A small landing boasted two doors. Tommy opened the near one and held it grandly open, pride everywhere on his face. Douglas saw a room with a table, two chairs and a bed. He knew the wind had picked up outside, but the windows in Mrs. Aintree’s house did not chatter and shiver like his grudgingly rented domicile. He saw a rug on the floor and heat registers, where the little rooms could receive warmth from the kitchen below.
The next room was much like the first. Everywhere he saw calm and order, a far better prescription for what ailed the Tavishes than anything he could suggest. The winds could blow and the rain pelt, but Rhona and Tommy Tavish were safe here. Silently Douglas thanked the Deity he mostly neglected.
“My own room,” Tommy said simply. “And t’aud widow doesn’t mind Duke. I’ve seen her feed him scraps, even though she swears she wouldna.” His head went up, and Douglas saw the pride of the Highlanders, battered and pummeled to be sure, but still alive and on fire within. “She tells me that anytime I want something from the kitchen, I needn’t bother to ask permission.”
“I hope you will be careful on your crutches and take your own rest,” Douglas said, even though he knew Tommy would do precisely as he felt best.
“Aye, sir,” Tommy said promptly, “although I have wondered lately—I hear noises by the cattle bier. When I go downstairs …” He shrugged.
“I can inform the constable.”
“Nay, sir!” Tommy assured him, the fear back in his eyes. “Not him.”
Douglas clapped his hand on the boy’s shoulder and gave him a little shake, understanding that look, and the one like it in Flora MacLeod’s face a few days ago. “No constable.”
In the kitchen, he took a larger piece of the shortbread and let himself out the door. He stood a moment leaning his arms on the fence, watching Mrs. Aintree’s cow chew cud with an expression of indifference. “I could sit and watch you all night,” he said, then looked around to make certain no one had heard him.
He rolled his eyes when he heard a smothered laugh.
“Olive Grant, go to bed,” he said, without looking to see where she stood. He knew that voice. “Are you waiting for someone?” he asked when she said nothing.
“I was just curious to know how long it would take Rhona Tavish to run you out of Mrs. Aintree’s bed chamber.”
“You make that sound highly salacious,” he commented, starting across the street to his house.I have a bed in there, he thought, tired down to his toes.It is calling my name.
“Brighid Dougall wanted to wager on the matter, but I don’t wager,” she said. She cleared her throat. “There is a slight matter.”
Why did words like that make his heart start to race and his breath come faster? He had thought his days of sudden alarm were done. Apparently not, if something as innocuous as “a slight matter” was enough to set every nerve on edge.
“Uh, what?” he asked, groaning inwardly at how stupid he sounded. Stupid tired, more like.
“I told Lady Telford that your house was haunted, so you could get a better deal,” she reminded him.
What was she up to? “You are a rascal.”
“Take a look over there in the shed,” she said, lowering her voice. “A good look.”
He looked, straining his eyes to see into the midnight gloom, compounded by that dratted light mist that seemed to be Edgar’s lot in life and geography. He looked, squinted, and saw the flickering light.
“Should I wake up the constable?” she whispered.
No, let’s allow the poor fool to get his rest, he wanted to say, but he didn’t. Olive Grant probably meant well. “Not if it’s ghosts,” was the best he could come up with.
“Aren’t you concerned?” she asked.
He wasn’t. “Mostly I am tired, Olive Grant, kind lady,” he teased. “Let’s take a look.”
He walked across the street to the stone shed close to the bridge and behind his house that Lady Telford had assured him was his property too, for the next two months. The way the bank slanted, he wouldn’t have noticed the light.
He opened the door and his life changed again.
Joe Tavish stared back at him, his eyes dark with misery. Olive sucked in her breath and prudently stayed behind Douglas. The man held the stare for an uncomfortable, silent time, then sighed and returned his attention to what looked like a small pile of black oats. By the light of that single flickering candle, Douglas watched in horror and then in deep compassion as the silent man finished stirring something dark and sludgy around in a hole he appeared to have dug into the dirt floor of the shed. He had no bowl or spoon, only a dirt hole.
“Throw me out when I’m done,” Joe Tavish muttered, his voice rusty, as though he had not spoken to anyone in a long time. He dipped his hand in the nasty mess and ate. He gagged, but he did not stop.
Remembering his last beating, Douglas hesitated. He watched Joe’s dirty hand as it shook, traveling the short distance from the hole to his mouth. “I could probably push him over with one finger now,” he whispered to Olive. “Olive?”
We are two easy marks, he thought, listening to Olive sniff. He reached behind him and took her hand.
