For the next few days, Emer kept herself away from Caillen. She would wait for him to leave the library before cleaning, watched the passageway keenly to see when he left his bedchamber and then dart in there to tidy it up, and even ignored a direct request Mistress Burroughs gave her to go and meet Laird Maclachlan in the dining room. Emer felt hunted.
She had no seeds of doubt about Caillen anymore. He was, and always had been as far as she was concerned, an upright man with nothing to hide.
It was as if the last few weeks’ events had done something to her. First, she had been a spy for Gawain, then she had allowed Caillen to make loving advances to her in the grove, then he had showered gorgeous clothing on her, and before she had even had time to thank him, his brother had threatened her with dismissal if she did not unearth some juicy bit of information about Caillen for him.
Emer was shattered. Her head pounded with an ache, even her strongest medicine would not be able to relieve, and her stomach churned as though she had eaten a feast.
The lies! The deception! The blackmail! The feeling of his mouth on me lips!
These words swirled around her mind all day and night until exhausted sleep claimed her. And even in her dreams, Emer felt trapped and pursued by light and dark forces. One night, after the second time she had ignored a request she join Caillen, this one delivered to her by a worried-looking Gilby, there was a soft knock on her door. It was late enough for Davinia to be asleep, but Emer was lingering on the verge of descending back into her nightmarish dreams.
The knock came again.
Shaking with confusion and stress, Emer ignored the knock. The sound did not come again, and she heard the soft noise of boots walking back down the stone stairs.
I cannae take any more of this. I must leave for a spell or die from these incessant anxious thoughts.
And with that decision made, Emer was able to sleep.
* * *
She woke with the birdsong the next morning. Still wearing her nightgown and with the rags still wrapped in her hair, Emer stood at the dresser in her bedchamber and withdrew Caillen’s note from where it was wrapped up in one of her stockings.
There was a much-mended quill she kept in the pocket of her round gown pinafore and a small pot of sooty ink in the chest. She put them on top of the dresser and then carefully spread out Caillen’s note – she needed to use the other side of the parchment. It gave her heart a pang when she knew she would not be able to keep his short letter as a memento anymore, but it was more important she communicate to him what it was she needed to do.
“Dear Laird Maclachlan, -”
Emer stopped writing and thought hard about the best way to express her feelings while the ink dried on the quill nib. Her mind made up, Emer dipped the quill in ink once more and continued,
“I can never thank you enough for all the many kindnesses and attention you have bestowed on me since my arrival at the keep. Because of yer considerate actions and conversations, it is now easy for me to call the Maclachlan keep my home.
Perhaps it is for this very reason that I must leave for a while. I feel the need to return to Nethy and see how the folks do there. It was once my home, and the ties should not weaken just because I have been made so welcome and comfortable here.
Remember those three fields at the bottom of the mountain I told you about? Maybe there’s an interested buyer for them. Davinia has three and twenty years this winter, and we must start thinking of a dowry for her.
I beg your pardon for rambling on about family again, but it is important to me – I have only one close family member left.
I have no words to express my deepest admiration for you, sir.
I pray you to understand my leave of absence and sanction it with Mistress Burroughs, so I may return to the keep without a cloud of censure hanging over my head.
Sir, I remain,
Your very obedient and eternally grateful servant
Emer Wylie
P.S. Please tell Davinia I have gone to look at selling the fields. - E
It did not take long to wrap a change of underclothes in a shawl and steal quietly out of the door. She hid her traveling cloak in a basket to avoid any questions as to why she was leaving. Then Emer went to the staff’s kitchen dining room and took some day-old bannocks from the basket. Before she left the room, she stared at the passageway stairs leading down to the long table. It was where the footmen and pageboys would wait for a summons from guests, and the kitchen staff would relax and chat after a hard day’s work.
A gentle smile crossed her face as she remembered she had been sitting right there when Caillen had overheard her scathing opinion of him. Instead of getting angry, he had pretended to be a wounded dandy, overwrought by her unfair judgement. It was the first time she had met him...
Nay, wait! I keep forgetting! I met him for the first time several hours before, up in the tower room. How could I forget that! The sweetest meeting I could have wished for?
Emer sighed, took one last look around the kitchen where she had found refuge after the fire, and then walked to the library. The sentries were still posted outside the door, alert, muskets upright, and eyes open.
They recognized Emer and made to let her in.
