Free Whence Came a Prince by Liz Curtis Higgs Page A

brushed her hands over the claret gown hanging from the cottage beams, smoothing out the last of the wrinkles. The women of Twyneholm parish were gathering in the parlor of the manse, as they did on the first Wednesday of every month, to share a plate of biscuits, ply their sewing needles, and join the minister in offering prayers for the congregation. By one o’ the clock they would head for home, bits of gossip tucked in their pockets like pilfered sweets.
    “Almost ready.” Leana eyed the embroidered silk, looking for any blemishes she might have missed. A small dot of ink marring the right sleeve had come out with a dab of lemon juice. The streak of grease on the hem had proved no match for ground sheep’s hooves, Neda’s oft-tested remedy. Yesterday Leana had hung the dress outside to air, then carefully pressed it with a tailor’s goose—a heavy iron with a gooselike neck—borrowed from Mr. Purvis. Leana smiled, satisfied with the look of it. No gown she’d ever owned meant more to her.
    Aunt Meg stilled her hand. “Enough brushing, dearie. ’Tis ready to wear the Sabbath next.”
    Nae, Auntie.
Leana would not feel the claret gown on her shoulders again. Though she had indeed worn it every Sunday in Twyneholm and many days in Newabbey, please God, it would soon serve a different purpose.
    “The hour beckons, lass.” Aunt Meg yanked open the painted door,then added in a stage whisper, “You look the same as the day you arrived. None will be the wiser.”
    Leana followed her out of doors into a thick morning mist. “I pray you are right.”
    Busybodies were the same in every parish, able to spot a guilty face and invent the rest. On the Sabbath last she’d slipped inside the kirk door at the second bell, then made a hasty exit when the service ended, hoping to keep her expanding waistline to herself. That morning her aunt had laced her cotton stays with care, giving her more room to breathe, though the whalebones still pinched in tender places. Would the ladies of the parish mark her discomfort and come to the same scandalous conclusion?
    Leana took a deep breath of moist air and exhaled it with a fervent prayer.
I will trust in the covert of thy wings.
    Aunt and niece made their way across the graveled roadway constructed by English soldiers decades earlier, then joined arms to navigate the slippery path leading to the front door of the manse. The nicest home in the village, the minister’s house was built of dark whinstone with sandstone dressings, freshly painted white. Despite her misgivings, Leana was ready to be inside and dry again. Warm, wet air, like suspended rain, clung to her clothes. Her unbound hair had expanded to a billowy cloud round her shoulders. More time dressing her hair and less time brushing the claret gown might have been prudent.
    The door swung inward at the first tap. Lydia Scott, a tall woman of sixty years with fawn-colored hair and warm brown eyes, beamed at them from her threshold. “Here they are,” the minister’s wife called over her shoulder, then waved them inside. “We thought we’d lost you in the mist.”
    Leana followed her aunt into the manse, self-consciously touching a hand to her hair. The front rooms were already filled with women—sitting on straight-backed chairs, convening by the empty hearth, balancing china teacups on saucers, nibbling crisp lemon biscuits. And talking, all of them at once, their high voices like tinkling cymbals.
    Leana and Meg mingled among them, trying not to knock theirteacups onto the patterned carpet, a rare find in village houses. Each wall was covered in painted paper, an intricate pattern of flowers and fruits that matched the rich colors of the carpet, and thick curtains dressed the long windows. Lydia Scott came from a wealthy family, it was said; the evidence was all round them.
    Aunt Meg greeted each woman by name. “Mistress McCulloch,” she said warmly, “how is your son? And, Mistress Palmer, glad to see you’ve