Wild Catriona

by Oliver, Marina

  'That would be more time consuming,' Rory objected.

  'Not necessarily.'

  'But of course it would, you'd have to spend more time on different designs.'

  'Let me explain!' Catriona leaned over the desk to face him. 'I can use a few basic backgrounds, and overprint with individual patterns. I can combine these so that they look individual to match the size of the curtains, or bed hangings. We could offer matching sets, and we can charge much more for these, because they are exclusive.'

  'But that will take such a lot more time!'

  'Not a great deal. And they would be shorter lengths than we produce now, the drying would be simpler, take up less space hanging, and by charging more we would have just as much, probably a great deal more, profit.'

  Rory frowned. 'I can see the merit in it, but I still think we need to have a bigger workshop. Why can't you do your special designs here and I'll find someone to manage a bigger workshop, where we can go on doing the original sort of printing?'

  'I've explained why not! Why are you so infernally stubborn? Is it that you resent taking a woman's advice, too? It was acceptable when you were in trouble, and needed something to help you escape, but now I've made it profitable for you, you want to ignore my ideas!'

  'Cat, it's not that,' Rory protested angrily, striding round the desk towards her.

  Catriona swung round on him in fury. 'It feels very like that to me! Well, go ahead, employ inexperienced printers, and a manager who won't listen to me, Rory Napier, and soon you'll see I'm right. But I won't be here to help you when you do!'

  He halted, almost touching her. 'Does that mean you are leaving me?'

  She shook her head slowly. 'I don't know. But I won't support you in this, you're making a mistake.'

  'And you, with only this experience of running a small workshop, think you know how to run the whole business, I suppose!'

  'I have opinions, yes. I talk to your customers frequently. I know what they want, and I know how to provide it. And now I want to go home, I'm tired.'

  He tried to stop her but she seized her cloak and evaded his outstretched hands. She could not endure any more argument, she decided. She would break down in tears, or reveal her feelings, and to do either would be unendurable. Why did the man have to have such an effect on her?

  *****

  The next day was Sunday, and Rory was heavy-eyed from lack of sleep. He'd lain awake alternately considering Catriona's objections to his plans, and fuming at her intransigence. After years in the business he knew better than she did how to run it.

  'Damn the wench!' he exclaimed as he gave up all attempts to sleep and rose from bed. It was early, but the sky was clear, and there was a sharpness in the air that promised a fine day. He'd see whether he could walk off his irritation.

  He walked rapidly for two hours, out into the hills to the north of the city, before he slowed his pace. Soon afterwards he sat down on a rocky outcrop, from where he could look back towards the Clyde valley. The river was crowded with ships. Trade was booming, and he wanted to be a part of that excitement, to enjoy the prosperity that would come with success. While struggling to improve his uncle's business from the shambles the old man had left it in, the prospects of making his fortune had seemed remote. Now, however, with Catriona's help, he had broken away from that.

  No, he thought suddenly, it was not only her printing that had helped him. Angus Mackenzie had been unable to maintain his campaign, and was no longer a threat. His workers, unpaid, were deserting him. Now was the time to take advantage of his difficulties, and expanding production was the right way to do it. Catriona was wrong, and he was not going to allow her to push her own ideas, her obsession with the designs and patterns she wanted to use, to sway him.

  A small carriage, a dogcart drawn by a fat, dappled grey pony, was coming rather erratically towards him, and he glanced in surprise at the sight of a lone female driving it. Then he leaped to his feet and hailed her. It was Susannah MacNab. What was she doing so far from home, and alone, unescorted?

  She recognised him and reined in the pony. Her face was wet with tears and her hair, instead of its usually immaculate smoothness, was tangled.

  'Rory? Oh, how glad I am to see you!'

  'What are you doing here, on your own?' he demanded.

  'I've been staying with a friend. You remember Mary Campbell? You danced with her at my ball. She has red hair and freckles. Her parents have a house out here, a few miles further on,' she gestured somewhere behind her, 'and I was invited to spend a few days with her.'

  Her voice broke on a sob, and she dropped the reins and held out her hands pleadingly.

  Rory stepped forward and took her hands in his. 'What happened? How do they come to permit you to drive on your own? Did you not take your maid with you?'

  Susannah sniffed. 'Oh, Rory, do get in. Will you drive me back to Glasgow, please?'

  He scrambled up beside her. 'Of course, but tell me, Susannah, what has happened to you?'

  She tried to smile, but it was a pitiful attempt. 'I dismissed her. My maid, I mean. On Friday, as we were leaving Glasgow. She – she was impertinent, I'd found her trying on my gowns, and I'm sure she'd stolen a coral necklace of mine. She swore she hadn't,' she sobbed. 'She was abominably rude. I would never repeat some of the things she said to me. But who else could have stolen it?'

  Rory brushed that aside as unimportant. 'Your father has other maids who could have accompanied you.'

  She hung her head. 'You don't know them! They are all so tedious, boring country girls who have no interest in fashion, or even more boring older ones who are stuffy and despise me. I could not endure the thought of any of them looking after me, and Mary would have lent me hers.'

  'But how did your father permit you to drive alone?'

  'I didn't! Drive alone, I mean. And he wasn't at home, I couldn't ask him and if I'd waited for him to come home it would have been too late to go that day.'

  'Your aunt? Was she not there?' Rory was beginning to feel angry with all of them for not taking better care of Susannah. She wasn't like Catriona, she couldn't take care of herself.

  'She was visiting one of her old friends. Jamie Beaton, our coachman, drove me, in the carriage, and he was coming to fetch me tomorrow.'

  'So why are you driving yourself home today?'

  Susannah suddenly burst into tears and cast herself on Rory's chest. Through the sobs and hiccups he managed to disentangle her disjointed words.

  'Mary's cousin! He was staying there too. He – he kissed me. Last night. In the passageway as I was going up to my bedroom. It was horrid! And he was putting his hand down my bodice. Then – ' she broke off and a torrent of sobs shook her.

  Rory stroked her hair soothingly. She was distraught, in a state he'd never before seen her. Usually she was calm, gentle and quiet. She clung to the lapels of his greatcoat.

  'It's all right, now, you're safe with me. Tell me, Susannah. What else?'

  She sniffed and he handed her his handkerchief. She smiled mistily up at him, and he thought how few girls could weep so much and still look lovely. She took a deep breath and sat a little straighter.

  'Oh, you must think I'm such a little idiot! But it was horrid, it really was.'

  'What was?'

  'This – this morning, he came into my room. It was still dark, and he woke me. He – he tried to get into bed with me.'

  'What!' Rory held her away from him and tried to look into her eyes, but she was gazing down into her lap, twisting her hands together, and he could feel her trembling.

  She gulped. 'I was so terrified! I screamed as loud as I could, and Mary came running in. She was sleeping in the room next door. He – he tried to pretend he'd heard me scream before, and came to see if I was being attacked by robbers.'

  'I wish I had him here!' Rory exclaimed. 'How could Mary's parents entertain such a rogue in their house?'

  'They didn't believe me. They said I must have been dreaming, and Mr Campbel
l, he was odious, he said I was disgraceful to even imagine such things, and he was going to write to Papa about me.'

  'Did they send you away on your own?'

  She shook her head, and a glimmer of a smile lit up her face.

  'No. We tricked them. I really think we were clever. Mary did believe me, and I said I was too upset to go with them to the Kirk, so she stayed behind with me. She helped me harness the trap, and I escaped. I want to be at home!'

  'You poor child!'

  'You believe me, don't you, Rory?' she asked anxiously, glancing up at him.

  'Of course I do.'

  'Thank you. Oh, Rory, you don't know how frightened I've been that everyone would believe that horrid man, and my reputation would be utterly ruined.'

  Rory pulled her to him and hugged her consolingly. She was soft and gentle, and despite her imprudence in going on a visit without her maid, that was done, he was sure, though childish innocence. He wished he could meet the man who'd tried to destroy that innocence, and knock him down or run a sword through him. In wry amusement he grinned at his uncharacteristically bloodthirsty thoughts.

  Susannah needed looking after. She had made a mistake, and would be more careful in future. When she turned up her face and smiled at him he bent towards her, and kissed her.

  'Oh, Rory!' she breathed. 'You do love me, after all.'

  He was fond of her. Unlike Catriona, she would not argue with him, defy him, cause him sleepless nights. She was malleable, obedient, had been trained to manage a house, and would have no desire to run his business. She would be an excellent hostess, and as his business interests increased that would be invaluable.

  For a moment the vision of Silas gave him pause, then he reflected that now it was his own business, and profitable. He had no need for the man's money, nor Susannah's dowry. The situation was entirely different, and he could stipulate that Silas was not to become involved.

  He'd always accepted that one day, when neither his uncle nor her father were pressing him to it, he would ask her to marry him. Why not now?

  *****

  Catriona opened the door for the others, and let them into the workroom. Normally she arrived some minutes before them, but this morning she had woken late, and only by missing her breakfast had she been able to get here at the same time. She allocated tasks, and then went into the office and heaved the bag she'd been carrying onto her desk.

  It was done. She was happy with the results. She'd worked hard all day on Sunday, and late into the night, but she had a set of small blocks to show Rory, a new design which she could add to the existing backgrounds she already had. He would have to agree with her when he saw these. As well as being placed individually they could be joined together in pairs, and in different combinations. She'd designed them this way so that they could form the edging or a border on the special, exclusive furnishing fabrics she wanted to supply.

  Bessie, one of the women printers, came into the office to replace a twisted corner pin in the block she was using.

  'Have you heard the news, Miss Catriona?' she demanded as she put the pin in place and picked up the small hammer. 'It's real exciting, it is.'

  'What news?' Catriona asked. Her voice was muffed as she was searching in the cupboard for the drawings of her other new designs.

  'Why, about Mr Rory,' Bessie said excitedly. 'My sister's a cook at a house in the same road as Mr MacNab's house, and she had the afternoon off yesterday. She came to visit us. But she had some sewing to do for herself, and didn't leave the house until six o'clock, and by then everyone knew.'

  Emerging from the cupboard, her face flushed, and a sheaf of drawings in her hands, Catriona wished the woman would get on with it. She was inclined to be garrulous, but she was a good worker, and could be depended on to work quickly and accurately however much she was gossiping.

  'Knew what?' she asked. She would not be able to get on with her own work until Bessie had imparted what she clearly considered important news.

  Bessie took a deep breath. 'Miss Susannah and Mr Rory. There was such excitement that it had happened at last.'

  'What had?' Catriona sat down suddenly, finding her legs trembling, and being afraid they would not support her, afraid of what was coming.

  'Why, betrothed, they are. It's been expected for a year or more, and people were beginning to say Mr Rory wasn't going to come up to scratch. But they came home yesterday, in some strange dogcart, nobody knows how. Mistress Susannah was supposed to be staying with a friend for a few days. Perhaps Mr Rory was there too, and they fixed it then, and couldn't wait to get home to tell her Pa. Over the moon, he was, my sister said. She had it from his own housekeeper. Running about the house, shouting instructions, planning a big betrothal party, he was. There, that's it,' she added as she gave a last tap to the pin. 'Won't it be exciting? The wedding, I mean. Perhaps she'll ask us to design the fabric for her wedding gown.'

  To Catriona's immense relief she departed, and for once her loquaciousness was appreciated. Catriona knew she wouldn't have been able to say a word.

  It shouldn't have been such a shock, she thought as she sat motionless behind the desk. This had been planned for a long time, well before she knew Rory if what she had overheard his uncle say was correct. At first it had not mattered to her, but as they worked together her initial liking for him had deepened into an unadmitted desire to be more to him than a colleague.

  She tried to get her thoughts into some sort of order. He'd not wanted to be forced into offering for Susannah if there had been any risk that her overbearing father would thereby gain control of, or any interest in, his business. Now he was doing so well that he need not worry about that. He could refuse Mr MacNab's help, he was well enough established that he could succeed on his own.

  It was ironic, she reflected, that it had been her designs, her skill with the printing, and her insistence on obtaining the right workroom and printers, which had produced that success. She tried to be fair. It was also because Angus Mackenzie had, apparently, stopped trying to steal Rory's weavers. Yet how much had that helped? Surely it would have played a very small part. It was the printed linens the customers found so desirable. There were many suppliers of the plain fabrics. Any recovery with them alone would probably have taken a good deal longer, and Rory would not have set up his own business, so he would not have reaped the profits. She could not imagine the tight-fisted Matthew Ogilvie rewarding Rory just because his own profits were improved.

  She had to pull herself together. It was nothing to do with her who he married. Marriage was a business, she tried to convince herself, nothing to do with romantic ideas of love. She might want him for herself, and she admitted she did, but he would never have asked her even if there had been no Susannah. She wasn't as pretty as Susannah, and men liked helpless, clinging females. Also, more importantly, she had no dowry, and Susannah would have a large one. She had no family, or none she cared to acknowledge, in Scotland, and therefore no connections which could have been of use to his business.

  All she could offer were herself and her talents. She alone could not be enough for a man like Rory, experienced as he was with his discreet liaisons. She recalled seeing him once with one voluptuous older woman, and the veiled hints Bessie had given, but this did not make feel sick with envy as the thought of him making love to Susannah did.

  She didn't know how long she sat there, staring in front of her, going over every single moment with Rory, from their first strange meeting when she had been immediately attracted to him, to their devastating argument just two days ago.

  Had that been influential? Had he decided to ignore her advice, and did that mean he no longer wanted or needed her?

  Eventually Catriona forced herself to go out into the workroom. She busied herself for the rest of the day, confused by her urgent hope that Rory would not arrive and discompose her, and her desire to discover exactly what he intended to do about his new ideas.

  It was late, and the others had gone home, when
he finally appeared. Catriona was in the office, entering the new orders into the sales ledger. She looked up as he opened the door and came in, her heart beating painfully, and in a rather abstracted way noticed that he looked pale. Had he been drinking toasts to his future happiness? Had his friends, fellow manufacturers, customers, all wanted to congratulate him?

  Briefly she allowed herself to think of him and Susannah together, married, living in the same house. Her imagination flitted wildy over dozens of images. She could see them hosting dinner parties for important Glasgow merchants, and sitting in an elegant drawing room, sometimes with company, more often alone. Susannah would talk to the cook, inspect the work of the maids, pay visits to friends while Rory was at work. Would she try to interfere with the printing, insisting on having her ideas on designs complied with, assuming she had the right? And when he was home, and they had supped, they would go upstairs to the same bed.

  It was an image she'd been fighting to avoid all day. Suddenly Catriona could bear no more. She stumbled to her feet, and muttered some excuse about it being time to leave.

  Rory put out a hand to detain her. 'Don't go for a minute, Cat, then we can walk home together.'

  Together? Home? Catriona shook her head. It would not be home in the sense she had dreamed. 'I've heard,' she said, and even to herself her voice sounded hoarse, unused.

  'About my betrothal?' he asked quietly.

  'Yes. Bessie had heard. It seems the MacNab servants have nothing to do but gossip about their employers.'

  'I wanted to tell you myself,' he went on.

  'It's rather late for that!' Suddenly Catriona could contain her anguish no longer. 'Rory! She's not the sort of wife you need, who would support you and understand what you are doing. She'll demand your whole time and energy, I've no doubt, for squiring her to parties. She won't accept your staying here until this hour, you'll be wanted at home to entertain guests, or pay attention to her. If you're not, she'll be here the whole time, trying to make you notice her, making suggestions about how to design the fabrics, how to sell them, I shouldn't wonder! Can you keep her out of it? Or will her father have his wish and be in control at last? Through her?'