The Scottish Prisoner (10 page)

In the staggeringly practical way of the English, Lord Dunsany had then sent word to the local coroner that Lord Ellesmere had suffered a sad accident, to which Jeffries testified. Jamie had neither been named nor called. A few days later, the old earl and his very young wife, Geneva, had been buried together, and a week after that, Jeffries took his leave, pensioned off to County Sligo.

All the servants knew what had happened, of course. If anything, it made them even more afraid of Jamie, but they said nothing to him—or to anyone else—about the matter. It was the business of the family, and no one else. There would be no scandal.

Lord Dunsany had never said a word to Jamie, and presumably never would. Yet there was an odd sense of … not friendship—it could never be anything like that—but of regard between them.

Jamie toyed for an instant with the notion of telling Dunsany about Isobel and the lawyer Wilberforce. Were it his daughter, he should certainly want to know. He dismissed it, though, and turned back to his work. It was the business of the family, and no one else.

JAMIE WAS STILL IN
a good humor as he bridled the horses for exercise the next morning, mind filled with a pleasant muddle of memories past and of present content. There was a fuzzy bank of cloud above the fells, betokening later rain, but no wind, and for the moment the air was cold but still and the horses bright but not frenetic, tossing their heads with anticipation of a gallop.

“MacKenzie.” He hadn’t heard the man’s footsteps on the sawdust of the paddock, and turned, a little startled. More startled to see George Roberts, one of the footmen. It was usually Sam Morgan who came to tell him to saddle a horse or hitch up the carriage; Roberts was a senior footman, and such errands were beneath him.

“I want to talk to you.” Roberts was in his livery breeches but wore a shapeless loose jacket over his shirt. His hands hung half curled at his sides, and something in his face and voice made Jamie draw himself up a little.

“I’m about my work now,” Jamie said, courteous. He gestured at the four horses he had on leading reins and at Augustus, still waiting to be saddled. “Come just after dinner, if ye like. I’ll have time then.”

“You’ll have time now,” said Roberts, in an odd, half-strangled voice. “It won’t take long.”

Jamie nearly took the punch, not expecting it. But the man gave clear notice, falling back on his heel and pulling back his fist as though he meant to hurl a stone, and Jamie dodged by reflex. Roberts shot past, unbalanced, and came up with a thud, catching himself on the fence. The horses who were tied to it all shied, stamping and snorting, not liking this kind of nonsense so early in the day.

“What the devil d’ye think you’re doing?” Jamie asked, more in a tone of curiosity than hostility. “Or, more to the point, what d’ye think
I’ve
done?”

Roberts pushed away from the fence, his face congested. He was not quite as tall as Jamie but heavier in the body.

“You know damned well what you’ve done, you Scotch bugger!”

Jamie eyed the man and lifted one brow.

“A guessing game, is it? Aye, well, then. Someone pissed in your shoes this morning, and the bootboy said it was me?”

Surprise lifted Roberts’s scowl for an instant.

“What?”

“Or someone’s gone off wi’ his lordship’s sealing wax?” He reached into the pocket of his breeches and drew out the stub of black wax. “He gave it to me; ye can ask him.”

Fresh blood crimsoned Roberts’s cheeks; the household staff objected very much to Jamie being allowed to write letters and did as much as they dared to obstruct him. To Roberts’s credit, though, he swallowed his choler and, after breathing heavily for a moment, said, “Betty. That name ring a bell?”

It rang a whole carillon. What had the gagging wee bitch been saying?

“I ken the woman, aye.” He spoke warily, keeping an eye on Roberts’s feet and a hand on Augustus’s bridle.

Roberts’s lip curled. He was good-looking, in a heavy-featured way, but the sneer didn’t flatter him.

“You
ken
the woman, do you, cully? You’ve bloody interfered with her!”

“I’ll tell,”
she’d said, thrusting out her chin at him. She hadn’t said
who
she’d tell—nor that she’d tell the truth.

“No,” he said calmly, and, wrapping Augustus’s rein neatly round the fence rail, he stepped away from the horses and turned to face Roberts squarely. “I haven’t. Did ye ask her where and when? For I’m reasonably sure I havena been out of sight o’ the stables in a month, save for takin’ the horses out.” He nodded toward the waiting string, not taking his eyes off the footman. “And she canna have left the house to meet me on the fells.”

Roberts hesitated, and Jamie took the chance to press back.

“Ye might ask yourself, man, why she’d say such a thing to
you.
”

“What? Why shouldn’t she say it to me?” The footman drew his chin into his heavy neck, the better to glower.

“If she wanted me arrested or whipped or gaoled, she’d ha’ complained to his lordship or the constable,” Jamie pointed out, his tone still civil. “If she wanted me beaten to a pudding, she’d have told Morgan and Billings, as well, because—meaning nay disrespect—I dinna think ye can manage that on your own.”

The beginnings of doubt were flickering over Roberts’s heavy countenance.

“But she—”

“So either she thought she’d put a flea in your ear about me and there’d be a punch-up that would do neither of us any good—or she didna think ye’d come to me but that ye’d maybe be roused on her behalf.”

“Roused?” Roberts sounded confused.

Jamie drew breath, aware for the first time that his heart was pounding.

“Aye,” he said. “The lass didna say I’d raped her, now, did she? No, of course not.”

“Noo …” Roberts had gone from confusion to open doubt now. “She said you’d been a-cupping of her, toying with her breasts and the like.”

“Well, there ye are,” Jamie said, with a small wave toward the house. “She was only meaning to make ye jealous, in hopes that ye’d be moved to do something o’ the kind yourself. That,” he added helpfully, “or she meant to get ye into trouble. I hope the lass hasna got anything against ye.”

Roberts’s brow darkened, but with an inward thought. He glanced up at Jamie.

“I hadn’t had it in mind to strike you,” he said, with a certain formality. “I only meant to tell you to keep away from her.”

“Verra reasonable,” Jamie assured him. His shirt was damp with sweat, despite the cold day. “I dinna mean to have anything to do with the lass. Ye can tell her she’s safe from me,” he added, as solemnly as he could manage.

Roberts inclined his head in a professional way and offered his hand. Jamie shook it, feeling very odd, and watched the man go off toward the house, straightening his shoulders as he went.

JAMIE HEARD
at breakfast next day that his lordship was ill again and had taken to his bed. He felt a stab of disappointment at the news; he had hoped the old man would bring William to the stable again.

To his surprise, he did see William at the stable again, proud as Lucifer in his first pair of breeches and this time in the company
of the under-nursemaid, Peggy. The young, stout woman told him that Nanny Elspeth and Lord and Lady Dunsany were all suffering from
la grippe
(which she pronounced in the local way, as “lah gerp”) but that William had made such a nuisance of himself, wanting to see the horses again, that Lady Isobel told Peggy to bring him.

“Are ye quite well yourself, ma’am?” He could see that she wasn’t. She was pale as green cheese, with much the same clammy look to her skin, and hunched a little, as though she wanted to clutch her belly.

“I … yes. Of course,” she said, a little faintly. Then she took a grip on herself and straightened. “Willie, I think we must go back to the house.”

“Mo!” Willie at once ran down the aisle, tiny boots clattering on the bricks.

“William!”

“MO!” Willie screamed, turning to face her, his face going red. “Mo, mo, mo!”

Peggy breathed heavily, clearly torn between her own illness and the need to chase the wee reprobate. A drop of sweat ran down her plump throat and made a small dark spot on her kerchief.

“Ma’am,” Jamie said respectfully. “Had ye not best go and sit down for a bit? Perhaps put cold water on your wrists? I can watch the lad; he’ll come to nay harm.”

Without waiting for an answer, he turned and called to Willie.

“Ye’ll come with me, lad. Ye can help me with the mash.”

Willie’s small face went instantly from a stubborn clench to a radiant joy, and he clattered back, beaming. Jamie bent and scooped him up, setting him on his shoulders. Willie shrieked with pleasure and grabbed Jamie’s hair. Jamie smiled at Mrs. Peggy.

“We’ll do.”

“I … I really … well … all right,” she said weakly. “Just … just for a bit.” Turning, she shuffled hastily off.

Looking after her, he murmured, “Poor woman.” At the same time, he hoped that her difficulties would detain her for some while, and asked a quick forgiveness from God for the thought.

“Poo ooman,” Willie echoed solemnly, and pressed his knees to Jamie’s ears. “Go!”

They went. The mash tub was in the tack room, and he parked William on a stool and reached down a bridle with a snaffle for the boy to play with, clicking the jointed bit to make a noise.

“D’ye remember the names of the horses, then?” he asked, measuring out the grain into the tub with the wooden scoop. William frowned, pausing in his clicking.

“Mo.”

“Oh, aye, ye do. Bella? Ye ken Bella fine; ye rode on her back.”

“Bella!”

“Aye, see? And what about Phil—he’s the sweet lad that let ye hug his nose.”

“Pill!”

“That’s right. And next to Phil, there’s …” They worked their way verbally down both sides of the aisle, stall by stall, Jamie saying the names and William repeating them, while Jamie poured the molasses, thick and black as tar and nearly as pungent, into the grain.

“I’m going to fetch the hot water,” he told Willie. “You stay just there—dinna move about—and I’ll be with ye in a moment.”

Willie, engaged in an unsuccessful effort to get the bit into his own mouth, ignored this but made no move to follow him.

Jamie took a bucket and put his head into the factor’s office, where Mr. Grieves was talking to Mr. Lowens, a farmer whose land abutted that of Dunsany’s estate. Grieves nodded to him,
and he came in, going to dip hot water from the cauldron kept simmering in the back of the hearth. The factor’s office was the only warm place in the stable block, so was often a gathering place for visitors.

He made his way back, careful with the heavy, steaming bucket, and found Willie still sitting on his stool but having now succeeded in entangling his head and arms in the bridle, which he’d evidently tried to put on.

“Elp!” Willie said, thrashing wildly. “Elp, elp, elp!”

“Aye, I’ll help ye, ye wee gomerel. Here, then.” Jamie set down the bucket and went to assist, thanking his guardian angel that Willie hadn’t managed to strangle himself. No wonder the little fiend required two nursemaids to watch him.

He patiently untangled the bridle—how could a child who couldn’t dress himself tie knots like that?—and hung it up, then, with an admonition to Willie to keep well back, poured the hot water into the bran tub.

“Ye want to help stir?” He held out the big worn paddle—which was roughly as tall as Willie—and they stirred the mash, Willie clinging earnestly to the lower part of the handle, Jamie to the upper. The mix was stiff, though, and Willie gave up after a moment, leaving Jamie to finish the job.

He’d just about finished ladling the mash into buckets for distribution to the mangers when he noticed that William had something in his mouth.

“What’s that ye’ve got in your mouth?”

Willie opened his mouth and picked out a wet horseshoe nail, which he regarded with interest. Jamie imagined in a split second what would have happened if the lad had swallowed it, and panic made him speak more roughly than he might have.

“Give it here!”

“Mo!” Willie jerked his hand away and glowered at Jamie under wispy brows that nonetheless were well marked.