“Is that so?”
“Yes,” she said, pausing before addressing her butler. “Andrews, will you have some tea brought in?”
“Yes, my lady,” the butler said with a nod, leaving the room at once.
Graham watched the man exit. He waited until they were alone to continue their conversation.
“And how can you be so certain that the weather will change?” he asked.
“The storm clouds have a purple tint to them,” she said, lifting her cane and pointing it at the window. “Go and see for yourself.”
Not sure what the color had to do with anything, but used to being ordered about by the older woman, he walked to the window. Pulling the gold damask curtain back, he looked toward the sky. As Lady Belle had reported, the angry, rolling clouds had a purplish hue.
“And purple signifies?”
Lady Belle gave him a reproachful glance. “Surely, you’ve heard the rhyme? If skies are purple, gather the kernel?”
Graham’s brow furrowed. “Ack. That’s a terrible rhyme,” he said slowly. “And it doesn’t make any sense.”
“It does so,” she insisted. “It means the next day is a good day to start sowing seeds.”
He didn’t believe a word of it. Lady Belle was a peculiar woman with a reputation for constantly expounding half-truths and fanciful ideas. The vast majority of them could have been easily disproven, except that no one ever really wanted to invalidate her. There was a strange appeal to Lady Belle made the local people wish to indulge her.
It could have been her old age, sharp wit, or evergreen beauty. Even at seventy-five years old, Lady Belle was still a remarkably handsome woman. Her hooded blue eyes still shone with youthful mischief, and while wrinkles creased the corner ofher eyes and mouth, they seemed to be caused by a lifetime of laughter in a way that enhanced the charm of her smile rather than diminishing it. Her once pale blonde hair had whitened, giving her a certain glow against the dark interior of Lismore Hall.
Yes, there were several reasons everyone who lived on the estate and the surrounding lands allowed Lady Belle a certain amount of grace. But mostly, it was because she had once, very publicly, made an English king beg for mercy.
“You’re daft, and you know that, don’t you?” Graham said.
Lady Belle barked with laughter and whacked her cane on the floor.
“Oh! You’re a fresh man, MacKinnon!”
He smiled, enjoying the ease with which they spoke. Given the circumstances that had brought her to live here, he doubted Fergus MacKinnon would appreciate his descendant’s strange friendship with the wily Englishwoman. Still, Lady Belle was the sort of saucy woman MacKinnon men had often been drawn to.
“The words don’t even rhyme. Purple and Kernel.”
“It’s close enough.”
“It’s lazy language. And it’s yours. You should try harder.”
Lady Belle squinted at him.
“How do you say purple in your tongue?”
“Purpaidh,” he said.
“Well, that’s far too easy to rhyme. I prefer the correct way.”
“The English way, you mean.”
“Is there a difference?”
“Now, no starting that, Lady Belle,” Graham said, coming back towards her as a footman pulled out her chair.
She winked at him and nodded to the seat next to hers at the long, oak table in the middle of the dining room. Three Paris Porcelain vases painted with cornflowers held an array of flowers cut from the walled garden that wrapped around Lismore Hall. It was widely regarded as one of the most splendid gardens in the Highlands, and Lady Belle was always proud to display its blooms.
The oak table was long enough that it could easily seat sixty people. Graham sat next to her, ignoring the instinctive annoyance that he should sit at the side while she sat at the head of the table. It had bothered him greatly when he’d first started his visits ten years ago, but now it hardly fazed him.
