Page 23 of The Groom Wore Plaid
At dawn, she finally gave up, lying with her head turned toward the sunrise as it slowly brightened herroom. She’d never been able to force a dream before, and apparently she still didn’t have the talent. But she wasn’t going to give up.
She was already dressed by the time Kathleen arrived with breakfast on a tray.
Startled, the maid slowly smiled. “Ye’re makin’ things easy on me, mistress. I’ll have little to do.”
After setting down her tray, Kathleen glanced at the writing desk, where Maggie had scattered letters in various stages to her family and even a few Edinburgh friends. It was a bit of a mess.
“Never mind, I can see ye’ll always keep me busy,” Kathleen added, shaking her head even as she smiled.
Maggie glanced at her desk. “Nay, ye can leave the desk to me, Kathleen. I may be messy, but I have my own organization.”
Kathleen bowed her head in understanding, but Maggie was left wondering whether she’d hurt the girl unintentionally. Having a maid was an intimate, confusing thing.
Maggie planned to explore the library that morning, hoping to find some legal books on contracts. She only got to the next floor when she realized she’d forgotten her shawl. She well knew how thick stone walls held in the cold.
She returned to open her door—then stopped in surprise. Kathleen was bent over Maggie’s breakfast tray, eating the scraps she’d left behind.
Kathleen’s eyes became stricken, her complexionpaled, and she swallowed. “Oh, mistress,” she said faintly.
Maggie closed the door behind her. “Kathleen, don’t be alarmed.”
The maid couldn’t meet her eyes, just stared at the floor while her fingers twisted together over and over.
“I was finished,” Maggie continued. “I don’t mind but . . . are ye not getting plenty to eat here in the castle?”
Kathleen nodded her head. “I am, mistress, I am, it’s just . . . we never had so much food in our house in the colonies. I feel like . . . I’m hungry all the time.”
Maggie wished she could give the poor woman a hug, but knew Kathleen didn’t want her pity.
“I didn’t know things had been so bad,” Maggie said cautiously. “Ye can tell me about it, ye know.”
“There’s nothin’ to tell,” Kathleen said.
Her voice was so quiet and full of long suffering that Maggie’s heart twisted in sympathy for her.
And then words rushed forth as Kathleen said, “Gregor’s blacksmith shop failed, and he finally listened to me, that it was time to come home. We had nothin’ there.”
“Ye’ve both got positions in the castle. Things will get better.” Now Maggie understood why the maid was plump—she must have been starving in the colonies, and some part of her still feared she’d be without food again.
Kathleen shrugged, still staring as if the carpetdesign fascinated her. “Gregor is unhappy, mistress. He owned his own smithy, but he cannot afford to here. I tell him ’twill take time.”
“I think ye’re advising him well,” Maggie said with encouragement, even as she wondered what had happened in America.
“Thank ye, mistress. I promise, I’ll never . . .” Her voice faded away, and she quickly took the tray and departed.
Maggie wanted to follow her, to comfort her, but she stopped herself, knowing Kathleen would only be embarrassed further. It was true that things would eventually be better for the siblings. They’d returned to the Duff lands, ruled by an earl far wealthier than most chiefs in the Highlands. Her own clan had been desperate enough for stability for its people that her father had brokered this alliance by marriage with the Duffs. Nay, Kathleen and her brother would realize and accept that they’d made the right choice.
Picking up her shawl, Maggie made her way to the library, nodding to the occasional servant passing by. If she received a smile, it was a forced one, and by the time she closed the library door behind her, she was glad to be alone.
Two walls of the room had bookshelves to the ceiling, and Maggie felt a shiver of happiness work through her gloom. She might have an unwanted marriage looming over her, and the fear of a terrible dream, but the knowledge available in these booksbrought her a moment of clarity and appreciation. Where would she even start?
She browsed the titles with awe.The Monadologyby Descartes,Nova Methodus pro Maximis et Minimisby Leibniz. She eventually noticed they were grouped by subject such as astronomy, mathematics, natural philosophy. She picked up one on astronomy, thinking she liked to look at the night sky, but she was surprised at the level of mathematics involved, and how ignorant she felt.
She finally found several books on the law, but they might as well have been written in a foreign language, for how little she understood. But she worked several long hours, looking up unfamiliar words, trying to find a legal way out of her contract. Nothing seemed to help, reinforcing her idea that getting Owen to break off the marriage might be the only way she could succeed in saving his life—not that she was finished trying to figure out her dream or decipher the book.
After a while, she went to the window and stared out at the countryside. It was raining, a dreary drizzle against gray skies, a sight she was well used to. The rain wasn’t restricting her indoors so much as Owen’s edict after the arson. It was difficult to be confined after so many years of freedom in Edinburgh. At first, though she’d been away from her father’s influence there, he’d never been far from her thoughts, affecting every decision she made. Eventually, when she realized he seldom came to Edinburgh, she’d known truefreedom, with no fear for the ugliness of his drunken behavior, or the worry about whom he’d next harm.
But that part of her life was over. Her mother had always promised she’d have a say in her future, and it had come true, Maggie thought wryly. It had been her own choice to accept Owen’s proposal. She’d thought she was doing the right thing, desperate to help both her clan and her brother find happiness.
