Once Upon a Tartan

and now he must have her posthaste. Figure out what his motivations are, and you will be able to wrest her from him.”

Her reasoning was sound, and it spoke to the puzzlement Tye had felt regarding his father’s behavior since the first mention of this Scottish venture.

“I will not make you a promise I do not know I can keep, Hester.”

“Then we do not have an agreement. You had best hope we don’t have a child, either.” She flounced out, every inch a woman intent on having the last word.

He let her have it, silently saluting the library door when she’d gently closed it in her wake.

They had managed to convert an argument into a bargaining session. He decided to be encouraged by that. He was also encouraged that she’d used his given name occasionally, even to express her ire toward him. Then too, she’d given him a great deal to think about regarding his father’s choices in this whole, misguided matter—he was encouraged by this as well.

Though she might not be pregnant.

And he might not be able to meet her terms.

And he was going to have to find his niece two ponies and a rabbit.

And he was leaving in the morning.

Tye went to the sideboard and poured himself a generous portion of whisky, downed it in one swallow, then poured another.

Nine

Fiona found going into Ballater with the knowledge she wasn’t going to come back for quite a while exciting and a little frightening. She sat in the big coach with Aunt Hester on one side and Aunt Ree on the other, the conversation the kind of cheerful talk adults thought up to distract nervous children.

To keep children from missing their mamas and worrying that their mamas might not come fetch them home from Northumbria after all.

“I want to ride with Uncle Tye.”

Over her head, Fee could feel the aunts exchanging a look that spoke silent, grown-up volumes.

“There’s no harm in that,” Aunt Ree said after a small silence. “You’ll be sitting in the train for most of the day, and your uncle ought to understand you need fresh air as much as he does.”

Aunt Hester didn’t say anything. She had not said much of anything all morning, and this too gave Fee an uneasy feeling. Aunt Hester never made things up, never teased and flirted and charmed like Uncle Ian, Aunt Augusta, and even the servants did.

Aunt Hester rapped on the roof three times, and the coach lumbered to a halt. Halfway across the field to the right, Uncle Tye brought Flying Rowan down to the trot and turned for the coach.

“Don’t pet the horse, Fiona,” Aunt Hester said. “You’ll want to keep your hands clean for when you picnic on the train with your uncle.”

Aunt’s voice was tight, like she was keeping more words back than she was parting with.

When Uncle rode up to the window, Aunt Ree explained the delay, and Fee was enormously pleased to find herself shortly up on Rowan, cantering toward the train station. Uncle was quiet today, too, which made Fee think maybe he was homesick or missing his family.

Rowan, though, was in wonderful form, sailing over three stone walls and a burn in fine style. When Uncle brought the horse down to the walk, Fee figured it was as good a time to ask questions as any.

“Do we have to take the train?”

“If we want to arrive in Northumbria before week’s end, yes, we do. Lest you think the prospect of train travel cheers me, Rowan and I are as enamored of trains as you are.”

E-nam-ored. Fee said the word to herself silently three times, and added it to her list of Words Uncle Says. Often she could tell what the word meant from how Uncle used it, and that saved her having to ask.

When they got to Ballater, Uncle got off the horse and did not let Fee get down immediately. Instead, he found a boy to walk Rowan, and when Fee thought she was going to be scooped off the horse, she was instead directed to climb onto her uncle’s back.

“I won’t get lost, Uncle. You can put me down.”

“I need to check for wires at the telegraph office, and you would so get lost. I’d spend half my morning trying to locate you, the other half rearranging our plans when we missed our train, only to find Rowan was already in Aberdeen along with all your trunks.”

He was striding along as he spoke, sounding quite bothered. Fee resigned herself to being Seen And Not Heard, which was something Uncle Con swore was written in the Bible, though nobody had shown Fee where it said that.

When they got to the telegraph office, Uncle collected his wires and stood outside on the boardwalk, reading them almost as if he’d forgotten his own niece was clinging to his back.

“I’m going to swear, Fiona. You will neither emulate me nor tattle on me.” He kept his voice down.

Emulate meant copy. “I like hearing you swear. You’re good at it. Have we missed our train?”

“We have not, but the damned nursemaid I hired to meet us in Aberdeen has developed some mysterious blasted illness, and we will thus be cast upon each other’s exclusive company for the entire perishing journey.”

From the sound of his voice, that was probably a bad thing—to him.

“Can’t Aunt Hester come with us?”

Because Fee was on his back, she felt him sigh, felt the way his chest heaved and his shoulders dropped. It would have been fun, except Uncle was unhappy. He maneuvered her to her feet, took her hand, and led her to a bench with a marvelous view of the train station’s front porches and coach yard.

“I asked your aunt to come with us, and she declined.”

“Is she mad at you?”

“How ever did you gain that impression?”

“She sat next to me at breakfast instead of you, she would not look at you, and she barely ate anything. She was like this when she first came up from London too.”

Uncle looked pained, which left Fee wanting to do something to help. “I can ask her to come with us.”

“Fiona…” He cast a glance at her, looking, for the first time in Fee’s experience, uncertain and a little weary. Her mama had looked like that a lot before she married Papa. “It’s complicated.”

“Are you e-nam-ored of Aunt Hester?”

“Quite.” His smile wasn’t cheerful at all.

“She is e-nam-ored of you, too. You made her smile, a real smile too, not just for show so I’d leave her alone.”

“I made her very upset with me when I revealed that I wanted to take you away to Northumbria. She regarded it as a betray—” He scrubbed a hand over his face and lifted his gaze as if he were talking to God. “I cannot believe I am discussing my amatory failures with a child.”

Fee did not know what amatory meant, but she knew all too well what failure was.

She patted her uncle’s arm, which was like patting a rock. “I get in trouble all the time. You apologize, and you behave for a while, and you try to do better next time. Everybody makes mistakes, even Aunt Hester. She told me so herself.”

“Thank you for that sage advice.”

“Uncle, you have to at least try.” He was being thickheaded. Aunt Augusta said men were prone to this. Mama had not argued with her over it.

“Child, I cannot make your aunt forgive me, I cannot undo the hurt I’ve done, and I cannot change my father’s mind once it is made up.”

It occurred to Fee that he was Being Impossible, but when she was Being Impossible, it was usually because she was upset, tired, and hungry.

“Uncle, you try to fix what you did wrong not so you can have dessert and get a story before bed. You do it because you’re a good person and you don’t want anybody’s feelings to be hurt.”