Sleepless in Scotland

by May McGoldrick

  He raked tired fingers through his hair. Phoebe was safe. She’d survived the fall. That’s what was most important.

  And while his tenants and workers would need to be more vigilant in the future, there were improvements that could make the place safer for all. Things like covering that blasted well and perhaps fixing up the old cottages in the grove to provide shelter to families traveling through. He couldn’t feed every vagrant coming out of the Highlands, but if those who ended up on his land felt more welcome, perhaps there’d be less need for committing a crime.

  Arriving back at the castle, he was surprised to encounter Dr. Thornton stalking stiff-legged across the courtyard to the carriage. The physician hadn’t been expected here until dinner. Worry immediately darkened his mood. Phoebe? Or his mother?

  “It’s a curious thing, Captain, to have a carriage come stop by my door and interrupt my Sunday morning to deliver me out here on urgent business,” the doctor said with a perfunctory bow when Ian reached him. “But when I arrive, no one cares to see me.”

  From all reports this morning, Phoebe was improving, and his mother should have been at Sunday’s service with Alice.

  “Who sent for you?”

  “I never did get a clear answer to that question. Not at my door and not out here,” he grouched, dropping his bag into the carriage. “But what was clear was that I wasn’t wanted. Mrs. Hume told me your mother has barricaded herself in the morning room with Lady Phoebe, that they’re both in fine health, and they didn’t care to be disturbed. Though I’m sure I don’t know who does care to be disturbed on a Sunday morning . . . in the middle of his breakfast!”

  Ian didn’t try to hide his relief. He’d tried to protect his mother from hearing that Phoebe had gone missing yesterday, but it was inevitable for her to find out. And really it didn’t matter much, in any event, since she was back safe and on the mend.

  The feel of her body on his lap last night, the heat of their kiss, the silkiness of her skin all came back to him now, reaffirming that she would recover from the fall and the time in the well. He glanced at the house.

  “Then,” the doctor snapped, forcing Ian to pay attention to him, “I go searching for Mrs. Young, assuming she may have been the one who sent the carriage.”

  Thornton slapped the side of the vehicle, startling the horses.

  “And . . . ?” Ian encouraged, wanting to be done with this conversation.

  “And she doesn’t wish to speak with me either.” The man cast a disparaging look at the castle. “Wasted an entire morning.”

  Ian considered the scraps he’d heard of the argument between his cousin and Thornton. The heated tone of conversation made him think the doctor was feeling a bit slighted by Alice’s unwillingness to give him a satisfactory answer to something.

  “You and Mrs. Young . . .” he started, kicking himself as soon as he said the words.

  Suddenly, the brusque, grumbling professional man was gone, replaced by a wounded, lovelorn schoolboy. With a sad, downturned mouth, Thornton sent a longing look at an upstairs window, then scuffed at the gravel and stared at the stones skipping away. The transformation was stunning.

  The doctor tossed the tails of his coat backwards and clasped his hands behind him. “I’ve been meaning to speak with you about a matter of delicacy.”

  Now Ian was more than sorry he’d broached the topic. All he wanted was to see Phoebe. But the doctor was not to be stopped.

  “I hope, Captain, you don’t think I’ve overstepped my position in making a formal proposal of marriage to Mrs. Young before consulting with you.”

  “You’ve proposed to her?” Ian asked, surprised. He was not offended at all. Alice was certainly young enough to marry again. He’d always thought the arrangement for her to be a companion to his mother was a temporary one.

  “Indeed. And it’s been two months I’ve been awaiting a damned . . . awaiting an answer. She hasn’t rejected me, mind you. Every deuced time I bring it up, she says that she’s much obliged and still considering my offer.”

  Ian didn’t particularly like Thornton’s disagreeable nature, but he imagined the man’s temperament could only improve if he were married to the mild-mannered Alice. A union between the two would also keep his cousin near Bellhorne, so his mother wouldn’t lose the younger woman’s companionship completely.

  The doctor was grousing about the “indecisiveness of women,” but Ian wasn’t listening. Thornton’s talk of marriage brought to mind a proposal that had been slowly evolving since the day he and Phoebe went to the Orphan Hospital. The idea had crystalized for him yesterday. But before he asked Lord Aytoun’s permission, he wanted to ask her first. Phoebe was proud of her independence. Perhaps she wouldn’t take him. He didn’t think she’d toy with his affections the same way Alice appeared to be treating Thornton.

  Phoebe was a passionate woman. They’d come quite close to tossing propriety out the window last night. No, he needed to ask her soon and settle on their future, or he’d be fighting duels with every blasted male in the Pennington family.

  “I understand that she’s a widow, and she has responsibilities here at Bellhorne.” The doctor’s words cut into the path of Ian’s thoughts again. “But I’ve given her as much time as any woman should need to decide.”

  Ian rubbed the back of his neck. Why the devil did he start this conversation?

  “And while I wait, I need to stand by and watch her flit and flutter about, acting like a woman half her age, whenever our handsome Reverend Garioch is anywhere in the vicinity.”

  Ian was definitely not interested in the direction this was heading.

  “Garioch is a penniless parish minister, except for the living you’ve given him,” Thornton fumed. “All he does is conduct his service on Sunday and traipse around the country the rest of the time, researching his deuced liturgical history book that no one will read. I tell you, Bell, the man is angling to land some woman of fortune. He has no interest in marrying Mrs. Young. I am certain of it. I’ve heard him say it.”

  Ian had opened the door. Now he clearly was to bear the punishment.

  “I know I’m not much to brag about. I’m just a country doctor. But I’m a decent, educated, plain-speaking man. I’ll treat the woman as she should be treated. Unlike that smiling, pretty-faced, smooth-talking—”

  “Ah, there is Mr. Singer,” Ian interrupted, never so happy to see the butler emerge from the house. “I believe he’s looking for me. We’ll see you at dinner, Thornton. And my apologies for the inconvenience this morning.”

  He was not a dozen steps away when he heard the door of the carriage slam shut and the driver’s “Walk on” to his horses. But Ian was no longer thinking of Thornton. He was formulating his own plan for proposing marriage to Phoebe.

  Waving off the butler, he started around to the gardens.

  Ian was thirty-three years old, and for the first time in his life, he was driven by the desire to marry. But it was not simply marriage he wanted. And not any wife. Only Phoebe. He wanted her and no one else. But she was a writer, a storyteller, a master of words. He couldn’t just walk up to her and say, “Marry me,” or “By the way, when I found you missing yesterday, I realized exactly how much I love you and, since I’m on the subject, marry me.” No none of that would do.

  Would it?

  “Captain Bell.”

  She sprouted in his path like a vision, and he would have liked nothing better than to lift her in his arms and kiss her.

  The sweet scent of blooming roses registered in his brain. He’d been oblivious to where his steps were taking him. But he saw now, they were standing in the gardens with Sarah’s roses around them.

  All the words he’d been trying out and rejecting were now ready to spill from his lips. He wanted her to know his intentions. By the devil, he was ready to propose. But servants were setting a table for lunch just a few steps away, so he bowed instead as she curtsied. He almost laughed at the formality.

  Beneath the deep
maroon dress with its thin stripes of golden thread, the long curves of Phoebe’s body were hidden from him, but their perfection was branded in his memory. The nightgown she wore last night did little to keep his eyes and his hands from learning the contours of her feminine form. The shawl she held over her breasts was superfluous ornamentation.

  “I saw you pacing out here from the morning room,” she said, motioning to the open window.

  He was about to ask about her injuries, but he saw the red-rimmed eyes. She’d been crying.

  “What’s wrong?” He took her by the elbow. “You must sit down. The doctor is not far. I’ll send a man to fetch him. After my treatment of him, we may need to hold a pistol to his head, but I’ll bring him—”

  “No. Please.” She took his hand and stopped him. “No. I’m perfectly well. I just left your mother.”

  Thornton said the two of them had been speaking together and were not to be disturbed.

  “And all is well? I’m guessing my mother knows what happened to you yesterday?”

  “Most of it. I put her mind at ease.”

  He held her hand, knowing there was more. Phoebe sent another look in the direction of the windows before her somber face came back to him.

  “She wants to see you. She’d like to speak to you now, if you can manage it.”

  “Of course.” Whenever Ian was at Bellhorne, his mother was in the habit of asking his opinion on all matters small and large. This morning, he hadn’t been available to her before she went off to the church in the village. “Will you wait for me here until I get back?”

  She gave a quick nod and looked away. “I’ll be here.”

  “In the rose garden,” he stressed. “No going off anywhere else.”

  Watching her, he wasn’t convinced she totally understood the importance of waiting for him. So he ignored her questioning looks and led her to a stone bench by one of the arbors.

  “My mother’s questions never take long. Please,” he said, motioning to the seat. She sat down. “I’ll be back shortly.”

  Ian never recalled feeling as impatient as he was now. Perhaps it was because of his talk with Thornton. Maybe it was because of what happened between Phoebe and him in her bedroom last night. Tomorrow they’d be traveling back to Edinburgh; it was essential that he ask her today.

  He turned toward the house, but her voice stopped him.

  “She wants to speak with you about Sarah.”

  He looked back at her.

  “She knows, Ian. She’s always known.”

  * * *

  A large, carved alabaster icon of a mother and daughter smiled down from above the mantle. Ian’s father had commissioned the work from a painting of Fiona and Sarah. Looking at the mischievous expression on his sister’s face now, Ian felt the same poignant feeling of love and loss that pierced his heart every time he entered this room.

  This was his mother’s favorite, and he knew why. Bright and airy in the good months, warmed by the sun and a log fire when it was cold and wet outside. Ian held her hand now as he sat beside her.

  A wild mix of emotions battered at his brain.

  Relief. Guilt. Responsibility. Satisfaction. Worry. At times as he and his mother spoke, it felt as if a cannon blast had stunned him, leaving him listening to the muffled echoes of her voice.

  In one sense a huge weight had been lifted off his shoulders, but he also feared that in accepting the tragedy of Sarah’s death, she’d give up and succumb to the frailty of her afflictions.

  Before he left Phoebe in the garden, she’d suggested that he let his mother ask her questions. And then he should answer them without holding back. They had years of misunderstanding to work through.

  He’d done exactly that. He explained every fabricated detail. From Sarah’s trip to London when she’d first gone missing to her travels through the continent to her journey to America. He laid out for her all the elaborate fictions and showed her how they’d grown more transparent and less believable as the months and years went by.

  Ian had imagined this day so many times over the past three years, but he’d always pictured tears of anger at his failure and his deceit. He was wrong. She was more than forgiving.

  “I knew when she was taken from us,” Fiona said finally, leaning against him as her gaze fixed on the swaying curtain by the open window. “She died six days after she left Bellhorne.”

  He’d begun the search for Sarah the same day her friend arrived at his town house in Edinburgh. In spite of her hysteria, he’d understood his sister had disappeared. Months later, when he’d finally pried open the notes of the anatomists at the university, he learned that Sarah had most certainly died that very day.

  “It was painful to remain silent.” She twisted her handkerchief around thin fingers. “All those rumors. All the senseless chatter that my daughter had eloped with an imaginary lover.”

  “I’m sorry, Mother.” He’d so hoped the gossip would never reach her. The letters were supposed to be screened by the housekeeper and later by Alice when she arrived at Bellhorne. The visitors were turned away unless Ian had previously sent word ahead of time to the butler. “I tried to protect you from it.”

  She waved a hand as if it were insignificant.

  “There is no antidote for that kind of poison. You couldn’t possibly control it. No one could,” she said. “A friend of a friend, stopping for something to eat at the village inn on their way to Stirling. Cousins of a neighbor, walking in the kirkyard after Sunday service and running into me. I wasn’t accepting visitors here, but somehow they still found me. And they couldn’t help themselves. Whispers were everywhere, but I knew the truth. I knew Sarah was dead.”

  During those horrible months, Ian had imagined the worst, but he wasn’t certain of what happened to Sarah. Not until later. “How could you be so sure?”

  She didn’t answer at first. Her gaze followed the path of a breeze riffling everything in its way from the window to the door and then settled on an empty chair across the room. The chair his sister like to sit in with her sewing or her books.

  “A mother’s intuition,” she said finally, squeezing Ian’s arm. “The clenched stomach that warns us tragedy has occurred. The cold sweat, the dread, the urgent need to weep when nothing calls for it. And then later, something more. The whispers of her voice behind me in the gardens, or the sweet smell of roses in the gallery.”

  He would be a fool to deny anything his mother said.

  “When you had gone off to fight the French, I knew when you suffered but—unlike your father, who despaired when everyone thought you were dead—I knew you weren’t. But when Sarah left . . .”

  She stopped, her voice choked by the breaths trapped in her chest. She wiped away her tears.

  He put an arm around her and drew her fragile frame closer to his side. This was the woman who brought him into this world. The one who raised him, reproached him, taught him, cherished him. He loved her, and it broke his heart to see her grieve. As hard as he tried, Ian had been unable to protect her from the tragedy of Sarah’s death.

  She used her handkerchief and wiped away her eyes and cleared her voice. “I knew Sarah was dead. She was gone from us the entire time you were away from here, searching for her.”

  Ian thought he’d go mad when she first went missing. During those early months, he did abandon his mother as he searched in Edinburgh and beyond. He followed every shred of news, every rumor. He crossed Britain from one end to the other. Gretna Green. London. Bath. The Highlands. He went anywhere his sister had a friend, even Baronsford. When he couldn’t go himself, he’d sent a clerk. He had no mother’s intuition to guide him. In his heart he knew the rumors were wrong, but he couldn’t stop himself from pursuing every possibility.

  “And then you came back to me with that elaborate story of your sister’s plans. Travel, visiting your father’s family. The great adventure she’d never spoken about.”

  Ian watched a wistful expression cross her face. Her eyes clouded w
ith memories of a different time.

  “I surprised myself when I realized I could accept what you were telling me. Your story was kind and gentle. It had hope. While deep in my heart, I knew it was untrue, it made me want to fold reason away in the cedar press with Sarah’s things. It was a happier existence, believing the possibility of it.”

  Her easy acceptance of the fictions had shocked him at the time, but he’d overlooked it. Now he understood why. Three years ago, he had been desperate to protect her, and her response was a relief.

  “Sarah’s funeral.” The soft breeze from the window ruffled the back of his hair. “I’m sorry I left you out of it. I robbed you of the chance to grieve her death.”

  “I don’t blame you for that.” His mother caressed the rosebud handle of the cane that leaned against her leg. “What help would it have been to be surrounded with the condolences of others in such circumstances. For the life of me, I don’t know how a mother, faced with such shocking news, prepares herself. I wasn’t ready.”

  Ian recalled Phoebe’s words about how alone and unapproachable he’d been that day. He was mourning Sarah, but he was also lamenting the fabricated tales he had no intention of ever denying.

  “You spared me substantial pain. My grief, often hidden even from myself, has been going on for a long while.”

  Ian raked his fingers through his hair and gazed up at the carved depiction of his sister. Just a wee lass leaning against her mother’s knee, looking away. In the painted original Sarah was laughing at a kitten playing with a ball of yarn she’d tossed in its direction.

  “I also knew when you brought your sister back to Bellhorne and put her in the family crypt.”

  “How? Did the minister tell you?”

  “No, Mr. Garioch has kept your confidence. So has Dr. Thornton and Alice. Everyone in this house has been true to their promise to you.” She shook her head, wiping away at the last of the tears on her face. “I visit your father every so often. I saw the crypt had been disturbed. A new family member had been added to the old bones of the departed. There was no mention of her there, but I knew it must be Sarah.”