Diantha looked round the cottage. The only door faced down the road. If she left that way, he would see her.
“Quickly, your ladyship, climb into the best bed.” Lily pulled the curtains to the master bed aside. “You can slip out the side window. If you stay low, the trellis will hide you all the way to the back gate.”
Wee Archie entered, holding his youngest sister by the hand.
“I’ll take care of Mairi.” Lily picked up the toddler and a clean washcloth. “Lad, go find your grandpa and tell him Mr. Barclay is here. Dinna say anything else, ye ken? Go out the window and through the back.”
The boy nodded as calmly as if his grandmother had ordered him to fetch a pail of water.
“How will he know where to find Archie?” Diantha glanced out the window, fearing to see her cousin by marriage standing in the front garden.
Lily chuckled and pulled out a fresh pinafore for the girl. “Those two could find each other in the middle of darkest Africa.” She shooed the boy on his way. “And mind you don’t get dirty footprints on my clean bed!”
The rest of Nan’s daughters trooped in from the garden. Diantha helped change pinafores and wash off grubby hands and faces, mentally shaking her head at the irony. But both women assured her it would be thought odd if they did not clean the children up.
“And that’s what we want to avoid. Now get in there, my lady!” Feeling both frightened and foolish, Diantha found herself stepping over the bed, mindful of Lily’s admonition about footprints.
Nan whispered last minute instructions to her girls. “So help me, if any of you say one word to Mr. Barclay except ‘Good day’ or ‘I don’t know, sir,’ I’m takin’ my hairbrush to the lot of ye.”
Lily closed the curtains just as the sound of hoofbeats reached them through the open front door. Diantha barely had time to slip out the openwindow and duck down before Barclay’s smooth voice floated over the hedge.
“Good morning! What a bevy of beautiful girls!” A few childish giggles greeted his sally. She pressed her lips together. Naturally he would first attempt to coax them into giving him the information he wanted.
After he exchanged the usual pleasantries with the Greens, he finally explained the reason for his visit.
“I fear that there may have been a misunderstanding a few days ago between Lord and Lady Rossburn.” He coughed delicately, thus informing his listeners that he referred to an argument of massive proportions. “It left Lady Rossburn, especially, highly distraught. She told her maid she was going to take a stroll to clear her head.” A lugubrious sigh followed that sounded overexaggerated even from Diantha’s position behind the hedge. “She has not come back.”
Appropriate exclamations of shock and pity broke out from the Green ladies. He accepted their sympathy graciously before continuing.
“As I’m sure you understand, the dowager baroness is beside herself with worry. She has asked me to search the estate for her.”
“Och, the poor distracted wee thing.” Lily should have gone on the stage, Diantha reflected. She could almost see the old woman dabbing at her eyes with her apron. “We havnae seen her, Mr. Upton, but we’ll send a message to you right quick if we do.”
“That is a shame.” His voice took on a mournful quality. “Knowing that she places such trust in your husband, I had hoped she might have sought shelterwith you. I’m sure you won’t mind if we take a look around your cottage, Mrs. Green.”
Silence fell.
“Are you calling me a liar?” Lily’s quiet words hissed through the air like cold silk.
“This way I shall be able to assure the dowager baroness that I inspected each cottage. I only want to give her what little ease I’m able to.” His voice hardened. “I’m sure you understand.”
His fingers snapped before the crofter answered. “MacLeish!”
“Sir.” The door to the cottage creaked and Diantha heard heavy steps on the wooden floor. Stifling a gasp, she realized that if he looked out the window, he would see her. The rings of the bed curtains clinked softly as he pushed them aside.
Not daring to breathe, she held herself immobile.
MacLeish must have lacked imagination, for he did not stick his head out the window. She heard him moving about inside, but eventually he left the cottage to report to his master.
“She’s not in there, sir.”
“Ah.” Barclay turned his attention back to the Greens. “You really do have a lovely family, Nan.”
He must have given some kind of signal, for the next moment, the woman screamed.
“Mairi! Give me back my baby!”
The crack of flesh hitting flesh sounded as Diantha inched closer to the hedge and risked a peek through a small hole in the foliage. She crouched too low to see everything, but she could see Barclay mounted on his horse. He held Archie’s two-year-oldgranddaughter securely on his lap with one arm. The opposite hand held a pistol at the child’s head.
