Page 64 of The Scottish Duke
“How smart you are. You’re the only person to have asked me that question, Lorna. Everyone else saw it as natural, the progression of life after death. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do, other than attend the funeral of my two children and my husband on the same day. But to stand there and watch as his carriage took him away was nearly as difficult.”
“What did you do at the castle all alone?”
“I found myself wandering from room to room. I almost asked one of the maids for a feather duster, so that I could keep myself occupied as I went. I made notes about collections that we had that no one paid any attention to anymore. I read. I wrote letters to people I hadn’t written to in years. I was probably a pest in my correspondence.”
“I’m sure you weren’t,” Lorna said.
They smiled at each other. Although they had little in common, they were becoming friends. To have the Dowager Duchess of Kinross as a companion and champion was a heady thing.
“As to the lesson, my dear, it’s to live fully each day. Tomorrow everything may change. You’re not guaranteed happiness, after all.”
She thought about the duchess’s words for a long time. Because of Alex, she could enjoy each day and not simply endure it. And happiness? It was there in the small things, the ease of drawing water from the kitchen pump, waking in the morning in the sunny bedroom, sharing memories with Peter over tea.
She began to count the passing days, wondering when her child would be born.
Walking was more laborious, but so was sitting, sleeping, and even dressing. Thank heavens for Nan or she would have had to call Peter to help her on with her shoes as well as assisting her to stand once she’d sat.
She kept herself as busy as she could, working on her sketches and testing more herbal recipes.
A few days earlier she’d crumbled some of the dried herbs into empty bottles and made labels for them. Now she went to her table and picked up the jar of meadowsweet, considering the contents. Fresh meadowsweet flowers were fluffy and white. Once dried, they took on a golden color and a fine-grained appearance.
She had enough to prepare a tincture for the duchess, a small way of thanking the older woman for her kindness. The mixture would help the arthritis in her hands along with comfrey balm.
From her tools, she selected a large spoon and her ivory funnel. She used the spoon to measure out a portion of meadowsweet and the funnel to place it in a clean bottle. To this she added bogbean, a three-leafed plant that grew near lochs. A measure of whiskey, often used in her remedies, was poured into the bottle before it was sealed and placed out of the sun. Ideally, the meadowsweet mixture should steep for six weeks, but she’d still had good results using it in less time. She duplicated the process until she had half a dozen bottles resting on the table.
“Did you know that the flower of the foxglove is called witches’ thimbles in this area of Scotland?”
Startled, Lorna glanced up to find the Earl of Montrassey leaning against the door frame.
“A bit of lore I never get to impart. My visit to you has given me the perfect opportunity.”
The duke’s uncle, according to words she heard the majordomo use, had the randiness of a young buck. The earl was well-known for his attempts to get a girl alone. Even Mrs.McDermott had issued her own kind of warning about the man, couched as it was with half sentences and a distinctively pink face.
It’s best if you’re not alone around his lordship, Lorna. That’s why staff is assigned two to a room on the family floor. If you find yourself in a difficult position, leave immediately and seek me out.
She’d only encountered the earl once when she was alone. He hadn’t been interested in dalliance as much as venting his temper. He’d been in the duke’s library on the ground floor. When she walked in with her dust rags and brushes, he’d pointed to the ruins of a darling statue of a Greek goddess. He’d evidently just thrown it against the wall.
Clean that up,she recalled him saying as he passed her in the doorway.
“I don’t use foxglove often,” she said now. “It’s dangerous in some applications.”
As he entered the room, she turned back to the table.
He reached past her for one of the bottles containing crumbled herbs. She slapped his wrist when he grabbed it, then pulled it from his grip.
“Leave that alone,” she said. “It’s toxic.”
He withdrew his hand, looking down at her with a thin smile.
“Yet you use it in your potions,” he said.
“I don’t make potions. Only tinctures, teas, poultices, and balms. I use that one in a poultice. With pork fat. It’s helpful for gout and rheumatism.”
“You’re quite the healer.”
She frowned over at him. “I’m not a healer,” she said. “Nor have I ever called myself one. I use herbs in ways that have been used for hundreds of years. Nothing more.”
“Yet you still sell your cures, I understand. And have given them to my sister-in-law.”
