“Ma’am,” Jamie said respectfully. “Had ye not best go and sit down for a bit? Perhaps put cold water on your wrists? I can watch the lad; he’ll come to nay harm.”

Without waiting for an answer, he turned and called to Willie.

“Ye’ll come with me, lad. Ye can help me with the mash.”

Willie’s small face went instantly from a stubborn clench to a radiant joy, and he clattered back, beaming. Jamie bent and scooped him up, setting him on his shoulders. Willie shrieked with pleasure and grabbed Jamie’s hair. Jamie smiled at Mrs. Peggy.

“We’ll do.”

“I … I really … well … all right,” she said weakly. “Just … just for a bit.” Turning, she shuffled hastily off.

Looking after her, he murmured, “Poor woman.” At the same time, he hoped that her difficulties would detain her for some while, and asked a quick forgiveness from God for the thought.

“Poo ooman,” Willie echoed solemnly, and pressed his knees to Jamie’s ears. “Go!”

They went. The mash tub was in the tack room, and he parked William on a stool and reached down a bridle with a snaffle for the boy to play with, clicking the jointed bit to make a noise.

“D’ye remember the names of the horses, then?” he asked, measuring out the grain into the tub with the wooden scoop. William frowned, pausing in his clicking.

“Mo.”

“Oh, aye, ye do. Bella? Ye ken Bella fine; ye rode on her back.”

“Bella!”

“Aye, see? And what about Phil—he’s the sweet lad that let ye hug his nose.”

“Pill!”

“That’s right. And next to Phil, there’s …” They worked their way verbally down both sides of the aisle, stall by stall, Jamie saying the names and William repeating them, while Jamie poured the molasses, thick and black as tar and nearly as pungent, into the grain.

“I’m going to fetch the hot water,” he told Willie. “You stay just there—dinna move about—and I’ll be with ye in a moment.”

Willie, engaged in an unsuccessful effort to get the bit into his own mouth, ignored this but made no move to follow him.

Jamie took a bucket and put his head into the factor’s office, where Mr. Grieves was talking to Mr. Lowens, a farmer whose land abutted that of Dunsany’s estate. Grieves nodded to him, and he came in, going to dip hot water from the cauldron kept simmering in the back of the hearth. The factor’s office was the only warm place in the stable block, so was often a gathering place for visitors.

He made his way back, careful with the heavy, steaming bucket, and found Willie still sitting on his stool but having now succeeded in entangling his head and arms in the bridle, which he’d evidently tried to put on.

“Elp!” Willie said, thrashing wildly. “Elp, elp, elp!”

“Aye, I’ll help ye, ye wee gomerel. Here, then.” Jamie set down the bucket and went to assist, thanking his guardian angel that Willie hadn’t managed to strangle himself. No wonder the little fiend required two nursemaids to watch him.

He patiently untangled the bridle—how could a child who couldn’t dress himself tie knots like that?—and hung it up, then, with an admonition to Willie to keep well back, poured the hot water into the bran tub.

“Ye want to help stir?” He held out the big worn paddle—which was roughly as tall as Willie—and they stirred the mash, Willie clinging earnestly to the lower part of the handle, Jamie to the upper. The mix was stiff, though, and Willie gave up after a moment, leaving Jamie to finish the job.

He’d just about finished ladling the mash into buckets for distribution to the mangers when he noticed that William had something in his mouth.

“What’s that ye’ve got in your mouth?”

Willie opened his mouth and picked out a wet horseshoe nail, which he regarded with interest. Jamie imagined in a split second what would have happened if the lad had swallowed it, and panic made him speak more roughly than he might have.

“Give it here!”

“Mo!” Willie jerked his hand away and glowered at Jamie under wispy brows that nonetheless were well marked.

“Nnnnn,” Jamie said, leaning down close and glowering in his turn. “Nnnnno.”

Willie looked suspicious and uncertain.

“Mo,” he repeated, but with less surety.

“It’s ‘no,’ believe me,” Jamie assured him, straightening up and pulling the bucket of mash closer. “Ye’ve heard your auntie Isobel say it, have ye not?” He hopedIsobel—or someone—said it to Willie on occasion. Not often enough, he was sure of that.

Willie appeared to be thinking this over and, in the process, absently raised the nail to his mouth again and began licking it. Jamie cast a wary look toward the door, but no one was watching.

“Does it taste well?” he asked casually. The question of taste appeared not to have occurred to Willie, who looked startled and frowned at the nail, as though wondering where it had come from.

“Es,” he said, but uncertainly.

“Give me a taste, then.” He leaned toward the child, putting out his tongue, and Willie blinked once, then obligingly reached the nail up. Jamie folded his hand very gently around Willie’s fist and drew his tongue delicately up the length of the nail. It tasted, naturally enough, of iron and horse hoof, but he had to admit that it wasn’t a bad taste at all.

“It’s no bad,” he said, drawing back—but keeping his hand round Willie’s. “Think it would break your teeth, though, if ye chewed it.”

Willie giggled at the idea.

“It would break the horses’ teeth, too, see? That’s why we dinna leave such things lyin’ about in the stable.” He gestured through the open door of the tack room toward the row of stalls, where two or three equine heads were poking out, inquisitive as to the whereabouts of their dinner.

“Horsie,” Willie said, very clearly.

“Horse, indeed,” Jamie said, and smiled at him.

“Horsie eat dis?” Willie leaned curiously over the mash tub, sniffing loudly.

“Aye, they do. That’s good food—not like nails. No one eats nails.”

Willie had clearly forgotten the nail, though he was still holding it. He glanced at it and dropped it, whereupon Jamie picked it up and tucked it into his breeches. Willie promptly stuck a small hand into the mash and, liking the sticky feel of it, laughed and slapped his hand a couple of times on the quivering surface of the molasses-laced grain. Jamie reached out and took him by the wrist.

“Now, then,” he said. “Ye wouldna like it if Deke put his hoof into yourdinner, would ye?”

“Heeheeheeheehee.”

“Well, then. Here, wipe your hand and ye can help me put the mash out.” He pulled a relatively clean handkerchief from his shirtsleeve, but Willie ignored it, instead licking the sweet, sticky stuff from his fingers with every evidence of enjoyment.

Well, he had told the lad it was food, and it was wholesome enough—though he sincerely hoped Mrs. Peggy wasn’t about to reappear, or they’d both be for it.

Peggy didn’t reappear, and they spent a companionable quarter hour pouring mash, then forking fresh hay from the stack outside into a wheelbarrow and trundling it into the stable. On the way back, they met Mr. Lowens, looking satisfied. Whatever haggling he’d been doing with Grieves, he thought he’d got the best of it.

“MacKenzie,” he said, with a cordial nod. He smiled at William, who, Jamie noticed with some dismay, had molasses down his shirt and a good deal of hay sticking out of his hair. “That your lad, is it?”

For an instant, he thought his heart would leap straight out of his mouth. He took a quick gulp of air, though, and answered calmly, “No, sir. This would be the young earl. The Earl of Ellesmere.”

“Oh, aye?” Lowens laughed and squatted down to speak to Willie directly. “Knew your father, I did. Randy old bugger,” he remarked to Jamie. “But he knew his horses, old Earl did. Going to be a good horseman, too, are you?” he said, returning his attention to Willie.