Page 27 of Beyond Dreams

The girl standing closest to Holly surged forward as the woman continued to glower at her, unceremoniously bustling Holly from the room. She ushered her briskly through the dimly lit corridor, speaking in halting English.

“Uh, no kitchen,” she said, steering Holly with a hand at her elbow. “Go to hall, sit. Break fast.”

“Okay, that’s all I wanted,” Holly assured her. “I was only lost.”

“Big keep,” the girl said.

“Yes,” Holly agreed. “Big and confusing and unfriendly,” she said without charity. “Do you know where...Duncan is.” What did these people call their boss?

“Aye, here,” said the girl as light penetrated the dim hall and Holly realized an opening ahead.

The corridor ended, spilling into the large dining hall, where at least twenty people were sat around six different tables. She might have asked the girl at which table should she sit, but as soon as she came into the room she noticed Duncan seated at the only elevated table, sat just to the right and upon a wooden platform that raised it half a foot above the other tables. The young girl squeezed her arm briefly, directing her down the six steps at the end of the corridor and to the backside of that table, where waited several empty chairs.

“Okay, thank you,” Holly said stiffly, trying to shake off the girl’s suddenly firm grasp and her seeming want to rush Holly along. The girl did not release her though, just continued to propel her forward, until Holly shook her off almost violently and with a hard glare for such manhandling. “Thank you,” she said, pointedly, but with an edge to her voice.

Immersed then in her resentful thoughts about the girl’s shoving, Holly was surprised to turn and find Duncan and that other man, the one who kind of looked like Duncan, who’d she’d originally thought might be her groom yesterday, both standing. Duncan held out a chair for her.

“Good morning,” she said quietly, though not specifically to Duncan. And then, “Oh, thanks,” in a smaller voice for his courtesy with the chair. Her cheeks reddened as she took the chair between Duncan and the other man, aware of so many eyes on her.

Trying her best to ignore all the open gawking, she gave her attention to the man whose name she did not know since he did not wear a scowl as her husband did.

“Hi, I’m Holly,” she said, sticking out her hand to him. “Well, Ceri officially, but I prefer Holly.”

“Aye, so I’ve been told,” said the man with a rather handsome smirk before he considered her hand with a quizzical eye. “Graeme MacQuillan, my lady.”

Her hand untouched, Holly pulled it back, lowering it beneath the table with the other one in her lap. “Oh, MacQuillan. Are you brothers then?”

“Co-ogha,” he answered. “Cousins, I believe is the English word.”

“I see. And have I gained a title—my lady—because I married your cousin?”

“You have. Dunc is a knight of the realm, the accolade bestowed by William Wallace himself, our valiant defender,” Graeme said.

“An honor bestowed for his bravery upon the battlefield?” She asked, even as she was unable to conceive such a fantastic thing, that she was married to a man who not only knew but had been knighted by the legendary William Wallace—whom, to be frank, she’d only known about via Mel Gibson’s movie prior to coming to Scotland. Since then, she’d learned so much about the brave warrior. While Mel’s movie and depiction of him had been romantic, it couldn’t compare to the truth, to the facts as she understood now, how great that man truly was, how revered he was even seven hundred years later, a national hero now and then.

“Loyalty, honor, sacrifice,” said Graeme, “and aye, a reckless bravery—might have been any one of those Wallace had in mind when he dubbed himsir.” He leaned closer and lowered his voice, his smirk improving. “Sure and it was nae his humility, and nae his benevolent mercy, and mark me on that.”

Okay, it was official: Graeme MacQuillan was the nicest person she’d met so far in the fourteenth century.

Holly smiled warmly at him but then was distracted by the same young maid from the kitchen reappearing, this time at the front of the table, placing a metal plate filled to the brim with bread and cheese and what looked like mini crusted pies. Oh, but how she longed for a cup of coffee. Sadly, Sidheag had advised her on her first morning at Hewgill House that there was no such thing in this region, not yet.

But she was hungry and anxious to dig in. Steam oozed out from slits cut into the top crust, the scent rich and mouthwatering.

“There’s no fork,” she said to Duncan. She might have mentioned this to Graeme, but that a man wearing a long, belted tunic with thick tights and not pants had come to sit on his other side and now engaged him in conversation.

It dawned on her that although she’d offered a quiet good morning and although Duncan had solicitously pulled out her chair for her, he had said nothing to her so far today. She studied him intently as he frowned over her statement, trying to gauge his mood. Was he still angry with her for her uncontrollable—and admittedly untimely—sobbing of last night? Or was he, as she’d previously surmised, just naturally angry all the time? “Or,” she said, recalling the other lack in this century—useful utensils, “sorry, a spoon?”

His brows remained puckered as he asked, “Have you nae eating knife?”

“If I did, it’s gone,” she said vaguely. “But don’t they serve the food with spoons?”

Removing his sharp gaze from her, he called something out to another server, this one pouring the ale from a pitcher at the lower tables. The girl bobbed her head in response and left the dining hall, presumably to get a spoon for Holly.

In the meantime, she picked at the bread and cheese, and asked of Duncan, “So what’s on the agenda today?” At his blank look, she revised her question. “What are you doing today?”

His plate essentially cleared, Duncan sat back in his big chair. He laid one forearm on the arm of the chair while he bent the other arm so that his hand clutched the chair’s smooth arm. He looked out around the hall and not at Holly when he answered. “I am expecting a team to return with thirty sheep purchased down near Glasgow. I’ll want to look them over. Training on the fields will commence just after noon, and Roland, the steward,” he said for her edification, pointing to the man who sat next to Graeme, “and I have a standing meeting every Tuesday afternoon.”

I see. So even before yesterday’s odd wedding and last night’s failure to launch, so to speak, he hadn’t any plans to spend time with his new wife, to get to know her.

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