by Karen Ranney
She needed to find something about him that was despicable, a character flaw that was easy to hate.
He hadn’t rescued the children, when it was all too evident they were in desperate need of saving.
I can’t save them all.
There, a flaw worthy enough of being despised.
Yet he was kind, witness his treatment of Isobel. He’d chosen medicine as a vocation, which indicated he had a decent character, did it not? Or perhaps medicine had called him, as her father had often said.
No, she simply must look for his defects.
He’d complemented her cooking. He’d told her she was beautiful when she had been desperate for any kind word.
This would never do. She must find more faults. Either that or stop thinking about him, especially when doing so made her miserable.
When they arrived at the entrance to Heriot Close, she and Artis descended from the carriage. Mr. Johnstone, surprisingly, insisted on accompanying them. While she doubted the wisdom of leaving the vehicle unattended, she was heartily glad of his presence. She wasn’t a fool, after all. Old Town was not a place for two women alone, however truculent and disagreeable Artis might be.
Even the maid was silenced by the scenes around them. Yawning maws of blackened doorways led to gin parlors. A prostitute leaned against a wall, her face turned away as they passed. Two boys, barely out of childhood, stood at the corner of one of the streets. She was sure that if Mr. Johnstone hadn’t accompanied them, the boys would’ve waylaid her and Artis. As it was, they simply sneered and called out vile things as they passed.
Several minutes later she stood at the entrance to the steps to the vaults. She didn’t want to go down there again. There was no choice, however. She couldn’t simply stand here and wish Edeen and her children to come forward. Instead, they had to go in and get them.
The time of day evidently didn’t matter in Old Town. Sounds of drunken revelry carried throughout the narrow passageways. The deeper they descended, the less light there was, until it was as dark as a tarnished soul. Mr. Johnstone held up the carriage lantern behind them, and once more she was grateful for his presence.
She counted the vaults beneath the bridge. At the third one she hesitated, wondering if she was wrong after all. There was no fire at the entrance, as there had been a few days earlier. The air was dank and cold.
Just when she thought she’d gone the wrong way, she heard the sound of a child’s weak cough.
“Edeen.” She called out the woman’s name, then again.
A sound of footsteps came first, then a shadow. Edeen emerged into Mr. Johnstone’s light, a scarf around her white face. In the faint light, she looked gaunt, as if she hadn’t eaten for days.
In that instant Catriona felt justified for both the chance she’d taken and what she was about to do.
“I’ve come to take you away from here,” she said. “To my home.”
Artis glanced at her swiftly but didn’t say anything.
“I am home,” Edeen said, turning and vanishing into the shadows again.
There was nothing to do but follow her.
Her veil made it impossible for Catriona to see anything as she walked forward. She shuffled, her shoes sliding against the brick of the floor. She hated not being able to see where she walked or even her destination.
Mr. Johnstone’s lantern was the only illumination in this part of Hell. He raised it directly behind her, revealing the high ceiling of the vault and the two children in the corner, as frightened looking as starving rats.
Despite the attempt to make the vault livable, it was a place of horror, hardly a home.
“Why wouldn’t you want to leave this place?”
“I’ve no wish for your charity,” Edeen said.
Why couldn’t this be easier? Here she was, offering the woman a chance at a better life, and she refused to take it.
She’d never considered that Edeen might have other plans.
Is this how Aunt Dina had felt when faced with her own behavior? How odd to feel so disconcerted and irritated at the same time.
Edeen went to stand in front of her children, as if to protect them.
“You remind me of myself,” she heard herself say. “Or what I would have become if people hadn’t helped me.”
Edeen’s face stiffened. “Take your pity and leave us be.”
She wasn’t doing this well, was she?
“My sister is a countess,” she said. “She lives in a place called Ballindair, a castle that’s far off in the country, surrounded by hills, a river, and even a waterfall. If ever there was an enchanted place, it’s Ballindair.” If ever there was a place as far from Old Town as could be, Ballindair was it.
James peeped out from behind his mother’s skirts. “Is your sister a princess?”
The question reminded her of Mark. For a moment she couldn’t speak.
“Yes,” she said. “I believe she is a princess.”
She looked at Edeen. “It wouldn’t be charity if you went to Ballindair. You’d be employed there and expected to do your job well. Everyone at Ballindair has a job.”
“Even me?” James asked.
“Even you,” she said, smiling. “Not a large one, because you would be expected to learn your letters.”
“He would go to school?” Edeen asked.
“Yes,” she said. Reaching into her pocket, she withdrew Jean’s letter. Skipping over the part where her sister had expressed her pity for Edeen’s plight, she read the most important part.
“ ‘We can offer her two positions, one as a maid-of-all-work, and one in the dairy shed. She needs to choose which she would prefer.’
“Now, I don’t care which you pick,” Catriona said. “I, myself, would rather work in the castle again than be a dairy maid, but it’s your decision.”
“You worked at Ballindair?” Artis asked from beside her. Until then she’d been silent.
“I was a maid,” she said. “But not a good one.” She looked at Edeen. “You would have to be better, but I don’t think it would be all that hard.”
Edeen didn’t speak. What had she expected, that the woman would gush with gratitude?
“I’m not going to argue with you,” Catriona said. “But I’m not leaving here without you.”
She was not going to fail. This errand was more for her sake than for Edeen’s. She was going to perform her first truly unselfish act, and by God, Edeen was going to cooperate.
“If you come with me, it will be better for your children. If not for yourself, then do it for them.” She looked around her. “Surely, you have no fondness for this place?”
“Why are you doing this?”
She decided to give the woman the truth.
“I’m here to be your savior, Edeen, and thereby save myself.”
The woman didn’t answer, merely stared at her long enough that she felt intensely uncomfortable. Should she say more? Or wish she’d said less?
Edeen abruptly turned and spoke to her children. James gathered up their clothing, while Christel looked wide-eyed at Catriona.
Without a word, Artis moved forward to help Edeen gather up their belongings. She took the lantern while Mr. Johnstone lifted Christel in his arms. Edeen and Artis carried a trunk. A single trunk, holding everything the three of them owned. She turned away from the sight of it.
She led the way through the warrenlike closes of Old Town. Artis surprised her by dropping the trunk and coming to her side at the base of the steps.
“The steps are steep,” the maid said, offering a hand to her, “and your knee has been bothering you.”
How did she know that? Instead of asking the other woman, she took her hand and slowly ascended the steps. The carriage was where they’d left it, the horses greeting them with a whinny that sounded like equine relief. Catriona felt the same way at the sight of the watery sun and the dreary winter day.
She promised herself that she would never again descend into the vaults of Old Town.
Mr. Johnstone deposited Christel carefully on the seat, tipping his hat as he left the carriage.
As she waited for the others to be seated, James tugged at her skirt.
“Are you very sad?” he asked.
She glanced down at him. “Why would I be sad?”
“Mam says that you’re wearing mourning, for when someone dies.”
“No one has died,” she said. I only lost part of myself. Would a child understand that? Most adults didn’t.
She helped him into the carriage, then moved to sit in the corner. Here, in the faint light, little Christel looked even more ill than in the vault. She hoped that living at Ballindair would heal her.
“I’m not wearing a veil because I’m sad,” she said. “I don’t wish for people to see me.”
“Why?”
He tilted his head, looking at her as if she were the strangest creature he’d ever seen.
“I was in an accident,” she said. “My face was disfigured. Scarred,” she simplified.
There was that same inquiring gaze.
“Are you a monster?”
I might be.
With trembling hands, Catriona grabbed the hem of her veil.
What stupidity was this? Did she want to scare the child? Or was she simply tired of hiding?
Slowly, she drew up the lower part of the veil until her face was exposed. She draped it over the back of her head and sat there, her hands clasped together tightly on her lap.
“Did a dragon do that with his claws?” James asked.
She felt a smile begin deep inside.
“No dragon, I’m afraid. It was glass from a broken window.”
James nodded. “I broke a cup once, and Mam was all worried I might cut myself.”
He inspected her carefully, tilting his head one way and then another. Slowly, he reached out, his fingers outstretched. With movement so slow she could easily have stopped him, he touched her cheek with warm and gentle fingers.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not anymore,” she said.
“I fell once,” he said. “Want to see my scar?”
She slowly nodded, permission for him to roll up one leg of his loose-fitting trousers.
He pointed to the faint mark with some pride. “See?”
“That’s very impressive,” she said, the words so difficult to say they choked her. “Did it hurt?”
“I don’t remember,” he said. “I was probably very brave.”
“I’ve no doubt you were.”
She put her veil in place again, just in time to hide her tears.
Edeen reached over and touched her hand, a wordless gesture of comfort. Few people had extended such effortless sympathy. When the other woman didn’t speak, didn’t offer her any platitudes, she was grateful.
Artis, however, had glanced at her face and turned away, a reaction for which she’d been prepared.
“I’ll earn my keep at this castle of yours,” Edeen said.
She only nodded. If she’d known all she needed for Edeen to capitulate was to remove her veil, she would have done it much earlier.
“Just don’t, whatever you do,” she said, giving her some advice from her own experience at Ballindair, “offer to work in the laundry.”
She looked through the window at Old Town disappearing. If forced with having to choose, she’d return to being a maid at Ballindair and count herself fortunate, rather than live as Edeen and her children had.
Better to be in servitude to an employer than in bondage to poverty.
Because of Morgan, however, she was saved from either. Had she ever thanked him?
Another oversight on her part, another sin to lay at her feet.
Chapter 27
Within three days Edeen and her children had been outfitted in new clothing, fed well, bundled up securely, and loaded into the carriage.
“I don’t like leaving you alone, miss,” Mr. Johnstone said.
“I thank you for your concern, Mr. Johnstone,” Catriona said. “But they need to get to Ballindair.”
The town house was becoming crowded. Unbeknownst to her, James had hidden three kittens and a mother cat in the trunk they’d carried from Old Town. Between the kittens, the cat, Edeen, James, and Christel, they were up to their ears in noise.
She’d never appreciated the silence or the peace in the household until now.
“I can assure you, Mr. Johnstone,” she said, “I will be fine in the time it takes for you to travel to Ballindair and return.”
“I’ll just make sure the doctor knows I’m gone,” he said, his face set in mulish lines.
“What does Dr. Thorburn have to say about this?” she asked.
Mark had come to treat Christel in the last week, his appearance necessitating that his identity be explained to the maids. All of them tittered about the masquerade, except for Artis, who looked at her strangely.
She’d managed to avoid him for three days. Now Mr. Johnstone considered him an ally of sorts?
“Neither of us believes the fire was an accident, Miss Cameron,” Mr. Johnstone said. “You know how I feel about what happened in London.”
Indeed she did. She was hard-pressed not to have him discuss the topic whenever they saw each other.
“I assure you,” she said, “I’ll be fine. There’s no need to involve Dr. Thorburn.”
She wasn’t at all sure he had listened to her. No doubt he sent a message to Mark and she could expect him on her doorstep any moment.
Still, the two of them being so protective warmed her.
As they watched the carriage pull away, Catriona turned to Dina.
“You never told me that benevolence could be so exhausting,” she said.
Dina’s laughter brightened the gray day. “I don’t adopt whole families, my dear,” she said, her words creating small puffy clouds in the cold air. “Or such a precocious young boy.” She sighed. “I wonder what will become of him?”
“At Ballindair, anything,” Catriona said. Look what had happened to her.
“I do so love the castle,” Dina said. “As soon as your sister has her child, we should arrange to visit her.”
She nodded, but as much as she loved Jean, she wasn’t in any hurry to witness her happiness with Morgan or see the newest member of the family. Until now she hadn’t much experience with envy.
She hated feeling petty, hated being restrained in her emotions. Most of all she hated the knowledge that she’d always had these flaws and ignored them until recently.
They entered the house together, standing in the small room off the kitchen to remove their coats.
Isobel entered the kitchen. “Dr. Thorburn just arrived,” the maid said, her color high and her eyes twinkling.
“He’s come for Christel,” Catriona said.
Dina looked at her, a small smile on her lips. “He knew they were leaving this morning. In fact, he sent along his records for the physician who will be caring for her. He’s a dedicated and talented doctor, you know.”
“I’m sure,” she said, moving toward the stairs.
“He’s been asking about you.”
She stopped and looked back at Dina.
“I don’t want to see him,” she said.
To her surprise, Dina shook her head. “Is that entirely wise? Perhaps if you wouldn’t ignore him, he wouldn’t be so curious about you.”
He wasn’t curious; he was intrusive, as well as irritating, annoying, and too unforgettable for her peace of mind.
Suddenly it was a moot point. He came through the hallway, large and tall, a wall of determination.
“Are you going to hide in your room?” he asked, frowning at her.
Dina stepped away with a murmured excuse. Cook and Elspeth likewise disappeared. Isobel would have remained behind if Aunt Dina hadn’t pulled her away by her apron strings.
Wasn’t she supposed to have a chaperone? Why had everyone left her alone with this man?
She couldn’t go through hi
m, and she doubted he would allow her to go around him. Inwardly, she sighed, resigning herself to yet another confrontation.
She feigned composure, all the while wishing she was up for the battle. For days now she’d been feeling weepy, a circumstance no doubt brought on by lack of sleep.
“Why are you here?” she asked. “Christel has left.”
“You’re shivering,” he said.
Had his voice always been that deep, so filled with a Scottish burr? Mark would be a success in the drawing rooms of the ton. Women would flock to him, lean over him, brush against him. They’d engage him in conversation to simply hear him speak.
If he chanced to kiss a woman, she’d never forget it. She’d press her fingers against her lips wonderingly, recalling that exact moment.
Such a thing had never happened to her, of course.
“Yes, I’m shivering,” she said, moving to pass him. “It’s a cold day.”
To her great delight, he moved aside. Should she try for the stairs?
Aunt Dina and the maids must be hiding somewhere, because none of them came to her aid.
“Your limp is worse.”
Why had he noticed that?
“I haven’t been walking lately,” she said. She wouldn’t make it up the stairs. He was directly behind her. So close, in fact, that it felt like he was herding her.
“You need a shawl,” he said.
“I don’t need fashion advice.”
“Then use your common sense. You’re shivering.”
“As well as limping,” she added, suddenly grateful for the absence of the servants. What would they have thought to hear such comments?
“Thank you for sending Edeen and the children to Ballindair,” he said, startling her. “Your kindness will save Christel’s life.”
Had anyone ever been as concerned about her as Mark was about Christel? Perhaps her parents, before the bad times. Always Jean, but she’d never appreciated her sister’s love and loyalty. Jean had always tried to protect her, even from herself.
Entering the parlor, she turned to face him.
“You’ll be happy to note that I’ve taken to eating with Dina, and my meals are surprisingly tranquil.”
He smiled at her, which would never do.
She’d missed him at meals and in her bed, but she wasn’t going to say that, no matter how great the provocation.
