Page 19 of The Beast of the Highlands
“You would have refused,” Autumn said quietly. “Our family could not have afforded that.” She removed a purse of coins from the belt at her waist, which she had tied beside Orwell’s dagger. “I am well remunerated for my work, and though it is not a miracle remedy for our woes, it will help prevent us from losing our home.”
Her mother’s face crumpled and she finally rushed forward to take Autumn in her arms. “Oh, my sweet girl. You have always been a wayward soul… and I would scold you, if I had any grounds to do so. But… I do not.” A sob escaped her throat. “The bailiffs have visited us again, in your absence. They took my heirlooms.”
Autumn reeled back. “They had no right! They belong to you; they are no part of our family’s assets!”
She stared down at her mother’s unadorned throat, missing the emerald necklace that she wore so often. And when Autumn took hold of her mother’s hand, she found the older woman’s fingers unsettlingly bare.
It was only then that Autumn truly noticed how plain her mother’s attire was: no lace collar, no silk bodice, no satin skirts and countless petticoats. She wore a simple, shapeless dress of finely woven, rusty-red wool, with a threadbare ribbon to give something of a waist. But the shapeless dress looked even looser upon a body that appeared painfully thin, the ribbon highlighting a waist so small that Autumn felt certain her fingers would have met if she had put her hands around it.
It is the stress, I imagine, preventing her from eating.
“Did Father make you give away your jewels?” Autumn’s voice held a bitter note.
Her mother turned her face away. “We are married, Darling. What is mine is his. It has been since we made our vows, and I would rather give away my jewelry than lose this manor.”
It seemed Autumn and Orwell were not the only ones making sacrifices for the sake of the family’s future. And though her mother’s offerings might not have seemed as monumental as settling into a strange castle in an all but foreign land, or fighting upon a battlefield, Autumn knew what those inherited heirlooms had meant to her mother. There were necklaces and rings in her mother’s collection that had been passed down through centuries, outlasting monarchs and wars and many lives.
Now, all gone because of my father…
“Do not be cross with him, Darling,” her mother urged.
Autumn swallowed. “Where is he?”
“In his study. He has not left it all day, nor did I think it wise to disturb him.”
Autumn was about to march there and give her father a piece of her mind, when a small figure barreled along the landing, and came to a halt at the top of the curving stairwell. “Sister!”
“Laurel.” Autumn smiled up at the girl who looked so like Autumn herself. Where Autumn’s blonde hair was darker and more restrained, Laurel’s was a law unto itself: a wild mane that did as it pleased, never bowing to the pressure of ribbons or slides.
The girl bounded down the stairs and flew into Autumn’s arms, breaking the moment that Autumn and her mother had been sharing. “I missed you so much. You must never, never go away from this house again, or I shall cry myself into a sickness!”
“I have missed you, too,” Autumn whispered. “Now, let me look at you. I must see how you have grown while I have been absent.”
She held her sister at arm’s length, only to be shocked by the vision before her. Laurel had always been willowy, but the girl’s collarbones protruded in a worrying fashion, and the blushed apples of plump cheeks were pale and flat. And as Autumn pulled her little sister back in for a tight embrace, she discreetly felt for the painfully apparent bumps of Laurel’s spine. Clearly, it was not only stress that had caused her mother’s thinness, for Laurel shared the same affliction.
Trying to rein in her anger, Autumn looked to her mother. “I will take half of this purse to Mrs. Holbeck, and I will have her buy good meat, good cheese, hearty vegetables, and fresh bread from the village, in the morning.” She held Laurel tighter. “You will not tell Father there was more in the purse.”
“I will not, Darling.” Her mother’s eyes glistened with helpless tears.
I do not blame you for this, Mother. I know you will have tried to spare some coin so the family does not starve.
Her eyes lifted to the stairwell, willing her father to appear so she could unleash a torrent of vitriol. How could he have allowed this to happen? How could he live with himself, watching his youngest daughter and his supposedly beloved wife waste away before his very eyes?
In truth, Autumn was beginning to doubt the sense in trying to cling onto a manor such as this. Surely, it would be better to sell the empty house and purchase something smaller, so there would be money to avoid starvation. But Autumn knew her father was too stubborn to relinquish the manor, believing it to be a slippery slope toward relinquishing his title, too.
As she held her sister in her arms, realization dawned; no matter what had happened these last couple of days, Autumn had no choice but to go back to MacLennan Castle. Her family’s survival literally relied upon it.
* * *
Laurel huddled in the window seat of Autumn’s bedchamber, gazing out at the dark night. Autumn had retired, for fear she might say something she would regret if she lingered downstairs, and Laurel had followed.
“I wish you could come with me,” Autumn said as she looked through what remained of her belongings; a few carefully hidden books, a broken jade hair slide that she had tucked behind the bed’s headboard, and one of her old gowns that barely fit, for it had been commissioned several years ago. Everything else had been scavenged, including her armoire, her bureau, her armchairs, and her bed. The latter had been replaced with an ugly, narrow, iron monstrosity which had evidently been looted from one of the now-vacant servants’ quarters.
Laurel frowned at the glass, pushing her nose up to the pane.
“Did you hear me?” Autumn prompted, coming to join her sister at the window.
“There is someone out there, Sister,” Laurel whispered.
