The frozen ground crunched beneath their feet. Thinking of the blazing hearth in the hall, Isobel quickened her steps. Food would do her good, as well. She’d missed the midday meal.
As they went up the steps of the keep, she noticed two of them were cracked. She added the repair to the list in her head. The castle was hers now. No more begging Hume’s permission to take care of what needed to be done.
As she entered the hall, she saw their nearest neighbor warming his hands at the hearth. She gave Father Dunne a sharp look. The priest was sorely mistaken if he thought the arrival of Bartholomew Graham was good cause to draw her from her vigil.
“Isobel!”
It set her teeth on edge to hear Graham address her by her Christian name, despite her repeated requests that he not.
“My most sincere regrets at Lord Hume’s passing,” Graham said as he rushed toward her, arms extended.
She offered her hand to prevent his coming closer. Fixing fine gray eyes on her, he pressed his lips to it. He lingered unnecessarily. As he always did.
She should not have been shocked when Graham pursued her during her marriage. After all, he’d been a liar and a cheat as a boy. But how he could still not know his good looks and easy charm were lost on her—that was a mystery.
“Thank you for your concern, but I must speak with Father Dunne now,” she said, tugging her hand from Graham’s grip.
She clenched her jaw to keep from snapping at him. Usually, she handled Graham’s attentions with more grace, but she was tired and her patience short. The last days of Hume’s illness had not been easy.
“If you wish to wait,” she made herself say, “I will have some refreshment brought.”
Father Dunne cleared his throat. “Forgive me, Lady Hume, but I must ask that he join us.” Her face must have shown her irritation, for Father Dunne hastened to add, “I have good cause, as you shall see.”
She could not very well argue with the castle chaplain in front of the servants in the hall. Biting back her temper, she turned and led the two men up the circular stairs to the family’s private rooms on the floor above.
She added replacing the castle chaplain to her list.
Once they were in the privacy of the family solar, she did not bother to keep the sharpness from her tone. “Now, Father Dunne, what is so important that you have seen fit to call me away from my prayers for my husband’s soul?”
The chaplain bristled. “I felt it my duty to inform you of a document your husband entrusted into my care.”
“A document?” She felt a pang of anxiety in the pit of her stomach. “What sort of document?”
“ ’Tis a conveyance of certain properties.”
Just how large a sum had Hume given to the Cistercian monks at Melrose Abbey to say Masses for him? She did not begrudge the monks, but she hoped there would be sufficient funds left to make the long-neglected repairs to the castle.
“You speak of his will?” she asked.
“A will could not serve this purpose,” Father Dunne said in his ponderous voice. “A man may give his gold, his horse, and his armor to whomever he chooses in his will—but not his lands. Upon his death, his lands pass to his heirs.”
Father Dunne coughed, looking uneasy for the first time. “To give his lands to anyone else,” he said, drawing a rolled parchment from inside his robe, “a man must do itbeforehis death.”
Isobel had tried for months to convince her husband to let Jamieson buy the small plot he worked so he could marry the miller’s daughter. With death knocking at his door, Hume must have finally done it. Good deeds, like prayers, could reduce his time in purgatory.
This must be what the priest was fussing about. She smiled and reached her hand out. “Let me see it, then.”
Father Dunne stepped back, clutching the document to his chest. “I suggest you sit first, Lady Hume.”
Isobel folded her arms and tapped her foot. “I prefer to stand.” Truly, the man did bring out the worst in her.
The priest tightened his mouth and began unrolling the parchment. “ ’Tis a simple document,” he said, still not giving it to her. “In essence, it grants all of Lord Hume’s lands, including this castle, to Bartholomew Graham.”
The priest had to be mistaken. Or lying. Still, the smug look on his face sent a wave of fear through her.
She ripped the parchment from his hands and scanned the words. She read them a second time, more slowly. And then again, a third time. She looked up, unseeing, and tried to take in the enormity of what her husband had done to her. Surely he would not do this. Could not do it. Not after all she had given up, all she had done for him.
For eight long years she was at the beck and call of a peckish old man who wore her down with his whining and constant demands. Day after day after day. Listening to his tedious conversation. Trying not to watch as food and drink dribbled down his chins and onto his fine clothes.
