The Sixth Labyrinth (The Child of the Erinyes Book 4) (13 page)

Remnants of pride stopped her from ringing the bell at Ian Lindsay’s veterinary practice on Charlotte Street, though she constructed a few excuses that might make it seem natural.

Thanks to Aunt Ibby’s generous efforts, she was exquisitely garbed whenever she entered Stranraer proper. Young men gowked, wide-eyed as lemurs, on those rare occasions. Sometimes an extra-brave lad would come forward with an offer to carry her parcels or hold her arm.

Their muttering and blushes irritated her. Those same louts who stumbled over themselves in her presence, their Adam’s apples bobbing like frantic netted toads, took vicious pleasure in persecuting Diorbhail Sinclair and her unfortunate daughter. Morrigan had seen them throw rocks, any one of which could maim or kill the child. Diorbhail shielded her offspring with her own body, and suffered many injuries.

The woman obviously loved her wean. Once Morrigan had seen her shriek at the bullies.
Coarse devils
, she called them. Then a stone struck her forehead, knocking her half over. The lads whooped with laughter as blood gushed over her face.

Yet
she
was considered evil, worthless, damned, and the frail wee paddler along with her.

Kit would never be so cruel.

Oh aye?
The inner lass smirked.
Then why are you so miserable? Kit’s no’ the one for you. A man is what you need, not a namby-pamby boy
.

How Morrigan wished she could control her thoughts.

* * * *

July burgeoned, hot and dry. Morrigan helped Beatrice bake loaves of barley bread and a loaf or two of white for their snobbish English guests. Life spiraled on, unchanged. Curran Ramsay never returned and she began to forget what he looked like but for that infectious smile, making him seem like Mr. Carroll’s Cheshire Cat. They received no letters from Ibby or Nicky, and the earth had swallowed Kit. Her hopes for escape faded. Beatrice had stated that no man would want her if she allowed him liberties. It must have been the truth.

She brushed butter over hot bread crust and considered whether other women ever longed to create their own fates. Nicky left when he couldn’t bear it any longer. But when Morrigan thought of running away, fear made her heart skip and stutter. Douglas would hunt her. He would never give up until he found her and he would beat her lifeless. Besides that, the world outside the inn loomed cold and huge, full of unseen dangers she instinctively knew she wasn’t prepared to confront. When she imagined herself alone, without these walls to hide behind, it was never as that wild spirit she had described to Curran Ramsay. She was always starving, dirty, being tormented like Diorbhail Sinclair. At least this life provided a bed, food, and shelter, no matter how insubstantial, from unknown cruelties.

“Yonder colt’s grand,” Beatrice remarked as she slid another loaf in the oven.

“Aye.” Morrigan dried a bowl and swiped a thin veil of sweat from her forehead. “Ian Lindsay says he’ll be seventeen hands or more.” Before she could lose her nerve, she asked, “Do you know what’s become of Kit?”

Beatrice’s eyebrows rose, emphasizing the grooves across her forehead. “He’ll never set foot in this house again and you’re not to speak his name. He’s ruined a lass, exactly as I predicted he would.”

“Ruined….”

“Her father caught them. He’s demanded they marry, and who can blame him? Not what he was hoping for, though, and no doubt that prideful chit wanted more for herself as well. Since you’d not mentioned him lately I thought you’d heard. Folk in town speak of little else these days.”

The bowl Morrigan was drying fell to the floor and shattered. She stared at it, uncomprehending.

“You’ve gone pasty as an unbaked scone.” Beatrice pushed Morrigan into a chair and fetched the broom. “No doubt he planned it this way. He wouldn’t waste his precious self on any ordinary lass. It had to be one of the wealthiest. Lazy mad daftie.”

Could this be her fault? If she hadn’t stopped Kit from having what he wanted that night in the barn, would it be her own wedding Stranraer was gossiping about?

Dropping the dishcloth on the table, she left the inn, determined to find him. She would do it for Nicky, she told herself. But damn it to hell, he owed her the truth as well. He’d more than implied he cared about her.

He wanted what all men want, and you almost gave him that. He never said he cared about you. Just the opposite
.

The housekeeper at Ian Lindsay’s told her Kit had gone out and she didn’t have the slightest idea when he would return. Morrigan searched the lanes one by one until at last she spotted him leaning against a lamppost outside a ladies dress shop on George Street, his hands shoved in his pockets, a pinched, cheerless expression on his face. He tapped the heel of his boot against the post, a gesture Morrigan knew was something he did when bored or impatient. At nearly the same instant she saw him, his gaze met hers.

He straightened and took a few steps towards her. “You heard.”

“It’s true?”

“My da and hers are up in arms.” He ducked his head. “They’ve put me through hell over this.”

The door opened behind him. A bell chimed as a girl came out of the shop.

“Kit?” she called.

Morrigan’s mouth opened like a beached fish. It was Enid Joyce.

Enid walked swiftly to them and clasped Kit’s arm, giving Morrigan a coldly curious stare. Close behind her, an older woman wrestled armfuls of parcels and hatboxes.

“What d’you want?” Enid asked, squeezing Kit’s arm. “Trying to make me jealous already, love?” Her chin went up in a contemptuous manner, recalling Ramsay’s advice on the moor.
Come; look down your nose at me.
It was such a perfect example of the expression he’d urged, in different circumstances Morrigan would have laughed.

Enid’s cultivated voice, hardly betraying a hint of Scots, continued. “If you ever do want to make me jealous, you must do better than this… the daughter of a slut and an illiterate crofter. Daughters of whores, it’s said, usually turn out whores themselves.”

Kit’s cheeks reddened. “Miss Lawton,” he mumbled. “It was good to see you. Please give my regards to your brother.” He wheeled, half-dragging Enid away, but not before his intended launched a triumphant sneer at Morrigan.

I won’t marry you,
he’d said that night, flatly, decisively. But he would marry Enid Joyce.

Three young boys who’d been eavesdropping broke into peals of laughter. They pointed at Morrigan and shouted, “Daughter of a slut… daughter of a slut makes a slut!”

She’s the one who sinned, not me!
But what good did righteous indignation do? Enid’s wealth would bring her through this scandal. Kit would take her with him to Paris and Papa Joyce would finance his son-in-law’s every desire.

The boys’ taunts rang through her head all the way home.

* * * *

Morrigan had to check the lamps three times, as she kept forgetting whether she’d cleaned the soot from the chimneys. Later, as she gathered up the dry linens in the close, Beatrice sent her off to dust the parlor, saying she couldn’t stand it another moment. Morrigan wandered through the room, carelessly giving the clutter of knickknacks, china figurines, bowls, and books haphazard swipes with a feather duster that simply moved the dust around.

Kit would never marry Enid. He abhorred her; he and Nicky had ridiculed that proud, snooty witch without mercy. Morrigan minded their hilarious mimicking of her, how they’d pranced and preened and pursed their lips. She’d laughed so hard her sides hurt.

She had to speak to him without Enid being there. There was no other way to get the truth.

Silence descended in the dining room after Beatrice gave up trying to make conversation with the Irish couple headed to London.

Morrigan put away the clean dishes, carried water to the guests, and retired to her room. She undressed and put on a wrapper. Beatrice usually said goodnight on her way to bed, so Morrigan needed to make it appear she had no intent other than going to bed herself. She would dress again when she was sure Beatrice and Douglas were asleep.

As she suspected, Beatrice soon knocked and opened her door. “You left the wash outside,” she said, “and it smells like rain.”

“Oh.” Grateful for the reminder, Morrigan nodded. She eyed her discarded corset, petticoat, and nightgown.

“The guests are in bed,” Beatrice said, deciphering her glance. “Your wrapper’s decent. Away with you, hurry before Douglas comes in.”

Folding the collar up around her throat, Morrigan tiptoed down the stairs.

The sky was fading to deep bluish black. Peewits flitted and squeaked, and the rich scent of woodbine thickened the air. Morrigan gathered the bedclothes and flung them over her shoulder.

Kit hadn’t appeared pleased. Maybe he’d like to form a new plan. He and Morrigan could leave it all behind, all they hated. True, she had recoiled from him in the barn. But that wouldn’t happen again. It was nothing more than a virgin’s fear of the unknown. She refused to compare it with Curran Ramsay’s kiss, and how she’d longed for that to go on and on forever. Ramsay was gone. Kit was still here, at least for the moment, and Kit understood her like no one else but Nicky ever could. Life with him would free them both from intolerable futures, and she would force herself to enjoy his touch.

“
Bonny wee thing, lovely wee thing, was thou mine
….”

She spun around. “Kit!”

He stepped out from the shadows by the carriage house.

“What are you doing here?”

“When I saw you today, I knew I had to try and explain.”

“Are you going to marry Enid Joyce?”

“What would you have me do? She claims she’s expecting.” He rubbed a hand roughly over his cheek.

“I cannot believe this. Not
her
.”

He came closer. “I thought I’d die for want of you. I couldn’t thole it. She was willing, and her father found us out. See what you’ve brought me to?”

“What did you do?”

A humorless laugh escaped him. “Must I explain the details of my crime? Sweet Christ! If I didn’t love you so, I’d—”

“You love me? I thought you hated me.”

He came right up to her, grabbing her cheeks and stroking the hair from her temples. “I love you, for whatever good it does me. Have you not listened? I lay with her, and I caused a child to root inside her. Now there’ll be no Paris for me, no Rome. We’ve booked passage on the emigrant ship to America, for her father’s disowned her. He’s keeping up appearances, but he’s told us he doesn’t want to see us again after the wedding. I’ll have to become a vet like you wanted.”

“I don’t understand.”

He shook her. “What don’t you understand? How babes are made? You sweet, daft goose. It’s the same as the bull and the cow, the stallion and the mare, the dog and the
bitch
, damn you!”

“I know that,” she said scornfully, though thinking of it made her blush and turn away.

She’d seen plenty of mating dogs and sheep through the years, and had watched Leo and Cloud in the stable yard. Leo had mounted Cloud’s hindquarters, snorting, his powerful haunches working, that long, spotted thing hanging ugly and obscene when he finished. Morrigan had heard her father’s voice and had gone quickly about her business, knowing he’d thrash her if he caught her.

When she was young, she’d thought the sole purpose of that appendage was to make it convenient for men to piss, a wee gift, in a way, from their God. But eventually she’d worked out the truth.

Cloud hadn’t acted overly pleased with the stallion’s attentions. One of Leo’s great hooves had managed to slice a bloody gash on her side.

“I did it for want of you,” Kit said, breaking into her unhappy thoughts. “You stopped me, Morrigan, and I couldn’t get over it. I thought I might go daft.” His jaw clenched. “I couldn’t have you, but Enid was… more obliging.”

“Papa would’ve killed us. You know it.”

He dropped his arms to his sides. “I’m glad you stopped me,” he said. “I’d never shame you, not for anything!”

There it was again, this shame that was always connected to love. Hot anger flared. “But you didn’t care about shaming her, did you? And now you’re marrying, though you said you never would. Marrying a lass who means nothing to you, a vicious shrew you’ve always loathed, and you’re going away to America, destitute.” The absurdity hammered the inside of her skull and found its escape in bitter laughter.

He chafed his hands through his hair and turned away. “I meant to leave without seeing you again,” he said. “But when you came to town today, I knew I had to… one more time. I swear, Morrigan, if it was you I had to marry, you I had to give up my dreams for, I think it would be worth it.”

His misery and hopelessness broke her. He looked like he might start weeping. “Kit…” she cried. She stretched out her arms and he wrapped her in a hard embrace, stroking her hair.

“Tell Nick goodbye for me,” he said.

Maybe with his troubles he didn’t know about Nicky. She started to speak against his chest, to tell him Nicky was gone, but he flew backward and sprawled in the dirt, leaving her clutching nothing. A raven’s harsh cry echoed through the close as it fluttered from the midden-heap, disturbed by the abrupt violence.

With a grimace of pure rage, Kit scrambled from the ground. Morrigan saw Douglas, his curved sickle upraised like a weapon.

“So one ruined family isn’t enough for you,” her father said in a growl. “You’ll wish you’d never laid eyes on what is mine, you coarse young bastard.” The last glitter of light reflected against his blade, and Morrigan experienced a horrible vision of Kit’s head lopped off and rolling on the ground.

“I was telling her goodbye,” Kit said, “but of course you think the worst. You’re a beast, you know that? She’d be better off if you were dead.”

He leaped. Back and forth the two men tottered. The sickle flew, thudding against the carriage house wall when Kit smashed Douglas on the chin with his fist.

Douglas returned the blow, knocking Kit clear off balance. He sprawled once more. Douglas threw himself on top of Kit and started pummeling. Morrigan clutched her father’s braces from behind and managed to pull him off, but he landed on top of her and ground a boot-heel into her shin.