Page 81 of Death at a Highland Wedding
Cranston sighs. “Ezra convinced me that it would be insulting to Hall and offensive to Müller.”
Sinclair had a point. Firing Hall as gamekeeper and hiring him back to work a lesser positionwouldbe insulting, and Müller wouldn’t want his predecessor on the estate, judging how he managed it, maybe even sabotaging him to get his job back.
“How about the locals?” I say. “Is anyone angry enough to wish you harm?”
Cranston throws up his hands. “Probably? They act as if I am some ogre who bought the estate and erected a moat filled with crocodiles. I purchased the property and continued on in the same manner as the previous owner. Yet it ismethey are furious with.”
Fiona says, carefully, “My sense, Archie, is that they were equally angry with the previous owner. He built the house and kept them off an estate they long considered community land. They hoped that would change when you bought the property, and it did not.”
“Then tell me so,” he says with exasperation. “Form a delegation. Have the village head or whatnot come to me and discuss it. People barely say a word to me. They only look daggers and act as if I refused to hear them out when they have not said a word.”
He looks at me. “That is an issue to be solved another day. You ask whether any of them would wish to harm me. Club me over the head to show I am not safe in my fiefdom? Yes, I can see that. But do not ask me who.”
“Because you do not know any of them,” Fiona murmurs. “You have not tried to meet them. Have not frequented their shops. Have made no effort to learn anything about the village at your gates.”
He sighs, deeply and dramatically. “I only wished for a country estate. I had no idea there would be so many complications. I am not a lord.”
“Maybe not,” I say. “But that social construct is built into the land. The construct and the compact. They expect certain things from you, and if you do not provide them, they will see it as churlish arrogance.”
Cranston peers at me. There I go again, not talking like a young woman lifted up from the working class.
“Well put,” Fiona says. “But as you say, Archie, all that can be resolved later, and I will be there to smooth the waters. We will begin with a summer picnic on the estate.”
Cranston groans. “I bought the place to escape all that.”
“Too bad. You will endure the occasional social event.”
“Are the gallows really so terrible?” he murmurs. “I hear it is quick.”
“You are joking,” Fiona says. “But do not talk like that. This is a mistake that will be rectified.”
“On that note,” I say, “are there specific villagers with more reason to dislike you than others?”
He throws up his hands again.
Fiona leans in and stage-whispers, “That would require him knowing their names.Anyof their names.”
This is the first time I’ve seen Fiona and Cranston together in anything other than a large group. Their energy is… interesting. Fiona is relaxed, teasing him and making plans for the future, and he is acting as if he’s not sure what to make of that. As if he really did think she’d be long gone.
It’s an arranged marriage, and to me, with my twenty-first-century Western sensibilities, I’d expect Fiona to jump at the chance to escape it. Even Cranston might, if he had hopes of more than a domestic partner to manage his household and bear his children.
It’s obvious that they know one another, in the way children of long-connected families do, but it’s also obvious that those families didn’t bother with even a sham courtship. It’s like being told you’ll marry the son of your dad’s work partner, a guy you’ve seen at social events for years but barely exchanged five words with. I’m horrified at the thought, but the only thing that seems to horrify Cranston is his bride’s youth, which may come from having known hersinceshe really was a girl.
As for Fiona, I don’t even know what to think. I do get the sense that this wouldn’t be the worst marriage ever, as arranged marriages go. Not a love match, but a decent working partnership, the sort Isla had foreseen between McCreadie and Violet. The romantic in me always hopes for more, but the realist looks at all the spectacularly shitty “love matches” she’s seen and has to admit this might not be as horrifying as it appears.
“I do know some of their names,” Cranston says with a mock glare at Fiona. “Constable Ross for one.”
She snorts.
“And Doctor…” He trails off and then comes back with, “There is a fine doctor and his wife, both elderly. The name escapes me.”
“What about Nora?” I ask.
He frowns. “Lenore Hall?”
I shake my head. “Nora Glass.”
His eyes roll up in thought. Then irritation sets in as he shakes his head. “If you are testing me, Miss Mitchell, I have already admitted I know fewof the villagers. Several of the young women have worked at the estate, but I do not know any by that name.”
