The Laird Takes a Bride

by Lisa Berne

  “I look forward to that, Alasdair.”

  “As do I.” He released her hand, only to offer his arm. “Would you care to stroll through the gardens?”

  “I’d like nothing better.”

  They began to pace, in a deliciously leisurely way, along the graveled path. They talked about the harvest, and the annual clan celebration that was to come later in the month. They talked about horses, they talked about Fiona’s plans to expand the kitchen garden, and they agreed to host a dinner party next week. Their conversation flowed as if with the sweep of a river, lightly and easily, and Fiona was happy, happy, even if, strangely, at one point her feet seemed to tangle clumsily underneath her, nearly tripping her, and unfortunately Alasdair had just the moment before turned away to look at something, and for a few uncomfortable moments she felt just like she had as a girl long ago, awkward and ungainly.

  At dinner they were greeted by the extraordinary sight of Duff’s newly shaven face. The upper part was tanned, and the lower part was dead white, giving the impression that he was somehow sporting the features of two entirely different people. Also, his unruly gray and white locks had been severely cut, and were—Alasdair squinted in disbelief—smoothed flat with pomade. And if that weren’t enough, Duff was wearing formal evening clothes that had obviously been in storage for some time, the scent of mothballs adding a pungent top note to the sickly-sweet fragrance emanating from his hair.

  The change, to say the least, was extraordinary, and Alasdair struggled to tamp down a juvenile desire to burst into raucous laughter. But it was more than that, he realized uncomfortably. He was surprised to notice that he actually resented what Duff had done. What the hell was the matter with Duff?

  And what was the matter with him?

  He looked away from Duff’s strangely bare face, and accepted from a servant a delicately poached chicken breast. He turned his attention to that. For years their mother had said to him and Gavin, If you can’t say anything polite to each other, don’t say anything at all, which of course only egged them on the moment her back was turned.

  No: he wasn’t going to think about Gavin.

  Or about walls or fences.

  He was going to focus on the delicious meal set in front of him.

  It wasn’t until the third course arrived—a grilled salmon and sweet mashed carrots piped into decorative swirls—that finally Duff said, in a loud aggrieved voice:

  “Are you all blind, for the love of Christ?”

  Alasdair glanced at him. “Your new look, Uncle?”

  “Aye, damn it!”

  “It’s, ah, very noticeable.”

  “Noticeable? Is that all you can say, lad?”

  “Give me a minute. I’m trying to think of a different adjective.” Alasdair signaled for another glass of wine, hoping that his tone was light and playful, and not, as he feared, a trifle mean-spirited. Surely it was beneath him to begrudge what Duff had done.

  Wasn’t it?

  Silence fell once again, heavy with Duff’s displeasure. It was only broken when Isobel said, timidly, “I think you look very distinguished, sir.”

  “At last! Le mot juste! Thank you, madam!”

  “And I think,” said Fiona, “you look years younger, Uncle.”

  Mollified, Duff ran a hand across his chin. “Well, that’s two compliments, at least.”

  Stubbornly, Alasdair only took a sip of his wine, and refused to meet his uncle’s gimlet eye.

  When dinner ended, Duff ostentatiously escorted Isobel to the Great Drawing-room and sat near her as she opened up her work basket.

  “And what is that you’re sewing, Miss Isobel?”

  “Oh, it’s—well, it’s only a stuffed doll,” replied Isobel, flustered and fluttery. “I made one for little Sheila, for her birthday, you see,” and continued in her meandering way about the upcoming birthday of Lister’s niece, and how she had asked Isobel so very nicely for a doll of her own, and how she had, after an intensive search, managed to find a piece of fabric that very nearly matched the little girl’s own dress.

  At first listening only to keep his back turned to his unappreciative nephew, Duff nodded perfunctorily, but as Isobel went on, found his interest in the project was piqued, and even made a few helpful suggestions which Isobel immediately championed with enthusiasm.

  “Of course, my dear sir! How right you are! Yellow yarn for the hair! It will match dear little Erica’s locks to a nicety! Only look—I’ve just the thing!” Isobel pulled an untidy ball of yarn from her work basket to show Duff, and promptly dropped it.

  Duff picked it up and handed it to her with a courtly gesture that made his shoulder twinge a little, but he tried hard not to show it and was rewarded by the sight of Isobel, blushing a youthful pink, as she accepted it with a murmured word of thanks.

  Alasdair, restless, oddly uneasy, opened his book, closed his book, opened it again, and just as quickly closed it. Finally he stood before Fiona.

  “Madam,” he said, “I find I don’t care to wait for the tea-tray. If you’ll excuse me?”

  She was looking up at him, and in her eyes was a newly kindled light. “Would you like some company, laird?”

  “Aye,” he answered. “Aye, I would.”

  And so they left the drawing-room together, and made their way to their bedchamber, and there found pleasure, release, oblivion in each other’s arms. And so the pattern was set, day after day, for twelve of them in total.

  Fiona knew it was twelve, because she’d been counting them.

  Her days of joy.

  But on the thirteenth day, there came to her a certain sense that something wasn’t quite right, though she couldn’t exactly put her finger on it.

  Something not quite right between herself and Alasdair.

  It may have been her sensitive nature, or the fact that she was reflexively observant; who knows? He was warm, he was affectionate, he was passionate. Yet it was as if—oh, she hardly knew how to describe it. Like being on a boat, pulling away, watching someone you cared for inexorably, irretrievably, recede into the distance?

  That night, after tossing about for several hours, she drifted into shallow sleep, and dreamed that she was hungry, so hungry. Starving. After fighting through a deep dark thicket, filled with bristling brambles that pricked and stung, she stumbled across a chunk of bread, stale and moldy-looking, and as reluctantly she reached for it, into her mind popped the old adage Half a loaf is better than none.

  And in her dream Fiona kicked the bread away, shouting angrily, It’s not, it’s not better, it’s not nearly enough!

  And a few hours later, having eaten an extremely large and satisfying breakfast, she went to her morning-room to jot down some notes for the dinner party’s menu, sketch out some additions to her kitchen garden, examine a sheaf of papers she’d found stuffed inside a vase in one of the storage closets. They were, she realized in surprise, thirty years old—tradesmen’s bills for tasseled, green velvet window-hangings, expensive chairs and sofas, costly decorative tables with fine mother-of-pearl inlay, as well as invoices for artwork, both paintings and sculptures. Why, these were all items in the Great Drawing-room. And now Fiona felt her eyes go wide in astonishment. The sum was astronomical. Had all those people been paid? She’d need to talk to Lister—

  A maidservant came in then, with the mail, and Fiona pushed aside the old bills to eagerly receive them. Another letter from Nairna, joyful, reporting with insouciance that she’d gotten so big so early, and had been experiencing some pain—only the ligaments stretching, said Tavia Craig, to be expected as there was a good chance she was carrying twins; and so she’d been put to bed, and how kind everyone was, she was surely the most petted, most pampered person in the world!

  Twins, thought Fiona, how splendid for Nairna! It wasn’t surprising she had to be in bed—Fiona had heard this was quite common in such situations. Which reminded her: there was a tenant farmer’s wife who’d already had one set of twins and now was hugely pregnant again,
and fatalistically expecting another set. I’ll visit her tomorrow, Fiona thought, and wasn’t there a problem with some strange fungus in their shed? Did the vinegar treatment I sent over for her husband to try on the walls solve it? Something else to follow up on, too.

  Fiona turned to Dallis’s letter; she had written, in comical resignation, that her rambunctious toddler insisted on trying on all the baby clothes both old and new, and then added an indignant diatribe against people who would pat her stomach and talk to it as if she herself wasn’t there.

  Fiona smiled, then looked down at her own flat stomach. Perhaps … perhaps …

  She reached for a fresh piece of paper and picked up her quill.

  Maisie

  Elspet

  Rose

  Ùna

  Annag

  Bonni

  And then:

  Ethan

  Archibald

  Carson

  Tàmhas

  Domnall

  James

  Weren’t they all beautiful names for babies? She looked out into the garden, dappled all green and gold in the vivid early-autumn sun, and wished she could stop thinking about her silly dream of nasty bread and her own violent rejection of it.

  The day wound itself along, busy, challenging, interesting, filled with minor disasters and small triumphs, and she managed to suppress her odd uneasiness until they’d all gathered once again in the Great Drawing-room. She had her sewing—and Alasdair was laughing at something Duff had said—and Isobel was working happily on her puzzle—

  And Fiona said, “Laird, I found some old bills.”

  He turned to her, smiling, and she wondered why, precisely, she didn’t feel like returning his smile.

  “Did you, lass?”

  “Yes, all for things here in this room, hundreds of pounds’ worth. Lister couldn’t find any records of their being paid, so I suppose I’ll need to contact the merchants and artists right away.”

  “I’ll take care of it. You needn’t bother.”

  “Oh, I don’t mind. I’d be glad to handle it.”

  “Nay, I’ll do it.”

  “I insist, Alasdair. Surely you have better things to do.”

  “These events occurred long before your arrival. I’d prefer to look into it myself.”

  Fiona couldn’t stop herself. Pointedly she looked over at the green velvet window-hangings. “Three hundred and eighty pounds for the fabric alone,” she said with a sniff. “And nineteen pounds for the tassels. Dear me.”

  At that, Duff turned around. “Are you talking about those green curtains? God in heaven, the way my brother-in-law Stuart’s eyes bugged out when he heard how much they cost! I laughed so hard I nearly gave myself an apoplexy! He looked exactly like a toad! Your mother’s renovations, lad, began in this room, but you wouldn’t remember that, of course—you were only a wee bairn, but I’ll never forget it, for Stuart came to stay with me for nearly a year. Maybe more. The noise, the dust, all those extra people in the castle were unbearable, he said.” Duff shook his head, but nostalgically now. “It was like old bachelor times for Stuart and me both. The fun we had! And Gormelia could rip up the castle to her heart’s content.”

  Alasdair said nothing, and Isobel put in, diffidently, “She certainly had good taste.”

  “So everybody said,” Duff agreed. “Gormelia was famous among the Eight Clans for her deft ways with furniture and paintings and carpet! Buying, and buying again! Stuart used to say that the only reason she married him was for the opportunity to redo the castle.” He chuckled. “Well, she certainly took on a job for herself. Fifty bedchambers at least, and I don’t know how many drawing-rooms there are. But Gormelia did, you can be sure. Never knew anyone so obsessed with furnishings! Heaven help you if you moved a cushion to a different spot on a sofa.” Thoughtfully he added, “Not exactly the warmest person in the world, I must say. I always thought she liked things better than people. One day I said it to her face, and she booted me out on the spot and told me to stay away. Bit of an overreaction, I thought, but in any event I never came back until the funerals.”

  Fiona looked at Alasdair. On his face was a wooden expression, which as she watched shifted into a pleasant one as he returned her gaze and said lightly, “Are we having macaroons this evening with the tea-tray, my dear? I hope so.”

  Her impulse was to reply in kind, politely, but instead she said, taking an instant dislike to being addressed as my dear in that somehow impersonal tone, and still not sure why she felt so stubborn about the whole business: “Gracious, to think of spending almost four hundred pounds on window-hangings! I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  He only shrugged, and Fiona went on, doggedly, “Maybe this is why I’ve never really liked this room.”

  Still he was silent.

  Fiona felt her back stiffening.

  And before she could prevent it, she found herself paraphrasing Sheila—little Sheila!—and saying snippily, “I suppose your mother was too busy stuffing the attics with perfectly good furniture to do anything for the children of Tadgh. Including you and your brother, I daresay,” she added fiercely.

  Alasdair did not reply, and Duff said, “Alasdair and Gavin did all right, lass. They had each other, you know.”

  “That may be so, Uncle, but I still feel like ripping down those curtains. I can tell they’re going to bother me more every day. Alasdair, can I put them somewhere else? In the attics? Assuming, of course, I can find any space in there.”

  His eyes had the cool brilliant gleam of citrine. “I appreciate your soliciting my opinion,” he said lightly, “but I couldn’t care less what you do with them.”

  The words were pleasant, yet Fiona felt as if she’d been shoved into the icy waters of Wick Bay. She stared at him. What on earth was going on here? She wasn’t insulting him, wasn’t harming him! Was it because she had been criticizing a long-dead mother-in-law whom she had never met? Not, perhaps, very high-minded of her, but what sort of person cared more for furniture than for her children?

  “Fine!” she snapped. “I’ll have them taken away first thing in the morning.”

  Alasdair shrugged, and opened up his book.

  “You really don’t care where they go?” She could hear the shrillness in her voice and hated it, but didn’t seem able to subdue it.

  “I really don’t.”

  “Fine! I’ll have them dumped in the loch then.” No sooner had the hasty words come out of her mouth than she wished them unsaid. God, the loch! Why had she said that? The place where his family had perished! A scarlet flush of shame blazed on her face, her neck, her chest, and for a moment Fiona longed to be a victim of spontaneous combustion and disappear into a little, smoldering pile of ashes—especially when she saw how Alasdair’s expression was now one of remote, polite, utter blankness. He gazed back at her as he might look at an odd sort of bug that had landed on his shoe.

  Was this the man to whom in the nights she’d given herself, body and soul? Who had brought her to the heights of unimaginable pleasure? And to whom she had, equally, given pleasure?

  Hadn’t she?

  She thought she had.

  It was as if their connection was painfully fragile, ephemeral, like an exquisite flower—whose time was bound to be brief —fading in front of her eyes.

  Really, now that she thought about it, not unlike the dream of Logan which also had turned to mist and disappeared.

  Fiona blinked. She remembered something else from that night when they had first made love, really made love. Alasdair, calling out in his own dream, as if desperately trying to summon those lost in the loch. And after, she now realized, distracting her from talking about it. And so now, with a hard, desperate edge—half wanting to clutch at him, half wanting to hurt him—she said abruptly, “Who is Mòrag?”

  Alasdair’s jaw tightened, but coolly he said, without looking up from his book, “Only ancient history, my dear.”

  “Stop calling me that!” she snapped, and with a v
iolence that surprised her, flung her sewing to the floor, scattering pins everywhere. “And answer me!”

  “We may be married, but that doesn’t mean I’m obliged to dredge up meaningless anecdotes from my past, simply for the purpose of satisfying your curiosity.”

  Fiona reeled back, as if from an actual blow, her body vibrating with rage and frustration. “You—you’re—you’re nothing to me,” she said, nearly choking in her urgent desire to hurt him, to wound him for pushing her away. “I’m so sorry I married you!”

  She heard Isobel gasp and glanced over to see both her and Duff looking shocked. With his eyes bugged out like that, he looked like a toad too, Fiona thought meanly. In fact, they both did. She turned her furious glance to Alasdair, who, with a slow deliberateness that seemed only to mock her, closed his book, set it aside, stood up, and said, with that same remote, light, frighteningly courteous voice:

  “Nothing. I see. I’m afraid, though, that you’re stuck with me. My apologies for being such a bad bargain.” He bowed slightly. “A most elucidating evening. And now I bid you good night.”

  He turned toward the door, and Fiona shrieked, “How dare you walk away from me! Don’t you dare leave this room!”

  But he did leave the room, and without pausing, without a backward glance.

  And with a vicious gesture she swept her work-box off the sofa, creating an even bigger mess of needles, scissors, thimbles, pins, a wild ugly jumble of thread.

  In the heavy silence that seemed to blanket the room like a looming black raincloud, Fiona found herself shaking from head to toe. Good Lord, had that really been her, shrieking like a harpy, flinging things around? What had happened to calm, rational, reserved Fiona? Gone, she thought bitterly, gone like petals dropping from a dead flower. She turned her eyes to Duff, and watched in acrid amusement as he seemed to shrink back a little.

  “Do you know who Mòrag is?”

  “Was,” he replied, but cautiously, as if fearful she’d start throwing things at him, too. “She was on the boat that went down that day. They said she was young and beautiful. But that’s all I know.”

  “Of course she was young and beautiful,” said Fiona, in a hard, bitter voice. “And I’m neither. I’m jealous of a dead woman.”