by Karen Ranney
No, she hadn’t mistaken the panic in the Countess of Morton’s eyes. It was back, just before she dropped her gaze to her plate.
Everyone else was busy eating. The countess, however, looked as if she were counting the individual blossoms of heather painted on the plate.
What did one call a countess? Your Ladyship? My lady? Not Your Highness; that was reserved for the queen. Instead of addressing the other woman in any way, Elizabeth remained silent, wishing she could assist her in some fashion.
The Countess of Morton looked so miserable she marveled that the others at the table didn’t see it.
“Where were you injured?” Elizabeth asked, turning to Fergus. “It wasn’t at Sebastopol.” There, a way to aid the countess, even if it meant deflecting Fergus’s attention to her. Even worse, it meant addressing the Laird of Gairloch deliberately.
“Ah, you do remember me,” he said, his smile devoid of humor or even kindness.
“It has finally come to me where we met,” she said, having practiced for this very moment, and those very words. She looked around the table. “The laird was quite caring of his men.” Turning back to him, she said, “You kept everyone’s spirits up. I remember that the most.”
“Do you?” he asked, his expression not unlike the frozen mask his sister wore.
She sipped at her wine, wondered why she couldn’t taste anything at the moment. Perhaps it was because her lips were numb.
“I had a great many patients, but I do remember you.”
“I wasn’t your patient.”
“Elizabeth came highly recommended,” Mr. Loftus said, his booming voice having the effect of a thunderclap. “Because of her work with Miss Nightingale. I wouldn’t have anyone but the best.”
She turned her smile to him, grateful that his character was such that he couldn’t be excluded from a conversation for long. His daughter had inherited that trait.
“If you’ll excuse me,” the countess said, standing.
“But you haven’t eaten anything,” Mr. Loftus said.
“I find I’m not hungry at the moment.” She hesitated. “Will you want to complete your tour of Gairloch in the morning?”
“No,” he said, glancing at Miriam. “My daughter will take my place.”
She nodded, looking distracted.
“Could you see if the maids could dust my room?” Miriam said, catching the countess before she left. “And take down those awful curtains? I’ve never seen anything so ugly. Is there any other furniture to choose from? The pieces are awfully old-fashioned, aren’t they?”
The countess blinked at her, then evidently recalling that she had entered the room for the express purpose of apologizing to Miriam, chose not to comment at all. She only nodded, turned, and left the room.
“Perhaps, if your duties allow you, we could discuss what you remember of Sebastopol,” Fergus said, completely missing the fact that his sister was distraught.
She’d thought he’d be hurt, that he wouldn’t seek her out again. She hadn’t planned for him to be staring at her in such a fashion.
Oh dear, now what did she do?
Chapter 16
Her thoughts kept Shona awake for too long. Now, in addition to their approaching penury, she was going to be humiliated beyond measure because of Fergus’s idea of hosting a party. The social event of Invergaire Glen?
Dear God, how was she supposed to afford that?
Gairloch seemed as restless, the constant tapping making her wonder if one of the inner shutters had pulled free of its restraint. Tomorrow, she’d have to investigate.
At dawn, she finally left her bed. The bedclothes were rumpled as if she’d fought a war with sleep. She’d won an hour or two, but only that. A dream tugged at the edge of her consciousness. Scraps of recollection: laughter, running along the banks of Loch Mor, watching from her bedroom window, and waiting for a signal from Gordon, waving good-bye as the carriage carrying Gordon and Fergus went off to school, feeling an open wound where her heart should have been.
Of course it would all come back to her. She was at Gairloch, what else did she expect?
She donned one of her mended dresses. After staring at her pale face for a few minutes, she unbraided her hair, brushed it, then pinned it into a snood at the base of her neck.
She was feeling out of sorts and annoyed, neither mood suitable for companionship. Avoiding the dining room and kitchen, she entered the main corridor, hoping not to see anyone. Better to simply disappear for a while than say something she couldn’t retract.
She retreated to the library, walking to the end of the rectangular room. An oil lamp, sitting on a small circular table, might have been placed there for the convenience of those looking through the hundreds of books. The lamp had always served another purpose for Shona. She lit it, then went to the farthest bookcase. Reaching up between two old volumes, she pulled the small iron ring protruding from the wall. The entire bookcase swung outward silently.
This was her childhood escape, so familiar that when she stepped inside the passage, she could feel the years peel away. Here, she wasn’t the Countess of Morton. She was Shona Imrie, a young woman of impetuousness, sometimes rash and reckless, always in love. She pulled the ring on the inside of the door and watched as the bookcase slid back into position. Holding the lantern high in one hand, she began to trace the path she knew so well.
Using the passages meant no one could see her disappear. No one could counsel her to remain at Gairloch and be a good hostess. For the moment, she wanted done with all of them: the corpulent Mr. Loftus and his daughter, the princess, Fergus with his eternal glower, and Elizabeth who seemed to inspire it. She didn’t want to see the giant regarding her with his impassive stare or even Helen, who had taken up the role of keeper of Shona’s conscience and good manners.
Will Gordon be there?
Miriam’s question from the night before still burned in her ears. Shouldn’t the girl be more concerned with her own intended husband? She shouldn’t even be flirting. Nor should Gordon be encouraging her.
She passed the entrance leading to the larder. At the passages’ intersection, she turned right. Going left would lead to the stables. The lamp cast a yellowish glow, highlighting the landmarks she remembered. Seven years ago, the passage had not seemed so long, but then, she’d been meeting Gordon. She’d picked up her skirts with one hand, holding on to the lamp with another, and nearly raced down to the loch.
The smell of damp earth reminded her of all the times she’d made this trip. Her hand brushed the stone walls, cold and rough against her fingertips. The passage gradually widened, the air smelling of Loch Mor. The tunnel opened up on an outcropping above the loch, the door hidden behind a cairn of stones.
Three hundred years ago, this tunnel was devised as a last means of escape if Gairloch was ever overrun by enemies. How many times had she used it to meet Gordon?
Now, she simply wanted to stand on the bluff overlooking Loch Mor, see the waves whipped by the wind. Perhaps bid farewell to her girlhood and to Gairloch.
Closer to the loch entrance, the dirt floor became level, making the walking easier. Placing the lamp on the ground, she reached up and removed the thick wooden bar laid across the iron door, leaning it against the side of the tunnel. With one hand, she picked up the lamp. With the other, she grabbed the latch of the door, surprised when it opened so easily.
She’d asked her father, when first shown the hidden passages and tunnel, if their ancestors had created the arrangement of rocks hiding the door.
“A firm undertaking, to be sure,” he’d said. “But I’ve not the knowing of it.”
Still, for three hundred years, each succeeding member of the laird’s family had guarded the knowledge of the passages and escape tunnel, secrets to be divulged only to an Imrie of Gairloch.
And now the Americans would know.
If she hadn’t pretended to be a ghost of Gairloch, Mr. Loftus would never have known of the hidden passages. Resolutely, s
he pushed both thoughts away.
Loch Mor was large, shaped, she’d been told, like a teardrop. At the broader end, rocks formed a wide beach. On the narrow end, on the bluff where Gairloch sat, was a stone face. Tall elms perched on the edge, their branches hanging above the water, almost as if they longed for a watery escape.
Her ancestors had planned well. Even if the loch flooded, unknown within written history of Gairloch, the tunnel was high enough above the water that it wouldn’t be affected.
She extinguished the lamp, set it down on a rock, and found the beginning of a well-worn path with ease. On this side of the loch, the forest was dense. The air was cool beneath the boughs. Purple geraniums poked their heads out from the fallen leaves, surprising her with their appearance. But the temperature was still mild for September; the withering winds would arrive soon enough.
Accompanying her was the sound of insects sweetly talking and the sight of a lone blackbird strutting on stiff little legs across the path. He hesitated, giving her a gimlet eye before continuing on his morning stroll.
She couldn’t help but smile.
Sunlight filtered through the trees, dancing on her shoulders as she walked farther. A patch of wild garlic announced her destination as the forest gradually thinned, giving way to a clearing. In the middle of it, crowned like a rough jewel on the mound of dirt, was a crofter’s hut.
The cottage had not been treated kindly by the seasons. The thatched roof, now rotted and gray, bulged outward. The wooden shutters hung askew on the lone window. The door looked solid, however. If she opened it, would she find a rickety cot, an unstable table, and two flimsy chairs? The remnants of a crofter’s life and, for a short time, a blessed and enchanted place.
Memories swamped her. He’d been ticklish. She’d never imagined he’d be ticklish, and as she reached for his foot again, he let out a masculine yowl of protest.
He held her as she remembered how her father always kissed her forehead before bed, and her mother swept her up into a perfumed embrace. When the grief of their loss engulfed her and she couldn’t even speak for her weeping, Gordon’s arms were around her.
They sat, cross-legged, on the sagging cot staring into each other’s eyes. The one who looked away first lost. Only one Scottish tablet remained on the plate, and it was forfeit to the winner.
Those days had been filled with laughter, tears, and even more laughter.
He’d been her best friend, her lover, and her love.
“Hiding out, Countess?” Gordon’s voice held a note of amusement.
She jerked, but didn’t turn.
“Have you come to tell me how odious I was?” she asked, still facing the cottage. “You needn’t bother. I’ve already apologized for my conduct.”
“Then you’re visiting the past.”
She clenched her hands into fists, released them, and turned, facing him.
God was a Scot and He was testing her, surely.
Colonel Sir Gordon MacDermond, first Baronet of Invergaire, was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.
He was dressed in the uniform of the Ninety-third Highlanders. His kilt was emerald green and dark blue tartan. Red and white plaid socks reached halfway to his knees and were tied with red ribbons hanging nearly to his ankles. The red wool doublet was adorned with gold epaulets, cuffs, and buttons. The sporran hanging in front of his kilt was made of animal skin, adorned with triangles of contrasting fur. Instead of the bearskin hat—Fergus swore the thing was hideously difficult to maintain and store—he wore a Glengarry cap, a long wool cap with dark blue ribbons trailing down the back.
A brace of medals attested to his foolhardiness, his grin to his charm.
He was so perfectly built that she couldn’t help but remember the shape of his shoulders under her hands, the curves of his arm, the feel of his hips. Everything about him was fixed in her memory. Would the image of him always remain there?
“You’ve seen me in my uniform,” he said, the brogue of Scotland thick in his voice.
She nodded, incapable of speech.
He was, like it or not, the epitome of men who’d claimed this land a thousand years earlier. Men like the first lairds of Gairloch, and his ancestors as well. A Highlander in form, bearing, and stubbornness.
His smile broadened, and for a moment, just a moment of wistful thinking, it was seven years ago, and he was home from his first assignment, proud and eager to tell her all about it.
“Do you approve?” he asked, wrapping the reins of his horse around a nearby branch, approaching her with steady determination.
“What are you doing here?” she asked, feeling unprepared to verbally battle with him. The girl from her memories would never have done so. She’d have launched herself into his arms and would be kissing him senseless by now.
Miriam would think him a gorgeous specimen. There, a thought to keep the past from intruding.
She frowned at him, but he kept walking toward her.
“Are you going to Gairloch, then, to show Miriam your pretty legs?”
An arm’s length away, he stopped and closed his eyes.
“Are you sniffing me?” she asked.
His eyes opened.
“Stop doing that.”
His lips quirked.
“I mean it,” she said.
“It’s your scent. I like it.”
He always had. Once she’d told him, when he’d asked, that it was something her mother ordered from France. Bruce had purchased it for her as well. When it was gone, she wouldn’t be able to replace it. The cost was too dear.
“Go on and show Miriam how pretty you are,” she said, forcing her lips to curve in a smile.
How odd that they should be talking of another woman here. A place where they’d confessed how they felt about each other.
Together, they’d learned the art of love. He’d been a natural student, with inventive ideas, some of which she’d never suggested to Bruce. She and Gordon had learned to kiss here, from tender pecks to open mouth explorations of tongue and lips. She’d let him touch her breasts as they’d sat on the cot. She could still remember the shock of awareness she felt when his hand first touched her body, each finger tender and exploring.
More than once, she’d been certain she was with child, but thanks to Mag’s instructions she’d been safe. More than once, she’d told herself that being with Gordon was foolish, but loving him had been so natural, so normal, so much a part of her life, she couldn’t cease.
He stepped forward now, touching her cheek with just the tip of his finger, sliding down to measure the angle of her jaw and hesitating at her chin, a soft and delicate touch she felt to her toes. He leaned closer until his breath bathed the skin he’d just touched. So softly that she might have imagined it, he pressed his lips against her temple. A ghostly kiss, an echo of those they’d once shared.
“Are you jealous, Shona?”
She stepped back, intent on putting distance between them.
“Of course not,” she said, unwilling to admit it. “She’s to be married, however. You should know that.”
His smile didn’t alter, but something in his eyes did, a look that shifted to cool. He was Gordon but he wasn’t. The boy he’d been was there, but in a lesser degree than the man he’d become. This man was more dispassionate, less apt to allow emotion to show. Here was the commander of men, capable of looking out over a battlefield, seeing death and destruction, and remaining calm in the face of it.
“Are you hiding out here?” he asked, moving away from her, toward the cottage.
“No, why should I be?” She flattened her palms against her skirts. This morning she’d dispensed with her hoops for two petticoats, but now she wished she’d worn them. Female armor.
“Has everyone forgiven you?” he asked, glancing over his shoulder at her. “Welcomed you back into the bosom of the family?”
“They aren’t my family,” she said. “Well, Fergus is, of course, and perhaps Helen, but not the Americans.”
His lips quirked again.
“You didn’t answer the question. Are you hiding here until people forget?”
He’d always been direct. They’d talked about everything, every subject except two: his father and his future. He’d known, even as a child, that his future had been mapped out for him. First, military school, and then, the army.
Only once had they discussed it.
“What would you have me do, Shona?” he’d asked. “Immigrate to America? Turn my back on my country?”
“Do you really want to go?”
He hadn’t answered her, and she’d realized, later, what a foolish question that had been. He was, like the men of her family, ordained by destiny to fulfill a certain role. He was General MacDermond’s son, and expected to follow in his father’s footsteps.
“I feel about ten years old around her,” she said now, her sharp tone at odds with the rueful nature of her comment.
“Miriam?”
“She doesn’t say anything good about Gairloch,” she said, hearing the words and wishing they didn’t sound like whining. She wouldn’t tell him what Miriam had said about her.
His smile was wide, revealing white, even teeth. The expression stopped her heart. Dear God, he was so handsome.
“So you thought to demonstrate a few of Gairloch’s finer qualities.”
“You believe in the ghosts,” she said.
He shook his head. “I believe that you believe,” he countered. “That’s been enough for me.”
Without waiting for a response, he turned and walked away, opening the door and entering the cottage.
She followed him to the door but wasn’t foolish enough to go inside. If it was just as it had been, she’d feel a surge of memory. If it wasn’t, she’d regret the change.
Memories could wound. She knew that well enough.
Had he been miserable when she’d left? Had he longed for her as she’d longed for him? Even in her marriage bed, she’d shut her eyes and tried to recall Gordon. Bruce had been a kind and loving man, but he wasn’t young. Nor did he have Gordon’s physical perfection.
But the worst part of their marriage, and it would have surprised Bruce had she ever the courage to mention it, was that her husband wasn’t curious enough. He never wanted to know if what he did pleased her. He merely assumed he had. He never once asked her where she wanted to be kissed, or if she was ready for his loving. In the end, it didn’t matter, because he rarely visited her bed. In the last three years of their five-year marriage, Bruce had been too ill to contemplate performing as a husband.
