by Aileen Adams
Especially a keen, bright little thing like Hilda.
“But I could be of aid to him. I listen in on the meetings he holds with his advisors, ye know.” Hilda grinned with both mischief and a little girl’s sense of adventure.
“You do not!”
“I do. He doesn’t know it. He told me I never should.”
“And with good reason. I’m certain they use language in those meetings which should never reach a young lady’s ears.” She straightened, turning her head to the side so that her young charge might not see the smile she couldn’t contain. It would do no good to encourage such behavior.
They walked together hand-in-hand from the clearing where they’d spent the late morning in the very serious business of picking wildflowers. Both of them still wore tiny white and blue blossoms in their hair, the first of spring’s blooming.
“If yer hair were gold, ye would look just like one of the fair folk,” Hilda declared as she looked up at Ysmaine.
Ysmaine merely laughed. “I’m afraid I carry too much of my mother’s coloring to be considered one of them.” And her height, and her wide shoulders and long arms. She came from good stock; her father had always insisted with a note of pride.
Though she had sometimes felt like a giant among other women. Even among some men. It would not have pained her overmuch to be small and fragile.
“Your mama was from France,” Hilda remembered, unaware of Ysmaine’s turn of thought.
“Yes, she was.”
“And that’s why ye speak strangely sometimes. You, I mean,” she self-corrected, blushing.
“Strangely when compared to some of you,” Ysmaine smiled. “My mother wanted me to learn as she learned. She grew up in a great house, where her father was an important man. He wanted his daughter to have the finest learning she could, so that she might make a good wife for a nobleman someday.”
“And did she?”
Ysmaine barely hid her laughter. “Not entirely, no. She made a good wife. My father was always very happy with her, and she with him. I remember how happy we all were. But my father was like yours. A Highlander, from Clan Fraser.”
“Oh, yes. I remember. Father talks about him sometimes.”
“Does he?” It touched Ysmaine to know that anyone would speak of him. “What does he say, if I might ask?”
“That Connor Fraser was the bravest man he’d ever known, that he had once seen him take down ten men with a single swing of his sword!” By the time she’d finished, Hilda’s cheeks had flushed with excitement.
Ysmaine chuckled. “While I doubt such a feat is truly possible, I know it to be true that he was a brave man in battle. And a loyal one. He fought for his clan because it was dearer to him than all else.”
And he had died for it.
Followed by his wife.
No one could tell Ysmaine for certain what had killed her mother. Some whispered that she’d fallen with child against the advice of the midwife who had helped deliver her first and only living babe. The labor had been so lengthy, so brutal, it had been decided that she ought not put her body through such a struggle again.
Though Ysmaine, as a young woman, suspected her mother had been with child more than once afterward. She remembered at least two times in her life when Mama had glowed from within, when she had hummed as she’d bustled about the house. When Ysmaine would find her staring into the distance, her hands crossed over a still-flat stomach.
And then, the sadness. The visit from the healer. Much whispering, the sound of barely-muffled sobs coming from the room she shared with her husband. Papa had been quite sad, as well, and those were the times when he’d often pull Ysmaine into his lap, the two of them sitting quietly by the fire for hours at a stretch while Mama had rested in the other room.
Had it been another such instance in the case of Louise Fraser’s death? Ysmaine would never know, as the healer who’d been ancient by all accounts while Ysmaine was a child had died in the four years since she’d last treated Louise.
Was it possible to simply die because one’s heart was crushed beyond repair?
If so, was not the fact of Ysmaine’s existence not enough to convince her mother to hold on to life?
Regardless, Ysmaine was an orphan and had been since she was fifteen years old. Hilda was merely the latest in a long line of children who had been taught the basics of reading and writing, of music and mathematics, even of embroidery and dance.
The education her mother had insisted upon paid off by allowing Ysmaine a small living, which along with the small piece of land she’d inherited from her parents allowed her to sustain herself. It was possible that she would spend her entire life teaching children, even living under the family’s roof when called upon to do so.
After all, who would wish to marry a girl without a dowry? One who might just be better educated, too? In Ysmaine’s admittedly limited experience, men did not take kindly to women smarter than themselves.
Hilda’s home sat just beyond the crest they climbed together, its thatched roof recently repaired after the normal winter wear. It was still a bit too early for planting in the garden, but there was weeding and tilling going on in preparation.
One of the household servants waved from the doorway, then cupped her hands around her mouth. “He is looking for ye!” she called out, and Ysmaine needed no explanation as to who “he” was. She allowed Hilda to linger in the garden while she hurried into the house.
Niall waited for her in the room he used for meetings with the local clan members, those who also made their home along the banks of the River Beauly. It was a fine, large room, with a roaring fire to keep at bay the chill of early spring, it seemed as though the stones which made the walls and floors held onto the cold almost as though they were too greedy to let it go.
She cleared her throat upon entering, then strode over to the long table at the head of the room. Niall sat with his back to the fire, resting his weak right leg on a stool at his side. He’d earned the injury during battle alongside Connor Fraser, years before Ysmaine was born.
Ever since, his leg had pained him whenever the weather turned damp. It was an unfortunate time of year, as a result.
“I’ve had a letter,” he explained, flying headfirst into his reasons for summoning her, as was his manner. He rarely wasted time on niceties or polite conversation for conversation’s sake.
“A letter?” she asked, puzzled.
“Aye. Someone from yer lands came to deliver it, as it was sent straight to yer home.”
He held it out, and Ysmaine accepted it with a trembling hand. She’d never had a letter before and couldn’t imagine why anyone would send one.
The wax someone had carefully dripped on it to hold it closed was unbroken, telling her Niall had respected her privacy. The crest of the stamp was only vaguely familiar, like something out of a half-remembered dream. A lion and a rose.
Where had she seen it before?
She broke the wax and unfolded the parchment with care.
Niall waited while she read, but he could not withhold his curiosity for long.
“Bad news?” he prompted. When she glanced away from the letter, she found him squinting at her.
Her hands were shaking.
“I suppose one might think it bad news,” she whispered in a voice which trembled as badly as her hands. “My grandfather is dead.”
“Yer grandfather? The one in France?”
“Yes. This letter is from a marquis who I suppose is in charge of the estate. It would appear as though my grandfather left it to me.”
Niall blinked, his mouth falling open. “To ye? All to ye?”
She scanned the careful print, eyes flying over the words. “It appears that way. I’m to have my things packed and ready to be escorted to Cherbourg. My escorts will be arriving…” She double-checked the day and gasped. “In two days. I must be there in person to settle things.”
“Two days?” Niall looked as though he shared her concern.
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br /> “I’m sorry… I hadn’t the first idea…” she whispered. There he was, on the verge of departing for the journey to Inverness, and she was announcing her departure.
“There’s no need to apologize, lass,” he assured her with a broad grin. “Yer father was never overly fond of his father-in-law, and the old man outright hated yer mother marrying a Highlander.”
“That much, I know,” she replied.
“It was always understood that he disinherited her,” Niall mused. “I suppose he had a change of heart. Even the hardest old man is certain to soften in the face of old age and knowing he’ll be dead soon.”
Ysmaine shifted in discomfort at his flippant tone, then again, she had never known her grandfather, and he had disowned his only daughter over her marrying a man who’d never been anything but kind, loving, gentle and wonderful to both his wife and their child.
But he’d left everything to her, sight unseen, and might very well have just answered the question of what she would do with the rest of her life. From the little she’d heard of her mother’s upbringing, she knew the family had been quite wealthy by any standards.
And that would be hers, had things remained as they’d been. There was no telling until she arrived in Cherbourg.
“I suppose this is goodbye, then.” Niall stood with some difficulty. “I would prefer it if a handful of my men could assist in your escort, at least until you reach Inverness and depart by boat. As it is, I’ll have a pair of them escort ye home now, so ye might ready yourself.”
It was all happening so quickly, without any warning. She had only just been planning methods to keep Hilda occupied and happy.
Now, she was on her way home, and then?
There was no telling. No telling at all.
5
The hooks along the walls sat empty, no longer holding her modest kirtles or chemises. The little chest which had sat at the foot of her small straw tick bed held everything she owned in the world, other than her land, naturally.
There was nothing left to do but wait for her escorts to arrive.
Time had never stretched out the way it did just then, with each moment seeming to span a day. It wasn’t as if she wanted to leave or that she wished her escorts would make haste.
It was merely the strain of waiting which wore on her.
Ysmaine gazed out the window beside her bed for what could well have been the ten thousandth time.
And possibly the last.
How many sunrises? How many first snowfalls of the season? How many nights had she spent there, seated on a little stool, staring out into the dark, starry night? Wondering?
What she’d wondered had no name, no explanation. She’d simply wondered. About life, about her future. About the past and what had brought her mother across the North Sea from Cherbourg and up to Inverness, where she’d met the man she’d been fated to wed.
Ysmaine had pondered the question of whether such a fateful journey might be in store for her someday. Now, she was on the verge of a voyage to the land from which her mother had come.
What would her mother think if she knew this? Would she be proud?
As Ysmaine took one last, long look at the land which her father had left her. It stretched down to the river, where fish traps had sat for as long as she could remember. Many was the morning she’d walked down to the water’s edge to check for fresh pike, carrying the traps back to the house with a proud smile as though she were the reason the fish had swum into the traps.
Many was the day she’d stripped off her stockings and tucked her skirts into her belt before playing in the cool water. She had once slipped and fallen in entirely, with only a low-hanging branch further downriver providing her the means to save herself.
She’d never told anyone of it, out of shame for the panic she’d suffered in those agonizing moments before she’d seen the branch and reached for it. When she’d been certain she was going to drown.
The land on the other side of the river was covered in fragrant pine, providing the most wonderful scent when the wind blew just right. She would never smell pine again without thinking of home.
Niall’s men had already come to gather the chickens and livestock the day before, as she hadn’t the heart to sell them prior to departing and he’d offered to take them. There simply hadn’t been time to prepare herself for everything involved in leaving home, but he had promised to look after her interests in her absence.
The Marquis had certainly not given her much time to settle things, though he might have assumed there was nothing for her to settle. Women did not often own land, Connor Fraser had made certain that none could contest her claim in the event of his death, but many men did not take such pains.
The sight of a carriage in the distance, pulled by a pair of black horses, shook her from her reverie. Was it coming for her? She did not recognize the men seated behind the horses, both of them dressed in long tunics which fell past their knees and were dyed the most fascinating shade of red.
How did one achieve such vibrant color? She could hardly imagine, never having owned anything that was not brown, gray or in the most special of cases, a shade of red which reminded her of rust and faded with each washing. Nothing near as wonderous as what approached.
The men wore hats with tall crowns and wide brims which made it all but impossible for her to see their faces, not that she could have made much out from afar. She merely wanted to know—needed to know—whether they were friendly or unkind.
The swords hanging from their leather belts caused her to believe they might be much more the latter than the former. A lump grew in her throat, making it difficult to breathe.
They were her protectors. The Marquis had sent them for her to ensure her safety, as her grandfather would have wished. There was nothing to fear.
Even so, the hand she ran over the front of her kirtle trembled. She looked down at herself once again, wondering if the garment she had chosen for such a special occasion was truly so special when compared to the finery of her escorts.
It was something her mother had overseen the making of before her passing and was perhaps a bit tight at the elbow and bust; it was several years old and, while in good condition from being rarely worn, was still a garment created for a fifteen-year-old who’d had growing left to do.
She’d wanted to impress them, to prove that no matter what idea her grandfather had given his friends about his son-in-law, she’d lived a good life. A life in which her parents had provided well for her. Though her father was no longer alive to bear the scorn of Simon de Monterel, that did not remove the bitter thorn from Ysmaine’s breast.
When the carriage turned from the road and through the opening in the stone wall which bordered it, she knew it was there for her.
This was it. The day on which the course of her life would change.
She cast one more look about her chambers, a room in which she’d slept and dreamed, tossed about the bed with a fever which her mother had helped her through, and wept when both her mother and father left her forever. So much of her life spent right there, behind the window, looking out onto a world of which she was about to become a part.
It was best to hurry out before tears had the chance to take hold.
Her trunk sat inside the rear door, everything of value packed inside. It wasn’t as though she possessed much. A pair of copper candlesticks which her father had presented to her mother after their wedding, and the gown which Louise had worn during the ceremony. An old rag doll which she’d loved in her early years. Her mother’s pearls, carefully wrapped in layers of linen so they might not become scratched and dull.
The only other valuable item—other than Ysmaine’s garments, all of which were packed around her treasures—was a jeweled brooch. Gold, inlaid with pearl. Louise’s favorite jewel. Oblong, as wide as the length of Ysmaine’s thumb, it had been used to hold Louise de Monterel’s cloak together while she journeyed from Cherbourg to Inverness, where she had become Louise Fraser.
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Ysmaine closed her long, dark cloak with the same brooch before opening the door to her escorts.
Rather than the men, what caught her eye was the horses. Beauties, all of them, prancing and sleek, muscles standing out beneath their shining coats. Their tails flicked back and forth; their heads tossed as they waited impatiently.
The man sitting beside the driver alighted from the carriage and bowed. “Is this the residence of Ysmaine Fraser?” he asked.
“It is. I am Ysmaine.” Her cheeks pinked, she was not accustomed to speaking with strange men, especially those who were not of her father’s clan.
He nodded, then looked about himself. “We’ve come to take you home.”
Home? But she was already standing at the threshold of her home, where she had spent her entire life. Cherbourg was not home, no matter what waited for her or how wonderful it might be.
She hoped she might one day come to think of it as home, as her mother had once she’d settled into married life.
“What are your names?” she asked as the man loaded her trunk into the carriage, its rounded top covered with thick canvas to provide privacy.
They exchanged a wide-eyed look, as though surprised she would ask—why, she could not imagine. They would travel many days together, after all. Why not at least know how to address them?
After a pause, the man loading her trunk—younger, almost rather handsome—replied. “My name is Leon. The driver is Geoffrey.”
“I’m pleased to meet you both.” She looked up at the driver, who nodded without speaking. He was older, weathered, with the dark complexion of a man who spent much of his life out of doors and a scar which ran down the length of his neck.
“You are the Marquis’s men, then?” she asked, and realized she was stalling. This was it, after all. There was no turning back once they’d begun, certainly not once they boarded the ship which would carry them across the sea.
“Yes, we are. And we had better be on our way, as the Marquis is waiting for us.”
