The Laird Takes a Bride(42)

How curious.

Then she went on and elsewhere, her mind filling up with other, more pressing things.

After dinner, she and Isobel went to the Great Drawing-room. There, Isobel produced an intimidatingly large puzzle and Fiona, shrugging, helped her sort through the pieces and make a start on the perimeter. Having found the four corner pieces, Isobel announced both her satisfaction and her fatigue, and proceeded to doze in a chair next to the fire. Fiona sewed up a jagged rent in one of the chapel’s altar cloths—knowing that now that she was wed, working on baby garments for her sisters would evoke an irritating array of inquisitive reactions—and then turned to her new book, a collection of Walter Scott’s poetry. She was reading “Marmion,” and had just gotten to the lines Oh! What a tangled web we weave / When first we practise to deceive, when she gradually became aware of that odd creeping feeling of being stared at.

She looked up from her book. Sure enough, little Sheila stood next to her chair—within three feet of it, in fact—and Fiona had to suppress a gasp. How on earth had the child gotten so close without her noticing it?

One of those peculiar pale blue eyes was fixed on herself, the other seemed to be resting thoughtfully on Isobel.

“She dreams of the past and what could have been.”

Fiona reached for the girl’s hand. “You’re a shrewd little lass. What brings you here, hinny?”

“I came here, lady, because . . .” Sheila trailed off, looking down at their clasped hands. “Fences,” she murmured, sounding troubled, “high fences.” Then she pulled her hand free and glanced around the elegant room. “How can you breathe in here, lady?”

Before Fiona could reply, someone said sharply, “Sheila! You ought not to be there!” A very old woman, bent over her stick, came stumping toward them, on her deeply wrinkled face disapproval written large.

Sheila suddenly became simply a little girl who had been apprehended in an act of naughtiness, and stuck a rather dirty finger in her mouth, around which she spoke cajolingly. “Oh, but Granny, the lady doesn’t know that tomorrow is my birthday.”

“So it is, but you’d no right to come disturb the mistress,” scolded the old woman. “I do apologize, lady, I was at my devotions and the lass slipped away from me like a kelpie.”

There certainly was something unusual about the little girl, but hopefully she didn’t number shape-shifting among her talents. Fiona responded civilly: “There’s no need to apologize, I assure you. And you are . . . ?”

The old woman dipped a creaky little curtsy. “I am Margery, lady.”

Ancient might she be, but there was nothing vague or doddering about Dame Margery. A flash of inspiration came to Fiona and she asked, “Have you lived here all your life, madam?”

“Aye, lady, that I have.”

“Can you tell me aught of the laird’s family? There’s his uncle here, of course, and he once mentioned that the laird’s parents had passed away, but other than that I know nothing.”

Dame Margery looked consideringly at Fiona. “That’s so, lady, both of the laird’s parents have gone on, and his older brother as well.”

“How sad! Were these recent losses?”

“Nay, madam, there was a single event, and that some fifteen years ago.”

Fiona stared. “A single event?”

“The loch,” Sheila remarked, in the tone of one passing along some mildly interesting information, “is deep, and a monster lives in it. It ate them all up.”

“Hush, child!” said the old lady severely.

“But it’s true, Granny. The monster warned them not to come, but they did, and it swallowed them.”

Cousin Isobel had woken, and now interposed in a quavery voice: “A monster? Oh, surely not! But still, one can’t be too cautious, can one? Fiona, my dear, pray don’t ever ride your horse anywhere near there! Your mother would never forgive me if you were to be swallowed up by a loch monster!”

“I’ve seen it,” boasted Sheila.

“That you have not,” the old lady said, “and it’s long past time for your bed, child! Forgive us, lady, for our intrusion! Come!”

With dragging steps the little girl went to her grandmother, pausing only once to twist about and say, “Please, lady, can Cook make me something nice for my birthday? The laird’s mother never did anything for the children of Tadgh. It was only and ever her things she cared about.”

“To be sure I’ll speak to Cook,” promised Fiona, and watched, bemused, as Dame Margery pulled her wayward little charge from the drawing-room. Her book was still open in her lap, but her mind was occupied in sorting through Sheila’s words, as if trying to separate wheat from chaff.