Jack was halfway through his bowl of soup before he realized something was wrong with his meal.
Yes, the bread was the bread he had brought them two nights ago. It was stale but still good. Mags had toasted it. And the soup had the flavor of ham. And there were big chunks of potato in the soup. But there was no meat. None.
He raised his head, frowning.
“What’s wrong, Jack?” Helen asked.
“Did you finish the ham already?”
Helen looked at Mags and then back at him. “Aye.”
“Well, you are women with hearty appetites.”
Duncan shook his head.
“No, Duncan? What do you mean, no?” Jack pressed the young man, but he kept his mouth clamped shut.
Helen sighed. “We shared it out. I meant to give the ham back because it was too much to accept, but then I thought again, I mean, I thought it might be best—
“Many people havenae had meat for a long time, Mr. Pike,” Mags said in her soft way.
“So, everyone ate a slice of ham for dinner last night in Kinmarloch? Is that what you’re telling me?”
“Well, half a slice anyway. We are nae so few as that. I hope yer nae angry, Jack. That we gave away yer gift.”
No, he wasn’t angry. How could he be angry at Helen’s charity? But he wished she had been a little selfish and kept something back for herself.
Helen read his mind, staring into her soup bowl. “I kept the bread and the hambone for our soup. Rather piggish of me. Especially since I had a big ham breakfast yesterday.”
Piggish? When most would have kept the whole ham with no thought for anyone else?
Helen looked him in the eyes. “I thank ye, Jack, for the ham. For Kinmarloch.”
“Aye, thank ye,” Mags echoed and Duncan chimed in with his own “thank ye.”
“You’re welcome.”
Jack ate the rest of his soup, and it was almost as good as if it had ham in it. But he didn’t take a second bowl. He would have to be careful here not to take more than he gave. Despite the widespread belief in the meanness of Scots, these people were too bloody generous, by half.
Eleven
Helen’s horse threw a shoe while pulling the cart with the wool to Cumdairessie. But her horse showed no distress, and she managed to get to the wool buyer and sell her fleeces. It was not the price she had hoped for, not the kind of money to get her through the next winter. But there would be another set of fleeces later in the year. And she would never have the kind of money she really needed. The kind where she would know with certainty that all her people would be fed through the winter. The kind so that Mags could see a real doctor. The kind to fix the roof of the keep.
But she would pay back Jack Pike, and she would find a way to get more money. There was still the hope of the duke, no matter what Jack had said about the fine ladies in London. No matter that he had said the duke was good-looking. But, oh, how she wished John MacNaughton was the most deformed man in all of England. Then she might have a chance of him.
But maybe the duke would see the rightness of their union, as she did, and the advantages to him of having a wife who knew the land and the people. And maybe, despite being as handsome as Jack Pike had said he was, the duke was also kind-hearted and would take pity on her and not mind her looks.
Ha. She was going mad. Living in a dream world where handsome men were kind. Where beautiful men took off their shirts and held you against their bare, warm, muscled chests which smelled of wet sheep and stroked your back. Not because they thought you were scared, but because they wanted to touch you and hold you close.
An impossible world. A world which had no connection to the world she knew.
She idled, waiting outside the blacksmith’s. The town, although it was the biggest for miles around, had no dedicated farrier. The fire burned hot in the forge, but no one was tending it. Why did her horse have to throw a shoe in Cumdairessie? If she had been in Kinmarloch, she could have taken the horse to Duncan’s father, and the shoe would be back on in a flash.
She needed to get home.
She ducked into the public house, hoping to find the blacksmith there. The place was crowded, far more crowded than she had ever seen it before.
And then she heard that glorious laugh.
