Mine Is the Night_ A Novel - Liz Curtis Higgs [153]
“I am not sure I can eat them,” Marjory confessed.
“Not to worry,” Elisabeth said, brushing the flour from her hands. “They’re meant to be given to the poor who have no bread of their own.”
While the bannocks browned on the hearth, Marjory prepared a rich mutton broth for supper, eying their fat carrots. When she asked Elisabeth if the vegetables might be added to her soup pot, the answer was swift and sure.
“Nae!” Elisabeth pretended to be shocked. “ ’Tis a Michaelmas gift for your beloved.”
A carrot? Marjory hid her smile. Won’t Gibson be delighted?
Under Elisabeth’s watchful eye, Marjory coated their Michaelmas bannock with a caudle of flour and cream, eggs and sugar. “Three times,” Elisabeth said, “for Father, Son, and Spirit.”
After the bannock was placed back on the fire to finish baking, Elisabeth washed her hands, then slipped on her cape. “I am off to Mr. Riddell’s stables to be certain Belda is safe.”
“Safe?” Marjory echoed. “Why would you worry about a mare?”
“ ’Tis Michaelmas Eve,” Elisabeth reminded her. “Anything might happen, especially where horses are concerned.”
She was gone before Marjory could offer any objection. Not that she would have. The stables were a two-minute walk up Kirk Wynd. If Elisabeth would sleep better knowing Lord Buchanan’s mare was secure, Marjory was happy for her to go.
But the house was suddenly very quiet, and she was left with nothing but her thoughts.
Marjory walked from one corner to the other, as she had on the night they’d arrived, when she’d measured Anne’s small house and fretted over their living arrangements. We shall all live in one room. Aye, so they had.
Come Martinmas, when accounts were settled, the rent for this house would become Marjory’s responsibility. Until then she would make a home for Elisabeth, guarding her from the Rob MacPhersons of the world.
Wasn’t that what Donald would have wanted?
Marjory sank onto the upholstered chair, no longer sure what her late son expected of her. He’d played the part of the doting heir, all the while sullying their family’s name in the closes and wynds of Edinburgh. He’d also broken his wife’s heart, reaching for other women who couldn’t hold a candle to her. Yet when he’d departed Edinburgh, Lord Donald had made one wish quite clear: May I count on you to look after Elisabeth?
Marjory stared at the dying coals in the hearth. What can I do for her, Lord? How may I see her well cared for?
The answer rose in her heart like the sun. Let her marry Lord Buchanan now.
“Aye,” she breathed into the quiet room.
What possible advantage could there be to waiting until January? Out of sheer necessity young widows often remarried mere months after losing their husbands. Such haste was frowned upon only in the very highest levels of society. And hadn’t Saint Paul himself said of widows, “Let them marry”?
“Then let them marry,” Marjory said aloud. There were no impediments she could think of. Lord Buchanan was rich and surely desirous of a family. Elisabeth was beautiful and in need of a husband.
The only thing required was a proposal. Gentleman that he was, Lord Buchanan would never cut short Elisabeth’s time of mourning. But she could.
And stop Rosalind Murray in her tracks.
Marjory couldn’t bear to sit, so eager was she to spill out her plans. She darted to the window, then the hearth, then the door. Might she seek out her daughter-in-law returning from the stables? Nae, such details could never be discussed on the street. No one must know until the deed was done, lest Lord Buchanan refuse Elisabeth.
Marjory blanched at the very idea. Nae, nae, he loves her. She was certain of it.
Moments later when Elisabeth crossed the threshold, Marjory practically dragged her to a chair beside the dining table and plunked her down without ceremony.