Betrayed by Bertrice Small Read Free Book Online Page B

Great Hall.
    A tall, austere-looking man hurried forth. “Welcome home, my lord!” His bright blue eyes fastened upon Fiona Hay. “I understand that ye have caught the thief who was pilfering yer cattle”
    “Indeed I have, Aulay, and I have been offered payment in full for the cattle. The matter is closed. This is Mistress Fiona Hay. She and her sisters are now in my custody. They were all alone upon Ben Hay with only two old servants in attendance. She and her two little sisters are safer here at Brae. Her servants will arrive tomorrow. They are elderly. See they are made comfortable” He then turned to the girl by his side. “This is Aulay, my steward, Mistress Hay. He will assign a maid to ye.”
    “Nelly, I would think,” the steward said, his blue eyes twinkling. “She is a young lass, too, but she has more sense, I'm thinking.”
    “Indeed?” Fiona said sharply. She would not be cowed by any man, but particularly not by a servant.
    “Aye,” Aulay responded calmly.
    “Don't try to get the upper hand with Aulay,” the laird warned Fiona. “He's been at Brae since the day of its creation, I think, and is the real power here, are ye not, old friend?”
    “If my lord says so,” the steward said with a small smile and a bow.
    “Are ye hungry, lassie?” the laird asked, and Fiona nodded. “Come,” he said, leading her to the high board and seating her.
    Almost at once their goblets were filled with a finered wine such as Fiona had never tasted. It had a fragrant bouquet to it, and she drank half her portion before she even realized it. Platters were set before them. One held thinly sliced salmon on a bed of greens. Another contained a fat duck, and the third a haunch of venison. A loaf of hot bread was brought, along with a small tub of sweet butter and a half wheel of hard cheese. There was a bowl of small green peas. Fiona's eyes widened. She had never seen so much food and so much variety on a table in her life. Meals at Hay Tower had always been simple. One dish, bread, a vegetable if she could find one. She ate heartily and unabashedly, taking from each platter and dish, devouring half the loaf herself, and almost half of the sweet apple tartlet that was brought to conclude the meal. She downed two cups of wine without so much as a blink.
    The laird watched her with a mixture of awe and amusement. He had never seen a woman of such good appetite. “Ye enjoyed yer meal?” he asked her with droll understatement.
    Fiona smiled blissfully, her green eyes narrowing, catlike. “Aye! I've never had such a feast. Do ye eat this way every day, my lord?”
    He nodded, and then said, laughing, “But ye canna, sweetheart, or ye'll grow as plump as the cattle ye stole from me.”
    She laughed with him. “No,” she promised him. “The women in my family don't run to fat, my lord.”
    “I'll be watching ye closely, Fiona Hay,” he teased her.
    “How many servants do ye have?” she asked him.
    “Ye met Aulay,” he began. “His wife, Una, is my housekeeper. Beathag is the cook, and she has a helper, Alice. There are four maidservants, and when we need them several of my clansmen help within the castle.There are stableboys, a gamekeeper, several herdsmen, and some others I canna remember, lassie.”
    “With all those mouths to feed,” she wondered, “will there really be room for Flora and Tarn, my lord?”
    “Aye,” he reassured her. “Aulay will be happy to have Tarn to help him, and Flora must look after yer sisters as she has always done. I will give her Giorsal to help her, for I can see the old woman is a wee bit frail now, but I will not relinquish her duties out of loyalty to yer late mother, may God assoil the sweet soul of Muire Hay.”
    “Thank ye, Angus Gordon. Yer a good man,” Fiona said quietly.
    He flushed at her words. She almost made him feel in her debt instead of the other way around. “Ye will want to go to yer chamber now, lassie,” he told her. He looked about for someone