Page 60 of Beyond Dreams

Chapter Seventeen

Holly did not learnall there was to know as lady of the castle in the first week under Moll’s broad wing. And much was put on hold as the keep became significantly busier with preparations for the reception of guests, and Moire’s wedding, which was set to take place in two weeks’ time. Holly wasn’t surprised that neither Doirin nor Moire played any part in any of the arrangements, but kept themselves tucked in that solar, still working on Moire’s trousseau, she’d been told.

Red Moll had rolled her eyes, her thick brows slanted inward. “Let them sew. I dinna want that woman in my kitchen.”

She learned not only from Moll, but also from Thallane’s steward, Roland, spending a fair amount of time in his company, in his long and narrow office on the ground floor of the castle. While she knew her tenure might be short-lived and thus any knowledge gained useless, she did not want to disappoint Duncan in any way.

Roland was a gentle, wise old man, who made little of the fact that Holly knew absolutely nothing that might be expected of a twenty-four year old woman in his time. He’d been so kind and patient with Holly that she felt very comfortable advising him, “Just pretend I know nothing, Roland, that I’ve been taught nothing. We don’t need to blame anyone or delve into the why of it. You have a blank slate, Roland. Feel free to draw all over it.”

He came off as a patient grandfather figure, extremely well-mannered, soft-spoken, brimming with wisdom and often a twinkle in his eye when he knew she caught on quickly to certain things. He did as she’d suggested, starting at the very beginning.

“A lass’s training extends beyond the confines of the castle walls, my lady,” Roland had said. “And do you mind now if I speak plainly?”

“Please do,” she’d invited, so eager to learn from him.

“Unless a lady is lost to childbirth, lass, most times she will outlive her husband. Even while alive, chances are he will spend more time away than in residence at Thallane. War will nae wait, will nae get easier now with just because we’ve kent nae battle in a while. The laird will be called and the fate of Thallane will sit heavy on your shoulders. All that she is, in land and castle, and vassals and villeins, falls under your jurisdiction, yours to protect and keep.” He pointed gently at her. “You are Thallane and its true stewardship rests in your hands.”

Sobering though the very idea was, somewhere in the back of her mind she knew that she would never assume control of Thallane. She might play at lady now, might find her way about the kitchen and come to grips with the never-ending chores, but she’d be long gone before there would be any chance of her managing the MacQuillan castle. And she didn’t like to think of Duncan gone off to war, couldn’t imagine how she would ever get used to that. Still, she would learn what she could while she was here.

“Then I suggest we get to it, Roland,” she’d encouraged her teacher.

She might be here for years and meet daily with Roland and still not know or learn everything she would need to manage Thallane. So far, they’d only daily spoken of Thallane’s rich history, which thrilled Holly to no end. She was sure she wouldn’t mind sitting and listening to the fabulous and fantastic tales Roland spun all around the MacQuillans who’d lived before now. But she’d yet to learn one thing about the accounts as Moll insisted she needed to know.

Similarly, Holly did not discover all of her husband as a lover in only a week, nor he her. The first few nights of passion had been only a tease, it seemed, rousing her senses and heightening his, bringing them together each night thereafter in astonishing delight. This they were happy to explore together, occasionally with infinite and drugging slowness, and at times with feverish unions that left them ragged and gloriously depleted. They were keen students of the other, eager to learn, sacrificing sleep to study. Holly often yawned blissfully throughout the days, recalling the night before.

She yawned just now, sitting at the high table in the middle of the afternoon, set to a task by Moll which Holly had strenuously tried to get out of. She didn’t know anything about embroidery! She’d said as much to Moll, had confessed that aside from buttons, she simply could not sew, she never had.

Moll hadn’t so much been interested in what Holly had tried to tell her.

“’Tis the lady’s job,” she’d said, as translated by Johnna, since Molly had been pretty agitated by Holly’s balking and had reverted to her swift and incomprehensible Gaelic. “You’ll nae but summon demons if you leave the stitching to another.”

“I think that’s a little far-fetched,” Holly had interjected, her hands on her hips. While it had been explained to her that this particular cloth was almost two hundred years old, and was only used for the most important functions, and how each subsequent Lady of Thallane had added something to the embroidery, that part of her that felt so much like an interloper didn’t want to be messing with ancient cloths of a noble family.

“Already too informal is Thallane,” Johnna had continued to translate, “with nae lady to guide us. Too many practices ignored or forgotten. The laird will be shamed if you do nae put your mark on the cloth of his table. There is splendor and pride in the old ways, she says.”

“But tell her again I cannot sew,” Holly had whined to Johnna.

Moll simply wouldn’t listen.

“Your hands will be guided by all those who have gone before you, whose hands have already shown love to the cloth,” Johnna had said. The young girl had added her own take. “’Tis nae so difficult, simply copy the patterns already made on the cloth,” she said, with the simplistic view of someone whodidn’thave to do something they knew nothing about. “Use small, close stitches,” Johnna whispered.

So here she sat, with the entire thirty feet of the ancient cloth laid out over the table, not wanting to wrinkle it more than it was, or let it touch the floor, which was clean, but not clean enough for the white linen to be crumbled on it. The tablecloth was already fragile, she decided. But it was also stunning in a patchwork kind of way. She thought she could pick out each MacQuillan woman’s contribution based on the style of their embroidery and the threads used. All of them were made with varying degrees of competence, though not any of the motifs and scenes sewn into the cloth could be considered poorly done. Duncan’s mother’s embroidery had been pointed out to her. She’d added the MacQuillan motto,Garg’n Uair Dhuisgear—fierce when roused, Johnna had translated— to a previously sewn crest and mantling, in a wreath of silver ribbon, the words embroidered in red.

Inspired by some of the simpler embroidery along the hem of the cloth, Holly decided she would attempt a humble string of leaves, basically copying the pattern of someone who had lived long before she did. She prayed either that Duncan wouldn’t notice or would be kind enough to not comment on her efforts.

She knew him intimately and so much better in the darkness and when they were naked, than she did the laird who prowled the castle grounds in the day. He’d proven a generous lover, greater than she’d ever had or imagined, being both insatiable and then so gratifyingly aroused by her pleasure. She only hoped that she brought him half as much sexual gratification as he did her. While on the whole and considering the circumstances, she had no complaints about her marriage, there was so much about her husband, the man, not only the lover.

If she had any complaint about Duncan, it was only that he’d not taken seriously her certainty that she’d not accidentally locked herself in the crypt. When she’d asked a few nights ago if he’d even looked at the door down there that had so mysteriously been closed, he scoffed at her insinuation.

“’Tis a latch, Holly,” he’d said, his patience sorely tested, she’d deemed. “It dinna need to be dropped or turned into place. As soon as the door closed, it fell into the locked position. Aside from your fright, from which you’ve since recovered, no harm was done. Dinna harass yourself for a simple mistake. The door was nae propped open as you recall, that is all.”

“I’d wedged a small rock against the door, Duncan,” she’d argued.

“You dinna,” he’d countered. “Or you dinna well enough. I found the rock of which you speak, found it a guid foot outside the reach of the door fully open. If you had driven it into the door and it was nae large enough to hold it, it would have closed with the door and have been found inside the crypt, nae on the other side of the door.”

“Obviously, whoever shut the door kicked it out of the way,” as her rebuttal had been mostly ignored.

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