“To refuse it would have been an insult to her,” Ewan said. “She wants to offer us something.”
Annabel frowned.
Just then Peggy came out and offered them all slightly burned cakes. “I’m still learning to cook,” she said, waving one of them in the air. “And I’m sorry there’s no honey. We’re hoping to find a honey tree. I know they’re here somewhere, because bees come into the sun. But whenever I follow a bee into the woods, I get lost!” She laughed.
“Well, I think these cakes look wonderful,” Annabel told her. “I can’t cook a bit.”
“Oh, no, of course you can’t!” Peggy said.
“I should learn.”
“I agree,” Ewan said, finishing his second cake. Annabel scowled at him as he reached for a third. “If you could make cakes like Mrs. Kettle’s, you’d never have to fear my displeasure.”
“I don’t fear your displeasure!” Annabel told him roundly, turning back to Peggy. Ewan was laughing, and Peggy looked as if she wanted to giggle but wasn’t quite certain whether that would be allowed in the presence of gentry.
“I don’t want to keep you from what you were doing; might I help you, perhaps?” Annabel asked.
Peggy looked at Annabel’s beautifully tailored traveling gown. “That’s a daft notion,” she said with a chortle of laughter. “I’m warming the cream for butter. There’s nothing for a lady to do.”
Annabel’s face cleared. “I may not know how to cook but I can churn butter! My sisters and I used to help Cook every week.”
Peggy blinked at her. “You must be jesting?”
But Annabel was already heading into the house, dragging Peggy behind her. Ewan heard her voice disappear inside the door. “Are you using carrot, or…”
“Why don’t I go see how Mr. Kettle’s woodshed is faring?” Ewan asked the air. Clearly Annabel was going to give Nana a run for her money when it came to poking about in his crofters’ business.
An hour later the carriages had still not made an appearance. Ewan wandered back to the clearing to see if he could find his almost-wife. He stopped in the door of the cottage before she saw he was there.
The house was fashioned of one room. A large bed was tucked against the wall, and a rough-hewn table stood in the center. Annabel was standing at the table, washing a large piece of butter in water. Peggy was sitting on the one chair.
“No, you just keep resting,” Annabel was saying to Peggy, for what was likely the twentieth time. “I can mold the butter.” Deftly she turned the lump of butter out of a wooden bowl and sprinkled salt on it. “Now, where do you keep your press?” she asked, looking about.
At that moment Peggy caught sight of Ewan leaning in the doorway, and jumped to her feet. “What you must think of me!” she cried. “I simply couldn’t stop your lady wife, my lord, I couldn’t!”
Ewan grinned at her. Annabel had found the mold hanging on the wall and had begun packing it with butter.
“I’ve been telling Peggy that she needs to rest,” Annabel said to him. “Here she is, a day or so from giving birth, and she’s on her feet from morn till night! Peggy, you lie down on that bed this minute. You’ve sat up long enough.”
Peggy gave Ewan a hopeless look, and he winked at her. She lay down on the bed with the helpless attitude of someone who just met a hurricane and was blown off her legs.
Annabel turned the mold upside down on a plate and pushed on the loose bottom. A pat of golden butter popped out. The top of the butter pat was marked with a P.
“That’s pretty,” he said to Peggy, watching as Annabel started to pack down more butter in the mold. He’d never paid any attention to the look of butter, but now he thought of it, the butter that appeared on his table had his coat of arms on top.
Peggy looked pleased. “The orphanage gave me the butter mold as a good-bye present,” she said.
“When you left to marry Mr. Kettle?” Annabel asked.
“Yes, exactly.”
Ewan had to admit that Peggy looked rather tired now that she was lying down. Her belly stood out from her thin body like an island rising from a stream.
“Of course, when I left the orphanage I wasn’t sure whether I would marry Mr. Kettle or Mr. McGregor.”
“What?” Annabel said, pausing in the middle of turning another butter pat onto the waiting platter.
“The peddler brought word to the orphanage that Mr. Kettle and Mr. McGregor were wanting wives,” Peggy explained. “I was the only one of age who was willing to go into the north woods. So I traveled along with the peddler. The orphanage gave me the mold, and then the peddler was nice enough to give me a cheese hoop because I helped him on the way here.” She beamed. “I’m planning on making cheese next time I have some extra milk.”
“So you arrived here with the peddler, and then you chose Mr. Kettle?” Annabel asked, obviously fascinated.
Ewan settled himself more comfortably against the doorframe, crossing his arms over his chest. “What if you hadn’t liked either Mr. Kettle or Mr. McGregor?”
“By then the peddler had offered for me as well!” Peggy said, obviously delighted by her popularity. “But I knew Mr. Kettle was the one for me the moment I saw him. The peddler tried to change my mind. Course, I could have had as many pans as I wanted if I’d stayed with him. But he didn’t take it at all badly when I chose Mr. Kettle. In fact, he was good enough to give me a piece of cloth for a wedding present, and when the baby comes, I’m going to make it into a wee dress.”
Annabel didn’t say anything, just packed more butter with a little frown.
Ewan caught back a smile. “So the peddler had lots of pans, did he? But Mr. Kettle has a cow.”
“That was a consideration,” Peggy said. She was looking quite sleepy now, lying down in the bed with her head on her hand. “But the peddler had a belly.” She giggled drowsily. “Aye, and a long beard too. Mr. Kettle is a proper man.”
Annabel smiled at her, and Peggy gave her a naughty smile and added, “Every inch of him!”
Peggy giggled, and Ewan’s low rumble of laughter echoed in the little house. And then after a second Annabel joined in. Peggy’s eyes were closing, so Ewan put a finger to his lips and backed out of the house.
Outside, he caught Annabel’s hands in his and said, “So you can make butter, can you? And you shoot arrows with precision, and you ride like an angel. Is there anything you can’t do?”
Annabel looked at him with a crooked smile. “I couldn’t make the choices that Peggy’s made. I don’t want to choose between pans and livestock.”
“You needn’t,” he said, nuzzling her cheek. “I hear the peddler in these parts is looking for a wife, but I won’t let him have you, for all the pots and pans in the world.”
“I have a question,” Annabel whispered, pulling him farther away from the house.
He led her over to Kettle’s woodshed and shifted his stance so that he was leaning against the wall and he could tuck Annabel’s body against his. She gasped but let him.
“What’s proper about inches?” she whispered.
“What?”