The second sister, Scarlet, was bonny too, yet sadness seemed to dull her gaze. She lifted the edge of her skirt so as not to let it touch the destruction of his hall…the destruction of his life and legacy.
“This is what a damn English captain can wreak when the English crown wishes to steal a man’s home,” Grey said. He turned on his heel to leave the castle. He didn’t owe them any further explanations or information. Certainly not that he was going to check in on his cousin, Aiden Campbell, who still suffered from burns.
No, he didn’t owe Evelyn Worthington or her sister anything but hostility and condemnation. They were English, and they thought they owned him, for Finlarig and the Campbells were one and the same. If England destroyed his home and land, they would also destroy him and his clan. Which was something that Grey would never allow, no matter how bonny, brave, and reasonable the Englishwoman, standing among his mother’s broken tea bowls, appeared.
…
“Help me gather up the shards,” Evelyn said to Molly and Scarlet. “Then we can sweep and start on the walls.”
“You still have hopes to make this ruin into a school?” Scarlet asked as she stooped down. “Even with that Highland brute threatening you with a sword?”
Evelyn propped hands on her hips. “Nothing will deter me from bringing education to the women of Breadalbane.” After inspecting the castle, she was feeling more hopeful. Only the first floor was terribly scorched, and the kitchens were in perfect order. “And I don’t think Greyson Campbell was really going to stick me with his sword.”
Molly held up two pieces of a tea bowl that fit together. “Slicing your throat would have ended you faster.”
“I would have been angry, too, had my home been taken from me.” She frowned at the twist of guilt inside her stomach. Certainly, Nathaniel and the solicitor hadn’t told this English Captain to burn Finlarig to evict the human occupants. Although Grey Campbell wouldn’t believe it, she would never call people vermin or suggest burning them alive.
Scarlett stretched her back in an arch. “So, the crown believes him to be guilty of treason? It’s a wonder he hasn’t been arrested.”
“Perhaps this Captain Cross decided to execute him and his family in the fire,” Evelyn said grimly. “Though I doubt he was judged fairly or even at all. Nathaniel might be able to help.”
“Help with what exactly?” Scarlet asked. “If he solves Grey Campbell’s problem, he loses his new sheep farm and probably the money with it.”
“There is no easy solution,” Evelyn said. “But we are not returning to Hollings or Whitehall Palace.” She shook her head, meeting Scarlet’s gaze with determination. Even if she didn’t know what happened to her sister, she’d support her in never returning if that was what she wished. “So, we must find a way to become independent women here in Scotland. This area has no school, which is in direct conflict with the Education Act of 1646. And we have coin to make it happen, so the town needn’t be taxed. The only other structures suitable for a school within this parish are Balloch Castle, at the other end of Loch Tay where another Campbell lives, and Castle Menzies, where the chief of the Menzies Clan resides. Balloch is remote, away from the village, and someone is currently residing there, too, as well as at Castle Menzies.” She let out a long exhale. “There is just no other place within this parish for my school.”
Molly grabbed a willow broom in a corner. She started to sweep on the far end but stopped to move the remains of one of the tapestries. “Burned and left like an unburied body,” she said, shaking her head. “’Tis a shame.” She sneezed at the tangy dust.
Evelyn pressed her tongue hard against the roof of her mouth just behind her teeth, something she’d learned to do while withstanding her mother’s tireless lectures on…well, everything. She looked around, crossing her arms. “We will need to create new tapestries or murals. The students could work on some, and in a few years, the walls will be beautiful once more.”
Evelyn glanced at the soot marks on her apron. “I need to find us suitable work clothes, Scarlet, or we will ruin every gown we brought.”
“There are none above,” Molly said.
Evelyn dusted her hands. “I think it is time to venture into the village.”
“Should James escort you with a loaded musket?” Scarlet asked. “I can’t imagine, after what Grey told you, that the good people of Killin will be welcoming.”
“Even more important that I go out and make a good impression,” Evelyn said, squaring her shoulders. She found the velvet-lined bag where she stored coins and strode toward the doors. “If I’m not back in an hour, you can rethink the musket.”
The breeze was cool, even though it was past the noon hour, and the sun was bright. Evelyn gathered the collar of her shawl close and walked with confidence across the pebbled bailey and out the broken gate. Two Highlanders watched her from along the wall, and she raised a hand in greeting, though only one responded in kind.
Evelyn walked along a stacked stone wall, which diminished to brambles on each side, and breathed in the serenity and clean air. Rural and untouched by the world, she let the green, rolling hills beyond calm her. I can do this. For me and all the women here. Scarlet would heal, and Evelyn could show her brother and her father’s London, dusty-wigged cronies that women were intelligent and useful far beyond that of childbearing. She would be independent and free of Philip.
The path turned so that she could see thatched roofed cottages ahead. Dodging puddles from the rains the night before, she waved to a woman churning butter outside her door with a girl of probably ten years. With a glance Evelyn’s way, the woman abandoned her churn, the milk inside still moving the plunger up, and pulled the girl with her into the cottage.
Evelyn frowned. On Hollings Estate, she had befriended everyone from the gardener to groomsman to the cook who taught her how to bake. Evelyn continued along the road between three more silent houses before reaching the smithy where several fires were lit. A man with white hair that stuck out wildly around his head, was pointing to a set of bellows as he spoke to a thin young man.
“Keep them pumping, Eagan. I need the fires hot.”
The young man threw himself into action. Evelyn stopped. “Pardon me,” she said, making the white-haired man turn.
“More bloody English,” he murmured with a scowl.
Evelyn maintained her pleasant smile. “I’m hoping to represent my people better than the English you’ve had the misfortune to meet.” He didn’t say anything, and she blinked, struggling to keep her features from narrowing. “I am Lady Evelyn Worthington. My sister and I have moved into Finlarig Castle, and I saw that the iron gate needs mending. Could I hire you to do the job, and perhaps some work on the interior? I need new glass panes for the windows in the great hall.”
“Ye have coin?” he asked, looking her up and down.
“Yes.”
He rubbed his chin, his thumb and forefinger coming up to squeeze his bottom lip, and shook his head. “Too busy.” He turned away, dismissing her.
God’s teeth. “Are there other smithies about?”
“Closest one is back in your England, miss,” the smith said. “Might as well head there.”
She kept her sigh in place. “I would rather give my coin to you than to a smith with the English garrison nearby.”
He frowned over his shoulder. “They be the ones to break it all. They should be the ones to fix it.”
She held his stubborn gaze for a long moment before giving him a tight smile. “You do have a point, sir.” She looked out at the vacant road. “Is there a weaver and seamstress about and a butcher perhaps?”
Watching him carefully, Evelyn caught his glance back toward the castle. He shook his head. “None in the village.”
“A shame, as I’m sure my coin in exchange could benefit them.”
“Ye can’t eat coin.” He turned back toward his frantically pumping apprentice.
Evelyn walked in the direction of his glance. Around the
side of a stucco and timber cottage, she spotted a large spinning wheel and a table with freshly carded wool piled high, along with a basket on the ground near the wheel. A skein of finely spun yarn wrapped around a wooden spindle. Evelyn saw no one about and walked over to touch the soft yarn.
“Are ye planning to steal it then?” a woman’s voice called from a window.
Evelyn slapped a hand over her thumping heart. “Of course not. I was just admiring the fineness. It’s the thinnest thread I’ve ever seen.”
The woman looked to be close to Evelyn in age, long plaited hair and a pretty face, though she’d be more attractive if she didn’t scowl. She came out through the door, wiping her damp hands on an apron. “It’s the strongest wool thread ye’ll ever find,” she said, her frown still in place.
Evelyn smiled broadly. “Are you the talented spinner then?”
“Aye.”
“I’m pleased to meet you. I am Evelyn Worthington. And you are?”
“Kirstin MacGregor.” She kept her frown, but Evelyn smiled genuinely over having won the woman’s name.
“Well, Lady Kirstin, I would like to purchase some of your fine yarn and any weaving or cloth you might have. I have coin.”
“I’m just Kirstin,” she said, crossing her arms. She scrunched her nose. “No lady.” Kirstin glanced in the direction of the castle. “Are ye one of the English who stole our clan’s castle?”
Evelyn let her exhale fill her cheeks, then let it out in a rush of air like a popped bladder ball. “My brother bought the estate without knowing there was a dispute over the ownership.” Evelyn let her smile fade to genuine worry. “Now no one in town will have anything to do with us.”
“Give it back,” Kirstin said as she turned to go inside. For an instant, Evelyn worried she would slam the door, but she reappeared with some folded cloth, dyed a beautiful light blue.
“It’s lovely,” Evelyn said, reaching out to touch the soft wool. She met Kirstin’s gaze. “And it’s not that easy to give the castle back. My brother paid a large sum for it to become a sheep farm, and I have plans to make it into a school for women, a parish school for the whole community, too.”
“A school? Why do we need a school?”
Evelyn smiled, holding up one finger. “First of all, it is law that there must be a school in each parish. And more importantly, I want to teach all of you to read and write and count and expand your thinking.”
Kirstin nodded slowly as if chewing a new dish and waiting to see if it appealed to her. “Not sure we need to know all that,” she said. “Unless it will keep our bellies full.”
Evelyn grasped onto her argument. She’d been ready for this after her father told her it was worthless to educate the masses. “But what if you could read notices that come through town, telling you about the English and what they’re up to? Or the bible? Instead of just going with what priests or pastors tell you, you could read and decide for yourself. If you could figure numbers and read about the world, you would never be tricked into anything. Education can protect you, plus you could learn a trade that would translate directly into keeping your stomach pleasantly full.”
Kirstin stared at her with a blank face. Her lips pinched together. “The cloth will be eight shillings. And mind ye, I can count to eight.”
“I’m certain you can,” Evelyn said and dug around in her bag for the coins. “Are you also a seamstress by chance?”
“Everyone here can sew.”
Evelyn smiled. “But you’re the only one who will talk to me.” Her honesty brought a hint of a smile to the woman’s face.
“What do ye need made?” she asked.
“Much,” Evelyn said. “Curtains, table drapes, napkins, and a sturdy day gown each for my sister and me.”
“Is Alana still up there at Finlarig?” Kirstin asked.
“She was last night.”
“Alana’s a good seamstress.” She shrugged. “Although I doubt she’ll help, ye being English and all.” She narrowed her eyes at Evelyn, looking her up and down in condemnation. “Not when the English threw her back inside to burn with the castle.”
“They…threw her back inside? After she ran out?”
Kirstin nodded slowly without breaking eye contact. “And locked the doors with half a dozen people inside and Alana’s wee pups.”
Good God. What terrible example of English had these people been given? “I suppose I wouldn’t help me, either.”
Kirstin looked pointedly at Evelyn for a long pause. Finally, she puckered her lips outward. “I’ll be up there tomorrow morn.”
Relief picked apart some of the knot in Evelyn’s stomach. “Thank you.”
Kirstin crossed her arms over her ample chest. “And even though ye’ve come to teach us, I think ye have a lot to learn, Sassenach.”
Evelyn held the soft wool close to her as she walked farther down the empty road. The wind blew the fragrance of early spring, and a tickle of unease skipped up her spine. She turned around, but only closed doors and curtained windows stared back. Facing forward, she bent over, pretending to admire a little bluebell flower, and glanced behind past her skirts.
A child crouched low, looking at Evelyn with large eyes. With a ragged dress and long, stringy hair, it seemed to be a girl, though it was hard to tell what was under all the dirt smeared across her face and arms. When Evelyn’s gaze met hers, the girl smiled, but the smile made her look mad, like she might start cackling any moment. Slowly Evelyn stood. “Hello, there.”
Evelyn heard the crunch of horses behind her, but her focus was completely on the waif. Her filthy, ragged appearance pulled at Evelyn’s heart. “Do you live in the village?” The girl didn’t reply, just stared with wide eyes and that disarming, exaggerated smile.
Afraid to look away, else the child vanish like a pixie in the weeds, Evelyn held out a hand. “Can you speak with me? I’m a stranger here and could use your help.”
The girl remained frozen, but her gaze shifted behind Evelyn, her face pinching into murderous contempt. The change was so swift, and seemingly without the girl moving, that gooseflesh rose along Evelyn’s arms. Crouching low, the girl skittered off the road toward the corner of Kirstin’s house.
“Well now,” a deep voice said behind Evelyn. “A new girl in Killin.”
Before she could turn, Evelyn felt someone mold against her back, a man, his rigid member pressing hard against her backside. His arms came up around her as hot, foul breath brushed her ear. “My men and I would like to give you a proper English welcome.”
Chapter Four
“Ye burned the bill of sale before her English nose?” Aiden asked, his sheared head turned to the side, cheek smashed against the flat pillow. Grey’s cousin lay in the bed on his stomach while his sister, Rebecca, tended the weeping burns on his back and neck in the light from the window.
“Aye,” Grey said, and smiled despite his gut tightening with the grimace Aiden gave as Rebecca lay a new poultice across his back. He would trade places with him, if possible.
“Honey, mashed onions, lavender, and marigold water,” she said. “’Tis what your Gram recommended, Grey. And Cat agreed.”
Aiden opened his pinched eyes. “What are ye going to do, Grey?”
“He’s going to do the sensible thing and get the hell out of Finlarig and probably Killin completely,” Rebecca said, returning to the hearth where she boiled the fouled bandages.
Grey stood. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Then ye’ll be as pained as Aiden or dead,” she said, pushing back the hair that stuck to her forehead from the steam off the water.
“Or,” Grey said, crossing his arms, “I’ll throw the Sassenachs out.”
Rebecca turned on him. “What? And have the English come back, not only to burn Finlarig again, but to set the rest of Killin on fire?”
Grey’s shoulders ached with the tension he carried. He certainly wouldn’t put it past Captain Cross and his bloody henchmen to punish all the Campbells if Gre
y started a war with him and the Worthington sisters. “Blaigeard,” he said.
“Agreed,” Aiden said from his spot. “Cross is a bastard of the dirtiest kind, and I think Rebecca is right. They would burn the town.”
“Bloody hell, ye must be near death,” Rebecca called. “To be agreeing with your little sister.”
“I best be back to see what the Sassenach has done to the castle,” Grey said, stretching out of the rickety chair.
Aiden met his gaze. “Perhaps ye can convince the ladies to leave on their own.”
“Evelyn Worthington doesn’t look like the kind to give up easily,” Grey said. “She’s strong with fury right now. Like a mad hornet.”
“Then let her stay,” Aiden said.
“Bloody hell.”
“Listen. If the lass tries to open this school and no one comes, it will fail within a few months. If she brings in sheep, they can mysteriously disappear. I’m sure the Menzies would love to add to their herds.”
“Just let her stay?” Grey mused, his arms crossed over his chest.
“Aye, and watch her fail,” Aiden said, his eyes closing as if speaking exhausted him. “The castle is a ruin. The people of Killin will hate her and her lording ways. She’ll be despised, tired, and dirty. Let her stay to see that her school will never be.”
Aiden’s plan could work. If Evelyn failed to build a successful school, she would abandon the plan. He left Rebecca’s cottage, heading out into the damp forest. Puddles pocked the trail he took toward the village. Spring gardens encircled the homes of his people. Would he risk English soldiers trampling the sprouts as they lit thatching on fire in retaliation? Nay. He would just have to allow the lass to figure out for herself that her school was a foolish idea. Especially in his castle.
His footfalls crunched along the path, and he turned onto the road leading through town.
“How dare you!” Evelyn’s voice rang out, full of rage.
What the hell had the woman gotten herself into? Grey pushed into a run and rounded the corner to find her caught up against Captain Cross’s bastard henchman, Lieutenant Marcus Burdock. The wigged English soldier had laughed in glee as he forced them into a blazing Finlarig at gunpoint. Razor-sharp fury shot through Grey.
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