“Ysmaine, might you speak with Mama about letting us go to Inverness with her and Father?” Little Hilda looked up at her tutor with pleading eyes which threatened to become watery.

Ysmaine knew all too well how easy it was for her charming little charge to turn on tears when she felt it would suit her purposes, and willed herself not to fall prey.

Instead, she ran a hand over the little girl’s auburn brown curls and shook her head with an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, my dear, but I do not think it will be possible. This is why your Mama and Father have asked me to look after you while they are away. It will only be several days, perhaps a week. And we always have lovely times together when I stay with you, do we not?”

“Aye,” the little girl agreed, though it was clear she did not truly share her tutor’s opinion.

“Hilda…” Ysmaine crouched before the eight-year-old so that her own blue Fraser eyes might meet the sharp, snapping gray so prevalent in Clan Bissett. They were of a distant relation through marriage, which was why Hilda’s father, Niall, had been quick to employ Ysmaine as his daughter’s tutor.

That, and the two men had been best friends throughout their lives.

He, like Ysmaine’s father, believed in the value of educating young women, though, in hindsight, Ysmaine believed it was much more her mother’s gentle French influence which had worn down her rugged Highland father’s opinions.

Hilda scuffed at the soil with the toe of her leather shoe, unwilling to look at Ysmaine.

“Hilda, dear, you know your father is an important man in Clan Bissett. He’s taking your mother with him to the clan meeting in Inverness, but it will be no place for… young people,” she was careful to finish, keenly aware of an eight-year-old’s loathing for being called a child.

Especially a keen, bright little thing like Hilda.

“But I could be of aid to him. I listen in on the meetings he holds with his advisors, ye know.” Hilda grinned with both mischief and a little girl’s sense of adventure.

“You do not!”

“I do. He doesn’t know it. He told me I never should.”

“And with good reason. I’m certain they use language in those meetings which should never reach a young lady’s ears.” She straightened, turning her head to the side so that her young charge might not see the smile she couldn’t contain. It would do no good to encourage such behavior.

They walked together hand-in-hand from the clearing where they’d spent the late morning in the very serious business of picking wildflowers. Both of them still wore tiny white and blue blossoms in their hair, the first of spring’s blooming.

“If yer hair were gold, ye would look just like one of the fair folk,” Hilda declared as she looked up at Ysmaine.

Ysmaine merely laughed. “I’m afraid I carry too much of my mother’s coloring to be considered one of them.” And her height, and her wide shoulders and long arms. She came from good stock; her father had always insisted with a note of pride.

Though she had sometimes felt like a giant among other women. Even among some men. It would not have pained her overmuch to be small and fragile.

“Your mama was from France,” Hilda remembered, unaware of Ysmaine’s turn of thought.

“Yes, she was.”

“And that’s why ye speak strangely sometimes. You, I mean,” she self-corrected, blushing.

“Strangely when compared to some of you,” Ysmaine smiled. “My mother wanted me to learn as she learned. She grew up in a great house, where her father was an important man. He wanted his daughter to have the finest learning she could, so that she might make a good wife for a nobleman someday.”

“And did she?”

Ysmaine barely hid her laughter. “Not entirely, no. She made a good wife. My father was always very happy with her, and she with him. I remember how happy we all were. But my father was like yours. A Highlander, from Clan Fraser.”

“Oh, yes. I remember. Father talks about him sometimes.”

“Does he?” It touched Ysmaine to know that anyone would speak of him. “What does he say, if I might ask?”

“That Connor Fraser was the bravest man he’d ever known, that he had once seen him take down ten men with a single swing of his sword!” By the time she’d finished, Hilda’s cheeks had flushed with excitement.

Ysmaine chuckled. “While I doubt such a feat is truly possible, I know it to be true that he was a brave man in battle. And a loyal one. He fought for his clan because it was dearer to him than all else.”

And he had died for it.

Followed by his wife.

No one could tell Ysmaine for certain what had killed her mother. Some whispered that she’d fallen with child against the advice of the midwife who had helped deliver her first and only living babe. The labor had been so lengthy, so brutal, it had been decided that she ought not put her body through such a struggle again.

Though Ysmaine, as a young woman, suspected her mother had been with child more than once afterward. She remembered at least two times in her life when Mama had glowed from within, when she had hummed as she’d bustled about the house. When Ysmaine would find her staring into the distance, her hands crossed over a still-flat stomach.

And then, the sadness. The visit from the healer. Much whispering, the sound of barely-muffled sobs coming from the room she shared with her husband. Papa had been quite sad, as well, and those were the times when he’d often pull Ysmaine into his lap, the two of them sitting quietly by the fire for hours at a stretch while Mama had rested in the other room.

Had it been another such instance in the case of Louise Fraser’s death? Ysmaine would never know, as the healer who’d been ancient by all accounts while Ysmaine was a child had died in the four years since she’d last treated Louise.

Was it possible to simply die because one’s heart was crushed beyond repair?

If so, was not the fact of Ysmaine’s existence not enough to convince her mother to hold on to life?

Regardless, Ysmaine was an orphan and had been since she was fifteen years old. Hilda was merely the latest in a long line of children who had been taught the basics of reading and writing, of music and mathematics, even of embroidery and dance.

The education her mother had insisted upon paid off by allowing Ysmaine a small living, which along with the small piece of land she’d inherited from her parents allowed her to sustain herself. It was possible that she would spend her entire life teaching children, even living under the family’s roof when called upon to do so.

After all, who would wish to marry a girl without a dowry? One who might just be better educated, too? In Ysmaine’s admittedly limited experience, men did not take kindly to women smarter than themselves.

Hilda’s home sat just beyond the crest they climbed together, its thatched roof recently repaired after the normal winter wear. It was still a bit too early for planting in the garden, but there was weeding and tilling going on in preparation.

One of the household servants waved from the doorway, then cupped her hands around her mouth. “He is looking for ye!” she called out, and Ysmaine needed no explanation as to who “he” was. She allowed Hilda to linger in the garden while she hurried into the house.

Niall waited for her in the room he used for meetings with the local clan members, those who also made their home along the banks of the River Beauly. It was a fine, large room, with a roaring fire to keep at bay the chill of early spring, it seemed as though the stones which made the walls and floors held onto the cold almost as though they were too greedy to let it go.

She cleared her throat upon entering, then strode over to the long table at the head of the room. Niall sat with his back to the fire, resting his weak right leg on a stool at his side. He’d earned the injury during battle alongside Connor Fraser, years before Ysmaine was born.

Ever since, his leg had pained him whenever the weather turned damp. It was an unfortunate time of year, as a result.

“I’ve had a letter,” he explained, flying headfirst into his reasons for summoning her, as was his manner. He rarely wasted time on niceties or polite conversation for conversation’s sake.

“A letter?” she asked, puzzled.

“Aye. Someone from yer lands came to deliver it, as it was sent straight to yer home.”

He held it out, and Ysmaine accepted it with a trembling hand. She’d never had a letter before and couldn’t imagine why anyone would send one.

The wax someone had carefully dripped on it to hold it closed was unbroken, telling her Niall had respected her privacy. The crest of the stamp was only vaguely familiar, like something out of a half-remembered dream. A lion and a rose.

Where had she seen it before?

She broke the wax and unfolded the parchment with care.

Niall waited while she read, but he could not withhold his curiosity for long.

“Bad news?” he prompted. When she glanced away from the letter, she found him squinting at her.

Her hands were shaking.

“I suppose one might think it bad news,” she whispered in a voice which trembled as badly as her hands. “My grandfather is dead.”

“Yer grandfather? The one in France?”

“Yes. This letter is from a marquis who I suppose is in charge of the estate. It would appear as though my grandfather left it to me.”

Niall blinked, his mouth falling open. “To ye? All to ye?”

She scanned the careful print, eyes flying over the words. “It appears that way. I’m to have my things packed and ready to be escorted to Cherbourg. My escorts will be arriving…” She double-checked the day and gasped. “In two days. I must be there in person to settle things.”

“Two days?” Niall looked as though he shared her concern.

“I’m sorry… I hadn’t the first idea…” she whispered. There he was, on the verge of departing for the journey to Inverness, and she was announcing her departure.

“There’s no need to apologize, lass,” he assured her with a broad grin. “Yer father was never overly fond of his father-in-law, and the old man outright hated yer mother marrying a Highlander.”

“That much, I know,” she replied.

“It was always understood that he disinherited her,” Niall mused. “I suppose he had a change of heart. Even the hardest old man is certain to soften in the face of old age and knowing he’ll be dead soon.”

Ysmaine shifted in discomfort at his flippant tone, then again, she had never known her grandfather, and he had disowned his only daughter over her marrying a man who’d never been anything but kind, loving, gentle and wonderful to both his wife and their child.

But he’d left everything to her, sight unseen, and might very well have just answered the question of what she would do with the rest of her life. From the little she’d heard of her mother’s upbringing, she knew the family had been quite wealthy by any standards.

And that would be hers, had things remained as they’d been. There was no telling until she arrived in Cherbourg.

“I suppose this is goodbye, then.” Niall stood with some difficulty. “I would prefer it if a handful of my men could assist in your escort, at least until you reach Inverness and depart by boat. As it is, I’ll have a pair of them escort ye home now, so ye might ready yourself.”

It was all happening so quickly, without any warning. She had only just been planning methods to keep Hilda occupied and happy.

Now, she was on her way home, and then?

There was no telling. No telling at all.