“I received your letter,” Trick said, slowly reclaiming his hand. “Or rather, my wife did, and came after me to deliver it.” He drew Kendra forward. “My wife, the Duchess of Amberley.”
“I’m glad of your acquaintance,” she said, reaching for the man’s outstretched hand. It trembled in her grasp. “Please, just call me Kendra.”
The man’s fingers weakly squeezed hers, feeling hot and dry. “Then you must call me Hamish. It’s pleased I am to meet you.” Dropping her hand, he rolled his head on the pillow, indicating the other couple. “These are my oldest friends, Rhona and Gregor Haig.”
“Your grace.” Rhona rose and curtseyed, first to Trick and then to Kendra. “Your grace.”
Kendra hated the formal address as much as she’d always thought she would. She smiled at the pale woman, wishing she could set her at ease. “I’m glad of your acquaintance,” she said.
“Pleased to meet you,” Rhona returned softly, not quite meeting Kendra’s eyes with her shy blue ones.
Gregor bowed. “Your graces.” Blue-eyed and silver-haired as well, he resembled his wife in the way that long-married couples often did. Kendra wondered if she and Trick might end up like that some day, but casting his golden countenance a glance, decided not.
“Sit,” Hamish said before turning back to Trick. “They’ve been keeping me company.” He paused and grimaced in pain, then blew out a breath. “I’ve fallen ill with the same plague that killed Elspeth, you see, and Rhona here is a fine healer.”
His friend shook her head. “My possets and infusions don’t seem to—”
“Hush, woman. I know you’ve done your best.”
Wiping her hands on the skirts of her cranberry-red gown, Kendra stepped closer. “Your letter said that Elspeth’s illness was inexplicable and alarming—”
“I thought so, at first,” Hamish said. “But it was only that it was such a coincidence, aye, her sending that letter and then…”
When his voice faded, Niall took over. “It seemed such a coincidence that she should claim she was ill and then suddenly succumb. When Da fell ill as well, the doctor came to visit and”—tears flooded the young man’s eyes—“and said they were suffering from a bilious fever. Nothing inexplicable.”
“Did he say it was fatal?” Trick asked.
Niall crossed his arms, his familiar eyes radiating a mixture of grief and denial. “That doctor’s a bampot if ever I met one. Da is stronger than Mam was. He’s not going to die.”
Gregor shook his head mournfully. “Last night, a coal in the shape of a coffin jumped from the fire to the hearth. Right there.” He indicated the fireplace across from the bed.
“Old beggar-woman tales.” Clearly agitated, Niall went to the hearth and grabbed a poker. “I don’t believe such nonsense.”
As if to contradict his son’s opinion, Hamish’s face contorted with another pain, and he bent over double in the bed.
Rhona rushed to his side and pressed a cup filled with vile-looking green liquid to his lips. “Drink, Hamish.” A tear rolled down her wrinkled cheek. “Have a sip for me, will you?”
He did, and then his eyes closed and he seemed to fall asleep. Niall stabbed angrily at the fire, as though daring another coffin-shaped coal to jump out.
Trick moved closer and took Kendra’s hand. “Only at Duncraven,” he muttered under his breath, “is it cold enough in the middle of summer to keep a fire burning day and night.”
“It’s cold within Cainewood’s thick stone walls as well,” she whispered back.
But that was one of few similarities between the two castles. Though both were centuries old, the parts of Cainewood that had been restored were modern and clean, while this place looked aged and worn out. The white paint was chipping off the walls, and cobwebs lurked in the corners.
As the estate’s mistress, she would never stand for such slipshod housekeeping. But Elspeth had been ill these weeks past—perhaps that explained the neglect.
“Come along,” Trick said. “Let’s leave him to sleep.”
“Patrick. Wait. I wish to speak with you.” Hamish forced open his eyes. They looked black, until Kendra realized they were light brown but seriously dilated. The older man’s voice wheezed through paper-dry lips. “About…about your…your mother’s letter.”
“You’re weary, Da.” Niall dropped the poker and crossed to his father. “You’re always better in the morning,” he said, brushing the straggly gray-blond hair off the man’s forehead. “You can speak with Patrick then.”
“Elspeth’s burial is in the morning,” Rhona reminded him in a strangled whisper.
“Oh, aye.” The young man closed his eyes for a moment while he recovered his composure. “Then after,” he said when he opened them. “Or the next day. You don’t have the strength now.”
When his father nodded and rolled to his side with a grimace and a groan, Niall ushered Trick and Kendra from the room.
THIRTY-FIVE
BACK DOWNSTAIRS, Niall beckoned to his newfound brother. “Come, you should sit. This must be quite a shock to you both.”
Trick allowed himself to be led through the crowd of reveling mourners. Servants passed among them, offering plates of oatcakes and shortbread. Goblets filled with spirits sat waiting on a sideboard, and he snatched one as he walked by, drinking deeply.
Beside the great hall’s magnificent canopied fireplace, Niall pushed him into a seat niched into the wall. Trick drank again, then looked around him and leapt to his feet.
“Nay, you belong in the sedile now,” the younger man said, gently easing him back down to the fur that draped the stone bench.
Kendra sat beside Trick in the niche and silently took his hand. He gave her a grateful half-smile. Just as he felt uncomfortable in his father’s English mansion, neither did he feel that he belonged in this sedile—the seat of honor for the master of the house. Against his back, the stone felt too cold, too solemn.
But he did belong here now—that much was the
