White Regency 03 - White Knight

by Jaclyn Reding

  Christian scanned the pages that formalized the Skynegal trust. “And this account you speak of?”

  Cholmeley drew closer.

  “Again,” Jenner said, eyeing the elder marquess askance, “the account is a separate enterprise from the dower contract, the funds of which can be used only for the betterment of the estate.”

  “You keep talking of this estate?” Cholmeley said, “What’s this about? I know of no estate that isn’t already entailed to the Cholmeley marquessate.”

  Christian returned the trust papers to Jenner. “It seems,” he said to Cholmeley, “that upon her marriage to me, Grace became the beneficiary of an estate in northern Scotland, one Skynegal Castle.”

  Cholmeley began to laugh. “That rotting old pile of bricks? I know of it. It was some holding from my mother’s family. No one has lived there for years. Can’t even be reached by road. I’d have thought it in ruins by now.” “Oh, I rather doubt that will ever come to pass,” Christian said, “especially since there exists an account of three hundred thousand pounds to ensure its continuance.”

  “Three hundred thousand!” Cholmeley began to choke on his brandy, gasping for breath until Jenner stood without preamble and clapped the marquess hard twice on the back. It only took Cholmeley another moment to regain his dander.

  “You mean to say that little chit has had a fortune at her disposal while I am forced to live in near-poverty?” “The monies are not at her disposal, Cholmeley,” Christian reminded him. “According to the trust, they must be used exclusively for the betterment of Skynegal. And from her letter to Mr. Jenner, it would seem that is exactly what Grace means to do.”

  “With your approval,” Jenner interjected, gently bringing the subject back to his reasons for coming there. “As Lady Knighton’s husband, all transactions on the account must bear your endorsement.”

  “Well, at least this trust has some sense to it,” the old duke muttered. “Imagine turning three hundred thousand loose to the hands of a woman!”

  “In turn,” Jenner added, “any transaction must also bear Lady Knighton’s endorsement as well.”

  The solicitor seemed inordinately unsettled in the presence of the old duke, for although he never spoke directly to him, he kept shifting his glance to the old man time and again as they talked. It was a feeling Christian could easily appreciate.

  “Well then, let’s be done with it,” Christian said, taking his quill from its holder and dipping it into the inkwell. He started to sign the document Jenner had given him, authorizing the release of the funds from the account.

  “You aren’t really going to lend your signature to give all that money to her for that moldering old castle, are you?” Cholmeley exclaimed. “That is precisely what I’m going to do, my lord.” Christian set his quill back in its holder and returned the documents to Jenner’s waiting hand. “If you would please inform me when the transaction is complete, Mr. Jenner, I would be obliged.”

  Jenner nodded. “Of course. Shall I also arrange for a courier to deliver the news to Lady Knighton then, my lord?”

  “She does not know of your visit here today?”

  Jenner shook his head. “I did not know of the stipulation requiring your signature until after Lady Knighton had already left for Scotland. That is why I waited so long in coming to you. After receiving her third letter, I grew concerned for her circumstances. I only hope Lady Knighton will forgive me for breaking her confidence. Begging your pardon, my lord, but she wanted no one to know where she was going.”

  Christian looked at the solicitor. After a moment, he smiled. “No, sir, a courier will not be necessary. I mean to deliver the news to Lady Knighton myself in Scotland.”

  Chapter Twenty-five

  Skynegal Castle, Highlands

  Grace stood in her nightdress at her bedchamber window, scowling at the dark cloud of smoke that snaked its shadowed way through the morning sky to the east.

  Would the burnings never end?

  How she hated knowing that as she stood there, tucked safely within the fortress of these castle walls, yet another Highland family was being unjustly forced from their home on the neighboring estate. It was an event that was happening so frequently of late that the eastern horizon seemed perpetually smoke clouded.

  It began with an unexpected knocking on the door. The family would answer, only to find that a company of soldiers awaited them on the other side. They would be handed a Writ of Removal signed by the estate factor and they would be ordered to vacate the premises, refused any time for preparation or reflection. Chaos would lay claim to what once had been peace. They would be given only enough time to grab what little their hands could carry with them before those who had come to evict them put their torches to the vulnerable cottage roof, setting everything they’d worked for, every last thing they owned in the world, aflame.

  As the fire began to blaze, the crofters would scramble to save the single most important possession they could claim, the cottage’s roof beam. Without it, they might not have the timber necessary to rebuild elsewhere. They would end up like so many of their neighbors, seeking shelter in caves, or worse, forced to live among the elements.

  If they were fortunate enough to have their health, the Highlanders could wander to the coast, where they might have a chance to begin life again. The elderly and the infirm, however, fared far worse, for if they were too incapacitated to leave by their own volition, they were simply carried out of their homes without care for their fragile bodies, dropped upon the bare ground, and left to survive against the elements—if they survived at all.

  Taken by a sudden shiver, Grace reached for her shawl on the chair beside her, wrapping it closely about herself. The cloud in the distance billowed and grew. She felt a sudden tickle on her hand and looked down to where Dubhar sat, licking her fingers and patiently awaiting a scratch behind his ears. She willingly obliged. For as long as anyone could remember, the long and lanky deerhound had traveled about from croft to croft in search of scraps and a warm fire to sleep beside. Everyone knew him, yet none would lay claim to him. Grizzled gray not unlike McGee’s beard, on hind legs the dog stood a head taller than Grace. When he’d first come to the castle one rainy morning not long after Grace’s arrival, he’d been weak with a fever that left him panting despite the water they offered him. Beneath the mud that had caked his coat, his body had been naught but hide and bones, his gait sluggish and marked by a pronounced limp. Alastair had suggested the dog might have been bitten by an adder and indeed they found a bite on his rear left leg. The Scotsman predicted he’d likely die, but Grace would have none of it. She’d taken the dog in, staying up through the night with him, and with the help of Deirdre and a poultice she’d made from the rowan bark, the fever had broken the next afternoon.

  To see Dubhar now, one would never believe him the same dog. He had added flesh to his bones and could run more swiftly than the wind. They had christened him Dubhar, the Gaelic word for the shadow he had become at his mistress’s side, following Grace from one room to the other as she walked about the castle. She had saved his life, and thus he now devoted himself to her.

  As Grace stroked her fingers through Dubhar’s wiry fur, she looked below her window onto the castle courtyard and the numerous people milling about on the drive. Just like Dubhar, they had come to Skynegal hoping to be saved.

  They were most of them crofters from other estates who had wandered to the ancient stone towers of Skynegal, having heard of the mistress there called Aingeal na Gaidhealthachd, Angel of the Highlands. Word had spread quickly that the lady of Skynegal had vowed never to allow a single eviction on her estate. They came in droves seeking shelter, food, and clothing, and a touch of compassion. A number of them made arrangements to emigrate to New Scotland or America and simply sought a safe place to sleep until the ship that would take them across the sea departed from Ullapool. Others planned to wander south to Glasgow or the Borders. Grace hadn’t the heart to turn a single one of them away, so i
nstead she devoted her days and nights to helping prepare them for their new lives.

  After the Scots’ rebellion in 1745, a writ had been passed called the Act of Proscription, taking the Highlanders into what was known as “the time of gray.” The wearing of the colorful tartans they had so proudly displayed for generations, the teaching of Gaelic, even the playing of the pipes had been forbidden under threat of transportation. Though the proscription was repealed some forty years later, its damage had been wrought through a full generation. When Grace learned of the proscription and its eventual repeal, she immediately set to work on the design for a distinct tartan, collaborated on with Alastair, Liza, and Deirdre. Its colors were created by using the various plant life found at Skynegal— a lovely dark green made from the heath pulled just before flowering from a dark, shady place; a rich deep red made from the crotal, or gray lichen they had scraped from the moorland rocks; and black made from the rich bark and acorns of the Highland oaks. The tartan was used to make the clothing for the refugee Highlanders so that no matter where they might go, be it to other parts of Scotland or the new world, they would always have a remembrance of Skynegal and their Scottish heritage with them.

  Since the majority of the Highlanders spoke only Gaelic, together with Liza, Alastair, and Deirdre, Grace had begun teaching them English, as well as reading and writing and simple mathematics. They had set up pallets stuffed with heather and gorse in the great hall for those who had no homes or family with whom they could stay, and when that chamber had filled, they moved on to the others. A good many of the Skynegal tenants had begun taking in the strangers, echoing the goodwill shown by their mistress.

  In turn, those who sought shelter did their share. While the women were employed in the weaving and sewing of new clothing for those in need, the men busied themselves with tending the stock of cattle and sheep in the fields while others contributed to the castle renovations or the repairs needed at the tenants’ cottages across the estate. In the space of the handful of weeks Grace had been at Skynegal, this once-abandoned estate, overgrown and in disrepair, had been transformed into a small, efficiently working community.

  But Grace knew that a community needed funds to grow and thrive and that was a commodity fast growing scarce. To date Grace had had no reply to the missive she’d written to Mr. Jenner requesting additional funds. By her calculations, he should have received it nearly a month earlier, giving him ample time to reply. After the first couple of weeks, she’d written again, and then she’d sent a third letter for fear that the first and even the second had never reached him. Funds were running short. In keeping the castle stocked with meal and the simplest of necessities, they’d already run through a good portion of the money Nonny had given her. Just the week before, Grace had found herself sorting through her small cache of jewelry, trying to decide which pieces she might sell when next McFee or McGee made the trip to Ullapool for supplies. In the end, she’d decided she could part with almost all of it, with the exception of the inscribed timepiece she’d found her first day at Skynegal and one other—her wedding ring.

  Grace turned from the window when she heard a stirring come suddenly from behind her and was greeted by Liza coming into her bedchamber with an armful of freshly washed clothes.

  “I was beginning to think you were going to sleep through the day,” the maid said as she set out a fresh gown, shift, and stockings for Grace to wear.

  Grace shook her head. “I don’t know what it is, Liza, but I am so tired all the time. I can’t seem to pick myself out of bed as early as I used to.”

  Liza cocked a brow. “You work yourself too much, my lady. ‘Tisn’t right for a lady of your station to be toiling as you do.

  “So what should I be doing? Standing around glancing at myself in the mirror when there is so much work to be done?”

  Grace took up her hairbrush and began pulling it through the tangles in her hair.

  “I suppose your fatigue might have something to do with all the work you do,” the maid said. “But it could also have a mite to do with the fact that you’re increasing.”

  The hairbrush clattered noisily to the floor. Dubhar sat up on his haunches, wondering at the cause for the disturbance. Grace turned to stare at Liza, silent and disbelieving.

  “Oh, my lady, did you not know?” Then she added immediately, “Of course you did not. No one’s ever told you about women and babies and such. But surely you noticed you’ve not had your monthly since we’ve been to Scotland.”

  Grace shook her head, saying at the same time so softly, she barely heard her own words, “There have been times when I haven’t bled before and I wasn’t—I wasn’t—I—”

  Grace felt her consciousness threaten to shadow over as if she might faint. She had never fainted in her life, but she supposed if there ever were a time when fainting would be called for, this was it. She braced herself against the edge of the dressing table and waited for the dizziness to pass.

  Liza immediately dropped the clothes and came to her, helping her to sit at the edge of the bed. She took Grace’s hands in hers. “Oh, I am so sorry, my lady. Thought you knew of it and just didn’t want to tell anybody because of the troubles between his lordship and you…”

  Christian. Good God. Grace closed her eyes against a new wave of what she felt certain now would be a full swoon. Liza squeezed her hand and patted it.

  “My lady, I could be mistaken in this. I just figured, what with your monthly going missing and your bodice getting tight like it is—I am a maid, after all, and thus would notice these things.”

  Grace looked down at her breasts, suddenly noticing the fullness of them swelling beneath the thin fabric of her nightshift.

  “Do you ever feel sore… there?” Liza asked.

  Grace chewed her lip, staring at the maid. She nodded.

  “And I’ve seen you’ve been needing to use the chamberpot more often, too. My ma once said ‘tis from the babe growing and pressing upon you inside.”

  Still Grace shook her head against the idea. “But it’s been too long since we left London. Wouldn’t a babe be more evident?”

  Grace looked down at herself, placing a hand against her abdomen. She had noticed a thickening at her waist, but had put it off as too many of Deirdre’s oatcakes. To think that it had nothing to do with the oatcakes at all, but that a tiny life quite possibly grew there…

  “Some ladies don’t show they’re with child right away. Are you all right, my lady? Are you upset? Does this news of the babe trouble you?”

  Grace looked at Liza. At the mention of it, the thought of a babe had frightened her completely, for she knew nothing of raising children other than the scarce bits she’d seen while growing up at Ledysthorpe. But now that she’d had a moment to reflect on it and get past the shock of it, she found herself filled with a strange sort of warmth that brought her to smiling.

  “No, Liza, the babe does not trouble me at all. In fact, it makes me very, very happy.”

  Liza grinned. “Oh, I am so relieved to hear you say that! It will be such fun having a little ‘un around here, the next generation to carry on at Skynegal!”

  “You’ve come to like this pile of rocks, have you, Liza?” Grace said, remembering Liza’s pessimism when they had first arrived at Skynegal.

  ” ‘Tis the sort of place that grows on you,” Liza said, tossing her capped head. “But it is only due to the hand you have put to the place, my lady. I never knew your grandmama, but I know if she were here and could see all that you have done, she would be very proud.”

  “Thank you, Liza.”

  The maid grinned. “Now when the little ‘un is older, can I teach her how to plant a facer?”

  “Liza! Girls should not learn to fight!”

  “You’d think differently if you’d have been born into my family. ‘Twas a means for survival.”

  “Well, then, I suppose it wouldn’t do any harm for her to learn the proper form of it.” Grace looked at her. “But what if the bab
e is a boy?”

  Liza thought for a moment, cocking her head to the side. “Then I’ll teach him how to darn his own hose.”

  Grace hugged Liza tightly as they laughed and sat together at the side of the bed, all while the morning sunshine suddenly beamed down through the cloud of smoke in the distance.

  Not until the sun was starting to set that afternoon did Grace finally manage to steal a few moments to herself. It had been a long and unusually busy day, filled with small chores and unexpected interruptions.

  Another family of crofters had arrived shortly before midday with naught but the clothes they wore and terrible tales of the eviction that had driven them from their home. A man, a woman, and four young children, they had been walking for nearly three days, eating berries and foraging for earthnut to stave off the pangs of their hunger.

  After hearing their tale and seeing their sooty, forlorn faces, Grace had promptly brought them in, offered them hot porridge and fresh milk, and arranged for pallets for them to sleep on. She’d spent the rest of the morning updating the record books, adding to the growing list she was compiling of who had come to Skynegal and who had gone on.

  During a small midday meal of cheese and bannocks, Grace had done a little refining of her sketches for the castle refurbishment while she had listened to some of the children at their English lessons. Later, a disagreement had broken out among two of the workers. When Grace had happened upon that scene, one of them was readying to strike the other with a sizeable rock that was to have been used for the curtain wall. He pulled back in the moment he noticed Grace staring at him in horror, the rock just inches from the other man’s skull. He himself had sported a bloodied nose and was obviously retaliating for whatever wrong the other had committed before her arrival. After separate explanations from each, Grace had been no closer to understanding the cause of their discord, but she did manage to cool their tempers well enough to have them shaking hands and retreating to opposite ends of the curtain wall to resume their work.