‘Ah reckon she likes Fergus,’ he added as they watched her scamper away, back to her overlarge friend.
‘I reckon she does,’ the Reverend answered drily.
‘Dae ye live here, Maister?’
‘No, I live a long way from here in a place called Blackmore.’
‘That’s where the Duke lives too. Hae ye seen ‘im?’ The boy was clearly in awe.
Reverend Shackleford grinned and nodded, abruptly realising he was actually enjoying himself. ‘He’s married to my daughter, Grace.’ Finn’s mouth was a round O in response. He shifted a little further away.
‘Dae ye hae a title, then?’ he asked breathlessly. ‘Other than God botherer.’
The Reverend chuckled and shook his head. ‘I reckon that’s the only title I need.’
‘Whit it be like, Blackmore?’
‘Very pretty, like here. But not the same.’ The clergyman looked over at the heather clad hills in the distance. ‘Not so … rugged I suppose. Do you know what that means?’
‘Aye, ah’m nae stupid. Mebbe ye can tak me tae Blackmore, when ye gae.’
Just for a second, the Reverend pictured Agnes’s face should he return with an urchin in tow.
‘I thought this was your home now,’ he answered carefully.
‘Aye, but ah want tae see the Duke. Be he tall an’ braw?’
The clergyman leaned back and thought. Nicholas was most definitely tall. Was he handsome? In an austere kind of way he supposed, though his son-in-law had learned to laugh over the years, which made him look less … forbidding. But then, being saddled with an entire family he hadn’t bargained with, if he hadn’t learned to laugh, he’d likely have been entirely dicked in the nob by now.
At Finn’s, ‘Wha ye laughin’ at?’ he realised he was chuckling tohimself.
‘If by braw you mean handsome, then yes, the Duke is very braw. And tall. And stern. He would make you go to school.’
‘Ah dinnae need tae gae tae school, ah ken ma letters, an’ ah can count tae this.’ He held up both hands and stuck out his bare feet, spreading the toes.
‘Twenty,’ the Reverend said in an impressed voice. ‘That’s more than most lads of your age. How old are you anyway?’ A shrug was all he got in response. ‘Well, I’m certain you could count a lot higher if you went to school.’
‘Could ah gae tae school in Blackmore?’
The conversation was getting decidedly uncomfortable. ‘Why would you want to leave a beautiful place like this?’ he asked uneasily. ‘You’ll be well looked after I’m certain. And you’ll learn your letters and count to much higher than twenty.’
‘Aye, but ye be a God botherer.’ The Reverend looked at Finn’s earnest face, and a wave of sadness swamped him. The lad’s assumption that being a priest made one trustworthy. In truth, he knew plenty of clergymen who were anything but. For a very brief second, he considered the idea of taking Finn back with him when they returned to Blackmore.
For averybrief second.
Then he shook his head and scowled. ‘I’m too old to be looking after a lad your age,’ he declared. If he was honest – and it seemed to him that honesty was a side-effect of the aging process he’d never before considered – he’d never really done much looking after anyone but himself.
‘Ah’d nae be a wee scunner,’ Finn went on, oblivious to the Reverend’s internal soul-searching.
‘What’s a scunner?’ Reverend Shackleford quizzed gruffly, moreto deflect the question than anything else.
The boy shrugged. ‘It be jus’scunner. Ye ken,bad.’
‘Finn!’
The timing of the shout could not have been better. With a last grin, quite clearly promising that theirdiscussionwas not yet finished, the boy got to his feet, gave Flossie and Fergus a quick fuss and ran back towards the house, leaving the Reverend with a lot of thinking to do.
Chapter Thirteen
