Thomas’s attention was on Manachan, on the struggle to get the teacup from saucer to lip. Lucilla waited until Manachan had taken a long swallow, then quietly said, “I know Joy had an apprentice. Do you know if she’s ready to step into Joy’s shoes?”
Manachan didn’t move his head, but cast her another of his assessing glances. A minute ticked by; she waited patiently, her gaze locked with his.
Then he humphed. “As you say, Joy’s been training another—Alice Watts.”
Lucilla knew the family. “The midwife’s daughter.”
“Aye.” He nodded, moving his head only fractionally. “That’s her. Slip of a thing, and quiet, too, but according to Joy, Alice is clever enough and willing to do the work and learn…” He paused, then sighed gustily. “But I don’t know that Alice can step up to the healer’s role—I doubt she’s come that far.”
Manachan glanced sidelong at Lucilla; for all his frailness, his gaze was still shrewd, the mind sunk in his worn frame still acute. “I don’t like to ask…” He let the sentence trail away.
“You don’t have to ask.” Calmly, she set her cup on its saucer, balancing both in her hands. Avoiding Thomas’s gaze, she looked solely at Manachan. “I’m obliged by my station to aid your people as well as those in the Vale. I should check on Alice and see how far along in her training she is, and ensure that she possesses the requisite knowledge to properly care for your clan and that she has any and all support she might need.”
Manachan blinked; for a moment, he looked nonplussed. “Your…remit, as it were, extends to the Carricks?”
She inclined her head. “It does.” Over the years, she’d confirmed that what she thought of as the Lady’s mantle extended far enough north to encompass all the Carrick lands. Even there, at the northern boundary farthest from the Vale, she could still reach for the Lady and feel Her presence.
Her revelation had given Manachan pause; from the expression in his blue eyes, he was wondering whether the Lady’s dominion posed any challenge to him. Regardless, she wasn’t about to return to the Vale and meekly wait for him to summon her. If Joy Burns hadn’t known how to effectively treat him, then it was unlikely her half-trained apprentice would.
Manachan studied her, unblinking, for several moments, then his features softened, and with a touch of graciousness, he inclined his head. “If you have the time to visit Carrick Manor, I and my clan would welcome your advice.” Manachan’s gaze slid to Thomas. “Our first thought must be for the clan, to ensure the people and the bairns are as safe as they can be, and that means having an effective healer.”
Thomas read the message in Manachan’s eyes. His uncle thought he’d been clever to encourage Lucilla to aid them; for Thomas’s money, the instant Lucilla had laid eyes on Manachan, she’d decided she would be going to Carrick Manor. He might not know her all that well, but he knew how she responded to what she perceived as need; if people needed her help, they got it.
He strongly suspected Manachan would have her help whether Manachan wished it or not.
Which left him—Thomas—in a difficult position.
He wanted Lucilla to help Manachan—to treat him, if she could persuade the old man to it. If anyone could help his uncle regain at least some of his previously rude health, he firmly believed she was that person. In addition, ensuring that the clan had an effective healer was another vital issue she and only she could properly address.
On the other hand, he didn’t want to spend any more time in her vicinity. Being within her orbit helped him not at all; the effect she had always had on him had, it seemed, only intensified over the last two years. She was worse than a distraction; she was a compelling being who drew him, his attention, his focus, like a lodestone.
He forced himself to take a sip of tea while the internal tug-of-war between what he wanted for Manachan and the clan, and what he wanted for himself, raged within.
Lucilla urged Manachan to take another shortbread, which he did.
The small moment of domesticity seemed strange, yet comforting.
After a moment, Manachan asked about the Bradshaws; Thomas listened with half an ear as Lucilla described their symptoms and the suspected cause.
Manachan’s gaze shifted to him. “The well’s tainted?”
Thomas met Lucilla’s gaze, then said, “I’ll have samples sent to Glasgow.” He looked at Manachan. “It’ll take a while, but we’ll find out what’s behind it. Meanwhile, the Forresters will supply the Bradshaws from their well.”
“Forrester’s agreed?”
“He has.”
Manachan brooded for several minutes, then he held out his empty cup on its saucer. Lucilla took it from him; she rose and carried her cup and Manachan’s to the kitchen.
Manachan waited until she was out of earshot to lean closer to Thomas. “The Bradshaws. Should I go in and see them, do you think?”
Thomas considered, then shook his head. “Bradshaw and his wife were the worst affected. They’re sleeping now. If you go in, they’ll be flustered and embarrassed that they can’t greet you properly.”
Manachan grimaced; he didn’t argue, yet it was clear from his expression that he wanted the Bradshaws to know of his coming, of his support.
“Perhaps,” Thomas suggested, “we could have the youngest two come out and speak with you. They’re recovered enough to greet you, and they’ll tell their parents that you were here.”
Manachan brightened. “Good enough.”
Lucilla returned. Thomas explained his plan; somewhat to his surprise, after one searching glance at Manachan, she agreed without comment. The youngest two Bradshaws were duly prepared; as the pair had come out for breakfast, they were already washed and dressed. A quick brushing of hair and tugging down of clothes, and they were ready to greet their laird.
Thomas stood to one side of the hearth and watched Manachan talk with the pair. Lucilla came to stand alongside him. After a moment, he murmured, “I’d forgotten how good he is with children.” His uncle was frequently testy, sometimes belligerent, always calculating, but when it came to children, he seemed instinctively to know what to say and how to say it.
Lucilla regarded the group on the sofa. Her lips curved in subtle appreciation. “Your uncle is a cunning old soul with a big heart.”
The Forresters were in the kitchen, preparing a sustaining luncheon for the Bradshaws. Manachan and the children were absorbed with their conversation.
Thomas seized the moment and quietly said, “About you coming to Carrick Manor—we can’t ask you to leave those in the Vale without your…services, not with your mother absent, too. I was thinking I should escort you back there, and perhaps tomorrow you could ride over.” And bring Marcus with you. Thomas was fairly certain her twin would act as an effective barrier to any contact between them. Especially as Marcus would be nursing a sore head, most likely in more ways than one.
Lucilla shifted her gaze from Manachan and the children to him. She met his gaze; her emerald eyes narrowed fractionally, then her chin firmed. “That won’t be necessary. Casphairn Manor is only an hour from Carrick Manor. If, as seems likely, I need to stay for a few nights, I’ll send a note to Marcus. If anyone in the Vale needs me, he’ll send for me, but we have no sickness there at present.” She glanced at Manachan, then met Thomas’s eyes again. “As I told your uncle, I have a duty toward those on the Carrick estate, too, so at this time, my path is clear, and it leads to Carrick Manor.”
There was nothing he could say to refute that, and given her focus on Manachan—despite the raging awareness she ignited in his blood, simply by standing close, by being there—he wanted her to help his uncle.
Clan trumped personal considerations.
He repeated that like a mantra as, Manachan’s visit with the children concluded, he and Lucilla, with Sean’s help, got Manachan back into the curricle. Forrester and Sean had shrouded Joy Burns’s body in a canvas sheet, and strapped the wrapped body to the curricle’s boot.
Thomas sad
dled and fetched his, Joy’s, and Lucilla’s horses. With Joy’s and her saddlebags in her arms, Lucilla was waiting by the curricle when he led the horses around to the front of the farmhouse. Approaching, he steeled his senses against the contact necessary to lift her to her saddle—saw her gaze grow distant and realized she was doing the same thing.
Which made his life not one whit easier.
He released Phantom’s reins and tied Joy’s horse to the rear of the curricle. Accepting Joy’s saddlebag from Lucilla, he secured it to the saddle while she did the same with her own saddlebag, setting her horse prancing. He turned and steadied the black mare, then stepped to where Lucilla now waited—holding her breath.
He gripped her waist and lifted her. Felt again the suppleness of her slender form between his hands. He deposited her in her side-saddle, then had to force his fingers to ease, to let her go.
Inwardly cursing, he swung on his heel, grabbed Phantom’s reins, and swiftly mounted.
Sean was already turning the curricle. Nudging Phantom in the curricle’s wake, Thomas settled to ride alongside Lucilla.
All the way back to Carrick Manor.
Some part of him—the rational, logical part that knew spending time with her was inimical to the future he wanted—wondered how it had come, so inexorably, to this.
Another part of him, a part he normally kept well suppressed, didn’t care. Not in the least.
* * *
By the time their small cavalcade clopped into the manor’s stable yard, Thomas had managed to refocus his wayward brain. Nevertheless, he was relieved when Lucilla dismounted without assistance; she was an excellent horsewoman and rode with an easy grace that his senses had registered even though he’d striven to keep his eyes from her svelte form.
He had questions to which he needed answers; keeping the list firmly in the forefront of his brain, he handed Phantom’s reins to Mitch and went to help Sean assist Manachan from the curricle.
Meanwhile, Lucilla spoke quietly to Fred, directing his attention to the canvas-wrapped body at the rear of the curricle. The shock in Fred’s face was mirrored in Mitch’s as, with the horses tethered, Mitch returned to help with the unloading and realized just what the bundle was.
Sean remained stoic, but once Manachan was steady on the cobbles and Lucilla came to join them, Sean saluted and stepped back. “I’ll give the others a hand.”
Manachan briefly met Sean’s eyes, then nodded. One hand gripping Thomas’s arm, Manachan reached for Lucilla’s; she deftly caught his hand and wound his arm in hers, stepping closer to help steady him.
As they made their slow way to the house’s side door, Thomas reflected that, while Manachan was far larger and heavier than Lucilla, with her spine of steel, she seemed to have no difficulty steering him, and that in more ways than one.
They entered the house and slowly continued along the dimly lit corridor toward the front hall.
Sean, Mitch, and Fred had elected to bring Joy’s body in by the front door; Thomas, Manachan, and Lucilla reached the front hall in time to witness the shock and consternation that ensued when Ferguson, Mrs. Kennedy, and several footmen and maids—all of whom, for some reason, had already gathered in the front hall—learned of Joy Burns’s death.
“No!” Mrs. Kennedy, a stout matron who had faced any number of emergencies while barely batting an eye, looked as though she would faint.
The youngest maid smothered a small scream, then burst into tears. The two older maids patted her shoulders, but they, too, looked stricken and stunned.
The footmen were white-faced. Even Ferguson looked thoroughly shaken.
Everyone was staring, increasingly ashen and wide-eyed, at the bundle of Joy Burns’s body. No one had yet noticed Thomas, Manachan, and Lucilla emerging from the side corridor.
Thomas frowned. Before he could ask, Manachan raised his head and rumbled, “What’s going on?”
All the staff whirled.
All blinked, then all the others looked at Ferguson.
The butler cleared his throat but was plainly still rattled. “Laird Carrick, sir…I—we…” Ferguson briefly closed his eyes and drew breath, then he opened his eyes and said, “It’s Faith Burns, sir. We found her not five minutes ago. She’d fallen down the stairs in the old wing. She’s dead, sir.” Ferguson glanced at the bundle Sean, Mitch, and Fred were balancing across their arms. “And now Joy’s dead, too.” Ferguson looked at Manachan, then lifted his gaze to Thomas’s face. “Whatever’s going on, sir?”
Thomas wished he knew.
Manachan grunted and waved to a chair against the wall. Thomas and Lucilla helped him to it. Once he’d sat, with Thomas on one side and Lucilla on the other, Manachan demanded to be told everything.
With the rest of the staff at their backs, Ferguson and Mrs. Kennedy stood before Manachan and between them related how they’d searched the rambling old house, high and low, and sent Sean and others to the nearby farms. Only after they’d eliminated every other possible place had one of the footmen thought of going into the disused wing.
That particular wing was called that for a reason; Thomas couldn’t recall the last time any of the rooms within it had been opened, much less used.
“Lying there, she was,” Ferguson said. “Sprawled at the bottom of the stairs with her neck broken. Seems she’d been dead from the night we’d last seen her.” Ferguson paused, thinking. “Two nights ago, that would be.”
Mrs. Kennedy, still pale, but with her composure returning, nodded. “Poor Faith. She must have tripped…” Breaking off, Mrs. Kennedy frowned. “We thought it an accident.” Her tone suggested she was no longer so sure.
Manachan shifted, then in a more vigorous tone barked, “Where’s Nigel?”
Ferguson exchanged a glance with Mrs. Kennedy. “The young master’s still in Ayr, sir. He and Mr. Nolan left three mornings ago, and we haven’t seen them since.”
Footsteps from the rear of the hall had everyone glancing that way. Lucilla watched a slight young lady and a tall, gangly young gentleman walk out from under an archway at the rear corner of the hall.
Both halted, clearly surprised to have come upon such a gathering.
Lucilla recognized Niniver Carrick, Manachan’s third child and only daughter; slender, with pale blond hair, she blinked at the assembled company. The dark-haired young man, barely more than a youth, who halted beside Niniver, Lucilla assumed to be Norris, Manachan’s youngest son; the resemblance was faint, but there. Norris and Niniver were dressed in day clothes suitable for a morning about the house.
Niniver recovered first. She focused on her father. “Papa—it’s…good to see you down. We came to ask what was happening about luncheon. The gong hasn’t rung.”
Manachan humphed. He looked at Mrs. Kennedy and Ferguson. “Luncheon has been put back by an hour or so.”
Norris frowned. “Why?” Then his gaze fixed on the wrapped body now resting on the tiles, and his features went blank. “What’s going on?”
“Never mind that.” Manachan waved his hand testily. “What do you know about anyone going into the old wing?”
Norris’s frown didn’t ease. “The disused wing?” When Manachan nodded, Norris replied, “As far as I know, no one’s been in there for years.”
Niniver nodded, then it was her turn to ask, “Why?”
Manachan sighed, and in a few terse words, told them.
Their shocked surprise was transparently genuine; Lucilla doubted the pair knew anything about either death. But what increasingly concerned her was Manachan’s flagging strength; she could hear the effort each breath cost him. He’d called on reserves to go out to the Bradshaws’ and was now fading fast.
She caught Thomas’s eye; she let her gaze flick to Manachan and thought at Thomas—and was relieved when, lips tightening, he nodded.
The instant there was a suitable break in the comments, Thomas said, “Sir—I suggest we leave Ferguson and Mrs. Kennedy to deal with the situation and get luncheon under way. M
eanwhile, we should get you upstairs.”
Manachan glanced at Thomas, then softly grunted and tensed to rise. From the way Thomas’s lips thinned, and the faintly pained demeanor of the staff as they watched him, assisted by Lucilla, haul Manachan to his feet, Lucilla surmised that Manachan’s ready capitulation was seen by all as an indication of just how weak he truly was.
Once he was on his feet, she beckoned one of the burlier footmen to take her place; she wasn’t confident of supporting Manachan up the stairs. Freed from her position by his side, she circled to come up beside Thomas. Her voice low, she spoke to him and Manachan. “I’ll see to the bodies, both of them.”
Manachan met her eyes, then dipped his head. “Thank you, my dear.”
Stepping back, Lucilla watched the trio pass beneath the archway through which Niniver and Norris had come; beyond lay a small hall into which the main stairs debouched. The trio awkwardly wheeled to the right and started up.
Lucilla turned and regarded the staff. She glanced at Joy Burns’s body, and Sean, Mitch, and Fred bent to lift it again. She looked at Ferguson and Mrs. Kennedy. “Faith Burns—I take it she and Joy were related?”
Mrs. Kennedy nodded. “Sisters. Last of the Burns family hereabouts.”
“I see.” That certainly accounted for the earlier consternation. Lucilla tucked the information aside for later examination. “What have you done with Faith’s body?”
* * *
If Thomas had been disturbed by Joy Burns’s death, he was deeply troubled now.
So was Manachan. Once Thomas had, with Edgar’s help, settled Manachan on his bed, Manachan grasped Thomas’s sleeve. “Something’s going on. I need to know what.”
Unable to keep the grimness from his expression, Thomas nodded. “We’ll get to the bottom of it.” Whatever “it” was.