Page 21 of Elizabeth Bennet and the Scottish Laird

“There's more than one of you?” Moira's voice held a note of dismay.

“Five, altogether. You shall meet them at dinner.”

Mrs Fraser had approached during this exchange, leaning heavily upon Mrs Douglas's arm. She was a towering woman who carried herself with the authority of one who had spent a lifetime commanding households and brooking no nonsense from anyone, least of all children.

“You'll be wanting us inside before we catch our deaths, I expect,” she said to Elizabeth. Her accent was thicker than Moira's, her words sharpened by decades of Highland wind. “The bairn needs warming and feeding. In that order.”

“Of course.” Elizabeth gestured towards the house. “Please, come in. Mr MacKinnon has been staying in one of the cottages, but he has moved into the house yesterday, given there was no room in the cottage for everyone. Thus, Hill has prepared the blue room for Miss MacKinnon and the adjoining chamber for Mrs Douglas. Mrs Fraser, you are in the room at the end of the corridor, where the morning light is best.”

The old woman studied her for a long moment, then gave a single sharp nod. “You've a sensible head, Miss. That's something, at least.”

It was not quite a compliment, but Elizabeth chose to receive it as one.

***

Dinner proved an exercise in careful navigation. Mrs Bennet, determined to make a good impression despite their period of mourning, had ordered Cook to prepare a meal of such abundance that Elizabeth feared for the household accounts. Roast chicken. Boiled mutton. A fish course that had required a special trip to market. Vegetables dressed in butter. Three separate puddings. The table groaned beneath the weight of her mother's ambition, candlelight glinting off the best china and the silver that only emerged for important occasions.

Moira sat between her father and Mrs Fraser, her spine straight as a poker, her fork moving with mechanical precision through each course. She ate sparingly, selecting plain dishes and leaving the richer offerings untouched upon her plate.

She spoke only when directly addressed, and then in monosyllables that conveyed nothing beyond bare civility. Lydia's attempts to engage her in conversation about ribbons and officers met with blank incomprehension. Kitty fared no better with enquiries about Scottish dancing. Mary's observation regarding the moral improvement to be found in scripture earned a look of such withering disdain that Elizabeth was obliged to disguise her laugh as a cough.

“The child speaks English remarkably well,” Mrs Bennet observed to Mrs Fraser, in a tone that suggested she had anticipated grunts and wild gesticulations. “I had understood the Scottish Highlanders to be rather... primitive in their speech.”

Elizabeth's fingers tightened upon her napkin. Mrs Fraser, however, merely fixed her mother with a look of steady patience.

“Moira attends the parish school in Broadford,” the old woman said. “The minister's wife teaches the children English with firm kindness. She'll not have them going out into the world unable to make themselves understood.” Her gaze did not waver from Mrs Bennet's face. “The Gaelic is Moira's mother tongue, and she speaks it at home. But she has her English when she needs it, as you see.”

“How very... industrious,” Mrs Bennet managed, and reached for her water glass.

Only Jane seemed capable of drawing any genuine response from the child. When she asked, gently, whether Moira had brought any books from Scotland, something shifted in the girl's countenance.

“I have my mother's copy of the Ossian poems,” Moira said. “And my Latin primer. Great-Aunt Fraser says a lady should ken Latin, even if she cannae speak it to anyone but herself.”

“Our father held the same view,” Elizabeth said. “Though I confess my Latin has grown rather rusty from disuse. Perhaps you might help me remember my declensions.”

Moira turned to look at her directly. “You read Latin?”

“After a fashion. I was never as devoted a student as my father wished.”

“Father says you're clever.” The words seemed dragged from Moira against her will. “He says ye have more wit than most men of his acquaintance.”

Elizabeth glanced at Malcolm, who had the grace to look embarrassed. “Your father is generous in his assessment.”

“Father is many things,” Moira said, and there was something in her tone that gave Elizabeth pause. A warning, perhaps. Or a challenge.

Mrs Fraser cleared her throat. “The bairn is tired,” she announced, in a tone that brooked no argument. “She'll be wanting her bed.”

Moira's mouth thinned, but she rose obediently enough and followed her great-aunt from the room. At the door, she paused and looked back at Elizabeth.

“Good night, Miss Elizabeth.”

“Good night, Miss MacKinnon.”

The formality sat oddly between a woman of one and twenty and a child of nine, but Elizabeth understood its purpose. Moira was drawing lines. She would not be won over easily, and she wished that understood.

Later that evening, after Malcolm had retired to the study with a glass of port and Mrs Bennet had taken herself off to bed with complaints of her nerves, Elizabeth found Jane waiting for her in the sitting room.

“You have been quiet all evening,” Jane said, as Elizabeth settled into the chair opposite. “What occupies your thoughts?”