“You’ve seen to my boy,” Kathleen said, clearly grateful. “I’ve no’ a right to ask you to remain any longer.”
“I do not mind,” Rose said just before her head hit the pillow and she slept.
Over the next two days, Rose took turns with Kathleen and Duncan, sitting beside the lad, reading to him, bathing his face and waiting for his fever to break. Rose felt an inner peace and confidence that it would. She didn’t know where such an emotion came from.
Kathleen had made sure one of her other sons delivered a note to Stonehaven the night of Rose’s arrival, reassuringMary that Rose was safe, so she felt at ease remaining with this crowded family.
Though she could not tell exactly how they were related to Ruark, on her fourth morning, she felt comfortable enough to ask.
She sat in the stone-paved kitchen boiling water for chamomile tea while Kathleen worked on that day’s meal. A few copper pots burnished to a rosy glow hung overhead, and fresh-cut flowers sat across from the hearth on the same countertop Kathleen was using. The rhythmic slap of her palms shaping the bread dough stopped abruptly as she considered the question. She thought her husband came from an offshoot branch of one of the former earl of Roxburghe’s grandfather’s cousin’s uncles who had married more than one wife, “whilst the others still lived,” Kathleen said and laughed.
“Though there was some discrepancy in testimonies depending on how much silver was involved. If ye wish to learn about the Kerrs, find the family Bible. All the births and marriages are recorded there. At least the legal ones are.”
Rose liked this family. Kathleen was in her mid-thirties and mother to three sons and one small girl, Rufus being her oldest. Her husband had died less than five months ago. For some reason, she had thought her Duncan’s wife.
“If no’ for Duncan, I do no’ know where the lot of us would be,” Kathleen said, working her hands into the bread dough, raising a small cloud of flour. “We have no’ always been poor, ye ken.
“My husband was the village fiscal,” she said. “We had a nice home in the village. Then one day, people accused him of running away with their money and embezzling funds and were ready to tar and feather his family. If no’ for Duncan ... we might never have learned the truth.”
“What happened?” Rose asked as Kathleen’s voice faded.
“Duncan found my husband’s body. He’d been caught in a snowstorm and died of injuries when his horse fell. No gold was found but by then the damage had already been done to this family. This house was once Duncan’s, but he’s no family to speak of, least no’ any children. He gave us the house and has taken it upon himself always to make sure our larder is full.”
“Is it not the laird’s responsibility to see to his tenants’ care?” Rose asked.
Kathleen turned the bread dough over on a wooden block and began beating the other side with equal intensity. “Aye, ’tis. We shall see if the new lord Roxburghe is of a different mettle than his father,” she said, and though she would say nothing more to denigrate the former earl of Roxburghe, her stiff shoulders stated her feelings eloquently.
Rose grabbed a hand pad and removed the tea kettle from the fire bringing it to the countertop where she had set out a teapot and a cup on a tray. “His lordship does not speak of his father.”
“Humph,” Kathleen said. “You have met Jamie’s mother?” she asked after a moment, slanting Rose a glance, before resuming her kneading. “Ruark may not have thought so, but Duncan did him a service back then when he shipped Ruark out of Scotland.”
“Because Duncan got him away from his father?”
“With lady Julia between them, one of them would have killed the other to be sure.”
Rose pretended close attention as she poured hot water into the teapot. A spur of doubt nudged her, for her heart would not completely let go of the rationale that real love did not die easily.
“How did Lord Roxburghe die?” she asked after a moment.
“Hereford killed him,” Duncan said from the doorway.
Rose and Kathleen turned at once. Duncan leaned with his big shoulder against the wall, his arms folded across his chest. He did not look nearly as fearsome as he did in the darkness of a mist-shrouded night. He wore leather trews and a loose-fitting white shirt, minus the usual baldric dangling with all manner of weaponry and muskets. His wild russet hair had been tied back from his face.
He grinned, though his blue eyes wore a less amused expression as they settled on Kathleen. “Are ye telling stories about me, lassie?”
She sniffed and returned to her kneading. “As if anyone could tell a story about ye, Duncan? Who would dare?” Her shoulders worked as she folded and squished the dough with her fist, then she turned and rolled her sleeves back to her elbows and faced Duncan. “Why don’t ye tell the lass why you believe Hereford killed your brother?”
When Duncan did not reply, Kathleen answered for him. “Rumor is that a valuable cargo in which Hereford had monetary interest went missing from one of Roxburghe’s merchantmen outside Rotterdam some years ago.” She set her hands on her hips. “What is it Hereford accused him of? Collusion with pirates?”
Duncan narrowed his eyes, none too pleased with Kathleen’s assessment of the former earl of Roxburghe’s character. His gaze on Rose, he straightened. “Come lass. Say your good-byes. Ye are the laird’s wife and belong back at Stonehaven. You’ve been gone long enough as is.”
He turned on his boot heel, and after his heavy steps had faded on the planked floor, Kathleen said, “He’s right. You need to be returnin’.”
Rose unlaced her apron and folded it. She had done allshe could for Rufus. But she was not thinking of him as her mind mulled over the details of Kathleen’s conversation. “You said Hereford made the accusation of collusion after a cargo went missing on a merchantman outside Rotterdam?”
She was remembering the story Ruark had told her about the ship he had boarded outside Rotterdam some years ago. The ship had carried contraband that he believed Hereford had taken off an East Indiaman sunk off the Azores. Ruark did not tell her he had taken the cargo from one of his father’s own ships.
“Was it true?” Rose asked. “The accusation.”
