She beat him about the head and shoulders with a kitchen towel, the blows punctuated by her verbal onslaught. “Ye’d leave this child to freeze to death? And the night of the solstice? If no one were here to witness, I’d wake up a widow tomorrow, ye bloody heartless pillock! Now go make up Carrie’s chamber, lay a fire, and heat water for this poor wee lass’s bath.”
Mr. Pitagowan’s arms now covered his head to protect it from the stinging abuse of his wife’s damp towel. “Carrie’s chamber? But…me love…it’s haunted. And what if she—”
“I’m sure the bairn would rather sleep with a ghost than become one, wouldn’t ye, dearie?”
At this point, she’d sleep next to the Loch Ness Monster if she could get warm. Besides, the very idea of a haunted bedroom in an ancient structure such as this one couldn’t be more tempting. She would be warm and entertained. “Oh, I don’t really mind if—”
“And tell young Dougal to put a kettle on!” Mrs. Pitagowan hollered as her husband plodded away, looking a great deal shorter now that his wife had cut him down.
Arms truly trembling now, as much from the weight of her burden as the cold, Vanessa took a step toward the door, which remained blocked by a large body. “Do you mind very much if I come insi—?”
“Are ye hungry, lass?” Mrs. Pitagowan’s hand rested atop her ample belly, which was accentuated by the ruffles of an apron that might have struggled to cover a woman two stone lighter.
“I’m actually colder than any—”
“The wee mite is starving to death, just look at her!” she shouted after her husband, snatching the case from Vanessa before she could so much as protest. “So, make sure to set aside a bowl of stew and bread!”
Panicking about her case, Vanessa held her arms out. “Oh, do be careful, that’s ever so fragi—”
“Well I doona ken why ye insist on standing out there in the cold, little ‘un, come in before I can snap yer skinny wee arms off like icicles.” The round woman carried her burden like it weighed a bit of nothing as she waddled into the common room.
Vanessa shivered inside and closed the door behind her, struggling with the ancient latch. She knew she was a rather short and painfully thin woman, but at eight and twenty, she’d not been addressed as child, bairn, wee mite, or little one for longer than a decade.
If ever.
Turning to the common room, Vanessa swallowed around a lump of anxiety as she noted that, indeed, the place was filled to the exceptionally low rafters with wayward travelers.
Most of them male. All of them staring at her.
A glow from the over-warm room rolled over her as a blush heated her stinging cheeks.
“G-good evening,” she stammered, bobbing a slight curtsy before brushing quickly melting snow from her cloak.
The only other woman looked up from the table where she tended her husband and four unruly children to send her a pinched and sour glare. No doubt she made assumptions regarding Vanessa’s vocation due to her lack of chaperone.
She was aware unfortunate women traveled to such taverns looking to pay for their lodgings with their company and favors. And after what Mr. Pitagowan had said in front of the entire assembly, Vanessa couldn’t exactly blame the woman for her speculation.
Besides, she was used to it.
Her attempt at a smile was rebuked, so she turned it on the handful of men clustered in overstuffed chairs around the hearth, nursing ale from tankards that might have been crafted during the Jacobite rebellion.
“Bess!” a kilted, large-boned man crowed, wiping foam from his greying, ill-kempt beard with the back of his hand. “Tell ‘er if she’s afraid to bed down with the ghost, I’ll be happy to offer an alternative arrangement.” His eyes traveled down Vanessa’s frame with an uninvited intimacy that made her feel rather molested. “One that would keep the wee lass warm, but I canna promise ye’d be dry.”
As she was wont to do, Vanessa covered her mortification with all the imperious British pomposity she could muster, lifting her nose in the air. “You needn’t speak as if I were not standing right here. I am capable of understanding you exceptionally well, sir. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I highly doubt you’ve ever had a woman accept such a crass and ridiculous proposition. One you didn’t have to offer recompense, that is.”
The men gathered around the fireplace all blinked at her, dumbstruck.
“I thought not,” she said. “Now I’ll thank you not to make such ill-mannered and indecent suggestions in the presence of children.” She gestured to a grubby lad of perhaps eight, who promptly tossed a piece of bread into her hair.
The boy’s father boxed his son’s ears, and the child let out an ear-splitting wail, setting her teeth on edge.
“English.” A thin, pockmarked highlander harrumphed the word into his ale glass. “The night’s too cold for a frigid, prickly wee bundle of bones, Graham,” he said to her harasser.
“Aye, she’s hardly worth the trouble.” Another spat into the fire, and the resulting sizzle disgusted her.
“Ye barbarous Douglasses behave!” Mrs. Pitagowan thundered over her shoulder as she turned sideways to squeeze herself down the aisle created by the six or so tables in the common room. “Or ye’ll find yerselves arseways to a snowdrift and make no mistake! Now follow me, lass, and let’s get ye out of those wet clothes.”
Vanessa turned to obey, cringing at the Douglasses’ disgusting noises evoked by the innkeeper’s gauche mention of her undressing. She passed a long bar, against which two well-dressed men in wool suits picked at a brown stew and another grizzled highlander wore a confounding fishing uniform in the middle of winter and leagues away from the ocean.
She’d heard tell the Scots around these parts were an odd lot, but she’d underestimated just how truly backward they might be.
Balthazar’s Inn, at least, was charming. Though the pale stone walls were pitted with age, a lovely dark wood wainscoting rose from the floor to waist height, swallowing some of the light from the lanterns and the fireplace to create a rather cozy effect. In observation of Christmas, boughs of holly and other evergreens were strewn across the hearth and over the doorways, tied in place by red ribbons. Similar braided wreaths moated the lanterns on each table, filling the room with the rather pleasant scent of pine.
“Thank you for taking me in, Mrs. Pitagowan.” Vanessa remembered her manners as she followed the woman through a chaotic scullery.
“Call me Bess, everyone else does,” the lady sang.
Vanessa jumped out of the way when Bess’s grumpy husband threw open an adjoining door and stomped past them carrying an empty cauldron and muttering in a language she’d never heard before.
“Bess, then. I appreciate your generosity—”
Turning in the doorway, Bess narrowly missed smashing the case against the frame, causing Vanessa to blanch. “Doona get the idea I’m being charitable, lass. I heard ye offer thrice the room rates. And I’ll be needing payment afore I ready the room.”
Right. Vanessa sighed, digging into the pocket of her cloak for her coin purse. “How much?”
“I’ll take half a crown what with the bath and stew.”