We all stared at him.
‘I know you said you read a lot, but this is outside your brief by a thousand years!’ Lachlan said.
‘I’m interested in Scotland. I mostly read Scottish history books.’ David went on, speaking carefully as though he didn’twant too much to come out. ‘Once Amber is in bed, I can’t go out. I have to keep an eye on her. So I sit with her and I read and I watch her machines, and that’severyevening.’ For the first time a note of angry impatience entered David’s usually calm voice and his face creased up as though a momentary pain had passed through his body. ‘I read a lot,’ he went on.
None of us spoke. Nobody knew what to say again. It was as though every mention of his sister struck us silent.
With a return to his usual steady tone, which made me realise just how much he must be repressing on a daily basis, David continued. ‘It means I know bits and pieces about Scottish history. The interesting parts, anyway.’
I took a breath. I wanted to acknowledge what he’d said, I wanted to offer some kind of sympathy, but David’s expression told me that it wouldn’t be welcome and that he would prefer we pretended he hadn’t given us that insight into his life back at home. So instead I looked at Lachlan. ‘You’re Scottish, you must know about the Jacobites too, surely?’
Everyone flicked their gazes to Lachlan now, all clearly relieved that the subject had moved on.
‘Aye, but I didn’t think all this—’ he waved a hand wide, going straight through a young man wandering unconcerned over towards the huge fire burning in the grate ‘—was anything to do with that. I thought this was all more… local.’ He groped for the word. ‘Morepersonal.’
‘If the earl fights for the wrong side and the family loses everything as a result, I’d take that pretty personally, wouldn’t you?’ Mal now looked more interested than murderous.
Lachlan turned to me. ‘What do you think, Pax? Do you know who your family supported? Is this the turning point? Is this where everything breaks down?’
I was horrified at being put on the spot. ‘Oh! I don’t… all I know is that there were battles. I never took any notice of whichside we were on – I mean, I know vaguely about the whole Bonnie Prince Charlie and the king over the water stuff, but only in the abstract. They were all just names to me. Dad wanted us to have Scots heritage and understand our history, but I didn’t care. I’m sorry, I didn’t pay more attention!’ I almost wailed now. ‘I was angry at being sent away when I was in the Pony Club and they were in all these competitions and having fun and I’d had to put my pony out on loan over the summer because Mum wanted us to come to Scotland and spend time with Dad!’ It all came out in one long breath, accompanied by more teenage whine than I’d intended. Everyone was looking at me. ‘Well, I was,’ I finished sulkily. ‘It wasn’t fair.’
Mal, with a return to his more usual acerbity, pointed to the entrance to the hall. ‘There’s a big door over there. You can go and slam it if you like.’
‘No. People might see,’ I muttered, not confessing how much I was filled with the desire to do so.
Lachlan didn’t say anything. I wondered if he was remembering my confessing my other reason for my guilt about not listening – my assumption that my brother was pretending to listen just to make Dad like him more than me. All of it sounded pathetically childish now, in retrospect, but I hoped that he had been able to read between the lines. I felt guilty and it made me accept more from Lenny than I might otherwise have done.
I sighed and stared around the castle again.
‘So, you were a stroppy teenager who didn’t want to know about your family history,’ Mal said, as though hehadread between the lines and wanted to rub it in.
‘Hey, no fair,’ Kaylinn chimed in. ‘Mymom is all about family too. She talks about China as though she just got off the boat, and she’s never evenbeenthere. There’s four generations of my family on our block, and none ofthemhave ever been backeither, but we’re all expected to live like we’re still into the four virtues of women and complicated poetry.’ She gave me a weak smile. ‘So, yeah, I kinda know how it is not to want to get all wrapped up in what used to be.’
‘Yes, lovely, very bonding.’ Mal was back to being waspish. ‘But we need to know.’
‘I’m going to talk to the earl tonight. In the kirk, while he’s on his own.’ I returned Kaylinn’s smile. She seemed to be the only one who understood how teenagers wanted to disconnect themselves from the family stories. ‘We could be jumping to conclusions here – there might be nothing he can tell me.’
‘There’s not that much else itcouldbe,’ Lachlan said. ‘Losing his castle is a life changing deal.’
‘Perhaps he seduces the king’s sister. Or wife,’ David put in. ‘That could do it.’
‘Did King George have a sister?’ Mal asked.
‘Now you’re asking.’ Lachlan frowned.
‘George wouldn’t,’ I said firmly. ‘He’s not like that at all. I think he loves his wife and children.’
‘That doesn’t mean much,’ Mal muttered.
‘Well, he wasn’t subject tomycharms anyway,’ I snapped back. ‘And he seemed very concerned for his wife – he’s left her and the children behind and he sounded really fond of them.’
Cellar Dog was back, pressing himself between us. I half reached down to fondle his ears. All this drama and high tension was getting to me and I’d forgotten again that I was invisible and untouchable. Even the earl couldn’t touch me. I suddenly felt very lonely and filled with a longing for home, small, noisy and filled with the half-hearted homework of Year Ten as it was.
‘Are you all right?’ Lachlan’s voice was in my ear.
‘I didn’t ask for any of this!’ I burst out and, followed by Cellar Dog, who didn’t seem to bear me any ill will for not beingable to stroke him, I walked out of the hall and into the yard beyond.
There was something calming about watching people go about their daily tasks. Jeannie was sweeping the cottage floor and brushing the detritus out of the doorway; another woman was feeding the cows with armfuls of rough fodder. Fergus moved about in the stables, where the horses stood in their patient row and his small son played in a puddle with some floating sticks. The sun shone on it all as though last night’s storm had never been, although the air felt colder with the edge of winter sneaking in.
