he said. “But you’ve tended her deathbed for months, and now it is time you saw to your own life.”
Catriona blinked. Her thoughts were suddenly very clear—they’d been discussing her. Her own family, talking in secret about her! She could see it in the faces of her parents, of her siblings, of her sisters-in-law. They surrounded her now, looking at her with varying expressions of determination and sympathy. “What’s this, then, you’ve discussed my life and determined a course, have you? How dare you speak ill of me behind my back.”
“Criosd, Cat, no one has spoken ill of you!” Rabbie said. “But for the last few months, you mope about and drink your fill of wine and brandy every night, aye?” Rabbie said. “You donna attempt to have any society about you.”
“What society?” she exclaimed loudly. “Where is it, Rabbie, do point me in that direction, aye? And in the course of it, perhaps you might point to something that I might do.”
He frowned. “Do you no’ see what we all see? You’re letting your life slip between your fingers, you are.”
She felt strangely exposed. Uncomfortable. Not angry, really, but...but she didn’t like this, not at all. What did they expect of her? None of them had ever been a spinster, with nothing to look forward to, without any hope of ever being a mother, or a wife. “What would you have me do? I’ve no occupation, no’ a bloody thing to do with my time but mope about and drink wine and brandy!” She felt on the verge of tears. She felt annoyed, she felt betrayed, she felt as if they’d all left her behind. Every one of them had families and loves and occupations, and purpose, for God’s sake, but she, by virtue of being born female and at a time when suitable men were scarce, could do nothing but float from one gathering to the next, looking for something to do with her time.
The only meaningful thing in her life at present was the abbey. Zelda had given a purpose to Catriona’s life, and they would take it away?
Blast it, but the tears began to slip from her eyes again.
“Diah, I didna say it to make you cry,” Rabbie said gruffly.
Her mother walked to Catriona’s seat and wrapped her arms around her daughter. “Go to your uncle Knox, allow him to help you, and please, darling, take a bit of time to care for yourself.”
“I canna leave them,” she said tearfully, and took the handkerchief Daisy offered her and blew her nose.
“Aye, Miss Catriona, you can.”
Catriona stilled. The mutiny was complete, then. “You, too, Rhona?” she asked in a whimper.
Rhona colored slightly. “We’ll be quite all right for the summer, aye?” she said nervously. “Your lady mother, she...well, she’s right, she is. You deserve happiness, Miss Catriona. You’ve no’ had it at Kishorn.”
Catriona wanted to argue that she was happy, but it was a lie. She was desperately unhappy with her situation, and apparently, in spite of her best efforts to hide it, they all knew it.
“Rhona and I had opportunity to speak,” her mother said. “We agree everyone might look after themselves. But I very much miss my bright daughter.”
Her “bright daughter” had withered away a very long time ago, and in her place, a lonely Catriona stood.
“I’ll help at the abbey while you’re away,” Lottie said.
“So will I,” Bernadette offered.
“Me, too!” Daisy joined in. “All of us.”
“Aye, well, you’ll no’ know what to do, any of you,” Catriona said petulantly. “You’ll make a mess of things.”
“We verra well might,” Aulay agreed, and leaned down to kiss the top of Catriona’s head. “But you’ll put it all to rights when you return, aye?”
Catriona rolled her eyes. “I’ve no’ said I’ll go,” she warned them.
But by the end of the week, Catriona was on a Balhaire coach bound for Crieff and Uncle Knox.
THE JOURNEY FROM Balhaire to Crieff was tiresome, particularly given that the roads were single track and many of them used so infrequently that the coachmen were forced to stop more than once to clear debris from their path. Every day for a week they bounced along to a mean inn, then woke up and started the day over again.
Contrary to her family’s wishes, Catriona’s bleak mood was not improved by the travel.
It seemed weeks had passed instead of days when at last the coach rolled onto the High Street at Crieff and came to a halt at the Red Sword and Shield Inn. It was midday, but Catriona was so weary she all but fell out of the coach and into the hands of the young Mackenzie coachman who caught her and set her upright.
“Here you are, then, Miss Mackenzie,” he said. “We’ll be back for you in a fortnight, perhaps three weeks, aye?”
In that moment, she didn’t care if they ever returned for her, because she could not fathom putting herself in that coach once more.
“There she is!” called a voice very familiar to her.
She turned about and smiled at her uncle Knox, who strode across the cobblestones to her, his coat flapping in time to his gusto. “My dear, dear girl, you’ve come at last!”
Her beloved uncle met her with such verve and enthusiasm that she was propelled a step or two backward, and her cap was knocked from her head. He wrapped her in a hearty embrace, smashing her face against his chest, then laid several kisses on her cheek before standing back, holding her at arm’s length, admiring her as the coachmen tried to hand her the hat. “Still a beauty, my little one,” he said proudly.
Still? She supposed that now she was three and thirty, he was expecting her looks to have begun to fade away into spinsterhood. “It’s so good to see you, Uncle Knox,” she said. “You’ve no idea.”
Her uncle had grown a wee bit more corpulent since the last time she’d held him. What was it, a year or so ago? He’d come from England to visit his sister, Catriona’s mother—and to pay a call to Auntie Zelda at Kishorn. Aye, he was a wee bit rounder, but quite handsome with his glittering pale green eyes and graying hair, which he’d bobbed with a black velvet ribbon. His coat was fine wool, and his waistcoat had been embroidered with gold thread that matched the embroidery along the center front of his coat. His neckcloth was snowy white and tied into an elaborate knot. Catriona felt quite plain in comparison.
“Come, come, you must be thirsty. And hungry, too, are you? Here you are, my good men, a night’s lodging and all the wine and women you might want,” he said, tossing a bag of coins to the driver. “Don’t hasten back now. I should like time with my most favored niece.” He wrapped an arm around Catriona’s shoulders and wheeled her about. “It’s such a dreadfully long way from Balhaire, is it not? I’ve always said to Margot that there ought to be an easier way to reach her, but alas, she has long loved your father and refuses to leave him.”
“Leave him?” Catriona exclaimed.
“You’ve
