Seduced by a Scot by Julia London

Author:Julia London
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HQN Books
Published: 2018-08-15T20:02:38+00:00

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

FINELLA CONTINUED TO chatter as if they were old friends as she and Maura climbed the stairs to a musty guest room. The furniture was covered in drop cloths, the hearth was cold. Finella opened the window to air the room, but it had begun to snow, and a cold wind slipped in on small gusts.

Maura didn’t know what to think of this place. It was quite grand, as Mr. Bain—Mr. MacBain?—had said, but it felt empty. Bereft of any warmth. Even though people were living here, obviously, it felt as if no one really lived here.

Finella—or Nella, as she insisted Maura call her: “And what shall I call you, then, Miss Darby?”—sat on the bed, then hoisted a heavy breast from her décolletage and began to nurse her baby. “You donna mind, aye?”

Maura didn’t mind. But she didn’t know where to look, either, and decided a dedicated study of the bare mantle was her best option.

“My husband will be full of good cheer now that his brother has come, he will. I’m certain he’s missed him terribly, although he scarcely mentions him, but he is his brother after all,” she said. “When the lad came to our door with the ring, my husband wanted to know everything, and was verra distrustful of him, he was, but the lad, he’d only say that Nichol MacBain would arrive as soon as he was able.”

“The ring?” Maura asked.

“Aye, a ring, a signet ring, that belonged to their grandfather. I canna know the significance of it, of course, for there is much that exists between two brothers that is no’ to be understood by others, would you no’ agree?”

“I donna—”

“We’ve no’ had guests in an age,” she said, lifting her bairn to lay across her shoulder. “Mrs. Garbunkle is to blame for it, if you ask me. She’s said to all the village, even the old man who keeps a chicken in his cottage that he thinks is a cat, that the baron’s consumption is contagious from even a distance of across the room. It is clearly no’, aye? For we are all quite well. I’d no’ have my children here if I feared it.”

“Pardon?” Maura asked the mantle. She was having trouble keeping up with the exuberant Finella.

“Aye, my husband’s father. He’s a baron, did you no’ know it? Baron MacBain, he is.”

MacBain! Why had Mr. Bain changed his name? “How awful that he suffers from consumption,” Maura said as she went to the window and closed it before they all turned to ice. She gingerly removed a drop cloth from a chair and sat, wondering if Mr. Bain had been aware that his father was ill before today. “Where is he, then, the baron?”

“Upstairs, in the master suite,” Finella said, and fit the bairn on her breast once more. “Aye, he’s quite ill. ’Tis but God’s grace he’s been with us as long as he has.”

He was that ill, then.

“I’ve no’ seen him in weeks! My husband willna allow it, for fear of contagion.

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