Emma brightened. That would be a perfect opportunity to see Riley.
“Of course.”
The laundries were Emma’s least favorite part of the Keep, after the chaos and heat of the kitchens, of course. She took a narrow corridor that bypassed the kitchens, and the shouts of the cooks and maids were muffled. The heat was still there, radiating through the walls from the two colossal fireplaces that were needed to heat up the endless parade of meat served on the feasting table.
The laundries weren’tquiteas chaotic as the kitchens, but Emma still thanked her lucky stars that she didn’t have to work there.
Keep MacPherson, like any other building its size, provided a constant torrent of clothes to be washed. Shirts, linens, gowns, petticoats, shifts, troublesome plaids and tartans, and so on. The list went on and on, and a whole army of women—the laundresses—were recruited to deal with that.
The laundry was a vast, rectangular room leading straight out onto the courtyard. It was full of copper tubs of hot water, where women worked diligently with soap and washboards. In the corner, several women worked the huge mangle, wringing bucketfuls of water out of the clean laundry.
Emma caught a glimpse of clean, white sheets flapping in the wind outside in the courtyard. The first wash of the day. The air was full of the sounds of scrubbing and a low level of chatter.
And steam, of course.
The steam hung in the air like a pall, dampening everything it touched. The women all wore thick aprons to protect their clothes from the worst of the damp and stood on slatted wooden boxes at their washing tubs to get out of the ankle-deep water. The laundresses all looked more or less the same: determined-looking women with brawny arms and strong shoulders, red faces, and hair plastered to their faces and necks with dampness and sweat.
The chief laundress met Emma at the door, eyeing her with dislike and pursing her lips.
Emma was not one of the regular servants, that much had been made clear. For some of the more traditional women, a healer was nothing more than a witch, and a drunken midwife was quite sufficient to deliver children.
“Yes?” the laundress said crisply. “What can I help ye with, Madam?”
“I’m here for the Healer’s things. Our linens.”
The laundress sighed. “They’re drying outside. I’ll have them brought up when it’s done.”
She turned to walk away, and Emma felt a flare of panic. Shehadto talk to someone about what had happened, and if not Riley, then who?
“Wait.”
The woman turned around, raising an eyebrow.
“I’d like to talk to Riley McGuire,” Emma said as confidently as she could. “Please.”
The laundress rolled her eyes. “Fine, but only for a few minutes, ye hear?”
“That’s all I need,” Emma said, fighting back a grin.
“Good Lord,” Riley uttered, her eyes nearly popping out of her head. “Emma, that’s terrible. You could have been… you might have—”
“I know.” Emma interrupted hastily. “I know. I just… I just wanted to talk to someone about it.”
Riley digested this information. The two women had chosen a low wall running around the laundry’s section of the courtyard and sat side by side, their feet swinging above the faded, flattened cobbles.
They had been friends since Emma’s first arrival in the Keep, since they’d come at the same time, more or less. Like Emma, Riley was something of an outcast, but this was not because she wasn’t one of the servants. Riley even looked similar to most ofthe laundresses, with her strong arms, squat frame, brown eyes, and curly brown hair that poked out under her mob cap.
No, Riley was English.
She and her brother had left their home in Newcastle under something of a cloud, but she hadn’t been forthcoming about what that cloud might be or where her brother had gone now. Some of the servants seemed to find it an outrage that Riley, an English girl, had a Scottish name.
Nevertheless, she worked hard and was gradually winning over even the most anti-English of her peers. In fact, in many respects, she was doing better for herself than Emma.
“It was kind of Laird MacPherson to save you like that,” she commented after a few moments. “You must be grateful to him.”
Emma scowled. “He’s a wretch.”
Riley rolled her eyes. “He saved you from Gregor. I won’t go so far as to say that you owe him anything. Any decent person would have intervened. But a little gratitude wouldn’t go amiss.”
