Hester’s cheeks were bright spots of pink. “Do ye not want to break your fast?”
“No, old woman,” Mona said, “and don’t you dare ask me any more questions without a decent curtsy.”
Daisy met Hester’s eyes.
Ignore her,
Daisy said with her own.
Hester had terrible aches in her bones, but somehow she managed to make a respectable curtsy.
Slowly.
But she did it.
“Would you care for anything from the kitchen to take with you, missus?” Hester asked when she stood straight again.
“No.”
Mona curled her lip. “Where’s the tea?”
“Soon to boil,” Hester said placidly, but she cast a comically long-suffering eye Daisy’s way, which served to calm her desire to throttle her stepmother.
At that moment, Cassandra and Perdita appeared, freshly bathed and dressed in their best walking gowns, which Daisy had pressed for them.
“We’re looking for Lord Lumley,” Cassandra said without greeting anyone.
Perdita nodded enthusiastically.
They acted as if going to see Lord Lumley were incredibly exciting. It
was
, but who were they—or Daisy—to indulge themselves in daydreaming about his good looks and charismatic charm?
Lord Lumley was off limits. A creature of pleasure. An emissary merely following his grandmother’s orders. A man with no interest in the residents of Castle Vandemere beyond a superficial interest, which he’d maintain until he could leave the glen forever.
“I’ll go, too,” Daisy said.
“Why?” asked Cassandra. “Have you forgotten what I told you? You don’t need to be around the viscount unless it’s strictly necessary.”
She angled her head at Hester and mouthed the words
poor house
.
Daisy wished she could narrow her eyes at her stepsister. But she dared not.
“He’s to carry your trunks,” she said instead. “If you want them to arrive at the Keep when you do, he’ll need to know where the wheelbarrow and ropes are kept. I was about to show him, but if you’d rather—”
“I wouldn’t dare set a foot in that byre,” Cassandra said in a surly manner.
“Nor I,” Perdita added. “Although I like a nice wheelbarrow ride.”
“Shut up, Perdita,” said her mother. “We’ve no time for wheelbarrow rides.”
“I’d like a ride of another sort,” Cassandra said under her breath, and flung a challenging look at Daisy. “I intend to get one, too.”
Daisy knew exactly what she meant.
Wicked girl
.
But if Cassandra thought she’d bed a certain viscount, she’d thought wrong.
Once outside, Daisy let go of her aggravation. The air was as peppery fresh as it had ever been on a sunny summer morning. It was a perfect day for visitors to arrive and experience the Highlands.
And she needn’t worry about Charlie. He wasn’t stupid. Cassandra’s charms were only skin-deep.
Even so, a memory of the Stone Steps rushed back.
He’s
my
viscount,
Daisy thought.
And I won’t give him up to any other woman.
Which was silly of her, as she’d already told him there could be nothing between them.
She cast a glance back at the kitchen window, where Hester stood watching them. The older woman pulled on her ear—which signified,
Damned Furies
!—then touched her fingertips to her lips and gently blew a kiss toward Daisy.
Daisy smiled back, but inside, she was pensive. Hester and Joe meant everything to her. She couldn’t veer off course. Saving Castle Vandemere for them was paramount.
Worrying a bit about Jinx, too, she scanned the grounds for a sign of the cat, and even called for her, but she didn’t come. Cassandra and Perdita made no effort to help, and Daisy put aside her own vague worries. It was much too soon to be concerned, she told herself. Surely Jinx was fine and was merely ignoring her call.
So when she caught sight of Joe and the viscount, both of them looking down the mountainside, she allowed herself to feel a surge of happiness as she strolled toward them.
But Cassandra stepped right in her path, forcing her aside.
“Hello, Lord Lumley.” Cassandra batted her eyes at him.
“Your coat is exquisite,” said Perdita in a plodding manner.
She’d obviously practiced her words.
“Good morning, ladies,” the viscount answered in a gallant fashion but didn’t bother to glance at Daisy.
Well, what could she expect after their earlier conversation?
Cassandra sent a gloating look her way.
It took everything Daisy had in her to ignore it and appear completely at ease.
“The visitors have arrived even sooner than we expected,” Charlie said. “We saw them pull into the village. They’ll need to rest the horses before they dare attempt the slope.”
“Five coaches and six outriders,” Joe announced.
“How exciting,” Daisy said.
“I can’t wait,” Cassandra said.
“Nor I,” said Perdita.
For a moment, they were all united in their excitement, their differences forgotten.
But that bad feeling dogged Daisy. She was sure it had everything to do with the fact that she and Charlie were not ever to be together again. But something in her prompted her to say: “Have you seen Jinx?”
“She lives in the kitchen,” said Joe right away.
“I know,” Daisy said, “but she’s not there. She hasn’t even come in for her dish of goat’s milk.”
Perdita snorted.
Daisy whirled around and looked at her. Perdita scratched her nose in an offhand manner, but her eyes glinted with glee when she exchanged glances with her sister.
Perdita had done something to Jinx. Daisy just knew it. And Cassandra had helped.
The witches
.
Charlie was shocked to see the fierce look on Daisy’s face, and even more surprised to see her stand toe to toe with her large stepsister. “Where is she? What have you done with Jinx?”
Miss Perdita whimpered. “I don’t know. I haven’t done anything to her.”
“You’re lying.” Daisy turned to Miss Cassandra. “If you were cruel to that cat in any way—”
“I don’t like your threatening tone.” Miss Cassandra managed to look angelic. “You have a tendency to be impulsive—”
“Oh, bother with that.” Daisy put her hands on her hips. “Where’s Jinx?”
“If either of you knows, out with it,” Charlie urged the two girls. He was disgusted with their obvious guilt.
Miss Cassandra drew herself up and looked at him with wide eyes. “Of course we didn’t harm Hester’s cat.” She put her chin in the air. “I’m horribly hurt, Daisy, that you think we’re capable of cruelty to an innocent animal. You’re embarrassing the entire family in front of the viscount. You’re volatile, careless—”
“Careless?” Daisy’s face flared red. “How have I been careless? I care enough to look for her—”
Miss Cassandra put on a patient look and swiveled to face him. “You do know about the tragedy, don’t you?”
Charlie felt vastly uncomfortable. Something was terribly wrong here. “No,” he said, and wished he could walk away. This was a family squabble. Private business. He didn’t belong.
But Daisy was obviously outnumbered and outflanked, and damned if he was going to let her stepsisters hide the truth about the cat. He already had a soft spot for Hester, and he wanted answers, too.
“Now is not the time,” Daisy said to Miss Cassandra.
Charlie couldn’t agree more.
The charged atmosphere sent Joe limping away.
Miss Cassandra crossed her arms over her chest and locked gazes with Charlie. “She burned down the bungalow.” She wore a distasteful smirk.
The words made no sense at first. It took several seconds for Charlie to understand.
Daisy looked at him with steel in her expression. “It was an accident.”
“Yes,” said Miss Cassandra, “but you were careless.” She looked at Charlie. “Sadly, her father—my stepfather—was so traumatized by the incident, he died a week later.”
Miss Perdita began to tremble.
A sheen of tears appeared in Daisy’s eyes. “You
are
cruel, Cassandra. How could you bring that up now?”
“I wasn’t trying to be cruel!” Miss Perdita roared, and put her hands over her ears.
“Enough.” Miss Cassandra laid a hand on Perdita’s shoulder. “Jinx is fine.”
“Then where is she?” Daisy demanded to know, but her voice was thin with worry.
“Be quick and tell us,” Charlie interjected.
Miss Perdita merely stared goggle eyed at all of them, her hands still over her ears.
“She’s locked in Perdita’s wardrobe,” Miss Cassandra said quietly.
“We put her in,” Miss Perdita boomed. “And I turned the key.”
“How could you?” Daisy’s voice trembled with fury. “The two of you should be ashamed of yourselves.”
Miss Cassandra lifted her chin. “Perdita did it and told me afterward. I was on my way to getting the cat out when we were diverted by news of the visitors.”
“No you weren’t,” Daisy said. “You strolled into the kitchen, and—”
She felt a restraining hand on her arm. It was Charlie, and she couldn’t help but take comfort from it.
“Just go let the poor animal out of the wardrobe,” he said quietly to Miss Cassandra, who blinked at him once and turned on her heel.
“Follow me, Perdita,” she said in injured tones. “As usual, I am being blamed for your folly.”
Miss Perdita finally dropped her hands from her ears and lumbered after her sister, shaking her head all the while. “I’m going to tell Mother, and Daisy will get in trouble. Not me. How dare she say I did anything wrong?”
Charlie watched Joe limp after them. He’d see to it that Jinx’s release was complete.
When they all disappeared into the house, Charlie looked at Daisy. “What’s going on?”
She had a hollow look about her. “You heard them.”
“Yes,” he said. There was a moment’s silence. “I’m sorry about your father.”
He could see her jaw working.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” he assured her.
She looked at the ground but cocked her head to her right. “Do you see that empty spot, over by the oak and rowan trees? It looks as if something was once there?”
He nodded.
She wouldn’t look at the site herself. “That was where my mother’s bungalow stood. Papa built it for her. She painted there. It was the perfect spot, she said. She could see everything—all the way down the glen to the village, and up to the top of Ben Fennon.”
“I see.” He waited for her to go on.
“I used to go there, too, to sew at Mama’s feet. And after she died, I continued. It was my haven. I did almost all my sewing there. Papa would come in, too, and sit and write occasionally. The place reminded us both of my mother.” She took a breath. “One night, I was sewing late, and I must have left a candle burning—”
She hesitated again, and he saw her jaw work even more.
“It’s all right,” he said. “You don’t need to talk about it. And you mustn’t blame yourself. It was an accident.”
She looked up at him then with the most mournful eyes he’d ever seen. “I know,” she whispered. “It was a terrible accident.”
He wanted to take her into his arms then and assuage her grief. But he daren’t. No doubt Cassandra and Perdita were watching them from the castle windows. And she didn’t want him to get close, did she?
Not an hour before, she’d let him know very clearly that their intimacy couldn’t continue.
“At least Jinx is safe,” he reminded her.
She gave him a wobbly smile. “Yes, that’s true. It would have broken Hester’s heart if she’d been hurt. Mine, too.”
They began a slow walk toward the sheep pasture.
Daisy allowed her mouth to quirk up on one side. “I long for the day when Castle Vandemere is ours again.”
Her home had slipped out of sight. They were beyond the byre now, with only fields before them and the long, curving road that wended its way down the slope of Ben Fennon to the village below.
“Ours?” he asked.
“Mine, Hester’s, and Joe’s.” She bit her lip and was silent a moment. “That’s the way it needs to be,” she said eventually. “The castle will be ours. Not my stepmother’s nor my stepsisters’. Because unless a miracle occurs and they change in the near future, I’m—I’m going to kick them out.” She looked up at Charlie, almost as if she were fearful. Or would faint.
He took her upper arms and braced her. “It’s all right.”
“I never thought I’d say that,” she whispered, staring at his chest. “But today is the last straw. I can’t wait to see them go.” Her voice gained more strength. “I don’t even care where. My stepmother will land on her feet, without a doubt.” She took a deep breath. “I’m not just saying this, either. I mean it.”
Her gaze was unwavering.
“I believe you.” He sensed she needed reassurance, and he had it for her. In spades.
“Do you?” Her expression was more determined than he’d ever seen it, yet he saw a bit of desperation there, as well.
“I think it’s a very good thing.” He longed to caress her. “You deserve better treatment than what you receive from your stepmother and your stepsisters.”
“I never really thought about what I deserve.” She began to pace in a tight circle. “I’ve always thought about what I
wanted,
however. I wanted freedom from Stepmother’s vitriol and Cassandra’s disrespect—Perdita’s, too—but I’ve been so busy trying to survive their lobs, jabs, and outright attacks, it simply didn’t occur to me that I don’t have to live with it. With
them
.”
She stood still a moment. “I can cut them loose. Not only in my imagination, either. In real life. I used to dream of their moving back to London, far away from me. But I never thought it could actually happen. Maybe I can make it happen. Or at the very least, push them in that direction.”
She turned to look at him, and he was gratified by her keen interest in his response.
“Yes, you can,” he said. “Trouble is, will they go? Or will they hang on by their claws?” He tossed her a small grin. This was serious business, but he wanted to bolster her spirits.
She managed a weak grin back. “I don’t know.” There was a frustrated edge to her honey-bee voice. “But we
will
get to that point, after these visitors leave and we get our money. And I can’t tell you how much I look forward to it.”
It was a miserable hour later, and they still hadn’t arrived at the Keep. Castle Vandemere was without a wagon or a horse, so Charlie had had to strap Mrs. Montgomery’s and her daughters’ trunks onto the wheelbarrow to get them there.
It was rough going.
Daisy carried her own things in a bag. It was light, she said, and not bulky. It was also about a third of the size of the trunks.
Along the way, Perdita pouted, still shaken by that morning’s events. Cassandra kept up a steady stream of chatter, as if she’d not been involved in a cruel prank at all. Mrs. Montgomery strode ahead of all of them, her dark cape swirling out behind her.
Daisy said very little. It was obvious to Charlie that she, too, was still affected by the incident of Jinx’s incarceration and her subsequent decision to rid herself of her stepfamily as soon as possible.
And no doubt she was sad to say a temporary farewell to Hester and Joe.
“Although I’ll be down every day if I can,” he’d heard her whisper to them before she’d left, and kissed both their cheeks.
When they arrived at the bottom of the impressive front steps of the Keep, neither Mrs. Montgomery nor her daughters offered Charlie a word of thanks for carrying their trunks over rough terrain.
Daisy, still in a brown study, lifted her gown with one hand and walked with great purpose up the steps to the grand entrance to the Keep. Charlie couldn’t keep his eyes off her ankles, so dainty and fine they were. He remembered seeing her whole leg bared—indeed, her whole self bared—to him on the Stone Steps, and the memory caused a surge of heat in his loins that he knew would plague him all day.
To his left, Mrs. Montgomery waved away the four crofters’ sons who were doing a fine job at playing footmen, offering to help the residents of Vandemere with their trunks. “Don’t you dare touch my precious things. You’re thieves, all of you!” she cried.
The young men managed to race back up the stone steps and go back through the gigantic front door of the Keep as fast as they could, disappearing long before Charlie could call them back.
And no wonder. Mrs. Montgomery was terrifying, especially in her swirling black cape.
Not that Cassandra and Perdita seemed terribly concerned about their mother’s fit of pique. They rushed up the steps after the footmen, giggling the whole way. Charlie had no doubt that they were off to introduce themselves to all the males in the house.
“Lumley,” Mrs. Montgomery called to him. “Take the trunks to our rooms straightaway.”
He wondered what particular sin he’d committed that caused him to have to endure this particular widow. With a weary sigh, he hoisted her trunk onto his shoulder and regretted every moral lapse of his youth and childhood.
“And don’t dally,” she told him, her tone curt. “Daisy’s gone on ahead, the impertinent girl, so I need you to empty them and—”
“Put all your shoes in perfect rows,” he finished for her.
“Right,” she said.
He’d been
joking
.
Poor Daisy, to have to perform such menial chores for the ungrateful harridan on a regular basis!
The weighty trunk dug into his shoulder. When he circled around Mrs. Montgomery, he resisted the perfectly natural urge he had to knock her over like a bowling pin with the end of the trunk—“by accident,” of course.
He heaved a sigh and carried the bulky chest up the front steps of the Keep, wondering how far in the bowels of the castle he must walk to find the woman’s bedchamber.
He ran into a maid who said she knew the way, so he followed her.
It was hard work, carrying that massive trunk, but it felt good to exert himself. Charlie thought of the myriad times he’d allowed other men to pick up his bags, shine his shoes, deliver him his horse, fix his wobbly chair legs, feed him meals while on the hunt, tie his cravat, carry his dead birds, balance his accounts, clean his guns, wipe down his saddle, pour his whisky, shine his cuff links, build his homes, remove his dishes from the table, bury his faithful hunting dogs, escort women he’d slept with from his home, take his coat, his hat, his coat, his hat, his coat—