The Lass Wore Black (29 page)

A
rtis frowned at her from the opposite seat.

“Why are we going to Old Town?” she asked. From her tone, she was annoyed by the errand.

Catriona wasn’t going to tell the maid that they were on a mission of mercy. Artis would make fun of the idea, and she wasn’t in the mood to be ridiculed.

Perhaps she was being foolish, but she hadn’t been able to get Edeen and her children out of her mind, especially the irrepressible James.

“Why did you insist I come with you?” Artis asked.

“Because you don’t seem afraid of anything,” she said.

The maid only frowned at her again. Thankfully, she didn’t ask any further questions.

No one would understand, but was acceptance from other people all that important? She had to do what she felt was right, and this simply felt right.

She was only here because Mark had refused to aid the poor child.

No, she had to stop thinking of the man. Try as she might, however, he resided in her thoughts all too often.

Perhaps she could understand why he’d pretended to be a footman, especially if Aunt Dina had been that concerned. Perhaps she might have been intransigent about not seeing a physician. Perhaps she might have been teetering on the edge of despair. Very well, her behavior had concerned those who cared about her.

But he didn’t have to bed her.

He didn’t have to touch her with gentleness and tenderness.

Why were those moments in his arms so difficult to forget? That was the most unsettling thing of all. She was not an unschooled miss, adrift in the fog of her first passion. Why, then, couldn’t she forget him?

She needed to find something about him that was despicable, a character flaw that was easy to hate.

He hadn’t rescued the children, when it was all too evident they were in desperate need of saving.

I can’t save them all.

There, a flaw worthy enough of being despised.

Yet he was kind, witness his treatment of Isobel. He’d chosen medicine as a vocation, which indicated he had a decent character, did it not? Or perhaps medicine had called him, as her father had often said.

No, she simply must look for his defects.

He’d complemented her cooking. He’d told her she was beautiful when she had been desperate for any kind word.

This would never do. She must find more faults. Either that or stop thinking about him, especially when doing so made her miserable.

When they arrived at the entrance to Heriot Close, she and Artis descended from the carriage. Mr. Johnstone, surprisingly, insisted on accompanying them. While she doubted the wisdom of leaving the vehicle unattended, she was heartily glad of his presence. She wasn’t a fool, after all. Old Town was not a place for two women alone, however truculent and disagreeable Artis might be.

Even the maid was silenced by the scenes around them. Yawning maws of blackened doorways led to gin parlors. A prostitute leaned against a wall, her face turned away as they passed. Two boys, barely out of childhood, stood at the corner of one of the streets. She was sure that if Mr. Johnstone hadn’t accompanied them, the boys would’ve waylaid her and Artis. As it was, they simply sneered and called out vile things as they passed.

Several minutes later she stood at the entrance to the steps to the vaults. She didn’t want to go down there again. There was no choice, however. She couldn’t simply stand here and wish Edeen and her children to come forward. Instead, they had to go in and get them.

The time of day evidently didn’t matter in Old Town. Sounds of drunken revelry carried throughout the narrow passageways. The deeper they descended, the less light there was, until it was as dark as a tarnished soul. Mr. Johnstone held up the carriage lantern behind them, and once more she was grateful for his presence.

She counted the vaults beneath the bridge. At the third one she hesitated, wondering if she was wrong after all. There was no fire at the entrance, as there had been a few days earlier. The air was dank and cold.

Just when she thought she’d gone the wrong way, she heard the sound of a child’s weak cough.

“Edeen.” She called out the woman’s name, then again.

A sound of footsteps came first, then a shadow. Edeen emerged into Mr. Johnstone’s light, a scarf around her white face. In the faint light, she looked gaunt, as if she hadn’t eaten for days.

In that instant Catriona felt justified for both the chance she’d taken and what she was about to do.

“I’ve come to take you away from here,” she said. “To my home.”

Artis glanced at her swiftly but didn’t say anything.

“I am home,” Edeen said, turning and vanishing into the shadows again.

There was nothing to do but follow her.

Her veil made it impossible for Catriona to see anything as she walked forward. She shuffled, her shoes sliding against the brick of the floor. She hated not being able to see where she walked or even her destination.

Mr. Johnstone’s lantern was the only illumination in this part of Hell. He raised it directly behind her, revealing the high ceiling of the vault and the two children in the corner, as frightened looking as starving rats.

Despite the attempt to make the vault livable, it was a place of horror, hardly a home.

“Why wouldn’t you want to leave this place?”

“I’ve no wish for your charity,” Edeen said.

Why couldn’t this be easier? Here she was, offering the woman a chance at a better life, and she refused to take it.

She’d never considered that Edeen might have other plans.

Is this how Aunt Dina had felt when faced with her own behavior? How odd to feel so disconcerted and irritated at the same time.

Edeen went to stand in front of her children, as if to protect them.

“You remind me of myself,” she heard herself say. “Or what I would have become if people hadn’t helped me.”

Edeen’s face stiffened. “Take your pity and leave us be.”

She wasn’t doing this well, was she?

“My sister is a countess,” she said. “She lives in a place called Ballindair, a castle that’s far off in the country, surrounded by hills, a river, and even a waterfall. If ever there was an enchanted place, it’s Ballindair.” If ever there was a place as far from Old Town as could be, Ballindair was it.

James peeped out from behind his mother’s skirts. “Is your sister a princess?”

The question reminded her of Mark. For a moment she couldn’t speak.

“Yes,” she said. “I believe she is a princess.”

She looked at Edeen. “It wouldn’t be charity if you went to Ballindair. You’d be employed there and expected to do your job well. Everyone at Ballindair has a job.”

“Even me?” James asked.

“Even you,” she said, smiling. “Not a large one, because you would be expected to learn your letters.”

“He would go to school?” Edeen asked.

“Yes,” she said. Reaching into her pocket, she withdrew Jean’s letter. Skipping over the part where her sister had expressed her pity for Edeen’s plight, she read the most important part.

“ ‘We can offer her two positions, one as a maid-of-all-work, and one in the dairy shed. She needs to choose which she would prefer.’

“Now, I don’t care which you pick,” Catriona said. “I, myself, would rather work in the castle again than be a dairy maid, but it’s your decision.”

“You worked at Ballindair?” Artis asked from beside her. Until then she’d been silent.

“I was a maid,” she said. “But not a good one.” She looked at Edeen. “You would have to be better, but I don’t think it would be all that hard.”

Edeen didn’t speak. What had she expected, that the woman would gush with gratitude?

“I’m not going to argue with you,” Catriona said. “But I’m not leaving here without you.”

She was not going to fail. This errand was more for her sake than for Edeen’s. She was going to perform her first truly unselfish act, and by God, Edeen was going to cooperate.

“If you come with me, it will be better for your children. If not for yourself, then do it for them.” She looked around her. “Surely, you have no fondness for this place?”

“Why are you doing this?”

She decided to give the woman the truth.

“I’m here to be your savior, Edeen, and thereby save myself.”

The woman didn’t answer, merely stared at her long enough that she felt intensely uncomfortable. Should she say more? Or wish she’d said less?

Edeen abruptly turned and spoke to her children. James gathered up their clothing, while Christel looked wide-eyed at Catriona.

Without a word, Artis moved forward to help Edeen gather up their belongings. She took the lantern while Mr. Johnstone lifted Christel in his arms. Edeen and Artis carried a trunk. A single trunk, holding everything the three of them owned. She turned away from the sight of it.

She led the way through the warrenlike closes of Old Town. Artis surprised her by dropping the trunk and coming to her side at the base of the steps.

“The steps are steep,” the maid said, offering a hand to her, “and your knee has been bothering you.”

How did she know that? Instead of asking the other woman, she took her hand and slowly ascended the steps. The carriage was where they’d left it, the horses greeting them with a whinny that sounded like equine relief. Catriona felt the same way at the sight of the watery sun and the dreary winter day.

She promised herself that she would never again descend into the vaults of Old Town.

Mr. Johnstone deposited Christel carefully on the seat, tipping his hat as he left the carriage.

As she waited for the others to be seated, James tugged at her skirt.

“Are you very sad?” he asked.

She glanced down at him. “Why would I be sad?”

“Mam says that you’re wearing mourning, for when someone dies.”

“No one has died,” she said.
I only lost part of myself
. Would a child understand that? Most adults didn’t.

She helped him into the carriage, then moved to sit in the corner. Here, in the faint light, little Christel looked even more ill than in the vault. She hoped that living at Ballindair would heal her.

“I’m not wearing a veil because I’m sad,” she said. “I don’t wish for people to see me.”

“Why?”

He tilted his head, looking at her as if she were the strangest creature he’d ever seen.

“I was in an accident,” she said. “My face was disfigured. Scarred,” she simplified.

There was that same inquiring gaze.

“Are you a monster?”

I might be.

With trembling hands, Catriona grabbed the hem of her veil.

What stupidity was this? Did she want to scare the child? Or was she simply tired of hiding?

Slowly, she drew up the lower part of the veil until her face was exposed. She draped it over the back of her head and sat there, her hands clasped together tightly on her lap.

“Did a dragon do that with his claws?” James asked.

She felt a smile begin deep inside.

“No dragon, I’m afraid. It was glass from a broken window.”

James nodded. “I broke a cup once, and Mam was all worried I might cut myself.”

He inspected her carefully, tilting his head one way and then another. Slowly, he reached out, his fingers outstretched. With movement so slow she could easily have stopped him, he touched her cheek with warm and gentle fingers.

“Does it hurt?”

“Not anymore,” she said.

“I fell once,” he said. “Want to see my scar?”

She slowly nodded, permission for him to roll up one leg of his loose-fitting trousers.

He pointed to the faint mark with some pride. “See?”

“That’s very impressive,” she said, the words so difficult to say they choked her. “Did it hurt?”

“I don’t remember,” he said. “I was probably very brave.”

“I’ve no doubt you were.”

She put her veil in place again, just in time to hide her tears.

Edeen reached over and touched her hand, a wordless gesture of comfort. Few people had extended such effortless sympathy. When the other woman didn’t speak, didn’t offer her any platitudes, she was grateful.

Artis, however, had glanced at her face and turned away, a reaction for which she’d been prepared.

“I’ll earn my keep at this castle of yours,” Edeen said.

She only nodded. If she’d known all she needed for Edeen to capitulate was to remove her veil, she would have done it much earlier.

“Just don’t, whatever you do,” she said, giving her some advice from her own experience at Ballindair, “offer to work in the laundry.”

She looked through the window at Old Town disappearing. If forced with having to choose, she’d return to being a maid at Ballindair and count herself fortunate, rather than live as Edeen and her children had.

Better to be in servitude to an employer than in bondage to poverty.

Because of Morgan, however, she was saved from either. Had she ever thanked him?

Another oversight on her part, another sin to lay at her feet.

Chapter 27

W
ithin three days Edeen and her children had been outfitted in new clothing, fed well, bundled up securely, and loaded into the carriage.