They had taken only a few steps when three villagewomen came up the lane with baskets of eggs and herbs. The first woman stopped, a smile breaking wide.
“Och, Lady Drummond,” she greeted. “Ye look well.”
Kristen’s answer came warm and easy. “Ailsa, ye look well yerself. How is wee Rab sleeping now?”
“Like a proper bairn since ye sent the poppy water,” Ailsa said. “God bless ye for that.”
The second woman pulled her basket higher on her hip. “Mirell here,” she murmured shyly when Kristen’s eyes flicked to her.“Me Tam still has a limp, but the salve ye had yer healer make eased his pain.”
“I am glad.” Kristen smiled. “Tell him to rest when the rain sets in. He willnae like it, but it will save him the pain.”
The third woman, older with a neat braid and a rigid back, gave Neil a careful look and then stepped close to Kristen. “I’m Fiona, me Lady. Ye fetched the midwife in the middle of a storm while me daughter was in labor with her second. The child lives strong thanks to ye.”
Kristen flushed and shook her head. “The child lives because she is afighter, and because ye held the door against a wind that wished to knock off the roof. I only provided the barest help.”
The women laughed, the sound soft in the bright light.
Ailsa touched Kristen’s sleeve as if to make sure she was real. “Ye have done many things for us, Me Lady. We almost cannae finish counting them,” she said. “Really, we cannae.”
“Ailsa is right, Me Lady,” Mirell piped up. “Ye have done so much for everyone in this clan. At this point, ye are nothing but an angel in our eyes. Ye can never do wrong.”
Fiona tipped her chin toward Neil. “Ye took in those bairns without a blink, and ye never once let anyone speak ill of them. We saw it. We talk, and we remember.”
Pride and guilt coiled tight behind Neil’s ribs. He stood a little behind Kristen and listened to the list of small mercies that had stitched these people to her. He wanted to say that a lady should not have had to run for midwives or do any of the other things the women continued to list. However, the words stuck in his throat.
Kristen steered the conversation back to them. “Enough about me. Ailsa, what of yer maither’s cough? Is she taking thyme with honey like the healer recommended?”
“Aye,” Ailsa replied. “She swears at the taste and still asks for more.”
“And Mirell,” Kristen said, “have ye started the dye for the winter wool? The last batch was finer than any I have seen.”
Mirell’s eyes lit up. “We tried the onion skins the way ye said. It took better than we hoped.”
Fiona hugged her basket closer and gave Neil another assessing look. There was no malice in it, only the focus of a woman weighing a stranger beside the safety of her folk.
“There will be a wee festival later in the night,” she said. “’Tis nothing grand, ye see. Just a fire and a piper, and tarts if I can finish making them on time. If the Laird and the Lady would honor us by coming, we would be proud.”
Neil’s nerves prickled at the thought of ribbons and faces and the press of bodies. The urge to refuse and fold back into stone and silence rose fast. He clenched his teeth against it.
Kristen glanced up at him. She did not plead. She did not cajole. Her eyes were steady and kind.
“It would please them,” she whispered, her voice low enough so only he could hear.
“Do we have to?”
“I have succeeded in cultivating a relationship with the people simply by attending events like this. Ye doing the same willnae hurt.”
The women waited, with their baskets held close, hope plain on their faces. Ailsa’s thumb stroked the rim as if she could rub luck into the wood, and Mirell’s heel tapped once and stilled. Fiona kept her gaze on him, patient as a mother waiting for a child to do the right thing without being told.
Neil looked from one woman to the next, then to Kristen. He heard the names they had given her. The gratitude that had fallen from their lips like breath. He thought of the blue silk against her cheek and the soft, unguarded look he had not earned.
“Aye,” he replied at last, seeing the anticipation on Kristen’s face. “Aye, we will stay.”
The women dipped into quick curtsies. Relief and delight flashed across their faces like the sun breaking through the clouds.
“Ye are kind, me Laird,” Fiona said. “We will keep the fire low if the wind turns rough.”
“I will bring strawberry tarts,” Mirell added. “Ye can even eat a few and let me ken which one is sweeter.”
