Angela rolled her eyes. “Would ye excuse me a moment?” she said to Charlie. She got up and hurried over to the door, letting herself out and shutting it behind her. A moment later, a heated argument ensued.
Charlie sipped her tea, feeling awkward and trying not to listen to the domestic going on not ten paces from where she sat. Her eyes fell on the door across the kitchen again. Something about it sparked her curiosity. Putting down her cup, she got up from the table, and quickly crossed the kitchen.
She pushed the door open, gazed into the room, and stopped dead. A long, narrow table filled one side of the room, filled with neat stacks of papers. The other side was taken up by a metal contraption about waist-high with a flat bed and two large wheels for turning. It took her a moment to recognize what she was looking at.
It was a printing press.
Stepping into the room, she scanned the papers. They were pamphlets, all carefully printed and stacked. Most of them were like the ones she’d been handed in the botanical gardens that day and bore slogans like, ‘Support Scotland: oppose the union’ or ‘ Patriots unite!’ and a quick scan of the contents showed that they were strongly opposed to the Articles of Union that Niall had told her about. Then, at the end of the row, she came across another pamphlet. This wasn’t political. It was society gossip and she recognized it immediately.
It was the same pamphlet Niall had shown her. The one that made out she was his mistress.
She went hot all over. She slowly picked up one of the pamphlets, everything beginning to slot into place. The pamphlets. The printing press. Boyd MacAllister wasn’t just the source of the gossip about her and Niall, he was theproducerof it. Was that why he was in Edinburgh right now? Was he distributing more gossip about her and Niall?
And more than that, he was clearly opposed to the government that Niall worked for. She glanced at the pamphlets again, anger coursing through her. She saw Albie’s battered and bruised body in her mind’s eye. She saw Niall’s face as he told her about MacAllister’s alliance with his brother. She saw MacAllister’s sneering, arrogant face as he’d insulted her outside Glennoch.
He needed to be stopped. Could these pamphlets be enough to bring him down? She didn’t know but she was damned well going to try. She grabbed a few of the pamphlets and quickly stuffed them down her bodice before stepping back out into the kitchen just as the back door opened and Angela came in, still berating a wire-haired man that followed her.
Angela straightened when she spotted Charlie. “Is something wrong, lass?”
“I...um...no, everything is fine,” Charlie said quickly. “I was er...” Her eyes alighted on the teapot. “I was just going to clean the teapot and cups.” She made a grab for the teapot but misjudged her aim, catching it with her wrist and sending it crashing to the floor. It shattered into fragments and splashed chamomile tea across the flagstones.
Mortification raced across Charlie’s cheeks. “Oh God! I’m sorry!”
She bent to begin cleaning it up but Angela waved her away. “Dinna fash, my dear,” she said. “If I had a shilling for each time this one had broken my crockery,” she hiked a finger at the wire-haired man who scowled at her. “I’d be a rich woman. I’ll clean it up.”
Flustered, Charlie nodded, taking a step back. Her thoughts whirled with what she’d discovered in the back room and the need to keep that discovery from Angela. She might not be enamored of her employer, but that didn’t mean she’d take kindly to Charlie snooping around her home.
“Um...well...I...I think I’d better be going,” she stammered, as Angela fetched a brush and began sweeping up the fragments. “Sorry again about the teapot. And thank you for the tea.”
Before Angela or the wire-haired man could reply, she turned on her heel and strode quickly through the house and out the front door. It was all she could do not to break into a jog as she hurried along the trail towards Glennoch. She forced herself to keep to a brisk walk so as not to call attention to herself but she couldn’t help glancing around to check there was no sign of Boyd MacAllister returning from Edinburgh.
She made it back to Glennoch without mishap and skirted the edge of the village and the pond where a group of children were busy throwing themselves in, and hurried back to the manor house. A few people called out greetings as she passed and although Charlie grunted something in response, she barely heard them.
She took the steps up to the door two at a time and then burst into the hall. It was empty but for a serving man wiping down the tables.
“Is Niall here?” Charlie blurted. “Has he come back yet?”
“Aye,” the man replied, nodding at the door. “Just now. Ye’ll find him in the stables.”
Muttering her thanks, Charlie hurried into the courtyard and around the back of the building to where the stables lay. The double doors were wide open so Charlie marched straight through them into the cool dimness inside. The smell of hay and horse hit her immediately and she stood blinking in the dim light, waiting for her sight to adjust. Rows of stalls marched down each side, a mixture of draft horses and those for riding happily munching on hay in most of them.
She heard voices coming from the far end and turned to see Niall and Joseph standing there, talking quietly. Niall was leaning against the wall of a stall with his arms crossed, listening as Joseph spoke. Then all of a sudden, Niall’s voice rose.
“She’s donewhat?”
Charlie winced. She could guess what Joseph had just told him.
To forestall any further outburst, she began walking towards the two of them just as Niall whirled and began striding towards her, a determined expression on his smooth features.
He startled when he almost walked into her. “Charlotte?”
“Hi,” she said with a shrug.
“Tell me it isnae true,” Niall snapped. “Tell me Joseph has somehow got this wrong and ye havenae just been over to MacAllister’s estate to confront him.”
“No, Joseph didn’t get it wrong. Ididgo to speak to Boyd MacAllister.”
“Gods damn it all, woman!” Niall roared. “Do ye have any idea the danger ye could have put yerself in?”
