A Forbidden Liaison with Miss Grant

by Marguerite Kaye

  ‘My son-in-law,’ Lady Glenbranter said to James. ‘Mr Maddox, may I present our neighbour from our property in the Borders, Mr James Fraser and his wife, Edith. And this is—I beg your pardon, I didn’t quite catch your name.’

  ‘Miss Constance Grant,’ James said, beaming. ‘My cousin, and I am delighted to say, the new head teacher for our school.’

  ‘Miss Grant.’ Grayson took her hand, his fingers twining automatically in hers. Their eyes met. He looked as shocked as she.

  ‘Do you know each other?’ James asked.

  Constance snatched her hand away.

  ‘A teacher, you say?’ Grayson asked.

  ‘Indeed, indeed.’ James beamed. ‘Our school serves a number of the local villages. Of late, we’ve had quite a few displaced Highland families moving into the area, and the language is proving a bit of a hurdle for them. To discover that my very own cousin is not only a teacher but a Gaelic speaker! Well, Mr Maddox, I call that serendipity, don’t you?’

  ‘If Miss Grant thinks so?’

  ‘She does,’ Constance managed to say, unable to meet his eyes, seeing her own torture reflected there. ‘I have agreed to journey south with my cousin next week. I think it—it is a most timely offer. Don’t you agree, Mr Maddox?’

  Grayson nodded slowly. ‘Most timely. I...’

  ‘Pa, come and see this.’

  ‘Excuse me.’

  No! Anguished, she watched Grayson rejoin his children. They were standing only a few feet away. She could hear every word. Witness every gesture. Shona and Neil were children to be proud of, but they were not her children. Even if she and Grayson could find a way to be together, even if by some miracle his children welcomed her with open arms, would she be content? No. Being a mother to someone else’s children was not enough. James was giving her the opportunity to shape the lives of whole generations of children, many of whom were innocent victims of the Clearances. That would be her mission, her legacy.

  And yet, there remained the small matter of Grayson. Now she was so utterly and completely certain he would never be her Grayson, she could admit that she loved him. Watching him made her heart ache with longing. No one understood her as he did. No one knew her as he did. He was the other half she didn’t know she had been missing. But they were destined never to be together.

  She had lost so much in her life. It had taken her years to patch herself back together after leaving Clachan Bridge, but she’d managed it. If she hadn’t bumped into Grayson that fateful day in Newhaven, she would be trembling with anticipation and looking forward to the new chapter of her life which awaited her in the south. An opportunity to help the very people whose shoddy treatment she had been shouting from the rooftops. It would have been so much worse if there had ever been any hope of something more significant between them, but there never had been. She loved Grayson, and now she had lost him for ever, but he had never been hers to lose in the first place. She’d saved herself that pain, at least.

  * * *

  Grayson listened to Shona and Neil prattling away. He answered their questions. He smiled at them. He looked where they pointed as the procession began to make its painfully slow way past. An advance guard of yeomanry led the way, the heavens opened, various bands struck up, and the crowds cheered. His children waved the flags he’d purchased at ridiculous expense for them. Lord and Lady Glenbranter stood stiffly side by side. Constance’s relatives pointed and waved. They seemed an affable couple. He was like an overgrown puppy, but not an ounce of bad in him, as the saying went. The wife looked like the ballast, the sensible head. Good people. Constance would be with good people. Family. Doing work that would satisfy her conscience too. It was ironic that the very thing they’d joked about her setting up on Clydeside so she could be near to him was coming to pass. She’d be happy. He prayed she’d be happy. It was what he wanted for her more than anything. He loved her so much.

  He loved her. Cries of ‘God Save the King!’ echoed and resounded as the royal equipage approached. A covered carriage, Grayson noted, with three men in it, all ridiculously overdressed. A woman standing next to him swooned into the arms of a happy gentleman. Shona and Neil were hoarse with shouting. Was this it? Was this how it ended?

  His eyes met Constance’s, and it was like the first time and every time since. That jolt inside that told him, this was who you’ve been looking for without even realising it. That feeling. I know you. Another place and another time, they’d have been able to admit it from the start. They were made for each other. But this wasn’t another time and another place. He loved her, but he had loved his family first.

  The crowd surged forward, and he managed to reach her side. ‘Constance, do you think we could see each other...’

  ‘One last time?’

  ‘Say goodbye properly. Not like this.’

  ‘Yes. Please.’ She smiled at him then. ‘We owe it to ourselves.’

  ‘Yes.’ He found her hand, squeezed her fingers. ‘Tomorrow. I’ll meet you where it all began, yes?’

  ‘Yes. It seems fitting.’

  ‘Pa!’

  He turned away. When next he was free to look for her, Constance was crossing the street behind the tail end of the procession with her cousin and his wife.

  Friday, 23rd August 1822

  Grayson was waiting, at the end of the harbour in Newhaven when Constance arrived. He was wearing a dark blue coat and grey trousers. No hat. No gloves. The sun was out, sparkling on the incoming tide. He had been staring out at the sea, but as she approached he turned around, his eyes never leaving her as she made her way along the rough stone jetty to join him.

  ‘Here you are,’ he said, holding out his hand. ‘I worried you would think the better of it.’

  Constance stepped into his arms. ‘We need to say goodbye properly. Doing it here brings us full circle. We won’t be able to tell where we began and where we ended, it’s just us.’

  Grayson pulled her tightly to him, his arms around her waist. She closed her eyes, resting her cheek on his chest. ‘You know I love you,’ he said. ‘I think I fell in love with you the moment I set eyes on you, right here.’

  ‘I love you so much too,’ Constance answered. ‘You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘I do.’

  She lifted her face and their lips met. Their kisses spoke for them as they always did, for the first time making no attempt to hide their feelings. She brushed his cheek, running her fingers through his short-cropped hair, pressing tiny kisses to his mouth, telling him she loved him in between. He smoothed her hair, his fingers stroked the warm skin at the nape of her neck as he returned her kisses, telling her how much he loved her, that he would always love her, always. Then they stood, side by side, hand in hand, and watched the tide creep into the harbour.

  ‘There is some sort of military parade being reviewed by the King today,’ Grayson said, when she asked him about his children. ‘I asked the Murrays to take Neil and Shona to it. They’ll see them safely back to the hotel for me.’

  ‘I had no idea that my cousin knew Lord and Lady Glenbranter.’

  He laughed softly. ‘I could see that. Your cousin seems like a good man.’

  ‘Yes. I’m very fortunate.’ She told him of her cousin’s plans as they made their way back to the main road, and the inn where they had first taken lunch. Their table was waiting for them, she wasn’t surprised to see.

  ‘Bread and cheese and coffee,’ the landlady said, setting down the tray. ‘Nice to see you again, I remember you from before. You were indisposed, Mrs....’

  ‘Maddox.’ Oh, if only!

  ‘No tot of rum?’ Constance teased when the landlady had bustled off.

  ‘I didn’t want to break with tradition.’ Grayson made up her plate for her, cutting the cheese into slivers, fanning the apple slices out. ‘Will it satisfy you, what your cousin is offering?’

  �
��It will be a new beginning. I can’t stop the improvers, but I can help their victims. It’s a chance for me to prove that an idealist can make a practical difference.’

  ‘We joked about it, on top of Calton Hill, do you remember? You teaching English to Highlanders.’

  ‘Of course I remember. When James explained his idea, it was the first thing I thought of. There are not so many of them, where I am going. The dispossessed, I mean.’

  ‘Will you be happy there? Content with your lot?’

  She turned on the bench to face him. ‘I’ll make sure I am content. As to whether I’ll be happy—I intend to try. You’ve taught me that I’m capable of being happy. I don’t plan on spending the rest of my life being unhappy. I’ve had enough of that. I plan to make the most of what I have.’

  ‘That is a very good plan.’

  ‘Another lesson I’ve learnt from you.’

  ‘I’ll take my own advice, then.’ Grayson drank the last of his coffee. ‘I almost came to the park on Thursday morning. Even though we’d said goodbye the day before, I almost came. There was a bit of me that still couldn’t accept the fact that I wanted two completely opposing things which were irreconcilable. I couldn’t live without you. You couldn’t live with me. We’ll find a way to make the impossible possible, I told myself, because I wanted to believe that, because I wanted to see you.’

  ‘What stopped you?’

  ‘Neil. “Are you sloping off and leaving us to go on one of your mysterious early morning walks again?” he asked. So I took him out with me, in the opposite direction from the one I wanted to travel. And you know, Constance, for a moment, just for a moment, I cursed him because I’d already set my mind on seeing you again.’

  ‘I knew you wouldn’t come, but I still hoped.’

  ‘Your cousin James has inadvertently put an end to any lingering uncertainty. Now you have pastures new to go to, it makes everything clear cut and definite.’

  ‘Yes, but it’s not only that. It was seeing you with your family yesterday. Being forced to stand right beside you, watching you all together, it made me wonder what on earth they would make of me, if you introduced me into their lives? What would I make of them?’

  ‘If I didn’t know you better, I’d think you were scared of them.’

  Constance crumbled a small chunk of bread into crumbs. ‘Not afraid of them, afraid of failing you. I’d be terrified of making them unhappy, and you in the process. I’d be afraid of discovering that we’d made a mistake, and then of losing you. I’d be very scared that if I lost you in that manner I wouldn’t recover a second time.’ She pushed the crumbs into a heap on her plate. ‘You’re not mine to lose. That’s what I realised yesterday when I saw you with your children. If you were mine, and I lost you, I couldn’t bear it. I’ve lost too much already. And so have you.’

  ‘I know that. It’s part of it, of course it is. When Eliza and I married, we took a real chance on our feelings for each other. When she died, we were all devastated—I mean the Murrays too. Eight years on, and we’re finally all hopefully moving towards some sort of happy medium, a compromise we can all live with. I’d be off my head to risk upsetting the applecart all over again. Even if you would take me on, which I’ve known all along you wouldn’t.’

  ‘I’ve never said that, I’ve never been in a position to. There was never any question of what my feelings for you were, Grayson.’

  He grinned. ‘Nor mine for you. Have you had enough to eat?’

  She looked down at her half-eaten meal. ‘I’ve had more than enough food, and more than enough talking. Let’s stop discussing what is already decided, shall we?’

  ‘What would you like to do instead?’

  ‘End this exactly the way we began it. It’s what we both want, isn’t it? Nothing less feels appropriate.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘When I’m with you like this, just you and I, I’m always sure.’

  * * *

  ‘I wonder what the landlady must think of us?’

  Grayson locked the door, leaning against it. ‘She’ll think, and most landladies are shrewd judges of character, that we are two people who thought that they were well past the age of falling in love. Who weren’t even looking for love, and yet who tumbled headlong into it in a matter of moments. Two people who were made for each other, but who found each other in the wrong place, at the wrong time. So now they’re saying goodbye. They won’t forget each other, not ever. But they’ll try to be happy without each other, because if they don’t they’ll have wasted something precious. That’s what she’ll think for it’s the truth of it, isn’t it.’

  ‘The God’s honest truth.’

  He crossed the room and into her open arms. There were tears on her cheeks. His own heart was full to overflowing. For a moment as he held her, he thought that this had been a mistake, but then she lifted her head, smiling at him through her tears, and she kissed him.

  ‘I love you,’ she said to him. ‘I love you so very much.’

  ‘I love you too. I just love the bones of you.’

  The first time they had been in this small back bedroom in a fisherman’s tavern they’d been hurried, desperate for fulfilment and embarrassed afterwards by their brazen lust. On the beach at Inchcolm they had made love passionately. Now, on the last occasion they would make love, they took their time, wanting to savour every moment, sear it into their memories to be cherished for ever. He pulled the pins from her hair. Removed his coat. His waistcoat. He turned her around to peel off her dress, kissing every inch of her skin. Her neck, her shoulders, the line of her spine. His shoes and stockings were next, then his shirt. She kissed his throat. Her tongue flicked over his nipples. He kissed the swell of her breasts above her corsets, then the valley between them, when he had unlaced her. His trousers were next, and his drawers. She knelt before him kissing his belly, the top of his thighs, then pressed tentative kisses up the length of his shaft that nearly sent him over.

  Her chemise and petticoats let him spend an age on her breasts, and he’d have spent an age more if she’d let him. But she said his name like a plea, and he couldn’t resist her. Naked, they fell on to the bed, their kisses frantic now. She sat astride him, taking him inside her slowly, her eyes fixed on his, watching him, gauging him. He stroked her as she began to move, wanting to feel her coming around him, her harsh moan, the pulsing of her climax bringing his on, sending him over the edge and into the sweetest of oblivion.

  * * *

  She held him deep inside her until it was over, and then she fell on top of him, kissing him gently. Her skin stuck to his, slick with sweat. He rolled her over, curling into her back, one arm around her waist, pressing his mouth to her damp neck.

  ‘I love you,’ he said.

  She wriggled against him. ‘I’m going to ask you to prove it again soon, I warn you.’

  He laughed, his chest rumbling against her back. ‘I’ll do my best, but you’ll have to give me a moment to recover. I’m not a young man any more, remember.’

  It took much less time than she would have thought possible. His light caresses became more purposeful. She could feel his arousal hardening against her bottom as he teased her nipples. And then it started again. More slowly this time, but the conclusion was the same. For a few blissful moments they were one.

  * * *

  It was dusk outside when they finally left the bed. That first time, she had been embarrassed by her underwear, by her almost forty-year-old body, by the lust which had propelled them from the harbour to this very bedchamber in the space of a couple of hours. Except it hadn’t been lust, it turned out, it had been love. This time, there was nothing between them save a tender caution as they helped each other dress. It was such a fragile feeling, this sense of peace, of fulfilment, that they had managed to forge. They didn’t want to shatter it. She would not count the moments, she would savour them.


  They walked together the same route they had walked that first time. The twilight was damp, smoke-tinged, for there had been yet more salvos and rockets and cannons fired as the King’s visit drew inexorably on to its own conclusion. They walked close together, Constance’s hand on Grayson’s arms, their heads bent towards each other, oblivious of their surroundings. At Picardy Place, the platforms set up for the key-giving ceremony had been dismantled, and they changed their route, opting for Queen Street rather than Princes Street.

  The gardens had been taken over as a camp site for troops of Highlanders. There was a clatter of carriages coming down the hill from George Street. ‘The Peers’ Ball is taking place in the Assembly Rooms tonight,’ Constance said.

  ‘The Murrays will be there.’

  * * *

  Grayson wouldn’t release her when they reached his hotel at Charlotte Square. ‘I’ll walk you all the way back,’ he said, ‘this one last time.’

  They took the route they’d followed another night, after they had dined together. ‘No stars tonight,’ Constance said when they stopped, of one accord, at the little garden in the centre of Melville Street. ‘Let’s not drag this out, my darling. It’s too painful as it is.’

  One last kiss. Then one more. She turned away, but he pulled her back for one more. ‘Promise me you will be happy,’ he said.

  ‘I will try.’

  One more kiss, and then she took off, running as fast as she could, until she reached the door of the town house at Coates. Light shone from the drawing room. Angus came toddling to meet her as she opened the front door, but he gave up following her as she fled, up two flights of stairs to the sanctuary of her bedchamber. She cast off her gown and her corsets, but didn’t change into her nightclothes. The scent of their lovemaking was on her chemise and her skin. Pulling the pillow to her, Constance lay awake for the rest of the night, determined not to cry.