Black Richard's Heart (The MacCulloughs #1) - Suzan Tisdale Page 0,114
sight to behold. “Richard is backin’ up,” she told Aeschene. “So are Lachlan and Rory. Och! Rory has his hand on the hilt of his sword. Hattie just lifted something from the back of the wagon…”
“What wagon?”
Letting loose a quick, exasperated sigh, Marisse quickly described the scene unfolding before them. “Hattie and Alyce are in the back of a wagon. It looks to have supplies in it. Alyce is hugging something to her chest and keeps shaking her head.”
Aeschene was doing her best to picture it all in her mind.
“Och! Hattie just put the sack down. Now she has her dirk out and she be pointin’ it at the men. They’ve backed up a bit farther.”
Aeschene’s eyes were as wide as trenchers as she imagined the scene unfolding.
“Good lord! I did nae think Hattie could jump that far! She’s out of the wagon…”
Gasping, Aeschene said, “Is she going to stab one of them?”
“I think she might, she looks to be that angry.”
“Well dunnae just stand there,” Aeschene said grasping for her friend’s arm. “We must stop her!”
“Are ye certain? Because it looks to me it’s yer husband she wants to stab.”
While Aeschene wouldn’t have minded their cook giving Richard a little poke with her dirk, she couldn’t very well allow the woman to kill him, tempting as that thought might be.
“What on earth is goin’ on?” she demanded to know.
All eyes turned to look at her.
“I be about ready to stab yer husband, lassie,” Hattie replied. “Ye might want to have yer maid take ye inside. This could be a bit messy.”
Aeschene rolled her eyes. “If anyone is going to stab him, ’twill be me,” she told her as they neared the wagon. “Now, will someone please tell me what on earth ye are arguin’ about?”
“They brought us salt, now they want to take it away,” Alyce blurted out the answer. She sounded positively despondent.
“When and how did we get salt?” Aeschene asked to anyone who might have the answer.
“I dunnae ken and I dunnae care,” Hattie said. “But ’twill be out of me cold, dead fingers they will be takin’ it.”
“Hattie, please be reasonable,” Rory told her. His bright smile wasn’t going to work on the auld woman today.
“Reasonable?” She was positively offended. “Be it reasonable to be bringing’ me salt after weeks of nae havin’ any, only to tell me I cannae have it? What be reasonable about that?”
“Rory, why are ye tryin’ to take the salt away?” Aeschene asked as she fought hard to make sense of the matter.
“I do nae want to take the salt away,” Rory told her. “Richard does.”
On the arguing went until an ache formed in Aeschene’s temple.
“Enough!” ’Twas Black Richard’s voice booming and bouncing off the walls of the keep.
Aeschene jumped at the sound of his voice. Birds took flight, cows began to race across the field, and if she wasn’t mistaken, Marisse was holding her breath. She had never heard her husband sound so angry.
“Aeschene, please, come with me and let me explain,” Richard said as he took her by her arm and gently led her away.
He took her into the shadows of the keep and she felt an instant chill trace up and down her spine. Whether it was the lack of sun or being in her husband’s presence for the first time in nearly a week, she couldn’t rightly say.
“Did ye have any idea how much yer necklace was worth before ye gave it to Rory and Lachlan to sell?”
’Twas the oddest of questions. “It couldn’t have been worth more than a few sillars.” While she was glad he now knew, she would have preferred he had learned of her plan from her own lips.
He was silent for a long moment before he asked his next question. “How did ye come by the necklace?”
“Me grandminny - me mum’s mum - bequeathed it to me,” she was growing more and more confused. “But what does that have to do with the salt and why ye are trying to take it away from Hattie? The poor woman has been in the Kirk every day for weeks, prayin’ for it.”
She could hear the footfalls of someone approaching while she waited for Richard’s answer.
“Lass, yer necklace was worth far more than a few sillars,” Richard told her. A moment later, he was placing heavy leather pouches into her arms.
“What is this?” Confused, she cradled the pouches.
“The stones in yer necklace? Those were real, lass.”
Believing he was jesting, Aeschene laughed. “I do believe ye