Free Gosford's Daughter by Mary Daheim

displeased tone. “Some fool of a Dutchman stole one
of his ships.”
    For one fleeting moment, Sorcha was grateful for the
Dutchman’s greed. At least her father wasn’t able to vent his
anger, and experience told Sorcha that the longer the wait, the
lesser the punishment.
    Dallas, however, was biting her lip and frowning.
“Your father and I stayed up late last night discussing certain
matters. You were one of them.”
    “ Me?” The green eyes
flickered.
    “ Aye. We wish you to go to Edinburgh
for a time, to live with your aunts and Uncle Donald.”
    Sorcha’s hand flew to her breast. “So soon! Must
I?”
    Dallas slowly but firmly nodded her head. “I have
just learned that your Aunt Glennie has sold her house and moved in
with Aunt Tarrill and Uncle Donald, yet they still have ample room
in their fine Canongate residence.”
    “ I shall hate it,” Sorcha blurted,
putting her hands out to her mother in a pleading gesture. “I shall
suffocate.”
    Dallas sighed wearily. “You shall not. Oh, daughter,”
she exclaimed, “I will never understand how you prize these
Highlands so greatly! They’re desolate, wild, lonely places where
the wind soughs through the hills and tears out your heart! There
is no comfort here, only an empty echo from the Ness to
Norway!”
    Startled by her mother’s intensity and passion,
Sorcha shook her head in jerky, rapid movements. “No, no, ’tis not
like that—’tis balm in the wind, succor in the hills. The very
ground soothes my soul. I know not city ways, nor do I care to
learn. Please, my Lady Mother, let me bide here at Gosford’s
End.”
    Dallas seemed to have depleted herself with the
tirade against the Highlands. She lay back against the brocaded
cushions, her hair atangle, her eyes overbright. “Nay, dear Sorcha,
that cannot be. Your father says you must go.” She cleared her
throat before looking straight into Sorcha’s eyes. “Your sire is
hard, but just. You know why you must keep away from Niall. But
Niall does not know, nor will he be told. Since you persist in
seeing him—or trying to, as you did last night—one of you must
leave for a time. Your father believes it would not be fair to ask
Niall, in his innocence, to go. Therefore, it must be you.”
    “ Fair!” Sorcha spat out the word.
“It’s not fair at all!” Her infatuation with Niall suddenly seemed
remote, unreal. “Or am I in disgrace over faithless Johnny
Grant?”
    A faint smile played at Dallas’s wide mouth. “You
forget, Niall is your father’s son.” She lowered her eyes, the slim
fingers tracing a sketchy path on the arm of the divan. Dallas
chose her next words with care. “As for young Grant, to discuss him
further is a waste of breath. He has ceased to exist in the world
your father and I inhabit.”
    Sorcha kneaded her muslin skirt as Dallas looked
directly at her daughter. “I’ve a mind to send Rosmairi, too, but
dislike straining my kin’s hospitality. I’m afraid Ros has come
down with a fatal fascination for George Gordon of Huntly.” Dallas
made a face, looking very much as if she’d swallowed sour milk.
“George, in turn, must covet your father’s commercial trade. Or,
perish the thought, his properties.”
    Sorcha’s green eyes flickered. “Oh?” Was the
explanation so simple? For once, Sorcha doubted her mother’s
perspicacity.
    Dallas mistook Sorcha’s reticence for not wanting to
criticize her sister’s lamentable taste in men. “Fie, how Ros
rattled on last night! ‘So braw, so gallant, so kind, so courtly!’
And Ros always such a shy one with the laddies! George is
twenty-three to her fifteen and has the wit of wool! I pray to
Saint Anne he’s not leading her a merry chase.”
    “ So do I,” murmured Sorcha, wishing
her mother would show as much concern over Johnny Grant’s rude
treatment. But her own immediate future was Edinburgh, and Sorcha
forced herself to face it. “It has been some time since I’ve seen
my aunts and Uncle