So at last they came to the heart of it. She set down her own fork and looked at him, dread welling.
“Though we’ve lived quietly for some time, Catholic families such as ours are now being harassed with more fervor, even by our formerly civil Protestant neighbors.”
Her lips parted in disbelief. “You’ve just provided new bells for Rothbury’s Anglican Church and have been paying double taxes—”
“There’s been talk Bellbroke could be searched, deprived of arms.” His eyes grew grieved. “I could continue . . .”
“Nay.” Appetite lost, she dotted her lips with her serviette. “’Tis not the homecoming I hoped for, though I suspect you sent me to France with the Traquair ladies to shield me from such to begin with.”
“I did not want to make too much of it at the time, but now we are under such a threat I cannot keep silent nor allow you to ride about and resume your usual activities.”
“So I must keep to home,” she said, not wanting to add to his worry with a contrary attitude. “Of course, I have plenty to do at my desk. Perhaps this shall all pass quickly and we can live peaceably like before.”
“You should know there are said to be government spies in our midst, working for the new Hanoverian king.”
“Spies?”
He leaned in, nearly knocking over his wine glass in agitation. “They’ve been known to turn tenants against their own masters.”
“But our tenants are and have ever been loyal. We’ve treated them fairly, even generously—”
“And how quickly ’tis forgotten if they’ve been threatened by outsiders—or bribed in some cases.”
She took a drink of wine, her stomach churning. Beyond the windows the sun was setting, the rolling meadowlands to the south a brilliant reddish gold.
“How I hate to spoil your homecoming with such dire talk.” He drummed his fingers atop the damask cloth. “But I could not wait another moment lest you slip out and bring harm to yourself in the coming days.”
“You are talking about a coming rebellion, a battle over who will be king.” Her mind assembled the pieces of this unwelcome puzzle. “I overheard your name mentioned by a gentleman at a court ball. It concerned the Northumbrian Jacobites.”
“Matters are coming to a head. Though I pray without ceasing that peace will reign.”
Peace? It seemed a fool’s wish.
“How involved are you?” She had pushed the matter to the back of her mind, not wanting to dwell on all the implications, but his intensity told her she could do so no longer. “I would know all of it, Father.”
His beleaguered gaze roamed the blue silk walls and lingered on the closed doors. Did he suspect the servants of spying? In turn, she looked about, dismissing the portrait of her mother above the mantel, its very presence a testament to her father’s forgiveness. Painted by the court artist Peter Lely, it captured the duchess in amber silk adorned with diamonds. Not the simpler portrait of her as a shepherdess, pretending to be something she was not, that once hung at Whitehall.
The gilded harlot, she’d been called.
Buried so many years, Clementine Hedley had no inkling of the turmoil in this dining room at present, though she’d caused a great deal of it in the past.
“Say no more, Father.” Blythe’s voice was flat and hushed with none of the animation of moments before. “I have no heart for it tonight.”
8
It’s difficult to draw pure water from a dirty well.
GAELIC PROVERB
Wedderburn Castle
Berwickshire, Scotland
Everard was home. But it didn’t feel like home. Not with his father’s life leeching like brose from a cracked bowl. Home as he’d known it for more than three and thirty years was past. On the other side of that ancient, battle-hardened facade might be grim news that would turn the world as he knew it tapsalteerie.
“I’ll see to the horses, milord,” Boyd told him as they dismounted before Wedderburn Castle’s timeworn entrance.
With a nod, Everard passed through the castle’s semicircular arch with its thick, iron-studded double doors to a small inner courtyard dominated by a gnarled rowan tree. Flagstones beneath his feet soon gave way to stone steps leading to the castle foyer, where a magnificent cedar staircase rose to a gallery. The wood’s aroma mingled with beeswax and turpentine as it threaded the chill air. He began his climb upward, passing immense tapestries and portraits of prior Humes, intent on the door to his father’s chambers that bore the Hume crest.
“Lord Fast.”
Everard halted his climb and turned back, looking down on Wedderburn’s diminutive housekeeper. Mrs. Candlish wore a bright plaid about her shoulders. She’d been in their service so long she even adopted their surname at times. “Welcome home, milord. Your faither is not in his chambers but in the old garden, I’m pleased to report.”
A beat of hope took hold. Everard came back down the stairs, somewhat disbelieving. When he’d left, his father was bedfast, sleeping more than waking, and taking little meat or drink.
From a side corridor Munro entered the foyer clad in a black suit, a golden chain about his neck denoting his stewardship of Wedderburn Castle. His aged face wore a smile. “Ah, Lord Fast. I trust yer time in Edinburgh was productive.”
“Aye,” Everard said. “I’m eager to bring the laird news. But what of my brothers?”
“Orin is in the schoolroom with his tutors,” Mrs. Candlish said quickly, as if not wanting to delay him. “Bernard has ridden into the village. And last I heard, Ronan and the twins were out hawking in the deer park.”
“All is well otherwise?”
“Indeed, milord,” Munro said with a nod.
Their apparent cheer put him at ease. “To my faither, then.”
With deferential nods, they disappeared as he sought the passageway that would take him to the garden. There he found the laird in a wheeled chair, seated in a sunny corner, an attendant not far. The laird’s silvered head was bowed, his eyes closed.
“Leave us,” Everard told the maidservant, who gave a nod and hastened away.
His father raised up at the sound of his voice. Had he been sleeping? Everard knelt and clasped his father’s enormous hand, the thin, wrinkled skin like crumpled linen paper, his grip limp where it had once been ironlike.
“Ah, my son.” Pleasure warmed his voice. “You’ve come back.”
“Nae better homecoming than to find you out here in the fresh air, Faither.”
The laird gave a fleeting smile. “After so long a winter, ’tis good to feel the warmth. But tell me, what of your travels? You’ve returned sooner than I expected.”
Everard let go of his hand and sat upon a near bench. “I did not want to leave you long. Besides, Edinburgh holds few charms for me.”
“’Tis the fearsome stench, I suppose. And hordes of folk all together.” His father struggled to sit up straight. “But what I’d give to see it once more . . . feel your mither’s presence and pleasure in the place she so loved. Her garden in the Canongate especially.”
Everard blinked at the sudden sting in his eyes. Rarely did he soften or give vent to his feelings. Years of soldiering had bred it out of him. But seeing his father fade and struggle required a different kind of courage. “I bring you news about David and Calysta . . . and from your old friend Northumbria.”