“For God’s sake, Rumpel, take that arrangement away, will you?” Norwood complained. “I can’t see Cat from here.”
The butler moved at once to remove the offending peonies.
“Catriona is a philanthropist,” Norwood continued, looking around at them all.
“Philanthropy!” Countess Orlov suddenly laughed. “Of course, that explains it! I understood something much different, but now I understand it plainly. The Orlov family is among the greatest philanthropists of Russia.”
Miss Mackenzie’s face had turned a subtle shade of pink. “’Tis no’ philanthropy,” she said low. “My family is verra generous with their resources, aye, but ’tis a wee bit different for me. I verra much want to help them. By the saints, I donna understand anyone who’d no’ want to help them. Their lives have unfurled in ways through no fault of theirs, and life can be verra cruel to women, it can.”
“Oh, dear,” Mrs. MacLaren muttered despairingly. “Do you mean that life has been cruel to you, then?”
“To me?” Miss Mackenzie clucked her tongue. “No’ to me. I’ve had every privilege. But to women born to less fortunate circumstances, aye? Women without a family fortune to gird them, aye? I’ve wanted for nothing in my life, no’ a thing. But these women? They’ve wanted for compassion and love, a place to call their own. They’ve wanted food for their children and shoes for their feet. Some of them have come with hay stuffed into their shoes to keep the damp from seeping in. Can you imagine it, any of you?”
It was the height of indelicacy to speak of these things at a supper table, but Hamlin found her response to be intriguing and, frankly, righteous. Everyone needed to understand the inequalities that existed in their world.
“I wouldn’t know about that, but life has certainly been cruel to me,” Mrs. Templeton said bitterly, prompting Norwood to pat her kindly on the hand before she swiped up her wineglass and drank. Mrs. Templeton seemed to have forgotten she was dressed in silk and dripping in jewels. She clearly didn’t understand what cruel meant.
“What madness is this?” Furness demanded of Norwood. “How is it your family has allowed one of your own to...to consort with such women and in such a public manner?”
“I beg your pardon, sir, but my uncle doesna speak for me,” Miss Mackenzie said calmly, although the color was high in her fair cheeks, and her grip of the table so tight that Hamlin could see the whites of her knuckles from where he sat. “Griselda Mackenzie, God rest her soul, turned an old abbey into a safe haven for the forlorn and the lost, aye? I donna know all the circumstances that brought these women to Kishorn, but it never mattered to her, it did no’—what mattered was that they’d lost their husbands and fathers and brothers, with no one to provide for them, or had escaped situations in which their bodies were used for the pleasure of men.”
Mrs. Wilke-Smythe gasped with alarm. Her daughter’s eyes rounded.
“None of them had a place to go, no’ until Zelda revived the old abbey for them.”
“But that’s...that’s hardly proper,” Mrs. Wilke-Smythe said uncertainly.
“Neither is it proper to leave them in the cold with no hope,” Miss Mackenzie retorted.
“But what do you do?” Miss Wilke-Smythe asked, clearly enthralled by this unexpected side of Miss Mackenzie, while her mother withered in her seat, clearly undone by the world beyond ivy-covered walls. “Do you mean you are with them?”
Miss Mackenzie let go her grip of the table and touched a curl at her neck. “Aye, I am. I see after them, that’s what,” she said with a shrug. “I see that they have all they need.”
“My niece is to be commended,” Norwood said firmly, but it was clear to Hamlin that few others in this room, with perhaps the exception of Vasily Orlov, shared his view. “Frankly, it is unconscionable that there are those who would cast out these women and children from the safety of an old abbey when they can’t properly fend for themselves,” he continued.
“Who would cast them out?” asked MacLaren.
“Highland lairds,” Miss Mackenzie said. “They donna like them so close, aye? They can find no pity in their hearts, can see no value in them. They view them as hardly better than cattle.”
“How do you presume to know what is in the hearts of the lairds?” Lord Furness demanded.
“Englishmen, too,” she continued, ignoring him. “They want the land for their sheep. They mean to seize the property. The Crown has determined it forfeit.”
“On what grounds?” MacLaren asked gruffly.
“I’ll tell you the grounds,” Norwood said grandly. “My niece will not tell you the whole story, I’m certain of it. Her aunt, who I may personally attest was as daring a woman as I’ve ever known, and if I might say so, quite beautiful,” he added wistfully, “in her own way assisted the Jacobite rebels who fought to overthrow our king by hiding them when they fled to escape the English forces.”
There were gasps all around, which Norwood clearly relished.
“Treason!” MacLaren uttered.
“Uncle, perhaps you ought no’—”
“Perhaps they ought to know the truth, darling.”
Hamlin’s curiosity about this abbey was entirely kindled. He had not been on the side of the Jacobites—he was loyal to the king. But like most Scots, he was not particularly fond of the English and their ways.
“This woman’s aunt was a traitor to the king and the Crown,” Furness said angrily, pointing at Miss Mackenzie.
“Furness, for God’s sake, man, she was a benevolent,” Norwood said impatiently. “When the rebellion was put down, and these men faced certain death, she took it upon herself to help them escape with their lives instead of seeing them slaughtered. Find fault with it if you will, but I think it a very noble thing to do for one’s countrymen.”
No one argued with Norwood’s impassioned defense, but Hamlin privately wondered if it was truly noble to aid traitors, no matter if they were countrymen.
“Shall I tell you what else?” Norwood asked, leaning forward now, one elbow on the table.
“No, Uncle Knox,” Miss Mackenzie said, sounding slightly frantic.
But Norwood had the room’s rapt attention, and Hamlin knew he would not relinquish that attention. It seemed even the servants were leaning a little closer to hear his answer.
“Our own Catriona Mackenzie helped her.”
“Airson gràdh Dhè,” Miss Mackenzie muttered, the meaning of which was not known to anyone in this group. “I beg you, Uncle Knox, donna say more!”
“She’s a daring girl in her own right,” he said. “Her own father expressly forbid her to associate with known Jacobites, and yet my beautiful, compassionate niece could not let those young men die! She brought many of them to Kishorn herself.” He sat back, nodding at the looks of shock around him. Miss Mackenzie looked as if she wanted to crawl under the table. “What’s the matter, darling? You’re not ashamed, are you?”
“No!” she said emphatically. “But you are needlessly distressing your guests, uncle.”
“They’ve no grounds for distress!” he proclaimed. “I will have you all know that I mean to help her. What sort of men are we to punish a woman’s true compassion? Is that not what we all seek from the fairer sex? The Lord Advocate contends the property is forfeit for housing those traitors a decade ago, but by God, I shall have something to say for it.”
Miss Mackenzie groaned softly and bowed her head.
“And