Page 5 of Much Ado About a Scot

“What will you demand of me?” She’d thought by manipulating him into marriage she would be the one who determined how their relationship moved forward, but she feared she’d underestimated him. But no more. She’d survived two husbands. There wasn’t much he could ask of her that hadn’t been pressed upon her before.

“When it is time for me to collect payment, you will know,” he replied as he bent to retrieve a sgian dubh from his boot with his free hand. He brought the blade up, slicing the ribbon that bound them, then released his grip. Isobel’s hand fell to her side. She flared her fingers as the heat of his touch still lingered against her skin.

He stepped back. “Do you have a horse or a wagon?”

She lifted her gaze to his. His question gave her something to focus on other than how tall he was—much taller than she had estimated while he’d been in the pillory. “Nay. I walk here every day.” She turned to gather the basket of goods she’d left near where he’d been detained. The basket contained the few kitchen staples she could afford. As she picked up the basket, his fingers met hers, taking the basket from her hands. She turned to look into his dark eyes. “My thanks.”

“Shall we be on our way?”

He waited beside her and she suddenly became acutely aware of his nearness. The flesh on her neck prickled. “Do we need to stop anywhere to pick up your possessions?”

“I have nothing but the clothes on my back.” The words were spoken softly, but with no humility.

A vagabond then? She clasped her icy hands together. It served her right for marrying the man before she knew anything about him. As long as he worked hard, she didn’t care who or what he was. Bringing in the crop and securing her child’s future—that was what mattered. She swallowed roughly, then trying to find the words to bridge the awkwardness between them she said, “What brings you to Haddington? For I have never seen you amongst the villagers before. Is that a question I can ask?”

He frowned. “I’ve been in town for a few days. Finding work was more difficult than I’d imagined.”

Isobel narrowed her gaze on him. “If you knew I needed help, why not simply come to my farm?”

For a heartbeat a startled expression crossed his face before he dropped his gaze, staring down at his feet. “I’ve been hungry for a while now. My thinking isn’t as it should be.”

“Which is why you chose to imbibe whisky instead of sustenance?”

He continued looking down. “Whisky solves a lot more problems, however temporarily, than food.”

“And when the effects wore off you decided to steal the oatcake.”

He met her gaze once more. “I am not in the habit of stealing, if that’s what you want to know.”

Isobel reached for the basket and withdrew one of the four apples she had purchased. “Take this. It will at least hold you until I can get you something else when we arrive at home.”

“My thanks.” Looking at her once more, he accepted the apple and took a crunchy bite.

“Come, let’s head home. It’s not far.” She started walking toward the outskirts of the village and he stayed beside her, eating the apple as he walked. It was after one o’clock when at last Gladmuir Hall came into sight. Set among the honey-colored fields of rye that surrounded it, the dark stone building was a stark, but welcome, sight. Despite the long hours of tending the fields by herself and the loneliness that had been her companion for the past year, she knew having a place of her own and a means of supporting her son were more than most others had.

“This is your home and farm?” Xander asked beside her. “Both are much larger than I expected.”

Isobel frowned. “I hope that doesn’t mean you are rethinking your pledge to help me.”

“Nothing of the sort,” he assured her as they started up the drive that had not been used by a carriage or even a horse for years. “I am impressed that you’ve been able to get the crop to this stage all by yourself.”

“My cook does double duty as a nursemaid to my son when I am out in the fields, and her son, Brodie, has been helping me with the laborious tasks in the fields. But all of this—” Isobel waved her hand to encompass the estate around them “—is too much for even the two and some days three of us to bring in successfully. That’s why I brought you here.”

Xander stopped walking and slowly turned in a circle, surveying the land before him. “It will be difficult with even three or four of us, especially since you have no cattle.”

“I said I didn’t have horses. I do have a cow.”

“A cow?” Xander laughed, but the sound was not one of merriment, more like derision. “Why didn’t you list that among your many assets?”

Isobel’s lips thinned. “I also have two goats, four sheep, and four chickens if you want a full list of the things that come along with this farm as well as my two servants, my son and myself.”

His eyes narrowed. “You realize all of this became mine the moment we married.”

She held his gaze. “Not the land or the manor. They are mine through entailment to the Seaton family. My grandparents were given this land by the laird of the Graham clan because my grandfather saved the laird’s life. My grandparents passed the estate to my mother, their only daughter, and she and my father in turn passed it to me as their only child. And I will pass it to my son James when he is old enough to oversee the estate if I can keep it out of David Graham’s clutches.”

“How is David Graham a threat to your land?”

Despair went through her at the thought of her neighbor. “The last two years have seen poor harvests. I barely had the funds to survive, let alone to buy fresh seed to start over.” She looked away, embarrassed by what she’d been forced to do, what she’d risked to survive. She’d spent her life fighting, trying to survive, had done what she’d had to in a world limited by poverty and her parents’ early deaths. “When David Graham offered to lend me the funds to buy the seed, I accepted. And that loan will come due in two months’ time. If I cannot pay him back, then the land and manor house will be his.”