Just Beyond Tomorrow. Bertrice SmallЧитать онлайн книгу.

      Chapter 2

      When Patrick Leslie awoke the following morning, he found the day very gray and overcast. There was neither rain nor snow, but the wind had disappeared as he discovered standing in the open window of his bedchamber. “Tell the stables I will hunt today,” he told his manservant, Donal, who had been his boyhood companion and was distantly related to him. Donal’s family, the More-Leslies, had served the lords of Glenkirk for many generations.

      “Cook thought ye’d be out early, m’lord,” Donal said. “There’s a fine meal awaiting ye in the hall. Will ye be wanting to take food wi’ ye? ’Tis deer we’ll be after, and apt to be gone the day long.”

      “Aye, ye’re right,” the duke replied. “We’ll want oatcakes, cheese, cider. Tell the men to provision themselves in the kitchens before we go, Donal.”

      “I’ll see to it, m’lord,” Donal said, handing Patrick his drawers and breeches first, then a white shirt with full sleeves and a drawstring neck. He held the leather jerkin with the horn buttons in reserve while Patrick pulled the breeches on over his heavy, dark knit stockings.

      The breeches were wool, dyed a nut brown color. After tying his shirt at its neckline, Patrick sat down to draw on his brown leather boots, which covered the stockings and rose to his knees. Standing, he put on the jerkin and buttoned it up. Taking the fur-lined cloak and leather gloves Donal handed him, he exited his apartment, descending into the hall where his breakfast was awaiting him.

      Solitude had not deterred his appetite. Patrick wolfed down the oat stirabout with honey, several poached eggs in a cream sauce flavored with Marsala wine, three slices of ham, and a whole cottage loaf he spread with both butter and bits of hard cheese. There was a steaming mug of tea, a brew from his mother’s native land that he had grown to favor in the morning. It set better on an empty belly than ale or wine. His two youngest brothers had often teased him about his habit of wanting a hot drink in the morning, for they, like their father, had favored brown ale with their breakfast. He smiled at the memory, wondering how well Duncan and Adam fared in Ireland with its constant sectarian violence and warring. They, too, were yet bachelors. He sighed, resigned. It was certainly up to him to set them a good example.

      Finishing his meal, he noted uncomfortably that his cook had quickly learned to do for just one. He found it disquieting. As he rose from the board, his eye swept the hall, seeing the thin layer of dust on the ancient oak furniture. The castle definitely needed a woman’s touch. Without his mother’s majordomo, Adali, the servants were grown slack. They had no one to guide them. He needed a wife, but where the hell was he to find one?

      Glenkirk was well isolated deep in the hills of the eastern Highlands. His holdings stretched for miles in all directions, which was good, but it also meant that he had no near neighbors. The nearest, in fact, were his Leslie cousins at Sithean and his Gordon cousins at BrocCairn. He was on good terms with both families, which gave them all an added measure of safety. His paternal grandmother’s family had sold their lands at Greyhaven to the lords of Glenkirk and gone down into England with King James I to seek their fortunes. Their old manor house, not in particularly good repair, had been demolished.

      He rarely saw his cousins now, and he couldn’t recall if there were any lasses of marriageable age among them. So how did one go about finding a wife these days? Perhaps he would go to the games this summer and pick out a pretty girl. He would ascertain beforehand, however, that she knew how to keep house. Almost any lass could be cajoled into being good bedsport, but if she couldn’t rule his servants, or at least delegate authority among them, she would be of little use to him.

      While isolation was preferable in these dangerous times, it did leave him with certain disadvantages. He considered again if there were any female unmarried cousins at Sithean or BrocCairn. Nay. His generation had been all males, and they were all, he recalled, wed. Where the devil had they found suitable women to marry? Mayhap he could get some of them to go with him to the games and advise him in this delicate matter. He suspected they would all find his plight amusing, but there was no help for it. He needed assistance. He shook his head wearily as he put on his cape.

      In the courtyard of the castle, his stallion was waiting, saddled. The great gray beast pawed the ground eagerly, anxious to be off. Half a dozen of his clansmen were mounted and waiting to accompany him. The duke swung himself up into the saddle, pulling on his riding gloves, his cloak spreading across the gray’s dappled flanks. They clattered across the heavy oaken drawbridge and into the forest, the dogs yapping with excitement. Because there was no wind, the mist still hung among the bens and in the trees.

      Here and there a flash of tired color remained, startling amid the dark green of the fir trees. By mid-morning they had managed to flush a large stag from amid the wooded copse. The well-antlered creature fled through the trees, twisting and turning with a great skill born out of long experience, the baying dogs in quick pursuit. Leading them through the forest, the stag finally reached a small loch and, leaping into the water, swam away into the fog, successfully evading its pursuers. The belling of the dogs could be clearly heard, echoing through the air ahead of their riders. Then came the whines of their defeat and frustration.

      The hunting party arrived, their horses coming to a nervous stop, dancing about while the dogs milled about their legs whimpering. The stag’s trail through the water could be faintly seen in the still loch, but the beast was quite lost to their sight.

      “Damn!” the duke swore lightly. “Half a morning wasted finding it, and the other half wasted chasing it only to lose it.” He dismounted. “We might as well stop here and eat before we go on, laddies. I’m quite ravenous, but we’ve only oatcakes and cheese.”

      “We’ve caught some rabbits along the way, m’lord,” his head huntsman, Colin More-Leslie, Donal’s brother, replied. “We’ll skin ’em and cook ’em up now.”

      When they had eaten the more substantial meal, the duke looked about him. “Where are we?” he asked of no one in particular.

      “ ’Tis Loch Brae, m’lord,” Colin More-Leslie said. “Look over there. Ye can just make out the old castle on its island, in the mist. ’Tis deserted. The last Gordon heiress of Brae married a Brodie many years back. She went to live in Killiecairn wi’ her husband.”

      “These lands abut Glenkirk lands,” Patrick Leslie said thoughtfully. “If nae one lives here any longer, and the castle is a ruin, mayhap I should purchase it from the Brodie of Killiecairn. I dinna like the idea of untended lands next to mine.”

      “Hae ye ever met the Brodie of Killiecairn, m’lord?” Colin inquired. “He’s a wicked old bugger, and verra canny. Still, he hae six sons and is always happy for good coin, or so I am told.”

      “Why hasna he given Brae to one of his lads?” the duke wondered.

      “ ’Twas nae their mother who was the Gordon, m’lord. The Gordon was his second wife. He was much her senior. She died about ten years ago. Old Brodie must be well over eighty now. His lads are all older than ye are, m’lord, but his Gordon wife did birth him a daughter. I imagine Brae is her dower portion.”

      “The