The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4) (6 page)

“Maybe you’d prefer to starve.”

Sighing her defeat, Morrigan collected the basket of dirty linens and started out to the close, but Beatrice stopped her.

“Before you do that, go and freshen a room for Isabel. Then I suppose you should spend a bit of time with her. I have better things to do than listen to her complain about being ignored.”

“But I thought… you said—”

“Keep a civil tongue, Miss, and do what I tell you.”

The woman was beyond comprehension.

“I’ve done it this time, Mama,” Morrigan said as she climbed the narrow rear staircase to the second storey. Conversing with Hannah leant a fancy that the one person she longed to know above all others might not be so completely lost as death implied, and had become a habit so long ago she’d lost its beginnings.

When she reached her bedroom, she unplaited her hair and worked a comb through it. “To hell with him. I’ll ride again as soon as he turns his back.”

She knew she was bluffing, though. Experience had long ago taught that bravado, undaunted in her bedroom with the door closed, would thaw like an icicle against her father’s angry stare and the warning slap of the leather tawse, forked at one end, that he kept hanging in the barn for disciplining his children. She suspected the tawse was only meant to instill fear, as he most often used his fists.

She changed her dress, donned a clean white apron, and rewound her hair into a proper knot. A few months ago, Beatrice had carelessly mentioned that Morrigan’s hair was much like Hannah’s, probably never realizing how from that moment, every time Morrigan put it up, she would think of her mother, and suffer pangs of loss all over again.

Morrigan often searched Beatrice’s face in hopes of glimpsing something of Hannah. They’d been sisters, after all. But Beatrice’s lined, dour, heavy features never came close to the description Nicky had offered, though his own memories were vague at best, or Morrigan’s own fantasy. Maybe it wasn’t fair to compare the two women. Hannah had died young, still resonating with youthful ardor, and would remain fresh and beautiful forever to all who had known her.

“I wish you were here,” she said as she hung up her discarded skirt and brushed it vigorously. “Papa wouldn’t be this way if he still had you, would he?” Surely Douglas hadn’t considered his own wife a misbegotten leech.

Nothing happened, no ghostly voice or any other spectral sign of comfort. Jingling the keys on her chatelaine, she went off to tidy one of the guestrooms, replaying Mr. Ramsay’s smooth manner of speech as she plumped the pillows on the creaky four-poster. Maybe he’d attended one of those grand old English universities, she thought with envy. Though his accent couldn’t compare with good Lowland Scots, it was inviting, like drowsing in a meadow on a sunny day. How strange, when she’d always been told Highland folk were coarse and ignorant. Beatrice often said she should count her blessings to have grown up in the Low Country.

How would it feel, to be married to such a braw young gentleman? Would being a wife, in the end, be no more pleasant than being a daughter? She was expected to trade her father for a husband, to never strike out on her own or create her own destiny. Sometimes it made her want to punch a hole in the wall. There was no doubt a good reason for all the rules and expectations surrounding females, but what was it? Women possessed no means to threaten men. A woman’s entire existence, whether fine or not, depended solely on the goodwill of the males in her life.

Such thoughts would probably never have occurred to her if it weren’t for school and the dominie, and the books he’d given her to read, and the hours they had spent talking about ancient civilizations. He’d suggested there may have been places, in long lost times, where women made the laws. And he’d laughed at the way her initial shock had transformed into captivated imaginings.

Beatrice’s polish, made of beeswax and a drop of chamomile, leant the room a sweet apple scent. Morrigan arranged cut daisies in a glass vase and placed it on the commode. She checked the coal box, cleaned a dead spider out of the china basin, and filled the spill holder with splints, though the weather was grand and there would be no need of a fire.

Mr. Ramsay doubtless had servants to tend such mundane duties. His wife would have no more to fill her days than deciding what to serve for dinner and which jewel to fasten about her pampered white throat.

Part of Morrigan’s imagination urged a coward’s retreat until he’d gone, while another embellished a picture of herself freed of drudgery, dressed in silk, one languid hand resting on his capable arm, the other extended to welcome admiring guests.

Without a dowry, title, or land, no woman could hope to achieve such a status, and certainly not a country wench with chapped hands and bitten fingernails. Though gentlemen seemed to enjoy flirting with Douglas Lawton’s daughter, they always left without any sign of regret.

She had been a plain child. When she’d been sent into town, not even the bullies noticed her. She’d liked being invisible. It gave her freedom to observe folk without them knowing. She had overheard bitter arguments between husbands and wives who would have kept silent had they realized someone was listening. She’d watched couples in dim
wynds
, amazed and shocked at the nasty things they did. She’d seen the bullies take out after boys they wanted to persecute, and harass girls they thought pretty, or ugly, or different.

Nowadays, she couldn’t take a step in town without drawing attention. She’d developed a habit of walking quickly with her head down, her shoulders drawn up, though the sense of having done something wrong, or of being wrong, merely because of the way she looked, made her inwardly blaze with indignation.

It felt as though she was more appreciated yet less appreciated at the same time.

The stares of men told her she was no longer a skinny lass with tangled plaits. It was unnerving, especially when low whistles accompanied the stares, or murmuring was followed by coarse laughter. Only the shameless inner Morrigan wanted to flaunt and flutter and use folk. Even now, as she descended the stairs, the sinful lass suggested that if she would turn the force of her beauty on Mr. Ramsay, she might win her longed-for escape.

But no. She was not so daft. Gentlemen married to benefit their stations, and lasses who thought they could change that paid a heavy price.

Theseus didn’t exist. He’d never really lived. He was a myth, a legend, as was her dream-lover, a fantasy of her overzealous imagination.

In an hour Curran Ramsay’s elbows would be propped on the ferry rail, his face turned to the wind, and it wasn’t likely he would ever come back. In fact, he might thank his God for the narrow escape from marriage-obsessed women and their penniless spinster nieces.

When would Aunt Isabel relinquish these hopeless matchmaking efforts?

Morrigan paused on the front stairs as she glimpsed Isabel’s young golden male through the open doorway into the dining room. Light poured through the window, making a halo of his hair, and a signet ring glinted on the little finger of his right hand. The man outright dazzled, like the sun had come alive and slipped into their home.

For a moment, she was confused by a sense of familiarity. She derided herself for the fancy, yet it persisted, this feeling that someone very dear, missing for an ungodly length of time, had at last returned.

Her aunt was regaling him with tales of an Edinburgh holiday she’d taken with Uncle Gregor. Mr. Ramsay’s expression was so politely engaged Morrigan couldn’t hazard a guess to his thoughts.

If she could travel, maybe she would acquire the ability to engage in sophisticated discourse with handsome gentlemen. Oh, to have confidence. It would be grand. Whenever Beatrice or Douglas ordered Morrigan to entertain their guests in the parlor, she spent the whole time damning her blushes, straining to think of the next stilted topic, and trying to remember not to bite her fingernails, which she always ended up doing anyway.

Seldom had the task of determining a man’s designation been so easy. She watched him laugh at something Isabel said and felt her lips curve in response, though she hadn’t caught more than a word or two.

Years ago, while reading about Robert Burns, she’d learned Scotland’s beloved poet put men into two categories: grave and merry. She’d adopted the game, and ever since grouped whatever male she met into one box or the other. Nicky was merry. Though he had dark interludes, they never suffocated his innate cheerfulness for long. Douglas landed with ease into an ominous container labeled “graver than grave.”

Curran Ramsay was definitely merry.

“There you are,” Isabel said when she entered. “Mr. Ramsay and I are sharing tales of Edinburgh.”

“I’ve never been farther than Ballantrae,” she admitted.

“Believe it or not,” Ramsay said, “I spent the first seven years of my life here, in a house on Rose Street. Three cousins live there still. I can’t believe I’ve never noticed the Wren’s Egg before.” He smiled and his eyes subtly darkened as he added, “I must remedy that error in the future.” He paused, then drew in a decisive breath and stood. “Mrs. Maclean, Miss Lawton, if you will excuse me, I believe I should make my way to the ferry.”

“I’ll fetch you something for the trip over.” Morrigan wanted to show, in an unobtrusive way, how much she appreciated his kindness to her aunt. She added, “You’re welcome to take our trap and leave it there. My brother can fetch it later.”

Isabel said, “No need to bother Nicky. I’ll go with Mr. Ramsay and bring it home myself.”

When Ramsay looked at her, Morrigan didn’t lower her face but smiled for the first time. It felt braw to allow it, like water bursting free from a broken dam. He returned the smile, and for one instant, Ibby, the inn, and her life vanished into a golden wave of warmth and comfort.

She turned and fled to the kitchen, fearing utter loss of self-control.

Cheese, a cold kidney pie, and a half-bottle of decent Strathisla went into a wicker hamper cushioned with a towel. As she approached the barn, she saw Nicky had escaped the fields after all and was harnessing Widdie to the trap. The difference between the two lads struck her: one black-headed, ragged, sweat-stained, and grimy, the other elegant and clean, bright as the brass bell atop the Presbyterian kirk on Bridge Street.

“Thank you, Miss Lawton.” Ramsay relieved her of the hamper. “I look forward to our next meeting.”

Was that a blush on his cheeks? Aye, it was slight, but there. She’d always thought she was the only fool on Earth cursed with that betraying affliction. She’d never seen Nicky, her father, or Beatrice show any sign of embarrassment.

A longer visit would’ve been pleasant. She imagined him sharing tales of swift dogs and diamond-crusted Highland castles. But there was no help for it. She didn’t believe his promise to return for an instant, and knew she’d never see him again.

“Goodbye,” she said, adding, “Good luck with the puppy.”

He frowned almost imperceptibly before swinging up onto the seat beside her aunt and taking the reins.

Isabel clapped one hand to her hat and waved with the other. “Don’t run off, dears. I’ll soon be back, and I’ll want to hear your news.”

As they rolled away, turning towards the wharf, an eagle swooped overhead; it soared past the barn, flying so low Morrigan heard the wind through its wing feathers. She stared at it, charmed by its grace and beauty.

“Seems a fair sort,” Nicky commented. He scratched his earlobe and waved off a bumblebee.

“She said she met him in Glasgow. His name’s Ramsay.”

“Didn’t she tell you who he is?”

“She said something about knowing him when he was young.”

“Curran Ramsay babbed you on his lap when you were an infant.” Reaching for a shovel, he scooped up Widdie’s leavings and tossed them on the midden heap. “Da half-feared he’d drop you on your head.”

She didn’t much care for the picture of that sophisticated gentleman carrying her about in her hippins. “Where? Glenelg?”

“Aye. Curran Ramsay’s father is the one who found Da this innkeeper’s fee.”

She cuffed him on the shoulder. “I knew you were lying. Sir MacAndrew’s our landlord.”

His eyes narrowed and she saw revenge coming. “We wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for Thomas Ramsay, who wrote the letter of recommendation. No doubt we’d have starved long ago in whatever’s left of that sorry pile of rubble.”

“Nobody told me.”

He leaned close with a fiendish grin. “Because you’re a daft, useless karriewhitchet,” he mocked. Lifting his thumb and forefinger, he flicked her cheek.

“Don’t call me that!” She rubbed at the sting. “I’m almost twenty and I’ve run the Wren’s Egg for at least ten years. You should respect me.”

Laughter brightened his eyes, but he blocked her threatened punch. “You turned eighteen not six months ago, you run nothing and never have, and you must
earn
respect by cultivating a modest air, producing fourteen weans, and learning how to cook.”

Beatrice scolded from the kitchen door. “Morrigan, can you be bothered to finish the washing?”

“The washing,” she said. “And if it’s no’ the wash, it’s dusting, or the bloody milking, or boiling the jams….”

“Well, you’d best show Da you’ve done
something
.” Nicky ladled water over his head then rested one big hand on her shoulder. “Have ye seen our unicorn?” he said, close to her ear. “She comes out when the moon is full… stands right under your window, polishing her horn on an arse as white as milk and glittery as a star. You should look for her.”

“If she’s not careful, everyone will see,” Morrigan said, “and they’ll make us change the name of the inn to the Silver Unicorn.”

“Like it always should’ve been.” Tightening his grip briefly, her brother gave her a cockeyed grin and sauntered off to his labors.

A fanciful poet— that was the Nicky nobody ever saw but Morrigan. Not Papa, not Beatrice, not even his closest cronies, she’d wager. Especially not them.

In the close, Morrigan removed her shoes and stockings. She’d taught herself to enjoy the washing, as she could do it without giving it much thought, and could allow herself to stray into flights of fancy. She was re-envisioning Curran Ramsay’s face before she had her sleeves rolled up.