Page 28 of Beyond Dreams
She was still pretty confused about her own mystifying circumstance, still didn’t know enough about Duncan MacQuillan or any man of this time period to know if it was permissible for her to spend time with him. And so she didn’t challenge him in this regard, didn’t remind him that if he had any wish to consummate their marriage, he would need to spend time with her. Frankly, as hot as he was, she wasn’t in any hurry to sleep with him, hardly able to forget that she was a fraud, wanting to escape the fourteenth century.
And so she kept her mouth shut.
She perked up briefly when his stepmother, Doirin, and her daughter, Moire, came to the hall and to the table. Finally, someone to talk to. The silence between her and Duncan had grown long and uncomfortable. But one look from Doirin, eyeing Holly without any hint of kindness, Holly abandoned any idea that she might engage with her during the meal.
Doirin and Moire sat side by side on Duncan’s other side.
Holly thought it both rude and intentional that the conversation that ensued between Doirin and Duncan, instigated by his stepmother, was spoken in their own language. She had no choice then but to believe they were talking about her but tried her best to appear as if she weren’t interested, even as Duncan said something sharply, which she hoped was him defending her in some way.
When people began to rise from the benches and take their leave, Holly’s stomach clenched with a new concern. What the hell was she supposed to do all day?
Since Duncan had barely given her any attention in the quarter hour she’d sat beside him, Holly turned to Graeme for the answer.
“Excuse me, sir,” she said, when there was a noticeable break in his conversation with the man next to him.
Graeme turned his green eyes upon her. His eyes were brighter than Duncan’s and clearly more friendly than his cousin’s, and if he had been the one to come to her in her dreams, if she felt she had any connection with him instead of Duncan, she might have wished to be married to him.
“My lady?”
“Oh, gosh,” she said, a disquieted frown hovering, “I hope you will call me Holly.My ladysounds and feels weird.”
“I hope, instead, that you will grow accustomed to it,” he returned politely, “so that I am not forced to dishonor you by addressing you with such familiarity.”
Holly rolled her eyes at this and argued his point. “And I hope that you realize dishonor is not—” she paused, seeing little hope in his implacable features. Kindly he might be, but he was obviously not about to dishonor her, apparently. “Forget it. Anyway, um, who do I talk to about what I should be doing all day?” She’d lowered her voice, not wanting either Duncan or Doirin to overhear. At Graeme’s puzzled frown, she attached a bit of an explanation, most of it fabricated, for what might seem like an odd request. “I’m a little lost without Sidheag and um, they didn’t teach me so much at the convent.”Apologies to medieval nuns everywhere if I’m wrong about this. Graeme still wore a quizzical frown, compelling Holly to lower her voice yet more. God, she hoped she hadn’t misread his earlier, affable expression. “I don’t know what—howto be his wife. I mean, I do in some regards...” she muttered, and her face turned scarlet. She closed her eyes and gathered herself, contemplating her next words. Meeting Graeme’s now merely curious gaze, she asked, “What does the wife of a laird do all day? Where do I start? I have...Graeme, I have no idea what is expected of me.”
This seemed to appease him, as far as an explanation for her question. He nodded and pointed over his shoulder with his thumb. When he spoke, he used a much quieter voice as Holly had, for which she was grateful.
“Kitchen is through there, my lady,” he said. “When you’re done here, you’ll go there. You’ll introduce yourself to Red Moll—can’t miss her, her name tells you what to look for. She’ll feign a loftiness she’s nae in command of, and then you’ll explain to her just what you’ve said to me. And I vow to you, my lady, she’ll be tickled in fancy for the lady of the keep wanting to learn how to manage it. She’ll nae lead you in error, nae in any way, been about the management of Thallane since Dunc was a wee lad.”
So much said in his answer. First, she was pretty sure she’d already seen Red Moll and then was pleased to know that her animosity might only have been a fleeting reaction. Next, Holly believed Graeme had just thrown some shade at Doirin, mentioning how pleased Moll would be for the lady to want to manage her own keep, as if Doirin certainly had not.
She had one more question for Graeme. She thought it best to ask him and not Red Moll.
“And Graeme, what is the, ah, pecking order here? Like, am I...do I have...who do I answer to?” She only wanted to know if she ranked higher than Doirin, since she had a suspicion she would come up often against that woman, that Doirin would be pleased to make her life unpleasant.
Graeme didn’t smile outright, but there was definitely some merriment behind the green of his eyes.
He leaned closer to her and answered plainly. “Many ken they wield power here at Thallane, my lady. But ken this, the laird rules supreme inside the demesne. His is the word of law. Red Moll will instruct you as needed on what must needs inside the keep. However, as the lady of Thallane—of any keep for that matter—is effectively laird and chief when her husband is away, it would serve you well to ken all that you can about every aspect of Thallane, the running of the full estate. You’ll want to trust that knowledge to—” he turned, but the man in the long tunic had since departed the dining hall while they’d been speaking. “That was Roland there, Thallane’s steward. I might suggest you meet with him fairly soon and then often. Aye, and that’s the long answer. The short answer, my lady, is that aside from Dunc, the power is yours. Everyone who dwells within the parameters of Thallane must answer to you.” He winked at her. “And Dunc, too, in short order, and on that I’ll be wagering my coin.”
She grinned at this, even as the very concept was absurd.
“Thank you for that answer, Graeme,” she said sincerely, “and for not treating me as if my questions were bizarre, or as if I were an idiot for asking them. I have just one more. Am I allowed to simply wander about? Like, through the castle, or in the yard?”
He nodded. “Roam as you please, my lady,” he said but then cautioned her, “only dinna step foot outside the gate. Nae yet anyway, until you get your bearings here, that is.”
“Okay, thank you.
After he’d acknowledged her gratitude with a tip of his head, Holly pushed her chair back and rose to her feet. “If you will excuse me,” she said, and briefly included Duncan in her departure, bobbing her head at him before she left the hall.
If she could do as she pleased—while staying inbounds, of course—and since her husband wasn’t interested in showing her anything, Holly went directly outdoors. The gloom of the dreary dining hall was not what she needed today. The sun was bright and cheerful, which almost immediately improved her mood.
She smiled at a man pushing a wheelbarrow across the yard and gave a little wave as a hello. He stared at her as he passed right to left in front of her, but his expression never changed to say that he either understood or approved of her greeting. Undeterred, Holly glanced around the yard. The stables here were much larger than at Hewgill House, taking up one entire inner side of the curtain wall and being two stories tall. The roof sloped away from the stone wall, being made of tile in one section and thatch in another. While she thought horses majestic and beautiful, she didn’t know anything about them and so didn’t approach them. No other interior building, some of which looked like simple lean-tos, called out to her, though she noticed several men peering out at her from under the low hanging roofs as she moved away from the door and around the yard.
Around the back of the house was a smaller yard. In one corner was a pen and a short, covered structure that looked kind of like a big dog house. Inside the fenced area, several pigs sniffed and snacked on whatever was on the ground there. In another area was a small garden, the area not more than ten by ten maybe, and kneeling within the tall green plants was a woman, who appeared to be weeding the bed. Holly approached with some hope—for what she was not sure—and then was rebuffed without a word when her shadow fell over the woman, and she was confronted with a frosty glare.
Moving on from there, she climbed a staircase that was built of stone into the wall. The steps were uneven, some rising only a few inches while others rose a foot or more. They were narrow as well, not more than a foot and a half wide, and there was no railing on the open side. Holly leaned one hand on the wall as she ascended, not daring to look down, more than once rethinking this trek as she climbed so high, to the top of the curtain wall.
Ah, but the slightly nerve-wracking climb was quickly forgotten when she reached the battlements, gasping in amazement at what lay before her, the view of the clear blue sea under the dawning sky. The sun, well behind her in the east, shone brilliantly on the water, sparkling and glistening. It was almost magical, the effect. She could see for miles around, she was sure. Directly below the curtain wall, still in morning shadows, was a cliff, neither too sheer nor too far down to the beach. White sand stretched out at the base of the dark, sea-washed cliffs. Though Thallane was situated on an arm that pointed out into the sea, there appeared to be several bays and tidal pools along its western front, where the cliffs met the sea.