Phoebe asked apropos questions during the tour, then towards the end of their conversation, keeping her tone casual, Phoebe chose her words wisely. “I gather Walter Hawley, a lieutenant general of the British Army, is interested in investing in your distillery. You may very well get a visit from him soon.”
Fitzroy’s eyes widened, his expression brightening, seemingly impressed and taken aback. “Why, he was just here yesterday, Mistress. However did you know? He’s planning a sizable investment, and he ordered a few casks of our single malt forty-year-auld whisky, which I am delivering later this week. Do you know the gentleman?”
Phoebe’s head spun at Fitzroy’s answer, excitement and dread alike mingled in her chest. But she didn’t want word getting back to Hawley that she was inquiring about him.
“I’ve never met the gentleman. A redcoat I encountered in Birmingham spoke of Hawley’s investment. But do be careful—there have been highwaymen robberies in these parts of late. I hope your delivery wagon doesn’t have to travel too far,” Phoebe said, in a slightly bored matter-of-fact tone.
“Thankfully, no. The lieutenant general is letting the gray manor on Bayview Crest. It’s the biggest property not too far off the main road. I imagine the British Army is paying well for him to afford it, even though it needs work and he has no wife or children to support. It belongs to the auld Lord Melville, who moved to Edinburgh years ago. But then I don’t like to gossip, Mistress,” Fitzroy said, a rueful grin reddening his cheeks.
A short while after Phoebe and Aila left the distillery for home, the main dirt road forked. Phoebe took note of the wooden sign, labeled Bayview Crest, pointing in the direction of the less-traveled road.
“Aila, can you turn toward Bayview Crest for a short detour? I’m curious about the gray manor your father mentioned.”
Surprise flashed across Aila’s features, but nonetheless she guided the horse onto the side road.
The speed of their wagon markedly slowed because of the unevenness of the road. Their surroundings notably quieted, to where one could hear the wind against gnarly branches of pine trees and the echoes of their creaking wagon.
Up ahead, a gray English-style stone manor came into view to their left. Darkened clouds had started to drift overhead causing sinister shadows. A chill caused Phoebe to pull her cloak closer. The two-story building, with close to fourteen windows, two broken, was utterly unkept. Overgrown bushes, brambles,and tall yellow grass crawled up its sides like snakes. It raised the hairs on the back of Phoebe’s neck.
Aila must have sensed it too. “There’s something evil about that manor, mistress.”
“I feel it too. Let’s turn around,” Phoebe said.
As Aila turned the wagon around, Phoebe spotted two men with flintlock muskets, perhaps guards, emerging from the spindly trees at the rear of the manor and running straight into the barn. Her eyes were drawn to the unusual number of familiar tall crates stacked near the barn’s door. Loud voices drifted from the barn, but the exact words were muddled by the distance.
A rotund middle-aged English officer emerged from the building. He marched straight into the front door of the manor, carrying a dangling horsewhip in his hand, a half-smoked cigar imprisoned between his teeth and lips. Malicious lines on his features looked engraved. He wore a blood-red uniform. Phoebe ground her teeth as the fire of hatred sprang up her body, burning her like a bitter sickness from the inside out. She loathed the color red. She’d never met Hawley before, but her gut and the countless Jacobite pamphlets she’d read of his extreme cruelty told her she was looking right at him.
Aila guided the horse back onto the main road. The clopping of a horse’s hooves towards them made Phoebe lift her gaze. Her heart stopped. Recognition hit her stomach like a punch. The red coated rider stopped in the middle of their path, forcing Aila to pull on their reins.
CHAPTER 42
Fair-haired Faye Ross, dressed in his garish English uniform, sat atop a massive snow-white stallion, stark against the backdrop of green pine trees, wind quaking their branches. The crimson of his uniform fill her with burning hatred, laced with ice cold terror. Her skin tingled with a familiar uncleanliness, making her stomach roil.
Phoebe’s fingers curled into fists. Ross’s empty blue eyes locked onto hers. A sneer stretched across his pale features. “Well, well, if it isn’t the little Dunbar brat. Fortuitous meeting you two days in a row after all this time.”
His polished English accent was sharp and cold, the same as her nightmares.
The first time he’d called her a brat for her insolence, she’d been attempting to flee him on the moors seven years ago. She’d disliked it then and downright hated it now.
He dismounted from his horse and approached her side of the wagon, standing a few feet from her. All her energies were concentrated on not showing any weakness, despite the cold sweat forming on her back. She hadn’t gotten a good look yesterday, but it hit her that his fair hair was thinner than sevenyears ago and his middle rounder, but his eyes were still soulless in their dead gaze.
The restless stomp of their horse’s hooves startled Phoebe. It also reminded her she wasn’t alone and Aila was with her. She wouldn’t allow anything to happen to Aila.
“Mistress, please, we don’t want trouble. Should I go around him?” Aila whispered, next to her.
“We’ll leave shortly,” Phoebe said. A part of Phoebe wanted to grab the reins and take off with Aila, but she wasn’t about to let this vermin get a whiff of her fear.
Phoebe leveled him with an unwavering stare. “Sir, I won’t greet you or ask after your health, because the truth is, I have no interest,” Phoebe said to Ross, her voice confident with an intonation of mockery.
His slow smile lacked any mirth whatsoever. “Disrespectful as ever. What are you doing here?” he said.
Phoebe’s stomach hardened. Did he guess she’d just come from Bayview Crest?
She swallowed against the rising bile in her throat. “How is my presence here any of your concern?”
A glint of malice and anger flashed across his face. “You are like your parents, thinking you are superior to the British,” he hissed.
Why would he believe her parents thought themselves superior? Her parents weren’t like that at all. Hadn’t the Rosses just discussed the shared moor and sheep with her parents when they’d come to visit? He must have seen how cordial and polite they were. Except when they were forcing her to marry, that is.
