it was her imagination.
“I don't know what this is,” she murmured. “Or who this is. But I will get to the bottom of this. No one hides in Duncliffe without someone knowing of it.”
She made herself put the bowl back in the drawer, and then lay the pestle down beside it. She took her apron to the hook by the door and hung it up.
Then, taking a steadying breath she walked, or half-fled, downstairs.
“Francine?”
“Douglas!” she said, feeling her heart tighten in relief as her brother appeared.
“What is it?” Douglas frowned. “Something happened?”
She considered telling him what had happened – I was working in the still-room and somebody was watching me – but the strangeness of the comment, mixed with the worry of what Douglas would do if he believed her, stopped her.
He would have the whole house taken apart searching for whoever thought to harm her.
“No,” Francine said quickly. “I just got a fright. It was nothing, Douglas. I just...I think I'm tired.”
“Oh,” Douglas said, frowning. “Well, I suppose I understand that,” he said, yawning. “All these parties and things can do that to person. I'm glad Father isn't too keen on having any here right now.”
“Yes,” Francine nodded. “That's true.”
Maybe if they had a party here, she pondered, then whoever was hiding in the manor would be found, and thrown out. It would at least lift the tense, dense atmosphere that seemed to pervade it.
No one is hiding here, she reassured herself. It's you. You're overwrought. It's the pressure of this choice your father's placed on you. It's turning your mind.
That was it, she decided, heading down to the courtyard. She was seeing things. She would just go for a ride, and clear her mind. That was all she needed.
AN UNEXPECTED ENCOUNTER
The air smelled of tobacco and also of smoke, from the fire. Henry, breathing in, shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other, wishing himself anywhere else. Here was his father's study, upstairs, in Estmoor, the manor his father had let for them in Scotland. He looked out the window onto the bleak, gray scene outside and wished he was out on the moors under the steady autumnal rain.
“So, son. That's my view on the matter.”
“Oh,” Henry said.
He looked at his father Alfred, Lord Gracewell, where he sat behind the desk. His father looked back mildly through the lenses of his spectacles.
“So,” his father prompted. “You have something to add?”
Henry cleared his throat. “Mayhap.”
It was very hard to argue with his father, for the simple reason that the man was so mild in everything he did. He could have told Henry he was about to sell him to Turkish slavers in that same peaceful voice. Henry would have found it hard to counter him, simply because, in that manner, it would have all sounded so reasonable.
“Oh?” His father frowned.
Henry carefully cleared his throat. “I mean to say...Father, I'm not sure of marrying an English girl. They are rather scarce this far North, aren't they? One's left without much choice.”
It was the only argument he could make. Somehow, he was reluctant to tell his father the real reason for his misgivings. I have just met someone I like.
Lord Gracewell raised a brow. “Well, son, I suppose I cannot argue with you. Yes, you are right. There are only three families I know of, here in the North. But, well...you must think of our return. We won't settle here permanently.”
How can you know that? If the king returns from exile, and things go badly, we might not be able to return home.
“I suppose so,” Henry said carefully.
“Quite. Therefore, you must think carefully of your future. And not of yourself alone – think of how it would be for a Scotswoman in England. Unfair, yes?”
“I suppose,” Henry managed to say. About as unfair as it is for me to be here, and Marguerite. Have you ever considered that matter?
Even so, he had to see his father's point of view. He knew from personal experience of the matter – painful personal experience – exactly how hard it could be. No, he couldn't wish that sort of life of exile on anyone. Especially not someone he cared for.
“Well, yes,” Lord Gracewell said. “So you can see the wisdom to my argument.”
“Yes, Father,” Henry conceded. Inside, he felt sad. He hadn't thought about how it would be if he took a Scotswoman to England. He realized his father was right. He didn't want him to be right.
“So,” Lord Gracewell said, looking up from the page he was reading so carefully. “I reckon that the Andovers or the Marwells would be a good place to start,” he said, naming two families who were exiles from England. “I am sure their daughters would be pleased to attend a ball, were we to host it?”
“I suppose,” Henry muttered. He looked at his feet. His boots were dark on the blue-and-white carpet, a treasure from the Indies and a surprise here in the gaunt, solid house their father had managed to let on the outskirts of Edinburgh.
“Indeed,” his father added. “Well, I trust Marguerite will be glad for the diversion. And she has a talent for planning parties. I suggest we cede it to her. What do you think?”
“I think you are right,” Henry said tightly. Inside, he was fuming. His sadness was hidden now, under a wall of quiet rage he sought to fuel, making it bigger than his inner doubts.
“Well then,” Lord Gracewell said. “I suppose I must answer this letter. How in perdition our accountant expects me to know the state of Althorpe when I'm stuck up here, I've no idea...” he trailed off, sighing. “I don't suppose you want to go back to check on the place, do you?”
“No,” Henry said, surprising himself. A week ago he would have leapt for the chance to return to England, even for a few days. Now, the thought appalled him.
If he went, he would miss out on opportunities to see Lady Francine. It surprised him how much that thought upset him. He had only known her a few days, it was true. However, in that time he had felt a kinship to her that he felt with no one else.
Lord Gracewell frowned. “Oh?” he grinned. “Well, you are an odd one. You complain about our limited circles, and then when you could go back to England, you refuse. Oh, well. I suppose it was unfair of me to suggest it, eh?”
Henry didn't say anything, but he nodded.
Lord Gracewell laughed. “Well, it was just a plan. I can just as easily judge the state from afar, reading the note the steward sent me...Here it is...”
As his father bent over the pages on his desk, dipping a feather in the inkwell and setting about replying to their accountant, Henry sighed. There was no point in staying where he was now: the interview was as good as over. He turned and walked toward the door.
“And don't forget to ask Marguerite to step in...I would love to hear her plans for the ball.”
“I'll tell her, Father.” Henry walked out and into the hallway. There he stopped, dismay rooting him to the spot.
Why is Father saying this now?
He had to suspect that his father had seen him talking to Francine and sought to stop him from pursuing the match. It wasn't fair.
Why, just when he had finally met someone who seemed to him to match his nature perfectly, who was so easy to talk to, and who was so beautiful he found it hard to trust his vision...why ever would he stop him now?
The trouble is,
Henry thought sadly, he's right.
He knew he couldn't inflict exile on anyone – particularly not someone as sweet and kind as Francine. For that was what it would be if they returned to England: she would be in exile, like he was now. Moreover, he knew the pain and anguish of that.
No, he thought sadly, I can't do it. But why did he have to tell me that, and ruin even the moment's happiness I had? It isn't fair!
“Brother? Are you going to be upstairs? I think I'm going to practice on the spinet now, so...” Marguerite's voice trailed off as she looked at his face.
“I won't be, sister,” Henry said sadly. “I'll go riding.”
“Oh?” Marguerite looked out the window, indicating the imminent rain. Henry shrugged.
“I'll wear a hat,” he said, as if that would change things. “And my new oilskin cloak. I won't get wet.”
Marguerite frowned. “I hope not, brother,” she said. “Won't you wait until the rain's gone? If you get wet, then...”
“I'll be fine,” Henry said tightly. The last thing he wanted at this moment was more restriction placed on him. He saw Marguerite's face fall and instantly regretted his harshness. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Oh, and Father wanted to see you. He said something about a ball?”
“Oh!” Marguerite's heart-shaped face lit up, eyes shining at the prospect. “He did? Well, that's odd. You don't think...” She frowned. “He wants us to marry someone, doesn't he?”
Henry laughed. She looked so surprised he couldn't help the smile. “Mayhap.”
“Oh, perdition!” Marguerite swore mildly. “Why ever is he thinking that now? I have nothing to wear, either, you know...” she trailed off, grinning, as Henry smiled. They both laughed, happily.
“I know!” Marguerite chuckled. “I am silly, aren't I? But a good impression is always worth making. Now, I should speak to Father and then I will go down to the kitchen and speak to cook...oh! It's so like Father to make a decision like this at the last minute, isn't it?”
Destiny Of A Highlander: Blood of Duncliffe Series (A Medieval Scottish Romance Story) Page 6
