Matthew and Duncan quickly removed themselves from her path, knowing she would trample them if they did otherwise, and she raced across the field that separated the stillhouse fromthe cottage with her skirts tangling around her ankles and doing their best to see that she stumbled on her way through tall grass.
Even with Duncan’s reassurance that Violet had made it home and hadn’t been harmed during the fall, Hannah still couldn’t help the creeping dread that tightened her throat more each day. The way her little sister seemed to be fading more and more every time she tried to eat or drink and retched instead, every time fever shook her too-thin frame, and Hannah spent the night sitting beside her with cold cloths refreshed every few minutes and sips of willowbark tea coaxed when possible, even if they rarely stayed down for long.
Hannah burst through the front door and took a moment to draw a sharp breath of relief when she saw Violet sitting at the small table adjacent to the kitchen with a cup of tea in front of her. Her sister was pale, too pale, her chestnut-brown hair almost identical to Hannah’s, though her blue eyes contrasted with her own green.
Hannah had taken after their father, and Violet favored their mother. Either way, right now her sister was skeletal, and it looked like it took immense effort for her to lift the teacup to her lips.
Violet’s hands shook with the effort of moving the cup to her mouth, and she forced a hollow smile as she turned her head. “Why the fuss?”
“I ken ye didnae just ask me that.”
Violet grimaced.
Hannah threw herself into the chair beside her at the table. “Ye’re going to pretend Duncan didnae fetch me?”
“I told him nae to,” Violet muttered into her cup, before putting it down on the table and letting out a breath that tried to be an annoyed sound and succeeded in sounding exhausted instead. “I only got light in the head. Maybe closed me eyes for a moment.”
That had been happening more and more as she had struggled with what turned her stomach so nastily.
Hannah couldn’t shake the way her mind kept creeping toward her greatest fear: Violet being too weak to fight this off, going the way of their mother and father. She couldn’t contend with the possibility.
“Only,” she echoed, watching her little sister pretend to take another sip of tea. Violet had been refusing it more and more, claiming it was bitter and it upset her stomach.
Hannah’s gaze was drawn to a bottle placed proudly in the middle of the table. A bottle she’d placed there not two days ago. Her own mix, a smooth flavor with a touch of flowered heather that produced a honeyed taste that spoke to mead without shouting. A whiskey she’d been experimenting with since she’d found a cask her father had started to age before he’d died the year prior. Something she hadn’t tasted anywhere before and knew would draw eyes.Importanteyes. Eyes that might justhave access to a specific plant that she hoped would help give her sister some life back in her face.
“I’m going to be out of the house tomorrow.” The decision was made as she spoke the words.
Violet looked up, expression startled, clearly having expected far more lecture and far less leaving her to her own devices. “Aye? To go where?”
“Business.” Hannah smiled at her. “Duncan will check in on ye. See to it that ye try to eat somethin’, hm?”
Violet grimaced at the words, which only made Hannah more certain of her decision. She reached out to rest a hand on her sister’s shoulder and tried not to let the strain show on her face when she felt the fragile bones so close to the skin.
She would not be telling her more. Violet didn’t need to know she’d made the decision to ask for an audience with the most terrifying laird of the Highlands, with naught to offer but a bottle of whiskey she’d spent the better part of a year perfecting to her satisfaction.TheirLaird: Aiden Calder, Laird MacBain.
2
It had taken her a few tries and some of the sparse coins she’d brought to head in the right direction for Calder Castle. MacBain Castle had been her first assumption, given that he was the Laird, but she had been incorrect and had been lucky enough to be sent in the correct direction when she’d stopped to ask if she was on the right path.
Though not one person she asked knew why she would have any interest in heading that way, and in fact seemed somewhat perturbed by the thought of giving her any directions at all.
She had managed to convince them through sheer tenacity. They’d decided if she was so determined to act as a woman grown and see herself to the front step of a man known among the clan as a fearless killer, she could see to her own consequences.
Calder Castle sat further from the center of the throng of villages that made up their clan lands. Whereas MacBain Castle wasjust past the second village beyond her own, Calder Castle took the remainder of the morning and a portion of the afternoon to reach once she’d been set to the correct path.
It was located through a small forest, the path mercifully cleared and trodden well enough to keep her from wandering and getting herself turned around, backing up to a large body of water that made her think that might be part of why this area was so lush comparatively. It could explain why the angelica by which Matthew swore seemed to appreciate growing here and refused to place its roots closer to her village and the well upon which it relied.
Finally.
She was standing in front of a set of gates that she had secretly expected to be half-rusted and in disrepair. Instead, when she gently pushed, they swung open easily and almost silently. Not locked.
“Ah, of course,” Hannah muttered to herself as she stepped slowly through the gates. “Who would dare come forthislaird—attack or visit?”
She glanced around as she moved carefully beyond the gates, not noticing any signs of life beyond the well-tended garden peeking around the side of the stonework that tucked itself up against the stone wall surrounding the castle and a smattering of the exact plant she was here for, with its strange bulbous blooms.
She kept moving, one hand clutching her horse’s reins, the other hugging the satchel at her hip. Feeling like she was stepping into forbidden territory but still having good manners about it, she reflexively closed the gate behind her.
Seeing nowhere reasonable, and knowing her pony would come if called, she simply dropped his reins and patted his neck. The garden had a fence, and the grass felt like it was available if nobody was going to be keeping guard over it.
