Free Amanda Scott by Knights Treasure Page B

audience. Although it was Isabella who had spoken, the surge of heat in her cheeks resulted from fear of what Lady Clendenen must be thinking. How, she wondered, could she face her again?
    However, Macleod, typically, had paid the women at the high table no heed whatsoever until the interruption. He turned now, his heavy frown back in place until he realized who had spoken. Then, hastily, he bobbed a semblance of a bow.
    “Good morning, madam,” he said politely to Countess Isabella. “I ken fine that a woman o’ your rank doesna submit easily to anyone but her king. However, I hope ye’ll no be putting such notions in my lass’s head as will set her against them wi’ authority over her.”
    “Our Adela has too much sense to fly in the face of true authority, my dear Macleod,” Isabella said. “But do stay the rest of your conversation until she has broken her fast. She scarcely ate a bite yesterday and must be well nigh starving.
    “Moreover,” she added when he hesitated, grimacing, “we are all of a single mind with you, you know. So we can help you persuade her. And you will both be more comfortable if you sit at the table with us,” she added as a clincher.
    “Ye’ll do as ye’re bid, Adela,” Macleod muttered. Then, in a louder tone, he thanked the countess and put a hand on Adela’s shoulder as if to turn her himself.
    Knowing she had no choice but to obey the countess’s summons, she was already turning, but the first person to catch her eye was not Isabella but Lady Clendenen. Her eyes were atwinkle, and she was smiling as warmly as if she had not heard a word of what Adela had said.
    Adela expelled a sigh of relief, hoping she had not said anything to truly offend her. Lady Clendenen had never behaved any way but kindly toward her. Perhaps she truly did take a motherly interest. Reluctant to trust her own judgment on that score, Adela fingered the gold chain necklace she rarely took off as she went with Macleod to join the others at the high table.
    Feeling her way carefully in the conversation that ensued, she made no effort at first to join in. When two gillies came running, Isabella sent one to the kitchen to fetch hot food for Adela and the other to the buttery to fetch ale for Macleod. The conversation continued while Adela ate, and although the other ladies agreed that she should heed their advice, they did not seem to agree with each other.
    Sorcha said, “You are a fool if you insist on traveling all the way to Loch Alsh when you do not have to, Adela. To travel with a corpse—”
    “Pray, Sorcha, don’t be horrid,” Sidony pleaded. “This must all be hard for her to bear, although I should not want to travel with a dead person, myself,” she added with a shudder. “You don’t
want
to, do you, Adela?”
    Applied to in such a way, and quite unable to snub her youngest sister, Adela said, “Duty is often unpleasant, Sidony. But one must do it nonetheless.”
    “Have some ale, dear,” Isabella suggested. “Ivor is behind you with the jug.”
    “Thank you, madam,” Adela said, nodding to the gillie and shifting aside to let him fill her mug. She had no taste for ale at breakfast, but it was easier to accept it than to debate the point with Isabella.
    Conversation continued to flow around her, but although she had told Macleod she welcomed advice, she let it flow unstaunched until Lady Clendenen said flatly, “Widowhood is not for the young or the faint of heart, dearest. I was in my fortieth year when poor Clendenen went. At first, even for me, life was bleak.”
    Despite herself, Adela listened.
    “More than one warned me that people would think it scandalous if I lived alone in Clendenen House. Most insisted that duty to my husband required me to stay with a respectable kinsman, which meant moving in with Cousin Ardelve or my brother. But both lived far from town, so instead, when a friend invited me to stay with her and her husband in North Berwick, I did. However, after a