Mine Is the Night A Novel - By Liz Curtis Higgs Page 0,40
walking stick to keep her balance or spectacles to find her way. At least not this year.
When they emerged into the marketplace, her mood lifted even higher. After days of endless rain and mist, fine weather had returned to the Borderland. The mid-May sky was a brilliant gentian blue, and the late afternoon sun shone like heated gold, warming their shoulders. “What a splendid day!” she exclaimed, squeezing Peter’s hand.
“Aye, mem,” he said, a mischievous twinkle in his eye.
Michael had sent Peter round to the house with a scribbled note, now folded in her pocket. Must finish gentleman’s coat. Peter underfoot. Are you free? She could hardly refuse the tailor’s request, especially when delivered by a freckle-faced boy with a winsome smile.
In the last fortnight she’d sewn a dozen shirts for his father’s shop and earned a dozen shillings, all spent on meat and meal. Stocking the household larder had eased some of her lingering fears. No dragoons had come pounding at their door, nor had the Sheriff of Selkirk had occasion to call. With Gibson serving at the nearby manse, Marjory busy cooking at the hearth, and Anne teaching her lace making students, their lives had settled into a comfortable pattern.
Only her encounters with Michael Dalgliesh left her shaking her head.
Whenever she delivered another finished shirt, Michael found some reason to detain her. Might she cut his newly chalked fabric? Did she have time to read Peter a story? Could she find buttons to match a blue waistcoat? Elisabeth did not mind, of course, but she did wonder. Was it her heart Michael was after? Or did he simply need a willing pair of hands?
Enough, Bess. No use fretting with a handsome lad by her side and a peaceful hour ahead.
She and Peter passed the kirk and were nearing the first rise on the hilly road leading southeast from town when he pointed a stubby finger to the right. “That’s whaur Selkirk Castle stood,” Peter told her, “by the Haining Loch.”
Though Elisabeth craned her head, she could spot no trace of it. “It must be so old it’s in ruins.”
“Ye’re verra auld,” Peter reminded her, “and ye’re not in ruins.”
“But I am five-and-twenty,” she told him, still getting used to the sound of it.
They paused at the top of the knowe and took in the verdant hills surrounding Selkirk like the soft folds of a green velvet gown. “Beautiful,” Elisabeth said on a sigh as a gentle breeze, fragrant with spring, stirred the air.
Peter tugged on her hand. “Wait ’til ye see Bell Hill.”
When the road began its steep descent, Elisabeth impulsively challenged Peter to a race, flying downhill past rows of cottages, her long legs quickly outpacing his. She eased up by intent, letting him rush past her at the bottom. “You’re too fast for me,” she called out, stopping to catch her breath.
He turned round to wait. “Ye slowed doon,” he said, as forthright and honest as his father. “Should a leddy run like that?”
“Probably not,” she admitted, then took his hand once more as they approached the Foul Bridge Port. After walking through the town gate, they crossed the watery ditch, swollen from the rain, and left Selkirk proper behind. All the while Peter’s question prodded at her. Was she a lady? Or a seamstress? On this momentous day she might be anything. Elisabeth smiled down at her charge. “We could pretend I am your governess.”
He looked up, hope in his eyes. “Or my mither.”
The word brought her to a stop. Mother. Was this Peter’s idea? Or was it …
Nae. Michael Dalgliesh was her employer, nothing more.
“You must miss your mother very much,” she finally said, touching Peter’s cheek, wishing instead she might bend down and gather the boy in her arms.
“Aye.” He gnawed on his lip. “I dinna remember her like my faither does.”
“Then his memories must serve for both of you, aye?”
Peter merely nodded.
The road grew wider as they climbed, then broadened on either side into meadows blanketed in wildflowers. Elisabeth tarried along the edge of the road, kneeling now and again to show Peter the deep blue speedwell petals, the feathery-leaved yarrow, the sunny yellow primrose.
But the lad was interested in one thing. “Bell Hill!” he cried, pointing ahead. Amid the rolling landscape rose an impressive mound, dotted with sheep. A carriage road turned south toward Hawick, but they took the narrow track that continued straight, climbing past the South Common, where the townsfolk grew their oats, barley, and hay.