“Good-bye, Sinjun.”
Sinjun marveled that MacDuff’s horse, a hard-jawed hacker a good eighteen hands high, didn’t groan when he swung onto his back. Indeed, the stallion even managed to rear on his hind legs. She remained on the deeply indented front stone steps until he was gone from her sight.
Now, she thought, now it was time to act.
But it was Philip who prevented her. He begged and begged to show her the Cowal Swamp. He even promised her, in a voice that offered a great treat, to let her bring some of the swamp ooze back for her own uses. And that, she thought, wondering how Aunt Arleth would react, convinced her.
Crocker accompanied them, and Sinjun noted that he was well armed, despite the fact there’d been no further violence. She wondered if Colin had told him to arm himself. Very likely. Crocker had said the MacPherson name but once, and he’d spat after he’d said it.
It was a good hour through some of the most beautifully savage moors Sinjun could have imagined. Then, quite suddenly, there was a peat bog that deepened and thickened into a sluggishly repellent swamp, with rotting vegetation hanging into the mucky shallow waters.
Crocker gave her a history that included any moving lumps that one could see rippling beneath the surface of the water. Sinjun wouldn’t have placed a single toe into that swamp had her life depended on it. The odor was nasty, like sulfur and outhouses that hadn’t been limed, both mixed together. It was hotter here, which seemed curious, but it was so. Hot and wet and smelly. Insects buzzed about, dining off the newcomers, until finally Sinjun called a halt. She swatted at a huge mosquito and said, “Enough, Crocker! Let’s fill our buckets and leave this odi
ous place.”
It rained all the way back to Vere Castle, thick, sheeting rain that turned the afternoon to night very quickly. The temperature dropped dramatically. Sinjun took off her riding jacket and wrapped it around a shivering Philip. As for Crocker, his single cotton shirt was plastered to his stocky body.
Sinjun fretted about both of them, seeing to it that Crocker bathed in front of the fire in the kitchen and Philip in his bedchamber. He appeared to be fine at bedtime.
The following morning Dahling climbed onto Sinjun’s bed, ready to ride Fanny.
“It’s late, Sinjun. Come along, I’m all dressed.”
Sinjun opened an eye and stared with blurry vision at the small girl sitting beside her.
“It’s very late,” Dahling said again.
“How late?” Her voice came out a croak, hoarse and raw. Sinjun blinked to clear her vision. A shaft of pain over her eyes nearly knocked her senseless. “Oh,” she moaned and fell back against her pillow. “Oh no, Dahling, I’m ill. Don’t come any closer.”
But Dahling was leaning forward, her small palm on Sinjun’s cheek. “You’re hot, Sinjun, very hot.”
A fever. It was all she needed to go with the pain in her head. She had to get up and get dressed. She had to see Philip and make her plans to get MacPherson, she had to . . .
She tried but couldn’t make it. She was too weak. Every muscle, every fiber of bone and sinew and muscle ached horribly. Dahling, worried now, climbed off the bed. “I’ll go get Dulcie. She’ll know what to do.”
But it wasn’t Dulcie who came into the laird’s bedchamber some ten minutes later; it was Aunt Arleth.
“Well, felled at last.”
Sinjun managed to open her eyes. “Yes, it appears so.”
“You sound like a frog. Crocker and Philip are quite well. I suppose one would expect an English miss to be the one to become ill.”
“Yes. I should like some water, please.”
“Thirsty, are you? Well, I’m not your servant. I’ll have Emma fetched.”
She left without a backward look or another word. Sinjun waited, her throat so sore that it hurt to breathe. Finally she fell into an uneasy sleep.
When she awoke Serena was standing beside her bed.
“Water, please.”
“Certainly.” Serena turned and left and Sinjun wanted to cry. Oh God, what was she going to do?
Unlike Aunt Arleth, Serena returned with a carafe of water and several glasses. She filled a glass and put it to Sinjun’s lips.
“Drink slowly, now,” she said, her voice soft and crooning. “Goodness but you don’t look at all well. Your face is quite pale and your hair a ragged mess. Your nightgown looks sweaty. No, you don’t look well at all. It came on you so quickly, too.”