Page 28 of Her Highland Prophecy
What an opportunity it was! She would be able to see something that barely even existed in her history books. Her fellow historians would die of envy when she told them.
“We must get going then. Are ye ready?” She nodded.
Gordain eyed her carefully before sighing. “Ye’ll need to ride sideways with that dress,” he said. “Ye cannae ride astride anymore.”
Was it her imagination or did he seem disappointed at that?
She did not have time to think on it because a moment later he placed his hands around her waist and effortlessly hoisted her onto the saddle of Taranis, with both legs hanging off of one side. It was not as comfortable as sitting normally, but he was right. She wouldn’t have been able to sit astride the horse.
He mounted the horse, sitting on the saddle slightly further back than he had sat before. His arms slipped around her waist and he grasped the reins. She was practically sitting in his lap and it was almost more intimate than when she had been sitting between his legs. She felt a slight blush rising to her cheeks and tamped it down.
Thankfully, the ride to Beauly took only a few hours, and in the meantime she took advantage of having Gordain available to answer all of her questions about his time. It was better than having an encyclopedia or a library full of books and she kept him talking about what he knew.
“Wait, so you always plant the same crop in each field?” she asked. That sounded wrong somehow, but she couldn’t remember why.
“Aye, sometimes the field doesnae yield as much as it did the previous harvest, so we will lose the income, but the tenants ken well which type of soil to use for different crops.”
Suddenly the answer she was looking for came back to her.
“Why don’t you rotate the crops?”
Though most of her family’s wealth was tied up in trading goods and the stock market, her father also owned extensive land. One summer when he was in his more charitable moods, he had taken Diana and Grace with him on a trip to survey the land. The overseer had explained how they would change the plants on each field every season.
“Rotate the crops?” he questioned. “What do ye mean, lass?”
“You know,” she said, “planting wheat and then turnips or cloves right after to ensure that the soil remains fertile. My father’s overseer said that most of the big farms do it.”
He still looked confused.
“I havenae ever heard of such a thing. Ye say this is common in yer time?”
“I don’t know,” she replied apologetically. “I only know what my family did, and even so, not in much detail.”
“We dinnae do anything like that. Will ye tell me what ye ken about it?”
She tried to think back at the vague memories she had from the time. She had been twenty-two years old at the time and very resentful that she had been dragged to a farm for the summer that she had not paid very close attention.
“I don’t remember much,” she warned him, and he waved her off. “My father’s man said that in our farms each field was split into four parts and they would change what they planted on each field every season.”
“Why?”
“Something about not leaching the ground from all its nutrients?" It came out as a question. I’m sorry, I don’t remember exactly,” she said sheepishly.
“Dinna fash. It’s interesting. Do ye remember anything else?”
“I think he said that they usually planted wheat, barley, turnips and…clover? I think the last one was clover.”
He looked pensive for a few minutes as if trying to figure out what she told him. She let him think and distracted herself by trying to spot as many animals as she could in the trees as they passed. There was a bird, a squirrel, a rabbit in the underbrush…
“If this works as ye say, Princess, ye will be worth yer weight in gold,” he said after a few minutes.
She smiled at him, pleased to have helped him for a change. She knew intellectually that as soon as they arrived at the Castle they would have to put on a charade of being engaged in order for him to find the funds he needed to ensure that the Lairdship remained with his father and him, but at the moment, it felt like he was constantly saving her. It wasn’t a feeling she was used to.
She had grown up to be very self-sufficient. Sure, there had been nannies, tutors, maids, drivers and butlers everywhere she went, but she was free and able to go where she wanted, when she wanted to go. It was a huge difference from her current situation where she was relying on someone else to see her through.
It made her think of the small pouch of coins that Gordain had brought her back when he sold the jewelry she had given him. She grimaced. She had no idea how much money things cost in this era, but it was always better to have more, rather than less. Unfortunately, she had kept the one thing of value she did not want to part with: her mother’s necklace.
She did not want to part with it, but what choice did she have? His father would never accept the betrothal if he knew that she did not have any money coming, so he must never even suspect.
