“Canna we remove that vile brewis?” she said. “The smell will make my lord sick.”
Delia gave a thin hysterical laugh.
“’Tis all there is in the house belike,” she answered.
But the Countess Peggy’s keen eyes had marked other food about the room, bacon, flour, fruit and fowls.
“Help me, mistress,” she commanded, and laying delicate, resolute hands upon a cloth, she lifted off the pot and stood it on the hearth.
“Ah,” she said with a disgusted face. “The place reeks.”
Her hair had fallen over her face; she flung it back and Delia noticed dully how it curled round her temples in little red ringlets, then suddenly it seemed as if her blood stood still; the shock of discovery held her silent.
This was the woman Macdonald had spoken of; she knew it certainly and her fingers curled into her palm with hate. This woman—Lady Breadalbane! With angry eyes she watched the Countess, who all unconscious was moving about the room among the pots and pans; there could not be two women with such eyes and hair and lips, and it was a most likely thing that it should have been Breadalbane’s wife riding by Glenorchy. The discovery nerved her; an angry desire to test this woman, to prove herself right, took hold of her; her fine face flushed and she lifted her head.
“Madam, your lord carries good news to London,” she said on an impulse. “I heard all the clans had submitted.”
The Countess turned with a slight smile.