O Night Divine A Holiday Collection of Spirited Christmas Tales - Kathryn Le Veque Page 0,285

didn’t try to press diamonds on her. She couldn’t accept those.

“Come to my room tonight and I’ll give it to you.”

So there it was. Resume their affair, become his mistress and then leave with him. Could she? Would she?

She waited, lips primmed.

“After dinner, will you come?”

She hesitated. “I might.”

“We must talk.”

He was right. They should talk.

For the rest of the day, Rhona avoided him. Or rather, took on tasks Frederick would not be involved in, or remained in places like her sitting room in the basement, where he could not come without alerting the staff. They operated on a small staff. Since the main rooms were shrouded, they did not need constant care, only removing the covers, cleaning and checking everything was still in good order. The rest of the business of the castle concerned the estate attached to it, and since the steward only came every quarter to collect rents, Rhona took on a lot of those simple tasks, too. After the butler left, Rhona assured his grace that they could manage perfectly well, as long as he brought his own upper servants with him when they planned to visit.

She brought the account books up to date and read the letters from the tenants. Nothing too urgent, except a hole in the roof of one of the cottages. She’d have to ensure that was repaired properly before the bad weather set in. The really bad weather.

His lordship took his dinner alone. Rhona had no part in that, except to remind Cook that Colonel Lord Glinn detested cabbage. “Och, I’ll do it for him with a bit of bacon,” Cook said, until Rhona explained patiently that tactic had never worked before, and wouldn’t work any better this time. The household was in a state of excitement. The duke and his family hadn’t visited the castle for years.

She went through the amended schedule with Elsie, who assured her that she and her fellow housemaid could handle the opening of the rooms easily. “It’s good to get advent behind us,” Elsie remarked. “I’ll put a few sprigs of holly around, but we’ll get to the real business at Christmas.”

Rhona sighed. “Yes.” She leaned back in her creaky wooden chair that she’d covered with cushions. The most comfortable chair in the whole house, she often declared. It didn’t feel comfortable tonight.

Time passed until, at ten, she found herself in her bedroom. She had a small room next to the sitting room that her mother had used before her, and Rhona had shared until her mother’s death three years ago. One morning, she’d woken up, but her mother hadn’t. The doctor said she’d had a seizure in the night. Rhona still missed her. She always would.

That melancholy thought made her restless. One reason she had taken her mother’s death so hard was the lack of conclusions. Her mother had never talked to her, not really. They had worked together, and her mother taught Rhona all a good housekeeper should know, but she did not talk about herself, her hopes and fears, and her husband, Rhona’s father. He’d been the minister at the manse in the village. But after his death, they’d lost the house and their position. They were lucky to get the jobs here.

Would she go to him as he’d asked?

She had to. If she didn’t, their affair, such as it had been, would have no end. She wanted to know what he’d done, how he’d been. And how he managed with one leg. Thinking about his injury sickened her. She guessed he’d wanted some quiet time to think about his future, now he that couldn’t go back to active service. She was only a part of that.

After they talked, she could find some peace. She’d come back here in an hour.

Grabbing a robe from the chair, she wrapped it around herself, tying the sash tightly, a symbol for what she would not allow, or allow herself to think about. Talking was all they would do.

The house was silent now. They kept early hours here, compared to the hours kept in fashionable society. The sea washed against the rocks below the castle, but she only became aware of it when the house was as quiet as this. The sound was a constant in her life, accompanying her every move, her every hour, waking and sleeping. She only noticed it when the sea lashed the rocks rather than washing them.

She climbed the stairs, and entered the main part of the castle, the light from