Page 50 of In Search of a Husband
“The gardens? Are ye daft?” Maisie said, her eyes wide. “They’re haunted!”
“I was informed there might be a ghost at this castle, and yet…”
“Wait,” Lorna said in a staged whisper. “Wait, and ye’ll see Sophie.”
“Maybe ye’ll run off…” Maisie waggled her dark eyebrows.
“I dinna ken if I want her to run off yet,” Lorna muttered, tossing her spoon down beside her teacup.
“Very well, then we will practice French without a stroll in the gardens.”
The girls groaned again, and Kate shut her eyes, exhaling a long breath. Foolishly, she imagined this would be far easier.
“Sophie didna have to learn French,” Maisie grumbled, pushing away her plate of shortbread crumbs. She tugged at the ribbon on her plaited hair as if she still held a grudge against Kate for brushing it earlier that morning.
“Sophie is dead.” Lorna jumped up from her seat and started racing around the table, holding up her hands and moaning as Maisie screamed and Kate contemplated jumping in the moat for a moment of silence.
Then the door burst open, and both girls screamed and ducked under the table.
“Och, I traveled all the way from Edinburgh, and ye’re no’ goin’ to hug yer auld aunt.”
The woman, who appeared not much older than Kate, smiled before tossing her hands to her hips in exasperation. “First, yer uncle disappears, now the bairns.”
She had narrow, cat-like eyes that were so light green theybordered on silver. And strawberry-blonde hair that hung loose down her back.
“We’re no’ bairns!” Lorna burst from under the table and threw her arms around the woman’s hips, burying her face in a tartan wool cape.
Maisie remained under the table, peering out with wide eyes.
“I am their governess, my lady.” Kate clutched her hands together, suddenly nervous.
“My brother never mentioned ye.”
Why would he? Still, it stung. “No.”
The young woman stuck her hand out toward Kate. “Elspeth MacInnes. Lovely to meet ye.”
Finally, Maisie wiggled her way out from under the table, and Elspeth sank toward the floor, getting on the girl’s level.
“It’s been awhile, lil’ Maisie,” Elspeth said. “Do ye remember me at all?”
Maisie shook her head, studying her. “You look like me da.”
“He…” She blew out a slow breath. “He was my brother. As is Uncle Gabriel.”
“My da died,” Maisie said, her voice breaking. And then she burst into tears and dashed into Kate’s arms.
Kate glanced at Elspeth, not a dry eye in the house, and sank to her knees to embrace Maisie. She had been here a month and never once did Lorna or Maisie cry about their father. They didn’t ever speak of him.
But that didn’t mean they didn’t feel the loss of him.
She hugged the little girl tight, her heart slipping open toward the MacInnes clan. They were a wild bunch, and they were hurting, even if they were too stubborn to admit it.
“Have ye come to stay?” Lorna asked, tapping Elspeth on the shoulder.
The woman brushed the tears away from her eyes and huffed out a breath. “For a time, I have. I have, Lorna. Will ye let me?”
Lorna whooped and raced around the room as Maisie slowly pulled away from Kate, her small blue eyes rimmed red from crying.
