The Laird Takes a Bride

by Lisa Berne

  Isobel drew her shawl more closely about her and looked anxiously at Fiona. “Are you sure you’re not catching cold from riding in the rain?” she asked, for the third or fourth time. Maybe the fifth time.

  “I’m sure,” answered Fiona, staring as if transfixed into the leaping flames of the fire.

  “I’m afraid you were utterly soaked—positively dripping by the time we got here. How brave you are! No word of complaint has passed your lips even once. Oh, my dear Fiona, I must say I don’t care for this weather at all. I believe it’s made me feel—well, I must confess I feel just a trifle low.”

  And with that Isobel burst into tears. She pulled from her reticule one of those absurd little handkerchiefs and, sobbing piteously, dabbed at her eyes.

  Then and there Fiona vowed to make Isobel a large set of handkerchiefs, big absorbent handkerchiefs, lavishly embroidered and crafted from the finest linen money could buy. She stood, went to Isobel, gently patted her shoulder.

  Isobel covered Fiona’s hand with her own. She cried for a long while, and Fiona simply stood, patiently, until she was done. Saying nothing. But being there.

  Then Isobel said, shakily:

  “Thank you, Fiona dear,” and took away her hand, to rub the back of it against her soft wet cheeks. “How silly of me to break down like that, when your troubles are so much greater than my own. Forgive me, please, won’t you?”

  “There’s nothing to apologize for, Cousin, I assure you.” Fiona went back to her seat before the fire.

  Isobel drew in a deep breath. “Oh, Fiona, I seem only to bring you bad luck in love. I should never have permitted Logan Munro’s advances—I see that now—and to think how that turned out for you. I do need to apologize! I should have done so years ago! What a foolish, sentimental old maid I was—and am! And now, it’s all my fault that your marriage is over. I am so deeply sorry!”

  “You were not—are not—responsible for Logan’s actions,” Fiona said, slowly, her eyes once again fixed on the ever-shifting fire. “Or for mine. My God, how long ago that was. A lifetime ago.” All at once the old resentment, the old stubborn grudge, which for so many years had been lodged in her heart like a thorn, finally fell away, and was gone.

  Not that Fiona felt like hopping up and dancing a reel, but still.

  It felt better. Was better.

  She continued:

  “It’s not your fault, either, about discovering the other decree. It just—happened.”

  “That’s how it seemed to me,” replied Isobel, nodding vigorously. “There was something which seemed to compel me to read that boring old Tome! As if—as if I was somehow being pulled along! And when I saw how unhappy you’d become in your marriage, I just read more and more. As if by doing it, I would somehow be helping you!”

  “Helping me …” Fiona murmured. A memory opened up. The morning after her wedding; she had agreed to allow Isobel to stay on with her at Castle Tadgh. A visibly relieved and grateful Isobel had declared, I will make myself very useful to you—I promise!

  And so here she was, halfway back to Wick Bay. Isobel wasn’t to blame, of course not. But there was no escaping the cold hard facts.

  No husband, no baby.

  No husband, no baby.

  No husband, no husband …

  It almost sounded like a child’s refrain.

  She could almost hear little Sheila’s voice chanting it. Almost—

  But instead she seemed to hear again Sheila saying dejectedly, Why must trouble come in threes? Why, lady?

  It now occurred to Fiona, uneasily, that perhaps Sheila had not been tallying up her own misfortunes.

  Maybe it had been an oblique reference to herself.

  No baby. That was one.

  No husband; love unrequited. That was two.

  Or was that three, according to the vagaries of cosmic accounting?

  If not, what then was the third?

  Her mind revolved uselessly. A broken carriage wheel tomorrow, fleas in their beds, Father’s fury when she arrived on his doorstep? News that Alasdair had, within hours of her departure, married someone else? Why did there have to be a third? Weren’t things bad enough already?

  “— and I do hope there will be ample room for both of us,” Isobel was saying, “although I cannot think the marsh air salubrious. My petticoats will doubtless become mildewed, and it seems all too likely I’ll succumb to an inflammation of the lung before the year is out. Which will at least make the hut less crowded,” she concluded, in the tone of one looking hard for a silver lining and finding it decidedly meager.

  Fiona blinked. “What hut do you mean, Cousin?”

  “Why, the one to which your father will exile us.”

  “I was being sardonic. Mostly. And truly, Isobel, no blame could possibly be attached to you, even by Father.”

  “Well, I am preparing myself mentally, Fiona dear. I don’t wish to live in a hut, but I will do it for your sake.”

  Recognizing this for the heroic sacrifice it was, Fiona was able to summon up a wan smile. “Thank you, Cousin,” she answered, sincerely, and then both ladies were silent, absorbed in their own, less than sunny reflections.

  Letters had come for Fiona; a small pile had accumulated in only the few days since she had gone.

  “Shall I send them along to the mistress’s—to Miss Fiona’s home in Wick Bay, laird?” asked Lister.

  “Yes,” answered Alasdair shortly, but added hard upon: “No.” Then: “Yes, of course, send them on.”

  “Very well, laird.” Lister looked a little puzzled, but continued, gesturing to a different stack upon his desk, “These invitations, laird, how am I to reply to them?”

  “Say yes. To all of them.”

  Another day of travel, another inn. Another night. After tossing and turning for several hours atop a mattress filled with —evidently—lumps of coal, Fiona finally fell asleep toward dawn. She dreamed of Alasdair. He was standing perfectly still on the deck of a boat, his arms at his side. The boat rocked wildly among the roiling waves of a storm-tossed loch. She watched him, helpless, from the distant shore. It was unclear whether he would survive, or sink. And then, underneath her feet, the ground abruptly gave way and she woke up, for several panicky seconds having no idea where she was and groping, futilely, in the empty space next to her for Alasdair.

  It was at a glittering ball hosted by one of his neighbors that Alasdair realized that several of the young ladies in attendance —as well as their mothers—were eyeing him with hopeful speculation.

  He was, after all, a single man again.

  So he danced with all the young ladies. He smiled, he said all the right things, he laughed in all the right places. But he could not forget that he had never, not once, danced with Fiona.

  In truth, Fiona hadn’t a particularly clear sense of how she would be greeted upon her return to the Douglass keep, but nothing could have prepared her for what she found upon entering the Great Hall.

  Her mother, clad in black; weeping.

  Father, also in black, looking just a little bit stooped.

  A coffin.

  And—

  Logan Munro, in black as well.

  A terrible fear clutched at Fiona.

  Why must trouble come in threes?

  “What has happened?” she demanded, more loudly than she had intended. They all swung around in surprise.

  “Fiona!” Mother gasped. “How did you know? How did you get here so quickly?” She hurried to Fiona, hugging her tightly.

  Fiona hugged her back, but a little absently, her eyes—in them an urgent question—meeting Father’s over Mother’s shoulder.

  “Nairna is dead,” he said, his face a graven mask.

  A blast of irrational anger now roared through Fiona as she pulled away from Mother and turned on Logan Munro, her hands clenched into fists. “I just had a letter from her,” she said fiercely. “She was well. The wisewoman had put her to bed, that’s all. She was well.”

  “The
wisewoman was wrong,” replied Logan, his voice heavy and somber. “She was a fool, an incompetent. There was no child. It was a tumor growing within her. It must have been just after Nairna wrote you that it all became clear.” His voice shook. “By then she knew she was dying. And she asked that I bring her home.”

  “You’re the fool!” snarled Fiona. “You’re the incompetent one!”

  “Fiona!” Mother exclaimed, horrified, but Logan Munro only shook his head.

  “You don’t need to tell me that I failed her, Fiona. I know it.”

  “Empty words from an empty man!” Fiona advanced toward him, hardly knowing in her rage what she intended, when Father intervened, catching her arm in a firm grip.

  “Calm yourself, daughter. Munro is a guest in my house. I’ll not have him dishonored by your vitriol.”

  Fiona looked up at Father with wild, blind eyes. He leaned close, and said with a softness she would never have expected:

  “In all likelihood, there was nothing that anyone could have done. My own mother was taken the same way.”

  “Oh, Father, she was so happy—”

  “I know.”

  And when Fiona couldn’t think of anything else to do, wearily she leaned her head upon his shoulder, just for a few moments. And just for a few moments, Father—the hardest and most undemonstrative of men—put his arm around her, their shared grief bringing them together in a way that was completely new.

  In a little while, Fiona was able to go to Mother and embrace her again, and Isobel, too.

  She was able to make her way to the coffin and, with tears streaming down her face, say her farewells to Nairna. Goodbye, my dearie. I’ll love you always. I’ll never forget you.

  She was able to say to Logan Munro, in a civil and reasonably steady voice, I’m so sorry for your loss.

  And she was able to ask what needed to be done, what she could do to help, and to start on the herculean task of organizing a stunned and grieving household.

  After, Fiona was never able to fully piece together the details of the days that followed: it was all a gray unreal blur, the clan gathering, her sisters Dallis and Rossalyn arriving with their husbands, the funeral, the sad interminable meals and the long sleepless nights.

  More tears for Nairna.

  A sudden hole in the fabric of the universe; a little, bright light winked out.

  Solitary prayers in the chapel.

  A quiet interval with Father, explaining her return, and its permanence, Father only nodding, saying nothing, accepting.

  Mother collapsing, needing constant attendance and finding in Isobel an unexpected source of strength.

  One day dissolved into another.

  The mourners left.

  Her sisters departed.

  Mother slowly recovered.

  But Logan Munro stayed on.

  The fact of his presence barely pierced the shroud of misery in which Fiona was enveloped. He was simply there. At meals. In the evenings, in the cold draughty saloon that served as their drawing-room. She would come across him in a passageway, or see him half-lounging on a sofa in the solarium, talking with Mother and Isobel, or find him by the horse paddocks, not riding, but leaning against a railing and staring off into the distance.

  Everywhere she turned, it seemed, there he was: a handsome figure of a man, very tall, very broad-shouldered, black-haired and black-eyed, dressed all in black. An object of sympathy, a devoted husband who had tragically lost his young wife. The softhearted maidservants couldn’t do enough for him, and would endlessly watch him with tender, eager eyes.

  “Well, that was … interesting,” said Duff, as he and Alasdair rode away from an afternoon event described by their hostess —well-known in the neighborhood for boasting that she had twice been to a museum in Glasgow, and four times to a concert—as a Lyrical Poetical Musical Entertainment. It was remarkable, really, just how many of the local young ladies were keen to display their musical abilities and were fond of reciting the work of derivative, second-rate poets specializing in lurid descriptions of hellish landscapes, bad weather, love affairs gone wrong, and very long death-scenes.

  “Interesting? If you say so,” Alasdair replied.

  “Didn’t realize harps have become so popular.”

  “Nor I.”

  “Not particularly fond of them, personally.”

  “Perhaps you should be, Uncle. As Lady Niocalsan made a point of observing within my earshot, a jeune demoiselle playing the harp is provided with an excellent opportunity to display her figure to best advantage.”

  Duff laughed. “That,” he said, “is inarguable.”

  They were riding along a wide trail flanked by trees whose leaves had passed their glory of red, orange, yellow; many had already fallen, littering the ground in a final display of brilliant but dimming color. In the far distance, the high craggy mountaintop of Ben Macdui was dusted with snow, and a chill, nippy and invigorating, was in the air.

  “You’ve been quite sociable these days, lad,” said Duff, mildly.

  “Just keeping busy, Uncle.”

  “Aye. And you’re very much a favorite among the demoiselles, I notice.”

  “You flatter me.”

  “You know I don’t. And I couldn’t help but notice this afternoon that you seemed rather taken with young Miss Hameldon.”

  “Did I?”

  “Yes, but I also could see, at yesterday’s grouse shoot, that Miss Rattray was constantly by your side.”

  “So?”

  “So I’m wondering, lad, what’s on your mind.”

  Alasdair looked over at his uncle. What could he say? Fiona has been gone for seventeen days and sixteen nights, in our bedchamber I can still smell the faint pleasing scent of her rose perfume, and the castle has never been so desolate. Oh, and inside I seem to still be composed of a single block of ice, and also I wonder how, precisely, I’m going to get through this life. Other than that, my mind is as beatifically empty as that of an Eastern mystic.

  Aloud he said:

  “I’m trying to move forward.”

  “Ah.”

  “The need for an heir and all that.”

  “I see.”

  “Weren’t you the one telling me that a wife is nothing but a brood mare?”

  Duff didn’t respond at first. Their horses clopped along. Finally he replied, pensively, “I may have altered my beliefs about that.”

  “And here I thought you were the one thing I could count on not to change.” Alasdair meant to sound wry, jocular, but somehow his voice was more serious than he wished.

  “It’s slowly been dawning on me, lad, that life is about change.”

  A memory of Fiona saying that very thing seared through Alasdair, painful and harsh. He said nothing, only listened as Duff continued:

  “Never thought I’d shave off my beard. Or care what my stockings looked like. Never thought I’d begin to value courtesy over rudeness, kindness over selfishness. God’s blood, I never thought I’d spend countless hours making fishing rods for the children, and enjoying every minute of it.” He rubbed at his bare chin. “It’s unsettling, to say the least—old habits die hard—but there you are.”

  In a kind of despair, hoping to turn the subject, Alasdair said lightly, “If we’re to talk of being a favorite among the ladies, I notice you’re causing a stir among a certain set yourself.”

  “What, among the old tabbies? Well, I can’t help it. There’s no getting around the fact that I’m a good-looking fellow.”

  Alasdair smiled. Success. A diversion.

  But then Duff added somberly, “I’m trying to move on, too. I’ll admit, though, that I’m not making much headway. I might flirt a little, but the truth is that my heart’s not in it.” He sighed. “I won’t pry, lad. Not judging you, either. But if you want to talk—I’m here.”

  Alasdair met Duff’s eyes, nodded his thanks. It was enough. It was all he could manage.

  They had come to a place where the trail gave way to a vas
t rolling meadow in which the heather’s violet bloom had quietly faded away. Alasdair pulled his horse to a halt. He looked around the meadow as if he had never seen it before.

  “Where to now?” asked Duff.

  “We’ve been invited to Hewie’s. One of his mad dinner parties. You know—the usual.”

  “Wine, women, song.”

  “Aye.”

  “It’s up to you, lad.”

  Alasdair thought about what the evening would, predictably, entail. The pattern of Hewie’s parties had been long established. He could eat until he was ready to burst, get splendidly drunk, play billiards, dance reels. And, very likely, he could allow himself to be seduced by Hewie’s widowed sister-in-law, the attractive—and aggressive—Nora.

  Old habits die hard.

  “I believe,” he now answered Duff, “I’ll pass.”

  “Then so shall I. Race you back home?”

  Motion, speed, the chilly wind pressing hard on his face: a fast gallop in the gathering twilight. Yes. Alasdair nodded.

  They both dug their heels into their mounts, and were off.

  Reestablished at the Douglass keep, Fiona seemed to have been seamlessly absorbed back into her old routine, in a way that was deeply unnerving, as if her time at Castle Tadgh had been collapsed into nothingness. Nobody asked her about it, whether out of sensitivity, respect, or lack of interest. It had been her hope that as the long days passed, the image of Alasdair would begin to fade from her mind and her heart, but it did not. After a while, it occurred to Fiona that she now had a better and more vivid understanding of that old Greek myth about Eurydice, the girl who’d stepped on a poisonous snake and been sent for all eternity to live in the ghastly Underworld—a place of despondence and woe from which ordinary mortals could never escape.

  It felt a little like she was living in a sort of underworld, too, invisible to everyone else but evident to her, every minute, every hour.

  She did her best to tamp down a restless longing to be somewhere else.

  Anywhere else, perhaps.

  Alasdair stood in the Great Drawing-room, staring at the window-hangings. Even though no one came in here anymore—he and Duff now went to the library in the evenings—apparently somebody had, at some point, drawn open the heavy, tasseled lengths of dark green velvet to admit the sun.