A Perilous Perspective (Lady Darby Mystery #10)(50)

I might have viewed this behavior with some suspicion except for the fact that the round, rosy-cheeked woman was plainly in distress. One stiff breeze, one wrong word, and I suspected she would crumble to pieces. As a person who also felt the compulsion to do something when faced with a crisis, I understood what her bustling was all about.

So I did not rebuke her for her fractious behavior. I didn’t counter her when she said Mairi had eaten from the same bowls of food at breakfast as the rest of the staff, and that any food she’d taken with her on her hike to Barbreck she’d fetched for herself from the pantry, and so the cook had no way of knowing. I didn’t refute her when she claimed everyone adored Mairi and would never wish her harm. I didn’t question her assertion that no rhubarb was grown on the estate. And when I was dismissed, I left without a fight. There would be no victory in breaking the woman, and any further questioning would only accomplish that. It was better—and far kinder—to step away and, if necessary, return to speak with her later.

Knowing the rest of the staff were in Bree and Anderley’s capable hands and Gage was still closeted with Calder, I climbed the stairs to the ground floor and wandered out to the courtyard. Curious if Miss Campbell had returned, I circled the castle, peering into the stables, and then continued around to the side facing the loch. There, the courtyard ended in a small terrace before giving way to the solid stone wall of the castle and a precipitous drop down to the tiny inlet where a handful of boats were moored at a jetty.

I noticed that a narrow staircase was built into the side of the cliff face, leading to a door cut into the rock several feet below where I stood. It must have led into the cellars and servants’ quarters belowground. It would be a dizzying climb but undoubtedly served both a useful purpose—offering a direct route for supplies and fresh fish from the sea to the castle—and a strategic one in centuries past. Should the castle be surrounded, escape by sea would still be possible.

I lifted my gaze to the steely waters of the loch, the boats bobbing on its surface and the green shores of the long island perched at its center. The water today was troubled, stirred up by the wind even now riffling in my ears and pulling strands of my hair loose from their pins and whipping them around my face. Its briny scent and the overcast skies roused in me memories better left buried. Memories of a time spent on the parapets of another crumbling castle looking out over a troubled sea on the opposite shore of Scotland.

It had been almost two years since Will had been killed, and yet my memories of him, of his death, still threatened to steal the breath from my lungs. There wasn’t a day that went by when I didn’t think of my dear friend and wish that I’d had the knowledge and foresight to prevent what his father had done to him and to keep our inquiry from ending in such a tragic way. I lifted my fingers to grip the amethyst pendant dangling from my neck. It had been a gift from my mother just before she died and was supposed to protect me. Whether it actually possessed magical qualities, I doubted, but I always felt better when I wore it. Just touching it made me feel calmer. Safer.

I blamed my distraction on those distressing memories battering at me, for I failed to note Miss Campbell’s approach until she spoke.

“?’Tis called Eilean Rìgh,” Miss Campbell declared, coming to stand beside me. “In Gaelic it means ‘King’s Island,’ though no one kens precisely what king it refers to.” She stood tall and erect, her slim body encased in another simple but expertly tailored garment—this one the shade of new leaves. “Myself, I think it must be connected to the ancient kings at Dunadd.” She turned to me. “You’ve Scottish blood? You’ve heard o’ it, no?”

“An Iron Age hillfort believed to be the capital of the Dalriada.” Lying just a few miles to the south at the edge of Kilmartin Glen, it had once been an important citadel of the Scots.

Miss Campbell swept her hand out as if to encompass all the land and sea before us and behind us. “There are prehistoric places dotted all over this glen—cairns, hillforts, cists, and standing stones. Some say it is the richest concentration in all o’ Scotland.”

I watched her face as she surveyed her domain. I heard pride brimming in her voice, but there was a tenderness also. It lit her face and softened her features.

“You love it here, don’t you?” I asked softly. So softly, in fact, that I wondered at first if she’d heard me. But when she turned to look at me, I could see the reticence in her remarkable green eyes. Perhaps she feared she’d been too unguarded, or that I would misjudge her. There was no danger of that, but perhaps she didn’t realize it.

Her eyes dipped to my neck where my fingers still gripped my amethyst pendant. Something shifted in her gaze, and she lifted her hand as if to touch the pendant, but then, remembering herself, she halted. “Your mother gave you that.” The words didn’t sound like she was guessing.

“Yes. How did you know?”

She nodded at the pendant. “She used to roll it between her fingers in much the same way whenever she was troubled.”

I blinked at her in shock, and a strange tingling sensation began in my chest and spread outward as I waited for her to continue, somehow knowing whatever she said next would be significant.

“You dinna ken, do you?”

“Know what?” I whispered, feeling almost as if I was standing outside myself watching this conversation unfold.