Page 19 of Christmas Wore Plaid

He needed to see her again, to apologize for his harsh words and to get to the bottom of their intercepted letters. Now that his anger had subsided, how could he have ever thought she’d meant to injure him?

Emerson pinned her bonnet in place and patted the street lass on the head. She’d seen to the girl’s bath and now, the child sat happy and clean at the dining room table in one of Emerson’s childhood dresses, swinging her feet and eating a boiled egg, buttered bread, and peach jam. The jam was an exotic treat that Apple Grove purchased and sold at the Oxford Market. Aye, she’d lived a spoiled life as Clara had said. The child’s ginger curls were golden and shining, now that she was clean and nit-free, and the bow tethering back her tresses reminded Emerson of such innocence. What would it have been like to dote upon a daughter had her own babe lived?

Maybe I should keep her, and give myself the daughter I never had whilst giving her the family of which she’s been deprived.

It could work. Already she was growing attached. But she would need to ensure unequivocally that the child didn’t belong to anyone else first.

The girl looked up at her with thoughtful brown eyes as she took her first taste of the jam. Her brows lifted with wonder at the foreign taste. They could be Brady’s eyes, Emerson thought. The ache that had rooted in her stomach the day before when Clara had planted the rumor niggled her now. She swallowed. Cease this, Emerson. It would do no good to torture herself worrying if every orphan she saw was Brady’s bastard. It was unlikely he had even done such a thing. Mercy, cease dwelling on it.

“Do you like it?” she asked.

The girl nodded.

“Eat your fill, then, and you’ll find a chest of dolls brought down to the library.”

The girl’s eyes widened like platters, and a smile split her mouth wide at the mention of toys. Emerson laughed. Such a sweet thing. Clara’s warning that she could be a thief couldn’t be farther from the mark.

“If the idea pleases you, then consider the dolls yours. Are you certain you have no family?”

The child’s smile fell and she looked down, then shook her head.

“No need for frowns,” Emerson said, tipping up her chin. “Eat up and play.”

The girl’s smile returned and she licked her fingers.

Emerson laughed. “And use your napkin, mind. I’ve an outing to make, but I’ll return in due course. Listen to Kate now.”

The girl nodded. Had she never been taught to speak? Was she impaired somehow? Surely even a shy child would have spoken a word or two by now. Regardless, she seemed bright.

“We’ll be just fine together, my lady,” Kate replied.

Emerson nodded and moved into the foyer, allowing the housekeeper to drape her heavy cloak around her neck. She looped the knots through the decorative frogs over her coat and pulled on her fleece-lined gloves. The horse she had ordered brought to the front was saddled and waiting when she exited the house, her satchel containing the bundle of two years’ worth of secret correspondences from her uncle to her aunt carried by her coachman who had agreed to assist her on horseback. The roads through the Perthshire countryside had always been rutted, as her aunt had lamented time and again on their carriage rides. Horseback would be best.

“Be careful, my lady,” said Kate.

“I will be. I grow light-headed on occasion, but I always manage.”

“All the same, Lady Emerson. Do rest and take care when you must.”

She patted her maid’s hand and strode down the walk to the horse. The coachman helped her mount to sit aside, and she gathered up the reins. In spite of withstanding her own orphanhood, she’d been showered with care her whole life. Maybe that was why she felt such an urge to help the little girl in her dining room eating preserves. She knew what it was like to be parentless.

It was a cold day for a trek to Aberfeldy Manor, but the breeze was tame. They trotted through the morn, stopping in the village of Amulree for a respite from the cold in the parsonage. By midday, they arrived at the gates of Aberfeldy Manor as snow began to sprinkle the grasses with downy flakes. She could feel herself wearying, but pushed aside the discomfort threatening to afflict her sensibilities. She was nearly there and had grown so anxious to see Brady again, butterflies flitted through her stomach. Would he be happy to see her? If he wasn’t, she’d share the letters with him, sell Aunt Bess’s home, and move back to her life in Oxford with many regrets but no backward glances. She’d refused to think on the contents of those letters all day, for her heart had broken reading them all, and she sensed Brady’s heart would break, too. His anger at her yesterday couldn’t have been so strong if his affection for her hadn’t been just as strong once upon a time. It had to mean something.

“He pines for her miserably, like a lovesick sop,” one of the letters had said. “And she, too, begs why he doesn’t write. Such an obsession is unhealthy for a young lady and I’ll have no more of it. Please tell the MacInnes family that his son is henceforth forbidden from writing to her further…”

No, I mustn’t think on Uncle Frederick’s dictates now, or else I’ll meet Brady with tears upon my cheeks, she coached herself. And then what would he think of me?

The gates were open, ensconced in two stately stone gateposts with a wrought iron arch overhead. She remembered the MacInnes family crest embedded in the center, but upon closer inspection, noted chipped edges that hadn’t been repaired.

They trotted beneath it and down the lane. On either side of them was a low stone wall enclosing pasturelands and fallow crop fields. Far off in the distance loomed Ben Vrackie. A stunning sight! She nearly gasped at the untamed beauty, having forgotten the mountain’s effect after years of rolling Oxford countryside.

Memories washed over her. Parties at Christmas. Dancing. Parlor games and novelties. And first kisses. She blushed, a hand rising to her cheek. Oxford was lovely and cultivated, cobbled and manicured. But Brady looked out his front door upon this wild world every day, and she was hit with nostalgia of wishing this had been her home. The mountain appeared bluish in the distance, and just as she remembered, was capped with snow.

She could live in a place like this, and bask in its beauty every day. Knowing, however, that the parties and dancing had all been financed on borrowed coin, dampened the memories of youth with the cloudiness of an experienced adult. A shame Brady had been raised upon a lie, without even knowing it, only to have the burdens heaved upon him when his parents died.

She glanced at the farm fields. Even though landlords were transitioning solely to sheep grazing, Brady’s agricultural fields were tilled and ready for spring seeds. Growing his own food supply would indeed be cheaper than paying to import it all, if it were only the cost of food that mattered. But the laborers needed to turn a profit, didn’t they? And wasn’t that the whole problem? Crops weren’t selling the ways that sheep and wool were? How did they pay their rent if there was little money to be made from their labor?

Brady is living on bootlaces, stretching his means, so that these people might still have work. He’s sacrificing himself for them.