7
Lost time is never found again.
Benjamin Franklin
The castle stillroom was blessedly quiet at midday as May inched on. The coming calendar change had been all the buzz, replacing the stale gossip from the tenants’ ball. Word had just reached the island that come September, no longer would their year begin in March but in January. King George seemed to think he could rearrange time to suit him, and now with Parliament’s blessing, all British subjects must adjust to a year unlike any other and the loss of eleven days in September.
Finished with the noon meal in the servants’ hall, Lark returned to the rose lotion she was making, spying the remedy Granny had given her. The small, blown-glass bottle bore a parchment label marked “Fertility Herbs.”
One long whiff gave rise to a few ingredients. Plantain seeds to prevent miscarriage. Milk thistle. Licorice root. Raspberry leaf. Returning the stopper, she breathed in ginger and goldenseal.
Lark opened a cupboard and set the bottle in a cool, dark corner. When Isla returned, this might aid her. Bethankit, she said as much to the Almighty as Granny. A weight seemed to slide off her to have something in hand at last. But what if Granny erred? Slipped in something harmful unintentionally? Her mind was growing more muddled. Recently she had put salt instead of sugar in their tea.
Shaking off the worry, Lark looked through the open window at the sun spilling into the sea. It drew her out into the kitchen garden to weed the parsley bed, and her hands were soon stained a rich brown, the sun warming her shoulders like a shawl.
Summer was at hand. A sennight had passed since the tenants’ ball, and island life seemed sleepy again. Lark’s heirloom gown was returned to the trunk. The Merry Lass had put out to sea with nary a fare-thee-well from its handsome captain. Granny’s rheumatism flared with the change of seasons. No murmur was heard of Isla’s return. Or the laird’s leaving.
As for Magnus, he went about as usual, donning the garb of an islander and carrying on as he’d done in days of old before he’d wed, Nonesuch at his side whether he was on foot or horseback. He was especially fond of tending his large flock of sheep. Lark oft saw him carrying a struggling lamb or minding a ewe though his farm managers were never far. He stayed connected to the land, to his people, in this way. Islanders who wouldn’t dare approach him in his Court of Session attire did not hesitate when he wore common dress.
“A word with ye, Lark.” Jillian had left the kitchen and stood over her, her considerable bulk blocking the sun. “From the captain.”
Sitting back on her heels, Lark ceased weeding. “All right.”
“He’s set to land in Cinnamon Cove two nights hence and needs ye to signal him from Gylen’s ruins with a flash.”
Cinnamon Cove was a favored landing with Gylen Castle, an ideal vantage point, sitting so high on its cliffside perch. And packing her father’s old flintlock pistol for the desired beckoning blue light was easy enough. But nay, she could not.
She looked Jillian in the eye. “I told ye I dinna want any more to do with such.”
“And why not?”
“I dinna feel easy about it. Something about all this secrecy and darkness jars sourly with my need to walk uprightly.”
“Hoot! Yer righteous, ye are!” Jillian’s voice was scathing. “I’m needed with the tubmen to fetch and carry the haul. Jack Blaylock is going to light a fire on the heath near the mill to foil any Philistines about. The captain believes there’s a spy among us.”
Lark settled on her backside with a little thud, her thin petticoats a dismal cushion. “Someone on the island?”
“Aye. Likely Balliemore.”
“All the more reason to say nay.”
Jillian glowered. “The captain’ll be sore wi’ ye, Lark MacDougall.” She began moving away as Cook’s voice rose in the background, calling her back to the kitchen. “Ye’ll regret it, ye will.”
The captain stood on the quarterdeck of the Merry Lass, watching grimy wharfmen on the Isle of Man load cargo. Fifty matts leaf tobacco. Twenty small casks sweet liquorice and prunes. A dozen hampers earthenware. Three casks molasses and black pepper. Twenty firkins soap. Twenty-two reams writing paper. One hundred bars iron.
He kept a close eye on a bale of silk and card of lace. For Lark. The dress she’d worn to the ball was an embarrassment of wrinkles and worn cloth. An antique. Though he knew she prized it as an heirloom, her beauty called for something newer. Finer. If she was a true MacDougall she should dress the part. She wasn’t in ruins. Gylen Castle was.
He threw a word to his quartermaster. “Stash the cloth and lace in my cabin.”
The memory of Lark in the garden, so close on the bench beside him, was molasses sweet. She’d hung on his every word about America despite her reluctance, giving rise to the hope he might somehow woo her away from the island. ’Twas mostly Granny that held her. But if the old crone was to pass . . .
He shook off the base thought. Lark’s clan was aggravatingly long lived, Granny at least. He might well reach midlife before Granny passed. Mayhap those tonics and potions of hers were to blame. The truth was, he gave Granny wide berth. He did not fancy the old woman, nor she him. ’Twas Magnus who shone in her eyes. No matter how Rory had tried, there was simply no way into Granny’s good graces when the laird was near.
“Almost ready, Captain,” a mate called.
By midafternoon they’d left the premises of the smuggling company Ross, Black, and Christian. This day the Merry Lass was part of a smuggling fleet, one of a dozen ships, heavily laden and steering for southwest Scotland to land their cargoes at various points. Rory’s crew was so skilled that within a quarter of an hour the ship’s cargo could be unloaded and the waiting tubmen would whisk it away to the horses the islanders had lent for transport. Speed was of the essence in avoiding the tax men.
He took out a spyglass and studied the churlish water and clumps of craggy islands off Britain’s west coast, alert for English revenue cutters. Customs officers had the power to board and search all vessels at will. Though thus far Magnus’s influence secured immunity from prosecution near Kerrera, it did not extend this far south to the Merry Lass and crew, at least in these waters.
“All hands shorten sail.” He gave the order before sliding back the hatch and climbing down the ladder to the companionway. First door to the right opened to his quarters, a low-ceilinged affair that nearly left him scraping his head. His hammock swung a bit as the ship tilted, the groan of timber and shriek of the rigging like cantankerous old friends.
Mindful of Lark, he opened the bale of cloth and examined the finely worked Brussels lace atop it, fit to adorn a wedding dress. Would she like such fripperies? Daft he was. What woman wouldn’t? He’d seen Isla wear lesser quality. Somehow the thought gave him pleasure.
’Twould be a personal thank-ye for her signaling them ashore from Gylen’s ruins. If the Philistines were about, the Merry Lass would wait offshore till fishing boats could ferry the goods, as was oft done beneath a moonless sky, before the authorities could reach them.
Now there was the added threat of a spy. Had Jillian warned Lark as he’d instructed? To be more wary? The stakes were indeed high, the risk of discovery great. Would Lark, suddenly distancing herself from the whole business of free trading, refuse to take part? He well knew why, her Christian sentiments aside.
The penalty for smuggling was death.
Gylen Castle by day was a different creature completely. Lark liked to pretend it was more than crumbled stone and she herself more than a common crofter. Up the crumbling steps she oft went in broad daylight to the first floor, where a fireplace survived along with the ancient chimney and bread ovens in one blackened wall. Though the castle was roofless, its carvings above the sole oriel window were still beautiful and enduring. Little remained of her family’s stronghold but the unparalleled view.
By night the castle assumed an eerie unfamiliarity. Tonight she stood a bit paralyzed in the dark, gaze swiveling from the sea landward. Nary a sliver of light. She missed the magic of moonlight shining on pale stone. The chasing away of shadows. Positioned by a castle window, she leaned into the cold opening and waited. ’Twas long past midnight, and all was black as the earl of Hades’ waistcoat, as Granny said. She’d come here to make a stand not only against smuggling for herself but against the island’s children taking part.
What’s more, smuggling seemed especially wrong on the Sabbath. Thou shalt not steal. This and a certain Proverb followed her here, nipping at her with convicting claws. Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry. But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house.
All her life she’d believed their free trading was to sustain their very lives. She knew the awful hollowness of hunger, had seen its ugly work in the gravesites of islanders too weakened by want to fight disease. The laird did what he could to relieve them, but only the king himself could maintain so many for so long. Smuggling seemed a godsend, a practical answer. Were the king’s ministers not thieves, taxing the people so? Even the American colonies rebelled against unjust taxes, so the captain told her. Still . . .
A quarter of an hour brought a village lad, so young and full of promise. He jumped at the sound of her voice. “Brodie, ’tis ye?”
“Jings! Ye look like Gylen’s ghaist!” he exclaimed, backing up at the sight of her, pistol in hand. “The light needs flashing.”
“I’ve come to talk ye out of it. To warn ye to return home.”
He studied her soberly, his cowlick accenting his youth. “Why d’ye?”
“’Tis wrong. And the danger’s too great. There’s said to be a spy about, so signaling is especially chancy.”
He pondered this, appearing more alarmed. At last he handed her the weapon. “But the captain’ll be all aflocht!”
She nearly sighed. Truly, the captain in his anger was nearly as fearsome as the laird.
Together they looked to the sea. The pistol in her hand grew heavy. The night gave no hint of a vessel, either friend or foe. But the Merry Lass was indeed out there somewhere. Any minute now would come the flash from the mill signaling the coast was clear, then the expected charging of the pan with powder and pulling of the trigger. The resulting blue light was unmistakable on shore. But tonight there would be no light.
’Twas so calm. Nary a breath of wind. This was why she heard someone else approach. Her blood froze. The spy? Standing in front of Brodie, she faced the sound, hating the taste of fear.
“Lark.” The bottomless voice left her weak-kneed with relief. Magnus?
“Why have ye come?”
“To send ye home where ye belong.” Though it was dark she read his consternation. He fairly bristled with it. “What risks ye take on such a night. What’s come o’er ye?”
She sought to explain. “I—”
“No more, Lark.” Closing the distance between them, he put out a hand. “I’ll not have word of ye in gaol alongside the captain, aye?”
“Ye misunderstand me. Brodie was set to signal but I talked him out of it.”
“And d’ye think the excise men and sheriff would believe such blether? Armed with a pistol, yer as guilty as the ground ye stand on.” He took the weapon and thrust it into his waistband. “No more free trading for the both of ye.”
Chastised as a child she felt. And near tears at his tongue lashing.
In moments they scattered in three directions. Would this be how he left it between them? With cross words? Would he now ride off to Edinburgh, never to return?
“Make haste,” Magnus said over his shoulder.
She grappled for her bearings, staying away from the cliff’s rain-slicked ledge to take an inland path that led the long way to Kerrera Castle and her croft. Even in the darkness she knew it by heart. Halfway home she began to make sense of the meagerest silhouettes, thanks to a bonfire above the beach. The Merry Lass had finally run aground despite the missing blue light. Now the sand teemed with people and carts and horses, all working to unload the goods and spirit them away.
Thieves, all?
Lord, forgive us.
Lark awoke to a gown of lustrous yellow and a card of lace that was like seafoam. The captain of the Merry Lass was gone but had left a gift. Was he not angry with her then?
Granny clucked over the gift with a kind of awed disapproval. “A lass like yerself canna wear such finery. Ye’ll draw the tax men like bees to the blossom. And they’ll not rest till they have yer story. What can the captain be thinking? Besides, yellow makes ye look sallow. ’Tis not the color for ye, and the captain should ken such. Hide it, we will.”
Beneath the hearthstone it went, but before Lark felt any loss there came a knock at the door. A footman from the castle?
“I’ve a note from the laird. He bids ye answer by morn.”
Slowly, Lark broke the seal bearing the MacLeish crest, an angelic being in a praying posture. The note was addressed to them both. She read the words aloud, voice rising in surprise. “Your presence is required in Edinburgh. Details to come. We depart week after next.”
They looked at each other, disbelieving. Edinburgh? Auld Reekie? Years ago Granny had set foot on the mainland, but Lark, never. They faced a ferry crossing. A long coach ride. She was pitched between dread and expectation. Did Magnus hope to remove them from any trouble between smugglers and authorities by taking them to the city?
“There’s no saying nay to the laird,” Granny murmured, going to assess the state of their laundry. “I suspect this has something to do with Lady Isla.”
At once any high feeling left her. Of course. What else? Had Isla summoned them? Unlikely. But if so, they’d best bring the fertility herbs from the stillroom and anything else that might be of merit. Yet wouldn’t so great a city with all its physics mock their wildcrafting, their herbs and simples?
“How far, Granny?”
“A good hundred miles by my reckoning.”
“’Twill be more than a day’s journey then.”
“Aye.”
“’Twill be arduous for yer auld bones.” Lark looked at her with alarm. “’Tis a hard thing he asks of ye.”
“Och! I’m merely decoration! Ye canna be traveling alone with the laird. Now that would set tongues afire!” Granny smiled so widely she revealed all her missing teeth. “Mayhap Edinburgh is to my liking. I’ve heard tell of the castle and such. ’Twould be a fine thing to lay eyes on before I die.”
“What is it all about, d’ye think?”
Granny took the summons from her hands. “We’ll soon find out.”