12

Were it not for hope the heart would break.

Scottish proverb

Lark smiled as the long-awaited bairn made his entry into the rain-washed July day. “Bethankit,” she murmured as much to the Almighty as the howdie who’d washed and bundled the wee lad and passed him to her waiting arms. Bending her head, she breathed in the ineffable newness of him while the midwife tended to a jubilant Catriona.

The two-day ordeal had been an exercise in patience, though Lark’s part in the process had been small. She’d simply obeyed the howdie’s bossing her about.

“Keep yer legs and arms uncrossed, mind ye, and unlock all the doors and windows,” she’d said at Catriona’s first pangs. “Needs be the babe has no hindrance entering the world.”

Lark nearly balked at her insistence that the small mirror be covered up and every bottle and container in the croft be left open. Island superstitions were very much alive though Lark now looked askance at such. Had her brief time in Edinburgh with Dr. Hunter made her a skeptic? Not entirely. She couldn’t quite imagine a male midwife or physic, Edinburgh trained or no.

To banish the fairies, Lark had given Catriona the customary tonic of rowan berries. Though Lark had her doubts about fairies too, she firmly believed the potent berries lessened the pains of birth.

“Welcome, little stranger,” she said, rocking the babe in her arms and spying his father, Kenneth, looking in the window.

His bearded face was awash with pleasure, gaze riveted to the bundle she held. Her own smile was so wide she nearly forgot the tooth that had been troubling her. Once home she’d tend to it. For now, joy sang through her, despite the previous long, sleepless night or the fact she’d be late for the stillroom. Thankfully, Magnus never minded. He was a kindly laird, the needs of the islanders foremost. Once at the castle, she’d give an accounting.

Lord, help me with that.

Dread sashayed through her, so at odds with the jubilant moment. She’d soon stand before him and share the date and babe’s forename and surname, if not the birth’s details, and he’d enter it into a ledger.

Infant, Duncan. 5 July, 1752.

A gift would follow to Catriona and Kenneth, usually silver coin. She knew Magnus so well she’d see behind his forced smile.

“We’ll be having our oats now,” the howdie said, going to the hearth where a kettle hissed.

Lark placed the newborn in Catriona’s arms. “A braw lad to go with yer other lad and lassie.”

“I dinna favor an empty cradle for long. A house, no matter how humble, is made better with bairns.” She eyed Lark. “Even a castle.”

“Oh aye,” Lark said as Kenneth entered with an iron-nailed cradle of stout oak. “I’ll fetch Annie and Murdo home again when yer ready.”

Lark didn’t want to miss that first meeting with brother and sister. Though Annie was but two and Murdo three, both were bonny and bright and had long anticipated a brother or sister.

“We’ll soon carry him to kirk for his christening,” Kenneth said, setting the cradle near the warm hearth before returning outside to bring in a new chaff mattress.

Lark lingered as long as she could. With the howdie staying on, there was little need of her, and so at suppertime she began the winding walk back to croft and castle, through heavy mist that left a sheen upon her skin.

Never had her thoughts been so full, her heart newly pained by the castle’s lack. Seeing her cousin’s family so content only drove the longing deeper. If a miracle did happen and a babe was born for Kerrera, all the island would rejoice. But knowing Isla, Dr. Hunter would be at hand, and he shunned howdies. And no doubt Lark would hear of the birth secondhand. Would miss the triumph and joy on Isla’s face as it had been on Catriona’s. Would not be privy to Magnus’s deep pride and delight. She always felt outside the circle looking in, and never so much so as in these private moments that changed a life so remarkably. Though she’d accepted it as the way of things since childhood, it in no way lessened the wistful feeling.

On such a joyous day, it seemed the sun should shine, the sea be blue glass. Should she go to Magnus straightaway? All she wanted was to dose her sore tooth with clove oil, then fall down in the cozy familiarity of her box bed and go to sleep. Till the cock crowed and returned her to the stillroom once again.

If the night had been clear she would have seen the castle’s lights, the wink of Balliemore in the distance. As it was, she only heard voices. Strident, panicked voices.

Pulling her plaid closer about her shoulders, she hastened her step as a dozen misfortunes presented themselves. Toward the headland the mist lifted, rising like a filmy, tattered curtain. Half a dozen men gathered at the cliff’s edge that jutted beyond the castle’s lit facade, peering over its precarious rim. A lantern swung from a man’s hand. The sheriff? He sometimes ferried over from the mainland when a rare crime had been committed.

Aye, the sheriff, his burly silhouette unmistakable. Mistress Baird, the housekeeper, stood behind him with several white-faced maids, including a distraught Rhona. And Magnus—he was far too close to the cliff’s edge—grief and disbelief sketched across his face. His manservant, Brown, shadowed him.

Had someone fallen? Or—Lord, nay—jumped?

A cry from Rhona confirmed something dire. The lady’s maid’s arm extended Lark’s way, her finger pointing. At once, two of the sheriff’s men came toward Lark, hemming her in as if certain she’d run the other way. Their cold hands encircled her bare wrists, sending another chill through her.

“’Tis the stillroom mistress, I tell you! She mixed the tonic. Left it for my mistress to drink and then fall to her death—”

“Silence!” Magnus swung round, features as angry as they were sorrowful. “I’ll not have ye leap to conclusions. Where were ye when yer mistress was raiding the stillroom? Tell me that!” To the men holding Lark, he said, “Unhand her. There’ll be no blame laid till the facts come clear.”

Granny’s tonic. Lark had never meant to use it, not till she’d determined the contents. Would Granny be blamed?

The hard hands fell away though the men stayed on either side of her. She swayed, the fatigue of a sleepless night and too little to eat cutting into her. Pressing her shoes into soggy ground, she tried to make sense of the scene, but her thoughts were slow to catch up.

Isla? Gone? Her little pug dogs stood precariously near the drop, their throaty barks shifting to mournful howls. The sound joined sourly with Rhona’s sobbing, sending prickles up Lark’s arms and down her neck. She drew in a deep, shuddering breath, trying to make sense of the macabre scene, willing her pulsing heart to return to its regular rhythm.

Just out of sight was home, the croft behind a rocky outcropping on the path below. And Granny. Was she well? Lark inhaled the damp air, but it seemed to freeze in her lungs. Her gaze swiveled to the sea, her shocked senses conjuring up Isla’s lifeless form as the waves gathered her into a foamy embrace.

“Go home, Lark.” Magnus stood before her, the rising wind pulling at his coattails, face grim and tone insistent.

She forced a few words past her tight throat. “’Tis terrible, this.” With that, she left, avoiding Rhona and the last of servants, the sheriff, and all who gathered.

Down the hill she went. One push at the croft door and she all but fell into Granny’s arms, sobbing out Isla’s story.

The castle’s Great Hall seemed more courtroom. As dawn streamed through the mullioned windows the next morn, the sheriff finished questioning the servants, Lark last. She took the chair the sheriff offered, Magnus to one side.

“Where have you been these two days past?” the sheriff began.

“To a lying-in at my cousin’s,” she replied, eyes downcast.

“What sort of relationship did you have with the dead?”

Magnus winced. Deceased, mayhap. Or even former mistress. But the sheriff was not one to mince words.

“I ken her little, being mostly in the stillroom.”

“Yet the tonic her maid claims she drank was your doing, was it not?”

“I didna give her the tonic. ’Twas kept in a cupboard.”

Aye, Lark. Dinna let him hem ye in. Magnus crossed his arms, cheering her on silently.

“Why was it kept in the cupboard? ’Twas labeled ‘Fertility Herbs,’ aye?”

“Labeled so, aye, but I dinna ken the ingredients—”

“What do you mean, you dinna ken such? You—”

“No badgering, Sheriff.” Magnus kept his voice smooth, but his innards churned. “It matters little who made the tonic when it was not dispensed.”

The sheriff bristled, perhaps cross from a lost night’s sleep. “Very well, m’lord. Can you show me the cupboard in question, then?”

They traded the Great Hall for the stillroom, which seemed strange and melancholy since Isla had been the last one in it. Lark seemed to work to contain her shock, clasping her unsteady hands together as they stepped into the room Mistress Baird always locked at day’s end. Several cupboards were open, herbs and various stores spilled onto the floor. Isla’s doing?

“Is the stillroom door kept open?” The probing question was meant for Lark, but Magnus could not stay silent.

“Cook told ye she had Mistress Baird open it as she needed some ingredients. ’Twas forgotten and left unlocked. Last time I checked, forgetfulness was no crime.”

Rhona had not given a reasonable explanation as to why her mistress had been left alone for an extended time, especially since Magnus had advised her to be vigilant. The last Magnus had seen of Isla she had been sleeping. ’Twas the lady’s maid’s negligence, no doubt.

“Do you handle medicinals—herbs and simples—that would be considered poisonous, Miss MacDougall?”

“I do,” Lark said, looking the sheriff in the eye. “Even the humble rowan berry is dangerous till stewed or frozen, and then ’tis of benefit. I take care, sir, to make sure naught is ill-used.”

“How long have you been the stillroom’s mistress?”

“Since I was one and twenty, though I learnt from my grandmother from the time I was wee. She was the stillroom mistress before me.”

The sheriff looked to Magnus as if for confirmation.

“Lark grew up at the castle, being schooled with my sister and myself,” Magnus told him. “Her mother was also in service.”

“And your father?” the sheriff inquired.

“A fisherman,” Lark answered. “Drowned at sea.”

“Fisherman . . .” The sheriff closed a cupboard and stepped over a broken crock. “And free trader, no doubt.”

Magnus’s resistance roared, but he stayed silent. He was still flummoxed that the sheriff had already been on Kerrera at the time of Isla’s death, waiting at the Thistle, passing the time by talking to villagers about any sea activity. Tipped off by another spy, likely.

“Did you know that the mistress of Kerrera had a penchant for laudanum?” the sheriff asked, righting a broom.

“Aye.”

“Did you ken she’d been given that by the island’s doctor?”

“Burns had given her such, aye. But he’s no doctor,” Lark said in rare judgment. “Not like the mistress’s physic in Edinburgh.”

“Did she seem much affected by it when you last saw her?”

“By the laudanum? She seemed”—Lark darted a look at Magnus—“tired . . . more out of sorts.”

“Out of sorts? Like she’d been taking too much?”

“Mayhap. Best ask her lady’s maid. I was seldom with her mistress.”

“Her maid claims she used all the laudanum, then went looking for more in the stillroom.” He withdrew a bottle from his pocket. “This was empty and found on the cliffside, and the stillroom door was left open.”

“I am sorry to hear it.”

“Seems to me if you’d been here or the door had been locked, none of this would have happened.” His tone laid blame, and Lark flushed.

Magnus kicked aside a jagged piece of broken crockery. “The damage done within these walls bespeaks desperation. My wife, God rest her, isna here to tell the tale. A great many things have combined to dig the hole we now find ourselves in. Lark’s absence. My housekeeper’s and cook’s forgetfulness. The lady’s maid’s negligence. My own trip to Balliemore about a business matter. And though it may sound harsh, ye can lay the most blame at my wife’s door. No one forced her to ransack the stillroom or walk too close to the cliff’s edge.”

The words, spoken in an even tone, still had the force of a fist. A closed door. Magnus MacLeish was done with the matter even if the sheriff was not.

“You’re excused,” the sheriff said to Lark.

With a nod, she went out, and the two men faced each other in the courtyard beyond the stillroom.

“You said your wife’s relatives are on their way?” the sheriff asked.

“Aye. I sent word to them in Edinburgh during the night.”

“There’s to be a burial of sorts though no body?”

“I’m not privy yet to her family’s plans. ’Twill be in Edinburgh, if anywhere.” Isla hadn’t wanted to be buried on Kerrera. She’d told Magnus that on more than one occasion. He’d reconciled himself to it, though at the time it had grated.

“I’ll meet with them when the time comes,” the sheriff said, turning away.

Kerrera was plunged into mourning. All the clocks were stopped, the entire household clothed in sable. All letters were sealed with black wax and penned on paper edged in black. The Balliemore bellman was heard proclaiming the shocking news of Isla’s death about the tiny town.

’Twas not customary for the husband to attend the funeral of his wife. Magnus would remain behind closed doors at the castle. But would there even be a funeral?

’Twas a mournful death, much like being lost at sea. No grave. No gravestone.

“Her folks have come,” Jillian told Lark as she visited on the Sabbath after Isla’s passing. “I doubt they’ll stay long. Her mother hasna lowered her nose once since their carriage first came through the castle gates. And her da—always a pipe in hand. I can smell it clear to the kitchen.”

“I feel for them, losing their only child,” Lark said quietly. ’Twas unnatural, truly, parting with one so young, so full of possibility. Their own bloodline was at an end.

“The laird has closed the stillroom,” Jillian told her. “Yer to keep to the croft with yer granny.”

Once Jillian had gone on her way, Granny asked Lark, “Why, d’ye suppose?” They huddled near the hearth where a peat fire held off the chill of a long rain that felt more like November than July. “Ye dinna think all this has turned Magnus against us?”

Lark rubbed her pounding temple, trying not to take Granny’s words to heart. “The sheriff’s still about. Wanting to stitch together what happened. I ken the laird wants us out of his way.”

“Glad I’ll be once the sheriff’s gone back to the mainland.”

“Jillian said the captain is overdue for another run.”

“Well, he’d best hold off with the sheriff near.”

“Does he ken, d’ye think, about Isla, being gone on his ship for a sennight or better?”

Granny studied Lark through narrowed eyes. “Who’s counting?”

Lark flushed. “He’s been away long enough to make me wonder. I didna say I missed him.”

“D’ye?”

Lark shrugged hunched shoulders, her shawl slipping a bit. “I canna decide. He makes me tapsalteerie.”

“Mercy! Sounds like love to me.”

“But would a man stay gone so long if so?”

“A seafaring man, mayhap.” Granny sighed. “Yer prospects are so few here on Kerrera. But the captain seems wrong for ye somehow.”

Lark knew why. Would she marry a man who might be away more than at home? Whose every delay might spell disaster? Who stole?

Granny’s expression clouded. “Well, my mind’s not so much on the captain as the laird.”

“Because of his ongoing misfortune?”

“Aye. He’s lost everyone he holds dear. No parents. No sister. No wife. No bairns.”

“Granny, he’ll come through it well enough. Magnus isna one to be cast down for long.”

“Aye, he’s young yet. Braw. He’ll likely wed again in time. And all this trouble will seem naught but a bad dream.”

“So I hope,” Lark murmured. But first, mourning.

’Twas odd being absent from the stillroom. She missed it yet was disturbed knowing Isla had been in it prior to her death. Would it always hold that taint?

Lord, help us. Heal Magnus’s heart in his time of grief. Comfort Isla’s mother and father in their heartache. Return the castle to a peaceful, productive place. Thy will be done.

She kept busy with her handwork as one day bled into the next, the summer rain never ceasing. There was a comfort in knitting the wool, the pleasurable softness of lanolin on her hands, and feeling the heat of the peat fire through her skirt.

’Twas nearly ten o’clock on a Friday night. Granny’s own knitting pooled in her lap as her eyes closed, her chin to her chest. Lark nodded off as well, her body and thoughts less tense than they’d been in the days since Isla’s death, but only by a hair.

When the knock sounded on the door, ’twas loud as a gunshot. Granny startled and Lark set her knitting aside before cracking open the door. The sheriff stood before her, rain dripping from his hat brim, bookended by two of his men.

At once her angst spiked. He wore no smile nor gave a greeting. His tone was gruff, just as it had been in the stillroom that day. “You’re being taken into custody, Lark MacDougall, for the death of Isla MacLeish.”

Behind her, Granny exploded in a string of Gaelic, nearly as upending as the shackles now weighting Lark’s wrists. Like a physical blow their charge was, knocking the wind clean out of her. Ire-laced words sprang to mind, but cold disbelief choked her.

Granny was clutching at her shawl as if refusing to be separated. Lark wanted to reach out to her, embrace her, but her bound wrists prevented such.

“Pray,” Lark told her, the single, all but choked word breathless. There was no time for more. The men ushered her out, none too gently, leaving Granny standing in the open doorway, wailing.

’Twas late. Lark was weary and addlepated in the extreme. But not guilty. Guilty, mayhap, for failing to feel deep remorse for Isla, at least the personal, heartfelt kind. ’Twas Magnus she grieved for. But she had never wished Isla ill.

So why the shackles? Why the terrifying night march across the island? Why the bumpy ferry ride across the Firth of Lorn to the mainland, the salt spray on her heated cheeks? She had on her simple plaid shawl but couldn’t stop shivering, more from shock than the damp.

One hope buoyed her.

Magnus would soon set things right.