“Aye, the blessing will work well,” Mark said, smiling at Shawna with warm admiration, “as will milady’s care that the men be’ given a few special hours, paid hours, with their wives and bairns.”
“Aye, my niece does have a woman’s sympathies and sensitivities!” Gawain acknowledged, smiling. The smile was a fierce one. It meant that she should have discussed her plans with him.
“M’lady Shawna, would you have some of our tea?”
Shawna spun about to see that the speaker was Gena Anderson, young and very pretty if somewhat fey, one of the village lasses whose father had worked in the mines. The girl was offering her a steaming mug. The miners’ wives, it seemed, had brought tea and scones, as if the blessing constituted a celebration, a reopening of the mines themselves. She took the warm cup from the woman, thanking her. As she did so, an arm slipped around her waist, and she spun about to see Alistair at her side.
“You’re jumpy this morning, eh?”
“Am I? Sorry.”
“You needn’t be sorry. Ah, cousin! The lady bountiful—you do it so well!” he teased. Though they were actually second cousins, since Gawain was her great-uncle, they had always referred to one another as cousin, as she did with his brother, Alaric. Aidan, likewise, was Lowell’s son, and Lowell was her great-uncle as well, but in the Highlands, the word “cousin” could easily stretch several generations.
He lowered his voice. “And you must have run like the wind down the steps to escape the castle and the walls before Father could stop you and offer his opinion on your generosity!”
“I simply walked out,” she lied. “None of you happened to be about.”
“How convenient! But I do believe you’ve done quite well.”
“We are responsible for these people’s lives, you know,” she reminded him primly. Looking about, she saw one of the very young children who worked the exceptionally narrow corridors of some of the tunnels. She knew that children were drastically overworked everywhere—in the big cities such as Glasgow, London, and even New York—but it still horrified her to realize that the very little ones went into dangerous places. She had fought her great-uncle tooth and nail on the matter of the children, and here, they were allowed to work no more than a few hours a day.
The little lad she noted now was one of her favorites. Though he was one of the Andersons of Craig Rock, it was obvious that the boy had MacGinnis blood as well. He had the telltale ink-black hair and blue eyes. More. He had the handsomely shaped eyebrows that distinguished her family members. In fact…
She glanced sharply at Alistair, who had been known to seduce more than a few of the village maidens. There had been a rumor at one time that he, one of the gentry of the manor, had seduced the very pretty, young Gena Anderson. Whatever had happened, much of it had taken place while Shawna had been away and talk of it had ended.
“Have you had more to do with the lives of some of these people than I might have previously imagined?” she demanded of Alistair.
Alistair laughed, shaking his head, completely unashamed of whatever his sins might be. “Now, cousin, you go too far! Would you blame me, fair cousin, for the fact that too much inbreeding has occurred throughout the centuries in our secluded Highlands, eh?”
“Inbreeding, my—” she began.
“Ach! Such language from the lady bountiful!”
“M’lady!” Mark Menzies called. “Will ye come? The Reverend Massey will give a special prayer for the left shaft!”
“Of course!” she called.
Alaric, Alistair’s older brother, was beside them then as well. “Menzies, I’m not sure Shawna should go into the mines!”
“No, no!” Shawna insisted softly, squeezing Alaric’s hand. “I must go. If it’s not safe for me, then it’s not safe for the men.”
“Shawna, there are differences here!” Alaric told her firmly. He was far more like his father than Alistair, very serious in all his endeavors, a big, gruff, Highlander. From the time they had been children, he had been serious. He was a handsome man, much like Alistair in appearance, but he lacked his younger brother’s quick grin and easy style of living. Like her great-uncle Gawain, Alaric reminded her of a Highlander of old, a man who could easily be a savage warrior, painting his face, shrieking out a battle cry, and rushing into the fray with little but raw courage behind him. She smiled at the thought. Her cousins were so different. Alistair and Alaric, Gawain’s sons. Alistair the charmer, Alaric the hulk. Alaric nearly ten years older than she was, Alistair just four. Then there was Aidan, Lowell’s only child, a decade older than Shawna like Alaric, the very quiet and thoughtful one, steady as a rock. They, with her great-uncles, were her family, and she loved them all. She missed her father dearly. He had been somewhat of a cross between Alistair and Alaric, built like a warrior of old, gruff—and charming. Shawna didn’t remember her mother, who had died before she was a year old, so these men were her closest kin. And now, Alaric was determined to be as protective as a father, speaking to her firmly. “You’re Lady MacGinnis. These men are miners. These men know the mine, and you do not, little cousin.”
“I am Lady MacGinnis. I must go,” she said firmly. She smiled, knowing he spoke from affection, but slipped by him quickly, escaping his reach before he could physically attempt to stop her.
Entering the mine, she found herself wishing that she were elsewhere. The air was tight and stale. Even with lanterns, it was difficult to see. The walls were dark with coal dust. She knew that she would walk from the mine covered in dirt, almost as black as the little urchins who worked the mines when they crawled out from the narrow tunnels.
Mark Menzies was there along with a few of the other miners. Shawna realized that Alistair had come with her as well. He would dare the mines and the devil himself, she thought.
Alistair. She longed to shake him. She wanted to shout that David Douglas was back, demanding vengeance for the fiasco that Alistair had created. But she couldn’t cry out, and despite everything, she did care deeply about Alistair. Of all her kin, she loved him best. He had got her into plenty of trouble, but when she had been hurt, he had been there for her as well for all of her life. And though he remained a man quick to taunt and tease and charm, what had happened had changed him, irrevocably. He’d become extremely responsible, no matter what lightness he might portray.
The Reverend Massey quickly began his benediction.
He didn’t pray long at all, and his words were very fast. She realized that he was as anxious as she was to leave this place where so many men spent grueling hours every day.
“Amen!” she heard Massey say, then he was hurrying from the shaft. Menzies hurried after him. Shawna felt Alistair’s hand at her back, urging her from the mine in the wake of the others.
“Let’s leave here, eh?”