Page 77 of Sins of the Highlander

Margot’s green eyes flared. “Oh! Did ye hear what one of the girls who helped her at her bath said?”

“Nay, I didna.”

“Something verra odd,” Margot said. “It was Nessa who told me.”

“I dinna care who it was who said it.” Honestly, the girl’s head was full of nothing but husks. “What did she say?”

“She says Elspeth Stewart has a particularly odd wound on her thigh,” Margot’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Up fair high too.”

“Hmph! I kenned she was limping, but it struck me as a way to gain attention,” Mrs. Beaton said under her breath. “A wound, ye say. What sort of wound?”

“Well, it’s on both sides of her leg, as if something went clean through it. Just as big coming out as going in, Nessa says.”

Margot picked up an apple and crunched into it with her strong young teeth. Mrs. Beaton slanted a disgusted glance at the girl. It wasn’t because she didn’t have enough teeth left in her head to strain sauced apples. It was because so many gifts were wasted on the young, who didn’t have sense to appreciate them.

“Was the flesh around the wound dark? Any red streaks perchance?” Mrs. Beaton asked. That’d fix matters right proper.

“Why?”

“I thought perhaps the wound had gone bad. They do sometimes, ye know.”

“Nessa didna say anything about that. What d’ye suppose would make a such wound?” Margot wondered aloud.

Mrs. Beaton had tended men who suffered such wounds in battle from swords or arrows. But she’d never seen the like on a woman. An idea struck her.

“A pitchfork run clear through would make such a mark.”

Margot nodded. “I suppose it might do. Just one tine, o’ course. But she’s a lady and no’ likely to be spending her time in a stable. How d’ye think Elspeth Stewart got a pitchfork through her leg?”

“Well, there’s a simple explanation, if ye think on it.” Mrs. Beaton pursed her lips in satisfaction. “I dinna know for a fact, ye ken, but I’ll warrant the devil marks those he traffics with. What better way than with his pitchfork?”

“Elspeth Stewart is in league with the devil?” Margot’s eyes grew wide. “D’ye think?”

“Aye, ’tis most likely,” Mrs. Beaton said. “Ask Nessa. See what she makes of it.”

Margot turned to go, but Mrs. Beaton stopped her with a hand to her arm. “Wear yer best gown to the supper this night. The blue one, aye? And make sure ye tune yer harp. I’m thinkin’ ye should sing a bit.”

Margot might have the brain of a peewit, but she sang like a lark. A man could forgive a girl for being a bit simple if she had lovely tits and a presentable talent or two. Margot was amply blessed in tits and talent.

As the girl scurried off, Mrs. Beaton pulled a wormy apple out of the barrel. “Ye’ll no’ be spoiling what I’ve laid by so careful-like,” she muttered.

And Elspeth Stewart wouldn’t trouble Caisteal Dubh for long either. Given a few days and a few juicy tidbits in the right ears, and Mrs. Beaton would have the entire castle clamoring to send her away.

If they didn’t decide to burn her themselves.

Chapter 26

The brocade was stiff and smelled of camphor and heather. The style of the gown was woefully old-fashioned, but it was pronounced a good fit by the lady’s maids Mrs. Beaton had sent up to attend Elspeth. The tunic and kirtle had belonged to Rob’s mother, they told her.

“Lady MacLaren, our laird’s lady mother, ye ken, was of a size with ye,” the older woman named Aileen told Elspeth. Nessa, the young one who’d helped her with her bath, had skittered out afterward, taking a single bucket of wash water and sending Aileen and Kate to take her place tidying up and seeing Elspeth made ready for supper. “A wee bird of a woman, she was. Not tall and buxom like his wife, the young Lady MacLaren. Now there was a fine figure of a woman. What a pair they made!”

Elspeth wondered if Aileen was aware young Lady MacLaren had taken her own life by leaping to her death from a tower room just like the one they were in now. If she were, she didn’t seem disposed to speak of it.

Aileen and Kate chattered quietly as they shook out other garments from the trunk. Elspeth ignored them and turned sideways to look at herself in the long sheet of burnished copper.

Her reflection was wavering and distorted, but she didn’t think she resembled a bird in the slightest. A copper-and-agate-studded snood gathered her heavy hair in a neat bunch at her nape, and the tunic and kirtle were at least clean and of good quality. She was clearly a lady of rank, albeit in borrowed and old-fashioned finery. It would serve for now.

Eventually, she’d send for her own things.