Page 26 of When the Laird Conquers

“Goodness, ye startled me!” Iona gasped as Agnes wandered in.

The kitchens were as expansive as one might have imagined for a castle, yet two-thirds of the room seemed to be unused—workbenches empty, stoves cold, nothing strewn about to indicate that delicious things were being made in abundance. Instead, one giant pot sat on the only stove that was ablaze, giving off a mouthwatering scent.

The housekeeper, meanwhile, was standing at a long ceramic sink, in the midst of scrubbing another, similarly enormous pot.

“Ye shouldnae be in here,” Iona said, mopping her brow with her sleeve. “Ye go on to the lesser hall, and I’ll bring ye somethin’ to eat.”

Ignoring the request, Agnes moved closer. “What are you doing? Shouldn’t the cook be doing that? Or the kitchen maids that you mentioned?”

“The cook isnae comin’ today, and the kitchen maids only come up from the village when the cook is here,” Iona explained, a bead of sweat trickling down to the tip of her nose. “They’re nae allowed to, otherwise.”

“Not allowed by whom?”

Iona hesitated. “Their maithers and faithers. If they werenae paid so well, they wouldnae come here at all.”

“Whyever not?”

Agnes sensed that she was getting nearer to the truth of what was going on at Castle Buchlann. And yes, she knew Gordon’s rules, but she wasn’t asking about his past. Not directly. If some of his past just happened to come up in conversation, she could not be held responsible.

The housekeeper flashed her a pointed look. “Would ye come here if ye had another choice?”

“I did have other choices, but I chose this laird,” Agnes said with a chuckle. “A Mad Lady for a Mad Laird.”

She did not like to see the housekeeper so harried, and meant the words in jest, but the weight of sadness only seemed to grow heavier on the old woman’s face.

“Here, let me help,” Agnes offered, changing tactics. “It shames me to say it, but six months ago, I had never scrubbed anything in my life. Then this little one came into the world, and I decided that I didn’t trust anyone else to clean her things, so I am pleased to say that I am now a champion scrubber.”

Iona looked perplexed. “I cannae let ye do that, Miss Agnes.”

“Then it is fortunate for you that I am not asking.”

Agnes set Lizzy down on the floor and put a wooden spoon in the baby’s hand so she could readily amuse herself. That done, she went directly to the sink and nudged Iona out of the way with her hip.

Laughing softly but not protesting, the housekeeper padded over to a tall wooden door that looked alarmingly like the one from Agnes’s dream and disappeared through it.

“I bet there are dungeons down there,” Agnes whispered down to Lizzy, who waved the spoon around, giggling to herself.

Ten minutes later, the pots and utensils scrubbed to a shine, the other pot continuously stirred so the stew didn’t spoil, Iona returned.

The older woman blinked against the brighter light of the kitchen, while a wicker basket dangled from the crook of her arm, filled with an array of fresh vegetables, fresh fruits, a jar of conserve, some eggs, some cheese, and something wrapped in a cloth.

“Excellent timing!” Agnes hurried to take the basket from her. “I shall begin cooking at once. Breakfast for all of us. Unless you had something else in mind?”

Iona shook her head. “Nay. I was goin’ to cook breakfast for ye.”

“It appears that you have already cooked for an actual army, so I refuse to allow you to do any more,” Agnes insisted.

Finding her way around the kitchen well enough, she fetched a cutting board, a large bowl, and a sharp knife. Next, she unpacked the items, trying to figure out what to make. In the cloth was a sizeable ball of dough, and that was where she would begin, since bread would take the longest, baking away in the oven.

“Flour? Do you have any?”

Iona grabbed a jar of it for her. “Are ye also a champion cook?”

“I have learned a great deal,” Agnes replied. “Although those lessons came earlier, when my mother died. In his grief, my father saw fit to dismiss every servant from the house. If one of us did not learn to cook, none of us would have eaten, so my sister and I decided to make it a joint effort. We might have still been there, fumbling through new recipes, if my aunt had not arrived to return us to our ‘proper positions’ as young ladies.”

Goodness, how I loved those afternoons in the kitchen.

She quickly brushed away a tear that slipped free, or she would end up kneading her sadness into the bread, and it would collapse, or the crumb would be too dense.