Amanda Scott (36 page)

Taking care to move silently, she set the stool below the peek and stood on it to find that it provided an excellent view of the solar. The gillies had set a table for
Michael’s supper near the small fireplace, and Hugo sat opposite him. She could see them both clearly. Even better, she could make out what Hugo was saying.

Knowing Michael would not want to discuss anything until he had heard whatever Hugo could tell him that Isobel had not about how he had found her and delivered her baby, Hugo tried to explain it briefly.

Michael listened with his usual patience, although his interest in Sorcha was clearly as nothing to his interest in his wife and child. And Hugo found it hard to omit his frequent irritation with Sorcha. Noting distinct signs of amusement in his cousin, he strove to limit his complaints and did so easily when he began to describe the events in the clearing near Ratho.

“Sorcha was most helpful to us both,” he admitted at the end. “But to have set out alone, knowing she risked the same fate as the lad she had persuaded to go with them, was both dangerous and foolhardy. She can be glad her father did not accompany you tonight, for if I were he—”

“I know that feeling,” Michael interjected. “ ’Tis why I was glad to leave Isobel at Lochbuie, where I thought she would be safe. If I were to learn that she—”

“She did naught to deserve censure,” Hugo said quickly. “She believes it was the wicked abbot’s men who captured her as she returned to the castle after bidding you farewell.” He sighed, adding ruefully, “To be fair, I should also say that had Sorcha not been so impulsive, I would not have reached Isobel in time.”

Michael nodded, but Hugo had reminded himself with his own words that Michael’s own father had married a woman also prone to impulse.

“Your mother, as you might surmise, is wroth with Waldron,” he said. “She has commanded him to present himself here and explain himself. I think I have persuaded her not to confront him if he fails to obey her.”

“Faith, she summoned him here?”

“She sent a message this afternoon and was prepared to confront him at Edgelaw if he ignored it. I think my father’s presence may have helped persuade her to listen to reason.”

“Aye, well, she has great respect for him, as we all do.”

“Did you know that Waldron holds Edgelaw only at her pleasure?”

“I never thought about it,” Michael said. “But I do seem to recall now that it is mentioned amongst my parents’ marriage settlements.”

Hugo grimaced. “I ought to have realized how it is. But she and Henry hold joint baron’s courts, both here and in the north, and I tend to forget that she wields the same powers in Strathearn and Caithness that he wields in Orkney, except for the power to coin her own money. I suppose I just assumed that he controlled all the estates and gave her free rein over Strathearn and Caithness when both he and you are absent. In any event, she means to evict him if he does not come here.”

“I trust you mean Waldron and not Henry,” Michael said with a grin that faded as he added, “This could complicate matters for us here Tuesday night if Waldron decides to slip men into the glen to keep a watch on her.”

“Aye, it could,” Hugo said. “I’ve set extra guards, and
I’ve also let it be known that I mean to be away only the one night. That in itself may present a problem since the moon will rise early Tuesday. I’d as lief that no watcher see me leave again so soon after my return from Edinburgh.”

“Use the tunnel,” Michael recommended.

“I’m thinking I’ll have to, although I don’t like to do so at such an hour, when anyone guarding the entrance is more likely to draw attention to it. Also, we had hoped the moonlight would make matters easier for those who come here, but if Waldron sets watchers, it may—” Breaking off, he fought a sudden, compelling urge to look up at the west wall of the solar and added hastily, “—not do that.”

He knew Michael had caught the slight hesitation, and as their eyes met, Hugo reached for the wine jug and poured wine into his own still-half-full goblet.

Michael said, “Do you think you might bestir yourself to find someone to refill that jug? I want to finish this excellent mutton before it gets cold.”

“Aye, sure,” Hugo replied, standing. “I’ll return shortly,” he added as he strode quickly to the door.

Sorcha, too, had discerned Hugo’s hesitation and knew with a sudden, panic-stricken certainty that he had felt her watching them. Swiftly, she bent to replace the stool, then straightened to feel for the door latch. Lifting it as quietly as she could, knowing he would not pause to shout for wine or anything else, she slipped out of the chamber, shut the door, snatched up her skirts, and fled upstairs to Isobel’s room.

Stopping just outside it, she drew a breath to steady her pulse, listening hard for the slightest sound of his approach. Hearing none, she opened the door and stepped inside, smiling at the tender scene before her.

Both Sidony and Isobel sat on Isobel’s bed, gazing at the sleeping baby in Isobel’s arms. He held his tiny hands clasped beneath his rounded chin.

Sidony put a finger to her lips, murmuring, “We wondered where you’d disappeared to. But come and look at this precious wee laddie, won’t you? Isobel says they mean to name him tomorrow before Michael has to leave again.”

Sorcha pulled a stool near the bed and sat down, smiling at the baby and hoping both of her sisters would believe he held her full attention, although her ears strained for the first hint of Hugo’s footsteps. She had no doubt that he would come.

They were discussing the naming ceremony when the light rap on the door interrupted Isobel. “Who can that be?” she said. “Michael would not knock.”

“Sidony, go and see,” Sorcha said.

She did so, opening the door to Hugo. “Good evening, sir,” she said. “Our wee lad is sleeping, but if you’ve come to see him, I know that you are welcome.”

“Aye, sure,” Isobel said, smiling at him. “Come in, Hugo.”

Hugo was looking at Sorcha with an intensity that sent heat to her cheeks. But it stirred heat in other places, too, allowing her to hope he would think her merely discomposed by his entrance into her sister’s bedchamber.

Realizing he was unlikely to believe such discomposure could last long with her, she lifted her chin defiantly
and said in what she hoped would pass for a sweet voice, “I wager Michael will be here soon if your conversation has ended, sir. ’Tis fortunate for you that you can claim two such fine chaperones, is it not?”

His eyes narrowed, but he shifted his gaze to Isobel and said, “He won’t come straightaway, my lady, for we have more yet to discuss. I came up for another purpose and thought I should let you know that he may be longer than you’d expected. I’m glad to see that your sisters are still here with you.”

Isobel thanked him, but when he left the room and shut the door, she shifted her gaze to Sorcha and said sternly, “I saw that look he gave you. So I’m guessing you’re lucky he does not know you just came in here. Just what mischief have you been up to now?”

Sorcha shrugged. “I cannot think why you should believe I have been up to anything. Will the babe’s naming ceremony be directly after breakfast?”

Isobel held her gaze a moment longer, then agreed that it would be and added that Michael had declared they would hold the ceremony in the bedchamber as tradition demanded. “Thus, Father will have naught to complain about,” she added with a smile. “His new grandson will not leave this room before he is properly baptized, to tempt any wicked fairy to make off with him.”

If she retained her suspicions of Sorcha, she said no more about them, and Sorcha escaped with Sidony before Michael came upstairs.

Bidding Sidony goodnight at her bedchamber, Sorcha could not resist slipping back down to the chamber on the half-landing again. Making certain no one was nearby on the stairs, she opened the door again and slipped inside,
shutting it behind her. The intense blackness of the room threatened to swallow her, and she quickly opened the door again. Someone had pushed cloth of some sort into the laird’s peek, and she had no doubt who had done it or that he was at that very moment watching from below to see if it moved by so much as a hair’s breadth.

That she had learned so little was frustrating. That he undoubtedly suspected her might prove unfortunate, but she doubted that he would ask her if she had been watching them. For one thing, he could not be sure unless it occurred to him to ask her sister Isobel that she even knew the laird’s peek existed. And he certainly would not want to be the one to inform her of it.

Shutting the door, she went to her bedchamber, where she idled away the few minutes before Kenna came to help her prepare for bed by wondering where the tunnel that Hugo had mentioned might lie. She wondered, too, what mischief he and Michael had planned for Tuesday night that a full moon could reveal to someone from whom they had expected to stay hidden.

“Who was at the peek?” Michael asked when Hugo returned. “Please tell me it was not Isobel.”

“I cannot say for certain that anyone was there,” Hugo said. “Instinct tells me someone was,
and
that it was that skelpie Sorcha. But instinct is not evidence, and I found none. I found all three of them together with the bairn.”

“I see that you did take the precaution of stuffing the hole with a white cloth,” Michael said, grinning. “We ought to have thought of that when we realized that
closing off this part of the hall put the laird’s peek over the solar, but since no one uses the peek now, I expect everyone forgot. I did until you reacted as you did.”

“Aye, well, one does not expect to find spies in the walls here,” Hugo said. “Also, we have not used this room for private talks before. I did think about the peek when my aunt invited me here to discuss confronting Waldron, but I felt no such threat then. I certainly did tonight.”

“I, too, had a brief sense of being watched but dismissed it. As you say, one does not expect spies to hover about here the way they might elsewhere.”

“If we have spies here, I do not know them,” Hugo said. “And since our indoor servants are all local folk with strong loyalty to Roslin, the Sinclairs, and to me, I think we can eliminate that possibility. Our men-at-arms have all been tested often. If I trust some more than others, ’tis because of a greater level of skill rather than matters of integrity or loyalty.”

“Aye,” Michael agreed. After a pause, he added with a reflective look, “A point has occurred to me that you may find interesting.”

“What?”

“Lady Adela’s would-be bridegroom accompanies his grace’s cavalcade. Ardelve arrived at Lochbuie with Macleod’s second boat when it returned. He’s announced that he, too, means to support his grace in Edinburgh.”

“And why, pray tell, did you think I should find that interesting?”

“I just thought it might. Another matter that I hope will interest you is that we’re going to name the lad in the morning. I’d like you to stand
gosti
for him.”

“Aye, sure,” Hugo said, truly pleased. “You honor me.
As to Tuesday night, you’ll be with the others, and my father as well, so I think I will sup here and use the tunnel. That will draw less curiosity at this end than if I were to ride out again after dark. I’m guessing your mother will have heard from Waldron by then, too, and if he defies her, as I warrant he will, she is going to press for action.”