Highland Flame

by Mary Wine

  “Kory.” She wasn’t sure why she simply took charge, only that Bari’s seeking eyes over the edge of the table were unbearable. “Take that tray for you and your comrades.”

  Kory was in motion the moment she called his name. It took a moment for him to realize what she’d said, his face brightening as he looked at the food. He was tugging on the edge of his bonnet as he came to get the large platter.

  But the rest of the hall was in a state of shock. Mouths were hanging open as expressions became dark.

  “English…”

  “She’s bloody English…”

  “He wed an English bitch…”

  The Gordons didn’t bother to whisper either. They expressed their displeasure to one another in full-bodied voices, and more than one spit on the floor before sending her a scathing glare.

  Diocail slammed his mug against the tabletop. “Aye!” he announced in a hard tone. “Jane is me wife. And…” He glared at a man who spat on the floor in response. “As ye can see, she is no’ selfish but a mistress to bring order to this keep and see to the needs of those who serve it.”

  The Gordons had no idea what to make of their new laird’s words. It was clear they wanted to hate Jane, but many watched as Kory and the others began to enjoy the food she had sent from her own table to theirs. Hence, the Gordon were torn between hatred of her blood and the hunger in their bellies.

  “Excuse me.” Jane tried to push her chair back, but it was too heavy. A retainer standing behind her reached forward and pulled her away from the table.

  “Where are ye going, Jane?”

  “Clearly to the kitchen.” His captains frowned at how sharp her tone was. Jane lowered herself quickly. “Forgive me for being tart. I am distressed to see how little there is for supper. It shames your name.”

  The captains nodded approvingly at her before she turned and walked behind them. Three steps led up to the high ground, and she was down them in a moment before going through the passageway where she’d seen the maids enter.

  Which led her straight into hell.

  * * *

  “I knew ye were bold,” Sorley muttered the moment Jane was gone. He was smacking his lips and wiped them on his sleeve before continuing. “But an English wife?”

  “Are ye going to tell me offers have been arriving while I’ve been gone?” Diocail demanded.

  Sorley grinned and shook his head. “No’ a single one.”

  Diocail grunted and bit into the bread, only to snort because the grain used to make it was only partially ground. Pain snaked through his jaw as he clamped down on a hard kennel.

  “Aye, the fare is dry now, but no better for it.” Sorley cast a look toward the passageway where Jane had disappeared. “Thinking on it a bit longer, I do nae care if ye found her confessing her dealings with Satan, so long as she brings order to this house.”

  “It was no’ too far from that,” Muir announced as he took his place at the high table and began to fill his plate. “Had to cut her down from the gallows, and none too soon either.”

  * * *

  “I do nae need instruction from an Englishwoman.”

  The Gordon female in front of her was hardly the first to announce such an opinion. Jane looked straight back at her. The kitchen staff was united in their stand to leave instead of accepting her as their mistress. Replacing them might be possible, but not before the dawn and the need to have another meal on the tables in the hall.

  Of course, the women knew it too. They were smirking at her, their eyes glittering with the enjoyment of knowing they had the leverage to make her bend.

  Well, there was another thing to be thankful to Alicia for. When it came to making the best of circumstances, Jane knew that path very well indeed.

  “You have all clearly persevered when your burdens were overly heavy.” Jane spoke softly and slowly. “It is plain you were asked to do things that lacked honor.”

  A few of the smirks faded. She’d touched on a chord within some of them. A need to be understood and acknowledged for their efforts.

  “When my father remarried, my stepmother dismissed every servant in the house because she wanted only those whom she had selected,” Jane continued. “It was her right, and yet I privately thought it overly harsh to those who had served so diligently.”

  The tension was mounting in the kitchen. Several of the Gordon retainers had come in to hear what she was saying to the staff, and the hard set of their jaws confirmed that the women were dear to them.

  “Since you have all managed to suffer the lack of proper help here, it would seem to me that you should share in the future success of this kitchen.” She spoke clearly but firmly. “Your laird has assured me I may do what is needed to set things right here. Proper wages. Adequate staff. Yes, I was born in England; however, when it comes to turning bread, I do not think it matters so much what country one was born in. A wise woman knows how much to set out in the morning so the supper table is not bare and how much effort it takes to see the meal produced.”

  Some of them were bending. Or at least softening.

  “Does that mean ye’ll be listening to us in matters of how much to serve?”

  Jane turned to look at the woman who had spoken. “I would be foolish not to. This is my first time in Scotland.”

  The woman’s lips parted in a grin. “Ye’re in the Highlands.”

  There was a soft round of laughter in response. Jane took the ribbing with grace, offering a nod of acceptance.

  “I am Dolina,” the woman announced. “I have served in this kitchen since I was five winters.” She pointed to two girls. “Those are me daughters, and the young scamp over by the hearth is me youngest son. He’s not earned a single penny for all the time he’s been turning the meat.”

  The young boy was only tall enough to work the handle that turned the splint in the hearth. He was dripping sweat from working so close to the fire.

  Now that Dolina had begun, the others were quick to get into line to air their grievances.

  “First, let us see to the matter of the morning meal.” Jane raised her voice because the women were converging on her. “Dolina, what is served?”

  Dolina was pleased to be asked. She lifted her chin and stepped in front of her comrades to begin explaining the kitchen to Jane. Her young son was sleeping in the corner by the time his mother finished.

  Jane was ready to join him. It was overwhelming, the amount of work to be done, but she found herself smiling as she took her leave, even knowing she needed to be back at first light. Dolina wasn’t the only one who craved knowing she had a place.

  Jane longed for it too. The Gordon towers were a bride’s nightmare, but she was willing to try to soften the edges.

  “Mistress.”

  Jane jumped as Niven straightened up from where he’d been leaning against the wall outside the kitchen. He blinked, clearly having dozed off.

  “I’m sorry,” Jane exclaimed. Just beyond them, the hall was full of sleeping men. Several had been startled out of their rest. They’d jumped right onto their feet and watched her from low crouching positions as they took in the situation. They sent her disapproving looks before lying back down.

  Niven gestured for her to follow him. He plucked a candle from where it was stuck on a spike in the mortar of the wall. She noted another need as they began to climb the stairs with only that lone flame to guide them.

  Candles. The tower was nearly pitch-black, and it was drafty, the wind howling through the stairwell. Jane and Niven passed windows and arrow slits that were open to the weather with no shutters to keep out the night’s chill.

  But at least it carried the stench away.

  “The laird thought ye’d like to sleep tonight.” Niven opened a door to a chamber. There was a welcoming flicker from a candle left inside.

  “Thank you,” she muttered. �
��I am sorry to keep you waiting for me.”

  Niven tugged on his bonnet before turning and disappearing down the stairs.

  The chamber was a small one because the stairs continued and took up part of the width of the tower. She didn’t mind. It had a door, which she closed, and then she ventured further, to where a bed waited with the promise of sleep.

  Niven’s words echoed in her mind as she opened her bodice and laid it aside, stripping down to her smock before hurrying into the bed to escape the night’s chill.

  Sleep tonight…

  The retainer had said what was on everyone’s minds, of course. With Diocail proclaiming her his wife in the great hall, she’d be expected to visit his chamber.

  And soon.

  * * *

  “He’s made his mistake now,” Keefe informed his friends and allies. “An English bitch is no fit mistress for Gordon land.”

  “Aye.” Sheehan spat on the floor.

  “We’ll need more support if we’re to rid ourselves of Diocail as laird.” Phelan offered the hard facts. “Ye share yer link to the bloodline with others, Keefe. There will be more than a few who decide it a better path simply to let Diocail keep the lairdship and breed that new wife to ensure his line because of the bloodshed it will save.”

  “In that case,” Keefe spoke ominously, “we’d best get rid of her before she whelps us a half-English heir.”

  “Ye’d do a woman harm?” Phelan asked.

  Keefe drew himself up straight. “I will remove anyone standing between me and being laird of the Gordons,” Keefe declared. “I thought ye were with me in no’ wanting an outsider, even one with a blood tie, as laird. Unlike Diocail, ye know well who I am. We’ve trained together, fought at each other’s backs.”

  “I agreed with ye, Keefe, and I’ve said clearly enough that I support yer claim to the lairdship,” Phelan answered back. “Diocail may have been Colum’s sister’s child, but he was no’ raised up a Gordon. He’s as likely devoted to Sutherland as Gordons.”

  “Aye,” Keefe nodded. “We have no way of knowing who Diocail truly calls his master, and now he’s brought home an English bride.”

  “That’s no’ a good thing,” Sheehan agreed. “She’s related to a baron, no less.”

  “Aye,” Keefe growled. “Allow her to have a son, and it’s likely Diocail will be dead in his bed so she can have her relatives here while her son is too young to rule. James Stuart is only Elizabeth Tudor’s puppet king.”

  “For all we know, Diocail was nae raised in the north.”

  “He might well be an imposter,” Sheehan agreed. “Better to have ye, Keefe, as laird. I know ye’re Gordon.”

  Keefe nodded. “I am, and I will deal with the English bitch meself.”

  * * *

  The first meal of the day was met with double the number of men who had been in the great hall the night before. They filled the tables, their kilts draping over the edges of the benches as Jane contemplated dropping in a dead faint where she stood.

  His home needed taking in hand? Now there was the understatement of the century.

  “Well now,” Dolina muttered next to her. “It seems ye’ve caused a sensation, mistress. They’ve all come to get a look at ye.”

  The meal the kitchen staff delivered still fell short of the need. Jane felt her cheeks heating as she watched it being consumed and felt looks being cast her way that made it plain she was found lacking.

  Her temper sizzled.

  “Do nae be so hard on yerself,” Dolina offered. “It’s more than those tables have seen in years. The men have been avoiding coming to the hall because of it.”

  “And now, they will carry away confirmation of my failure to provide enough bread.”

  “There is enough bread for now,” Dolina said. “But we’ve served all we turned this morning. Without the mill, there will be little for supper.”

  “I know,” Jane agreed. The maids were reduced to turning hand cranks to mill the grain into flour. It was a slow process and made the hands ache.

  Grain there was plenty of. The lack of bread came from the fact that the mill was not grinding and hadn’t in several years.

  Jane took off her apron. “It’s time I took a look at the mill.”

  She needed flour. Otherwise, all the new help in the kitchen would change nothing.

  “Are ye no’ going to join the laird at the high table?”

  Jane scoffed at Dolina. “And allow one and all to see me sitting idle while the needs of my house are not met? I believe there is already plenty being said about me that is not kind.”

  Dolina smiled, but there was approval in her eyes. “This way then.”

  Scotland had plenty of water.

  Gordon land was no exception. Jane followed Dolina down to where a river roared, even in autumn. A mill was built near it with a huge waterwheel. It sat there, not turning, the giant stone inside the millhouse dusty from not being used. Inside the house were sacks of grain that had been there so long mice and rats had chewed holes in them and begun carrying away the contents.

  The waste sickened her.

  With the number of retainers sitting down in the great hall, there was no excuse for the mill to be in disrepair.

  They were too lazy or too dim-witted to realize bread would be forever in short supply if the mill wasn’t repaired.

  Well, she wasn’t going to stand idly by. She went into the millhouse, venturing over to the edge where the floor was open to allow one to see the rushing water.

  “It is deep enough for the wheel,” Jane began.

  Dolina joined her, leaning over to peer at the bottom of the wheel. “It looks as if there is a log wedged in there… Go raise the gate to let more water in.”

  Jane leaned over further as Dolina moved around the side of the mill, and in the next moment, pain split her skull. It was blinding, but she didn’t have time to worry about it because she plunged into the river, and it dragged her beneath the wheel. She was pinned against the logs jammed underneath. The rushing water kept her there as she struggled to break free. But the slats of the waterwheel in reach were slick with moss, and her fingers slipped right off them as her lungs began to burn.

  Her legs became tangled in the wood jammed under the wheel. She reached up and dug her nails into the waterwheel, kicking at the wood, frantic to reach the surface before she drowned. For a moment, she was straining, using every last bit of strength she had as she felt herself losing consciousness. It seemed to last forever, that moment filled with the pain of struggling to shove the wood free and her lungs burning for a breath of air.

  Agony and more pain filled her last few seconds of life. She jerked and kicked, and suddenly, she was slipping further beneath the wheel. The power of the current swept her under it and up into the sunlight. Jane gasped, filling her lungs with soothing air before she tumbled beneath the surface again like a dried leaf.

  That single breath restored her wits. She strained and struggled to swim toward the surface. Her skirts hampered her efforts, weighted down by the water and sticking to her legs.

  Like a shroud…

  But she fought and filled her lungs again. This time she kept her head above water long enough to hear screaming. It was in the distance, but it gave her hope that she might escape. She tugged and pulled, reaching out, straining toward the shore.

  Her reward was a hard impact of rock against her hand. Jane held tight in spite of the pain, using her grip to drag herself from the hold of the current. She emerged onto the bank, fighting to crawl because her strength felt drained. Her hands were still in the mud when someone lifted her off her hands and knees.

  “Sweet Christ, Jane.” Diocail carried her to the shore, laying her down as carefully as he might an egg. “What are ye doing, woman?”

  At that precise moment, she was fighting to remain consciou
s. The demand in his voice drew her attention. She gasped and coughed as she tried to clear her lungs. Diocail sat her up, pounding on her back as she hacked with all the grace of a newly netted fish.

  But when she was finished, she looked up the bank and saw the waterwheel turning easily in the morning light. Satisfaction filled her with a sense of victory she fully intended to claim.

  “I was…” She coughed again and sat up straight. “I was fixing the mill so there would be ample bread!”

  * * *

  Jane marched past more than a hundred of his men like a Valkyrie.

  She was soaked to the bone, the bottom of her skirts becoming a muddy mess as she yanked up the front of them and went straight by the retainers who had answered the screams from Dolina. Diocail’s little English wife had her chin held high and a damned stiff spine that looked ridiculous when coupled with dead leaves and slime in her hair, but she refused to be coddled on the riverbank.

  Damned if he wasn’t impressed.

  “Fool woman can’t stay out of peril for one day…”

  “All we need is an English lady here to look after…”

  “Doesn’t have the sense of a child…”

  Diocail froze. He’d been set to follow his wife, but he turned on the group of his men. They didn’t have much concern for the fact that he’d heard them talking ill of Jane. But it was the sight of the freely turning waterwheel that infuriated him the most.

  “The next man to speak out against me bride gets the backside of me temper,” he warned.

  His men bristled. Diocail looked to where Dolina was being helped up from the riverbank. “How long has the mill been in disrepair?”

  She was surprised to have him speak so directly to her in front of his men. Diocail watched her draw in a deep breath before answering.

  “All season, Laird, and the one before. We’ve been making do with hand grinding.”