“Was he?” The tears fell then, casting down her pale cheeks. “Oh, David, I’ve brought him nothing but grief in his final days! Grief and shame. A runaway daughter deserting her husband.”
“Don’t think that!” David protested. “He was comforted to know you were away, safe from Kinnell. And I was able to promise him I would look out for you—and to tell him that Euan would protect you too. He knows you have friends who will do anything to keep you safe, and he cares nothing for your supposed shame.”
“But I will never him see again,” she cried. “And the last time I did see him, I said almost nothing to him. Alasdair was with me, and I was afraid to speak. His last memory of me is of a silent, frightened girl.”
David squeezed her hand to make her look at him and shook his head. “He has a lifetime of memories of you, not just that one. And in these last months, he’s had all your letters to show him you have recovered and grown strong and happy again. When you ran away from Kinnell, you took his greatest sorrow from his shoulders. There is nothing you could have done to make him happier.”
“Do you think so?” she choked through her tears.
He raised her small hand to his cheek in an uncharacteristic show of affection. Her grief pierced his usual stiffness, made a mockery of his customary reserve.
“I know it,” he said. “I know it.”
Chapter Eleven
As painful as it was to give Elizabeth the news about her father, David was glad he’d been the one to do it. Glad that he’d been able to sweep her guilty regrets aside and give her the comfort that only someone who knew her father could. It had helped David too, the private sharing of grief between them subtly easing his own sorrow.
By the time Euan returned to the house at six, Elizabeth was calm again, though David thought that Euan looked strained. He entered the tiny kitchen, pulling up short in surprise when he saw David.
“Davy!”
Euan’s incipient smile died on his lips as his gaze turned to Elizabeth and then down to something he held in his hand—a letter. He proffered it to Elizabeth.
“It’s from your sister,” he said gravely. “There was another for me”—he broke off, gaze roaming to David again—“but perhaps the news has preceded me?”
David said nothing. He didn’t need to. Elizabeth had already broken the seal on the letter and was scanning the lines. Her expression remained calm, but he guessed what the letter said from the faint rounding of her shoulders and the lowering of her head.
“He’s gone,” she said. “My father died on Tuesday morning.”
“Oh, Lizzie—”
Euan went to her, wrapping his arms around her and kissing the top of her head, murmuring endearments and reassurances. If David had been in any doubt about what they were to one another, he could not have remained so after seeing this. He glanced away from them, touched by Euan’s devotion, but also—envious. The envy was a savage, unworthy howl in his breast, and he muzzled it quickly, ruthlessly, appalled at himself.
At length they broke apart, and as Elizabeth wiped her damp cheeks, Euan took the chair beside David at the kitchen table.
“Forgive me, Davy. I’ve barely greeted you.” He smiled a little sadly. “But it’s good to see you again, and looking so well. We were so worried about you, weren’t we, Lizzie?”
Elizabeth said, “I was wretched with worry when I heard you’d been hurt.”
“She felt responsible for your injuries,” Euan added. “And there was nothing I could say to convince her otherwise.”
“You couldn’t possibly have known what would happen,” David said, fixing his gaze on Elizabeth. “No better than I myself did. The truth is, it was down to rotten luck more than anything—not heroics on my part.”
“Don’t say that!” Elizabeth protested. “I know what you did. Euan saw you go after Alasdair. You stopped him getting to me, and in return, he pushed you under that horse.” She swallowed. “You were hurt because of me.”
“Well, now I’m fine,” David said. He meant to sound firm and certain. Instead he sounded surly.
Elizabeth looked at him for a long moment, her expression troubled. Then she said in a small voice, “But you have a cane now.”
The observation hit him like a rock. He had become a man who walked with a cane. David Lauriston, who used to walk twenty miles in a day over the Pentland Hills without giving it a thought. Reduced to this.
He tried to hide how much her words affected him, pasting a smile on his face.
“The cane’s temporary,” he said. “I’m growing better every day. I’ll be returning to Edinburgh soon. To my practice—” He broke off, as thoughts of Murdo—of leaving him and Laverock behind—surfaced again, making the smile on his face wither.
Elizabeth said nothing, but she watched him, her gaze assessing.
After a brief silence, she said, “You’ve changed, David.”
That surprised him. “Whatever do you mean?”
She shook her head, not in negation but wonderingly. “You don’t seem all that pleased to be going back to work. And you’ve always been entirely absorbed by your work.”
Had he been? Entirely absorbed?
“Of course I’m pleased,” he retorted. “It’ll be good to get back to it. All I need is a few days on my feet in court, and I’ll be right as rain.” He attempted a grin, but while Euan smiled back, Elizabeth still looked troubled, and he knew he hadn’t convinced her.
DINNER WAS A PLEASANT, informal affair. They sat round a little kitchen table, the three of them talking easily as they ate. Elizabeth served up a tasty, if somewhat plain, stew of lamb and vegetables. It was a stretch to serve the three of them with it, but there was plenty of good bread and ale, and, afterward, the apple pie.
David was amused to see that Euan literally couldn’t keep his eyes off Elizabeth. His gaze kept straying to her, even when David was talking, his handsome features softening with affection when he looked upon her. When she made a joke, their eyes met, shining at their shared humour, and whenever she went to rise to do something, to clear their plates or fetch some salt, he would leap up first, insisting on fetching and carrying the smallest items for her.
When he rose from his chair yet again, this time to clear away the remains of apple pie, Elizabeth finally said, in a voice that was one part amused, one part irritated, “For goodness sake, I’m not going to break. I’m just going to have a baby!”
The next instant, she clapped her hands over her mouth, eyes gone wide.
There was a long beat of silence.
“So,” David said at last, tentatively breaking into the oppressive hush, “you’re expecting a child?”
Elizabeth didn’t say anything. She’d flushed a dull red and was staring at her hands, so it was left to Euan to answer him.
“Yes, we are,” he said, and there was a glint of defiance in his blue gaze that just dared David to disapprove, “and we couldn’t be happier about it. I might not be able to marry Lizzie before the law, but she’s the wife of my heart, and our child will be loved as no child has before.”
Elizabeth didn’t say anything, but when she glanced at Euan, her brown eyes shone with trust, and for a heartbeat David felt another touch of that wild, howling envy.
“I don’t doubt it for a moment,” he said. “No child could wish for better parents.”
He wanted to be happy for them, but his overwhelming feeling was one of dismay. The child would be presumed to be Kinnell’s under the law and would be at risk if Kinnell ever tracked them down, adding another complication to their already complicated lives.
Finally, Elizabeth spoke. “I was so worried about what my father would think about it,” she said sadly. “And now all I can think is that he’ll never know.”
Euan went to her, crouching beside her chair, touching her with gentle hands. Watching them, David considered how much disapproval their love—a runaway wife and her lover—would attract from the world. Not as much disapproval as he and Murdo woul
d suffer were they ever found out, but more than ample. Realising that ignited something in David. Not envy this time, nor despair, but anger. Righteous anger, at a world that wouldn’t stop prying and interfering, demanding that its unjust rules be followed.
He realised that Elizabeth needed to hear the rest of what Chalmers had said to him. And so did Euan.
“Your father wouldn’t have minded,” he said.
Elizabeth looked up. “David, I know you’re trying to help, but—”
He interrupted her. “In fact, he didn’t mind. He told me he suspected about you and Euan, and I can assure you, he wasn’t shocked by the idea, or shamed by it.”
He told them everything then—about Chalmers’s suspicions that Elizabeth was growing to love Euan, and about his hopes for Elizabeth’s happiness. About Mary Cunningham, the woman Chalmers had loved, and about Chalmers’s own personal regrets.
He told them that Chalmers had said that love should not be denied.
It was when he spoke those words that Elizabeth began to sob. Quietly at first, but soon she was crying hard, helpless to stop herself. She turned into Euan’s arms to hide her face while the grief that swamped her dragged tearing gasps from her chest.
“God, I’m so sorry,” David exclaimed, appalled. “I shouldn’t have spoken—”
She shook her head against Euan’s chest in denial but couldn’t seem to form words.
“Come on,” Euan murmured into her hair. “Let’s get you into bed. You’re exhausted.” He helped her up, one protective arm round her shoulders, and looked at David over her head. “Do you mind waiting here on your own for a little while?”
“Of course not.”
“Have some ale. I’ll be back.”
Euan led Elizabeth out of the room and into the bedchamber next door. The house was so tiny David could still hear her ragged weeping, the sound of her sorrow interspersed with the soothing rumble of Euan’s voice as he comforted her.
David sat at the little kitchen table, nursing his ale, half listening to the indistinct song of Elizabeth’s grief through the wall. The worst passed, fading first to hiccoughing sobs, then to silence. Still David waited, tracing the scars on the ancient table with his fingertips and trying his best not to think of his own troubles—of Murdo and the woman he was promised to. Of the months of silence Murdo had maintained, no hint of the truth passing his lips. And of the world that would part David from Murdo anyway, when David had to return to his own life.
At last, Euan returned. He looked weary to the very bone. He took his seat at the table beside David and poured himself another glass of ale.
“How is she?” David asked.
“She’s been waiting for the news about her father for weeks,” he said. “She knew it was coming. But it was still a shock to her to get it.”
“We never really believe it till it happens,” David agreed. They drank together, a silent toast.
“I wish I’d met him,” Euan said after a while. “I’d’ve liked to have shaken his hand, just once.”
“He was a good man,” David said. “You’d have liked him.”
“He certainly raised his daughter to be a fine woman.”
“He did that.”
David glanced at the clock. It was after ten and very dark out. “I should go.” He sighed. “I meant to be away long before now. It’s late.”
Euan frowned. “You can’t go, Davy. Stay the night. It’s far too late to be out walking on your own on these streets, especially with you being a stranger to London.”
David opened his mouth to protest, but then he remembered how long the walk here had been. He wasn’t sure he could bear it all the way back, not with his leg aching as it was now, and Euan was right about how late it was.
And then there was the fact that he didn’t want to face Murdo yet.
For a moment, he hesitated, wondering if Murdo might be concerned at him not returning, but then, he reasoned, Murdo would be far more incensed at the idea of him walking through the strange dark streets on his own.
“All right,” he conceded. “But where am I to sleep?”
“I’ll make you up a bed in the parlour,” Euan said. “Will you be all right on the floor?”
David pasted on a smile. “Of course,” he lied.
AT SOME POINT IN THE early hours, David reflected that he had grown far too used to featherbeds. All night, he tossed and turned on the floor. The hard surface was barely cushioned by the blankets Euan had laid down to form a makeshift mattress. By the time dawn broke, he felt like he’d barely slept an hour and his hip throbbed.
He was lying on his back, willing himself back to sleep, when Euan tiptoed into the parlour.
“Sorry to disturb you,” Euan whispered. “I need my notebook. I’m going up to Regent’s Canal to speak to some of the workers there.”
“For a story?” David asked, sitting up and rubbing at his eyes.
“Yes. About the working conditions.”
“Not to praise them, I take it?”
Euan’s only answer was a derisive snort.
“How’s Flint’s doing?” David asked. Flint’s Political Register was the paper Euan worked for, a radical periodical, popular amongst ordinary people and hated by the government.
“It’s selling well,” Euan said, “which has its drawbacks. We’ve not had a raid for a while, but you can’t get complacent. We’ll be moving the press again next month. We always have to try to stay a step ahead.” Anxiety clouded his eyes. “My greatest worry is that somehow my working for Flint’s may bring Lizzie to someone’s attention. Kinnell is involved in politics—in the margins, it is true, but he is a government supporter and, as you know, our little rag has attracted some unwelcome attention from that quarter.”
David sat up, frowning. “You have to be careful. You know Kinnell’s already been in London looking for Elizabeth. Have you considered moving elsewhere? There are other papers. Other cities.”
“I’ve suggested it to Lizzie already, but she didn’t want me to give up Flint’s. I think I’m going to have to insist, though, given recent events. The worry’s killing me. Especially now the baby’s coming.”
“You should go. Elizabeth has the income from her trust that you can rely on while you find new work.”
“I don’t like to rely on her money.”
“I thought you believed in equality between men and women,” David replied.
Euan flushed at that. “That’s just what Lizzie would say,” he admitted. Then he looked at the clock and sighed. “I have to go, but I’m going to raise this with her again this evening. Do you think you might also mention it to her before you leave? She’ll listen to you. She thinks every word that drops from your lips is perfect wisdom.”
“Well, she’s perfectly right, of course,” David answered, smiling. Euan just rolled his eyes.
Once the other man had said his farewells and departed, David rose and put away his bed. There was no point trying to sleep any longer. He might be exhausted, but the bright morning light and the pain in his hip and leg would conspire to keep him awake.
After a perfunctory wash, he dressed. He’d removed his trousers and waistcoat before going to bed so they were in reasonable order, but it was difficult to tie his wilted neckcloth in anything but the most basic of knots.
Once dressed, he checked his appearance in a cloudy mirror over the fireplace, noting that he must’ve lain oddly on his pillow because his hair—his now far-too-long hair—was sticking up at an odd angle at the back. He was trying to smooth it down with water when Elizabeth entered the parlour in a plain muslin gown and her long, brown hair about her shoulders. He’d never seen her with her hair down before, and it felt uncomfortably intimate to witness this private state of being.
“Good morning,” she said.
“Good morning. Are you feeling better?”
She nodded, seeming embarrassed. “I’m sorry about last night.”
“Don’t be. I only wish I’d considered th
at it might be too soon to be telling you everything your father said to me.”
“It wasn’t too soon,” she replied. “It was exactly the right time. But I’m sorry you had to witness what came after. I made you uncomfortable.”
“No, not at all. Only sorry and concerned.”
“Well, there’s no need for you feel either of those things.” She took a deep breath, then gave a slightly forced smile. “Are you having trouble with your hair? Shall I fetch you some of Euan’s pomade?”
David smiled back. “That might be wise. I look like a hedgehog. Shall I get the range going in the meantime?”
“Would you?” She sounded grateful for the reprieve from the tedious task.
She slipped away again while David went to the kitchen and began to clear out the ashes of last night’s fire, ignoring his protesting leg. This had been one of his jobs when he lived at home as a boy. First thing when he got up each morning, clearing out the kitchen fireplace for his mother. It felt strangely comforting to do it again now.
When Elizabeth came back, she’d fastened her hair in a loose knot at the back of her head and put an apron over her gown. She handed him a little blue jar, and when he pried the lid off, he was assailed by the clean, astringent scent of pine. He worked some of the paste into his hair and smoothed it down, more successfully this time, while Elizabeth put a kettle of water on the fire and began slicing bread.
She handed him a toasting fork wordlessly, and he stabbed it into a slice of bread to hold over the flames. They drew their chairs up to the fire and sat companionably, toasting their bread while the water boiled.
“Is anything nicer than buttered toast?” Elizabeth wondered aloud once they’d begun eating. Her chin gleamed with a sheen of melted butter and her face beamed. When David chuckled, she laughed too. “I’ve become very attached to toast lately,” she admitted.
It was nice too, even with day-old bread and tea brewed a little too weak so as to eke the leaves out a little longer.
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