Page 2 of Married for a Highland Debt
“Where will we go?” Kairstine asked.
“To Inchgarvie Castle,” Bettina answered. “Mammy had a friend there—the cook, Lizzie McGregor. We have both been keeping this house clean for months since we had to get rid of the servants, and we can sweep floors and do laundry or whatever else needs to be done. I can try to find work there, then send for you.”
“What if you cannot?” Kairstine’s voice was fearful.
“Then we will find some other way to earn a crust,” Bettina said firmly. “We will not be beaten, Kairstine, and even if we have to sleep in a haystack, I will never become Campbell McDade’s mistress!”
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“Iam scared, Bettie,” Kairstine said, her voice trembling. “Do you think this is a good idea?”
“Can you think of a better one?” Bettina asked, resigned. She was shaking inwardly, as if a hundred butterflies had taken up residence in her stomach, but her determination gave her strength to go on. “I can only try, and if no one can help me at Castle Inchgarvie, perhaps they will tell me of somewhere else that needs servants.”
“Servants.” Kairstine’s voice was bitter. “I never thought you would ever become one of those.”
“Beggars cannot be choosers, Kairstine,” Bettina told her sister grimly. “I must try. If I work there, at least I will have a roof over my head and enough to eat. You know how much food rich people throw away. It does not have the same value to them as it does to poor people, and they waste a lot. It may not be as fresh as we are used to, but it will fill our stomachs, and I will be warm at night, and after a little while, I will see if there is a place for you.”
Kairstine tried to look on the bright side. “Yes, and in the meantime, I can look after Da. How long can we stay here before we have to move out?”
“I managed to work out an arrangement with McDade,” Bettina replied, her face thunderous. “He never really wanted me; he wanted the house so that he can make money from it. I have promised him a quarterly rental and given him a deposit with the last of our money, so you will not have to move out yet...ifhe keeps his word.”
“Thank God!” Kairstine breathed. There were tears of relief in her eyes as she hugged her sister tightly. “But how will we eat in the meantime if we have no money?”
“We have the vegetable garden and the chickens, and I can ask Robbie McKnight, the butcher, for some of his meat scraps. We will have to be very careful to use as little as we can of everything,” Bettina warned. “Even if I get a position, we will still be poor.”
“And I will carry on with my sewing and laundry,” Kairstine said stoutly. “They have kept us from starving so far.”
“I will have no time to help you,” Bettina said regretfully, then she laughed. “But perhaps I will find a tall, handsome man to marry me, and I can move you in under my roof to live with us.”
“That sounds wonderful,” Kairstine answered, laughing. “But what about Da?”
“What about him?” Bettina’s voice was hard and bitter. “He is the reason we are in this mess. Let him fend for himself. He cannot gamble anymore. We have nothing left to sell.”
“We have,” Kairstine murmured. She looked around to make sure her father was nowhere to be seen, then moved closer to Bettina. “Our mother’s jewelry. I did not want him to get his hands on it, so I dug a hole underneath the big elm tree in the garden and hid them.”
“You clever girl!” Bettina exclaimed as she threw her arms around Kairstine. Then she became solemn. “But we do not part with them unless we are really desperate. They are all we have left of her.”
“I agree, but she would not want us to starve either,” Kairstine said, then sighed. “I would love a glass of wine.”
“As would I,” Bettina agreed sadly. She looked around the parlor, bare of every single ornament and trinket that had once made it a beautiful room. There was a whole garden of flowers outside, but not one vase to put them in. Even if there had been, there were no pretty polished tables on which to place them. The only furniture left in the room consisted of two hard chairs and a scarred old kitchen table that had seen much better days.
The girls slept in the same bed in one bedchamber and lit a fire in the grate once a week on a Sunday with wood they gathered from the trees nearby since it was too time-consuming to chop it every day, and William Hamilton was usually too drunk. One thing that was not in short supply was blankets, and they spent most of their time huddled under them, chatting, sewing, and reading aloud from one of the few of their father’s books they had left. It was their one pleasure.
“I will leave tomorrow morning,” Bettina said, sighing. “It should take me about two hours to walk there. While I am away, Kairstine, try to find anything Da might try to sell and hide it. There is not much left, but he is desperate. Mind you, so am I. If I were more ruthless, I would tie him up ’til he comes to his senses!”
Castle Inchgarvie was not as impressive as some others, having no moat and being only a hundred feet high. What it lacked in size, however, it made up for in impressive defenses. It had three crenelated walls, one inside the other, and each one was two feet thick with hundreds of loopholes through which archers could fire. Behind the outermost and highest wall, there were ten siege engines, and the castle boasted dozens of secret underground escape tunnels, or so it was said. No one knew for sure. The last wall had been built only seven years previously and was said to be impregnable, although it had never been tested.
As she approached it, Bettina could almost feel her heart jumping into her throat. She stopped a hundred yards away from the forbidding fortifications and looked at them fearfully and had almost made her mind to turn back when she felt a heavy hand on her shoulder. She spun around with a startled cry and found herself looking up to a pair of startling blue eyes, and they belonged to the broadest, tallest man she had ever seen.
“Who are you?” she asked, beginning to back away from him.
A second later, Bettina found her arms gripped by a pair of big, callused hands that held her in a ruthless grip, and she thought her end had come. He was going to murder her. “Get your hands off me!” she cried, terrified.
“If I do, you are going to trip over that tree root,” the man growled, nodding his head toward it. “Do not expect me to help you if you break your ankle.”
Bettina looked down and felt a blush heating up her face as she saw the offending root. She felt utterly foolish. “Thank you,” she said breathlessly, although she was still a little afraid. The man was dressed in the uniform of a guard from Inchgarvie Castle, an imposing figure with hair the color of ripe corn and a ruggedly handsome face. At least it would have been handsome had he not been glaring at her with a face like a thunderstorm, his blond brows hooding his bright eyes.
“Are you going to the castle?” he asked.
