And neither did the realization of what I’d seen earlier in the shadows inside that crumbled section of Banbogle Castle.
Will and I were passing by a shed not far from the main block of the stables, and its door stood open, allowing us a peek inside. The hull of a rowboat, about the size of a small coble, tipped on its side caught my eye and held it. There had been a boat inside the castle, and not an old, dilapidated one, to judge from the glimpse of the wood I had seen.
I glanced at Will again, remembering how he’d said he liked to scramble around inside the ruins of Banbogle. If so, he must know about the boat. Had he put it there? And, if so, why?
I tried to shake aside the uneasy feeling settling in my gut, but Craggy Donald’s words to us about a boat leaving Cramond Island on the day Miss Wallace disappeared would not let me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
I separated from William and Mac at the top of the main staircase and turned toward my chambers to change out of my soiled riding habit. I knew Lucy was going to sulk when she saw the state of it and my windblown hair, even though I was the one who would suffer through the detangling. If I was lucky, she would be in a better frame of mind this afternoon. Maybe she would even have my bath prepared for me.
I picked up my pace and had just turned the corner when I heard giggling at the end of the corridor—familiar giggling. I backed up a step to peer around the corner. The door to the servants’ stair stood open, held that way by a brawny arm, and Lucy leaned against the door frame laughing at whatever the person behind her was saying. Before the maid stepped to the side I already knew who was with her.
I scowled at Donovan, not caring when he looked up and saw me. He stared right back and mumbled something low to Lucy that I could not hear. She glanced over her shoulder guiltily at me, but her anxiousness at being caught quickly faded to something more belligerent.
“Lucy, I need to change,” I told the maid in a sharper voice than I intended.
I watched in dismay as her chin lifted, but did not stay to see if she followed. I couldn’t bear to stand there faced with Donovan’s self-satisfied smirk when I knew the man was only toying with the girl. In any case, Lucy wouldn’t dare disobey. Or so I hoped.
Even so, it took her several moments longer to appear than I expected, and that had given me several moments longer to grow angrier. “He’s not likely to fancy you, eh?” I mocked the girl, throwing her own words back in her face.
She scowled and marched across the room toward the adjoining bathing chamber. “Would m’lady like to bathe?”
“Lucy, I am not going to overlook what I just saw.”
She ignored me and disappeared into the bathing chamber to begin drawing the water. I stood in the middle of my bedchamber fuming. Stripping off my gloves, I threw them down onto the vanity with a satisfying thwack and then began picking out the hairpins still snarled in my hair. They each landed on the wooden table with a ping.
I heard Lucy return to the chamber but did not bother to turn around and face her. “After this evening, I will no longer require your services,” I told her.
The girl gasped.
“You can return to Gairloch on the mail coach. I’m sure the earl would be happy to welcome you back into his staff as an upstairs maid.”
“Oh, m’lady, please. I dinna want to return to Gairloch.”
“Well, I cannot keep you on as you have been.”
“But I’ve done my job,” she argued. “Ye canna say I hav’na.”
I turned to face her, close to screaming at her for her defiance. Instead I spoke in as calm a voice as I could manage. “You have been surly, and borderline disobedient, for days now. You were unhappy the moment we left Gairloch, and you have been insolent since we arrived at Dalmay House. Why on earth should I keep you on?”
“Please, m’lady,” she begged, tears now threatening in her eyes. “If ye send me back, the others’ll ken I botched it.”
I sighed, unable to remain so harsh in the face of her tears. “You can tell them you got homesick.”
She shook her head fiercely. “Nay. They’ll ken I’m lyin’. And I dinna want to go home. No’ when I just left it.”
“But you’ve been so unhappy. Do not lie and tell me you haven’t,” I ordered her when she opened her mouth to do just that.
“It’s just all so new,” she murmured in bewilderment. “And I’m no’ a fast learner. It took me months to learn to use the curlin’ rods wi’oot burnin’ me hands.”
“Things are always going to be like that when we travel. And in Edinburgh or London or wherever we end up, until you become used to your new surroundings. New places present new challenges.”
“I can manage it. I just needed to get my bearin’s is all.”
“Speaking of which,” I said, hearing the trickle of water. “The . . .”