Journey to Bliss (Saskatchewan Saga Book #3) (6 page)

“He’s no lad, Da. He’s older’n I am . . . old enough to have some sense and to know better, I’d think.”

“It makes perfect sense to him,” Paul said bitterly. “Dinna ye know, lass, that the laird has full say o’ all of his tenants? All o’ us is at his beck and call, and that goes for the young laird too.”

“Even wives and sons and dauties, is that what ye’re sayin’?”

“That’s the way it is. It’s always been that way, and it always will. Ye have nae right tae think things’ll be any different.”

“Are you tellin’ me, Da, that he can get away wi’ . . . wi’ whatever it is he’s threatenin’, and naebody can say him nay—not e’en me own father?”

“Not me, nor yer brothers. So leave them oot o’ it, ye hear? I dinna want them in any mair trouble than they have a’ready. Ye hear me, Anne?”

Anne, more blinded by tears than when Lucian had so summarily struck her and more injured in ways that matter, put supper on the table and escaped to the loft. Here she stayed throughout the evening and night, never coming down to subject herself to her brothers and a further confession, from them, of helplessness in the face of Lucian’s abuse.

Cook, the next day, gave Anne’s face a keen look and shook her head, muttering darkly, but apparently not surprised. Mrs. Case, the housekeeper, studied Anne’s face grimly and set her to cleaning silverware rather than servicing the rooms above stairs.

“I can’t keep you downstairs forever,” she said almost crossly, as though angry at the need to face the problem. “You aren’t the first in the world, by any means, to have such a problem. It’s the price you pay for having a pretty face.” She spoke as if it were Anne’s problem, not Lucian’s. “If you’re lucky it’ll be a passing phase. These things never last; no young laird can think seriously of a serving girl or maid. Lucian knows that; he knows his place, all right. Just keep out of his way. And if you can’t—” Mrs. Case shrugged and left her sentence unfinished.

Later in the day Anne was sent to Binkiebrae by Mrs. Case, almost coming face-to-face with Tierney. Having been adjured to say only that she had tripped and fallen and hurt herself, and knowing she could not lie to Tierney, Anne had hastened on her way, heart beating hard and sobs near the surface. Even so, Tierney suspected, Anne knew that.

The second confrontation with Lucian took place in one of the upstairs bedrooms, not Lucian’s. Anne had been careful not to enter his room whenever he was in it. Laying a fire in one of the guest rooms, she heard the door open and close behind her. Turning her head she saw Lucian leaning against the door, a triumphant smile on his face.

“Think you’re smart, don’t you, slipping around, avoiding me. Well, I knew you couldn’t do it forever. And here you are! And on your knees! Perfect, just perfect. Before you get up,
Fanny
, apologize for your rudeness the other day and I might, I
just might, let you get away with it. In fact, I promise I will—if you ask me properly. Now what do you say,
Fanny?
”

Anne never knew what prompted her; she would never understand where she got her courage. But her brain, icily calm, seemed to put words into her mouth, deliberate words, coldly spoken.

“I told you me name is Anne.”

The words seemed innocent enough, but they both knew she was insisting on her independence. No matter his anger, she stubbornly insisted on her right to be her own person.

About to rise from her knees, she was startled when Lucian leaped across the room, bent, and savagely took her by the throat, pressing cruelly, while his face was thrust into hers.

“Who cares what your name is, you stupid jade! It’s your position that counts, and you’ve got the proper one—on your knees! Don’t you know I have the right to treat you like the baggage you are?”

Lucian’s hands, slim as a woman’s, had remarkable strength. In the awkward position of kneeling, Anne had no leverage, nothing in her favor for breaking free. Choking, pulling at his hands, the best she could do was scratch, which she did, raking great gouges into Lucian’s flesh. Finally, with a curse, he let go, throwing her sideways and down, so that she lay, gulping great gasps of air into her lungs, unable for the moment to so much as get to her feet.

Where it all might have ended is a question, but there came a tap on the door that the young man had cannily locked behind him. Lucian’s mother, Mrs. MacDermott herself, called out in low but carrying tones, “Lucian, are you in there? Come out, dear. Your guests are waiting, and the carriage is ready. Lucian?”

“Coming, Mother.” Lucian’s voice was sweetly obedient, and the smile had returned to his face. Just that sweetly, just that smilingly, he kicked the recumbent figure lying prone on the rug at his feet, stepped to the door, turned, looked down, and said gravely, “Good little girls have nice things happen to
them. Keep that in mind, Fanny. Don’t forget it again; be a good girl, and you still may have nice things happen to you.”

That Sunday, at kirk, Anne had spoken the enigmatic word that she knew would bring Tierney to see her: “Eggs,” she had whispered. She knew her friend would see through the small subterfuge and respond.

But before that moment arrived, Pauly came into the house with a battered face.

“Pauly!” Anne cried, appalled, reaching a hand toward her brother.

“Leave me be!” Pauly half sobbed. “Ye’ve done enough a’ready!”

“Me? What’ve I done?”

“Don’t ye know that that scum, Lucian, can do whatever he wants, and we’ve no rights of our own? Jist know this—me and Da and Sam, we’re payin’ for yer almighty independence! Ye might as well give in and git it over and put behind ye, jist like generations of lasses have had to do. What makes ye think it’ll be any different for ye?”

And Pauly, hurting and bitter, refused to allow his sister to minister to his bloody face, and lay down on a pallet near the fireplace, put his head in his arms, and would say no more.

When Tierney came, any notion of sharing her problems was silenced. Though she needed desperately to talk, it occurred to Anne that the long arm of the MacDermotts reached into the heart of Binkiebrae. Would the Caulders inexplicably lose their house? Would James find his boat confiscated for some vague reason? Would Tierney herself come under the scrutiny and attention of the loose-living, free-thinking Lucian?

“I canna talk aboot it,” she had said to Tierney, and she would not be persuaded.

Perhaps, with discretion and care, she could avoid any further contact with Lucian. Perhaps, before long, he would return to Edinburgh and society life, and all of them on the crofts and in Binkiebrae could breathe easily again.

It was not to be.

Evening was coming on, tea over and chores done, when Anne left home to make her way toward a small house on the edge of Binkiebrae, this time with several newly hatched baby chicks in her basket, a gift for old Maggie.

She was absorbed in checking on the chicks, running a finger lightly over their downy heads as she went, and so heard the approaching horse’s hooves too late. Caution, ordinarily, would have sent her scuttling for the brush at the side of the road in time to avoid a confrontation with Lucian, if it were indeed he.

By the time she recognized him, pride kept her in the middle of the road, kept her moving, chin up, eyes straight ahead, mouth suddenly dry, heart beating hard.

Lucian drew his horse to a halt. When he saw that Anne continued on her way, he flushed an angry red, yanked his horse around so that he came abreast of her, and pulled in front of her.

“Hold on, Fanny. Haven’t we got some business to take care of?”

Still Anne did not pause but routed herself around Lucian and his mount, walking steadily, silently, though the hand on the basket shook and the chicks set up a twitter.

Once again, now cursing angrily, Lucian yanked the animal around and came alongside the doggedly proceeding Anne. Again he pulled in front of her; again she attempted to sidestep rider and horse. She never made it.

Curses exploding from his twisted mouth, Lucian removed his foot from the stirrup, pulled it back, and with a powerful kick from his heavily booted foot sent Anne staggering, stumbling back, turning an ankle badly in the process. Before she could right herself Lucian sprang from the saddle and, for no reason at all except meanness, kicked the fallen basket so that it bounced and rolled, the chicks escaping to run peeping into the grass. With surprising strength for one with his girlish build, he gathered a handful of Anne’s clothing into his fist and pulled her startled, wide-eyed face to within inches of his own.

“This is as far as you go, Miss Hoity-toity!”

Anne was small, Anne was womanly, but Anne was a fighter. The pain of the ankle was forgotten as she battled the raging, cursing youth. Lucian’s purposes seemed clear; he kept his grip on Anne’s clothes and began dragging her toward the weeds and brush at the road’s edge. With one booted foot he tripped her feet, already unsteady, and toppled Anne to the dusty road. From there it was simpler to drag her, with her torn hands grasping at the roadside growth and her feet scrabbling to gain leverage. Lucian’s punches, Lucian’s kicks, Lucian’s questing hands—all found more than they could deal with in the raging, spitting, fighting scrap of humanity that was Anne Fraser. When Lucian’s feet became entangled in the undergrowth and he lost his balance, falling heavily on the thrashing, heaving body, he lost his advantage.

With a strength she didn’t know she had, Anne pushed with both hands, drawing up her knees and shoving with them at Lucian until the tender anatomy was excruciatingly gouged. Lucian rolled, screaming, from her, to huddle in the fetal position, cradling himself in his own arms and sobbing.

Anne made her escape, crawling into the brush and hiding until Lucian gained some measure of control, got to his feet, limped to the road, and headed down it in pursuit of the missing horse, still moaning, still cursing, threatening.

Already near Binkiebrae, and not wanting to go in the same direction as Lucian, Anne determined to reach the Caulder home, and Tierney. Greatly hampered by the sprained ankle, her progress had been slow—a crawl much of the way, a limping walk at times. Soiled, clothing torn, battered and degraded—but intact, Anne reached the Caulder doorstep the victor.

“But I can never go through it again,” she concluded, her eyes reflecting, in the firelight, the horror of her experience. “Whatever am I going to do, Tierney? Whaur can I go that I can escape the MacDermotts? How can I ever be safe again?”

I
t
was Tierney herself who took the word the following morning to the Frasers that Anne was in Binkiebrae and would be staying, for the time being, with the Caulders.

Paul Fraser laid aside his pitchfork and walked with Tierney from the great stables to the yard. Though his face took on a red, congested appearance, his voice, when he spoke, was controlled.

But it was grim. “Perhaps that’s best,” he said. “Lord knows I canna do muckle for her. And her brothers—weel, Pauly learned the hard way; he’ll no’ be protectin’ his sister any mair, the young master seen to that. Oh, Pauly’s bigger and stronger, a’reet, but one raises his hand to his master—and his master’s son—verra carefully indaid. I mysel’ barely stoppit the brawl that was a’risin’, and thereby saved our Pauly from heaven alone knows wha’ terrible consequences.”

Paul Fraser shook his head, while his defeated eyes gazed into space, refusing to look at Tierney as he confessed his inability
to stand up for his daughter against his employer and master. And that master’s son, bully that he was.

“I dinna know,” he continued, “how long Anne can get away wi’ stayin’ wi’ ye. I’ll tell them, up at the big hoose, that she’s sick, but I dinna know how long ’twill work. I seen the young master come limpin’ in last night; in a foul mood, he was, and his clo’es torn and dairty. I kep’ me’sel’ oot o’ his way. And then when me dautie didn’t coom home, I was half sick wi’ worry and shame—”

Paul Fraser bowed his head and scuffed his boot in the dirt of the yard. “Ye tell her it’s a’reet wi’ me if she stays wi’ ye fer a time. Best to be careful, though, and stay oot o’ the way—”

“Oh, she’ll stay oot o’ the way, never fear. She’s a sight to behold, Mr. Fraser—scratched and bruised, not to mention her ruined clothes. . . . Now, if ye dinna mind, I’d like to go into the hoose and pick up some of her things, if that’s a’reet wi’ ye.”

“Go ahead,” Paul Fraser said, adding hesitantly as Tierney turned away, “Anne . . . she’s a’reet? He dinna . . . that is, she’s a’reet, is she?”

“Depends on what ye mean by a’reet,” Tierney said with heat. “Ye should see her face, Mr. Fraser, and her torn garments. But yes, she’s a’reet.”

Paul Fraser drew a deep breath and said gruffly, “Tell her to take care. And then,” he added doggedly, “if we’re not tae be in serious trouble, she’ll hae tae coom back. I can only make excuses so long, ye know.”

Tierney swung away, as angry as it was possible for her to be. The helplessness of her friend’s situation, the uselessness of speaking out, the impotence experienced in the face of terrible unfairness, infuriated and frustrated her almost past enduring. A female’s lot was a hard one! Was there no equality anywhere?