Chapter One

"Pat the dirt o'er the seed verra gently, Meggie."

Annora smiled as the little girl patted the dirt as slowly and carefully as she patted her cat Sunny. Margaret, who stoutly preferred to be called Meggie, was all that kept Annora at Dunncraig. Her Cousin Donnell had wanted someone to care for the child, and her family had sent her. That was no surprise, for she was poor and illegitimate, a burden every kinsman and kinswoman she had was quick to shake off whenever they could. At first she had been resigned, but then she had met little Meggie, a child of only two with huge brown eyes and thick golden curls. Despite the fact that Annora thought Donnell was a brutish man, even feared him a little, and had some doubts about his rights to claim Dunncraig, three years later she was still at Dunncraig and not simply because she had no better place to go. She stayed for little Meggie, a child who had stolen her heart almost from the very first day.

"Seeds are precious," said Meggie.

"Aye, verra precious," Annora agreed. "Some plants just grow again every spring all by themselves," she began.

"Cursed stinking weeds."

Bending her head to hide a grin, Annora quietly said, "Young ladies shouldnae say cursed." Neither should ladies of four and twenty, she mused, fully aware of where Meggie had heard those words. "But, aye, weeds grow all by themselves in places where ye dinnae want them. Some plants, however, cannae survive the winter and we must collect the seeds or roots, storing them away so that we can plant them when it is warm again."

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