Chapter 27
Part 3: Unawakened
Scottish Lowlands, 1807
"Does everyone have everything?" Augusta MacLeish stood beside the wagon that held her four younger siblings and studied their faces. "It's a long way to make poor Thomas come back if you've forgotten your favorite hair ribbons." She stared hard at thirteen-year old Alberta at that. Bertie was forever forgetting things. Thomas McArdle, their lone male servant winked at her from the driver's box.
"You checked my bag yourself, Gussie," Bertie replied. "Can we go now?"
"Arthur, you have your indoor shoes, right? No wearing your muddy boots inside Lady Carter's parlor."
"Yes, Gus," twelve-year-old Arthur, the baby of the family said with a long-suffering sigh. "We're fine. And if we don't go now, we'll miss luncheon."
The Carter's estate was a two-hour ride in the farm cart that was all the MacLeishes had left in the way of transportation. The carriage had been sold within months of their father's death, some three years back.
"We'll be fine." At sixteen, Alexandra was blossoming into a beauty, with big blue eyes, long slender limbs and blonde hair that hung in shining waves to her waist. She was also the one usually at the center of any mischief the four of them got up to. "I'll take care of them."
Augusta managed not to roll her eyes. "No pranks. It is uncommonly generous of Lady Carter to invite all of you for the week. Do not embarrass yourselves." Sir James and Lady Carter were the only members of local society who still bothered to include the impoverished MacLeish children in their invitations, even if Arthur was officially Viscount Cairnwyck. Since Lady Carter had been a dear friend of Augusta's stepmother and the Carter children ran the same gamut of ages as the younger MacLeishes, the two families had always been very close. Still, it was kind of the Carters to ask them all to Sylvester's fourteenth birthday party.
"You should come too, Gussie," said fifteen-year-old Antonia, looking up from her book. Her dark eyes were clouded behind her spectacles. "I worry about you here alone in the castle."
"She can't," Lexie replied. "Vicar Ellsworth will be there and he'll have his grubby paws all over her."
Augusta sighed. Lexie, bless her, didn't miss a trick. But as she was now getting close to marriageable age herself, she needed to learn to mind her manners.
"I'm looking forward to some time alone, anyway," she assured Toni, quite honestly. Besides, she'd cut the last of her stepmother's dresses down to fit Lexie's burgeoning figure. There was nothing left to make decent party clothes out of for Augusta as well. Thomas's wife Margaret, their housekeeper, was going along to act as servant for the girls, so Augusta would have Cairnwyck Castle all to herself for seven whole days. Taking care of only herself would really be quite a luxury.
"I promise, I'll be fine," she repeated, drawing her shawl closer around her shoulders. "Have a wonderful time and give my love to the Carters."
She stood by the drawbridge and waved as the cart rolled away.
Two days later, Augusta walked the four miles back from the village with a scowl on her face. The letter from her father's solicitor fairly burned a hole through her pocket. There would be no funds arriving this quarter-day. None. Except for the pittance she and Margaret made selling eggs and butter, the MacLeish family would have nothing at all on which to survive. She shivered, despite the warmth of the sunny June evening.
"Damn and blast!" Disastrous times called for disastrous words and it wasn't like anyone was around to hear her anyway. "I'm going to have to knuckle under and marry the bloody vicar." Which wouldn't be so awful if he hadn't been forty-five, balding and pockmarked. And if he didn't live with his sister, who despised Augusta with every fiber of her being. Still, the odious man would at least make sure the children were fed and that was the most important thing.
She crossed the moat on the rickety footbridge, having left the big drawbridge up while she was gone. There was an ominous cracking sound under her foot as she reached the end and she jumped to the next board before she could fall through. "Damn again!" She'd have to have Thomas replace that board first thing. It was a good thing there were fallen trees on the property and she'd traded half the lumber for running one through the local sawmill last spring. Nails, however, might be a trick. Castle Cairnwyck, for all its former glory, was out of almost everything.
"Ho, there!"
Augusta had been so caught up in her worries she hadn't even heard the horse that rounded the curve in the lane behind her. She'd just stepped onto the path at the end of the bridge, but at the man's voice, she swung around in confusion. Who could this possibly be? It wasn't anyone she knew, so he had to be a random traveler asking for directions. Or something. She shaded her eyes with her hand as she looked out across the moat.
"Good afternoon." Politeness was bred into her, even though her heart leapt with a small frisson of fear. She was completely alone here and this was a young, powerful man on an even more powerful steed. Without her spectacles, which had broken last month, she couldn't see much more than that - and even his relative youth was a guess based on voice and the easy way he handled the massive horse.
"I'm here to speak with Miss MacLeish. Is she at home?" He stopped his horse directly across the bridge from Augusta, allowing her to see him a bit more clearly. He wore a blue coat, buff trousers and gleaming black boots, any one piece of which probably cost more than her annual butcher's bill. Augusta, on the other hand, was wearing a four-year-old pelisse that had been let out twice and mended a dozen times. Of course he thought she was a servant.
"I don't believe she is receiving callers," Augusta replied primly. "Can I tell her who's asking?"
"Bruxton," the man replied haughtily. "I am the lady's guardian."
Augusta felt all the blood drain from her face and she swayed on her feet. Lord Bruxton? The man who had ignored them since their father's death and squandered all their funds? What could he want now? Surely, he wasn't here to take the children? She took two steps backward to lean on the castle wall so she didn't fall over.
"What the - " Lord Bruxton kicked his horse across the bridge, which had been built just wide enough to accommodate a single rider.
"No!" Augusta held up her hand to stop him, remembering the rotted board at the very last moment, but it was too late. The aged wood splintered under the animal's rear hoof and the poor beast scrabbled for purchase, unseating his rider. Augusta watched in horror as the man flew from the back of his mount and fell to the ground, striking his head on the wooden post anchoring the bridge. The horse managed to reach the bank, his flashing hooves barely missing his rider.