White Regency 03 - White Knight

by Jaclyn Reding

  “Good evening, Grace,” he said as he lowered onto the bench beside her.

  She blinked, but it was all the response she gave him. Christian removed a letter he had received earlier that day from his coat pocket, unfolding it. “I thought you might be interested to know we have received a letter from Eleanor.” He glanced at her. Nothing. “She sold my horse so that she would have some money. She wanted me to know she does not blame me for telling her the truth. In fact, she thanks me for it. She writes only that we should not come looking for her, that she has gone to a place where we will never find her. She doesn’t know when she is coming back or if she ever will.”

  Christian made to hand Eleanor’s letter to Grace as if to allow her to read it. She did not move to take it, but continued to stare vacantly forward. He quietly refolded the page, placing it back in his coat pocket. When he next glanced at Grace, he was startled to see that she no longer stared at the nothingness of the night. She was staring at him. Even though her eyes were dark and lifeless, it was a change. “Grace?”

  “Why do you do this?” Her voice was sharp, not at all her own. “Why do you come here night after night and tell me all these things?”

  He stared at her, uncertain how he should respond. “I come to remind you that there is still a world around you, Grace, a world that keeps moving on from day to night to day again. I come because there is still life.”

  Grace stood without making a response and started walking away from him, arms crossed tightly over herself, dismissing him for the safety of her indifference and self-pity.

  Suddenly the despair he had felt over his inability to do anything for her, for Eleanor, overtook him. Christian stood and crossed the courtyard after her, taking her by the arm and forcing her around to face him. “Let me go, Christian!”

  “You are going to listen to me for once instead of blindly ignoring my existence! I have sat by and watched you deliberately destroy yourself over this as if you were the only one to have lost that child. I lost a child, too, Grace, and I feel the pain of it every bit as terribly as you do. Sometimes I feel it even worse because to live with the guilt that I feel, knowing if I had been here with you instead of running off to repair the mistakes of my family’s past, my child would yet be growing inside of you.”

  Christian paused a moment to rein in his raging emotions. When he spoke again, his voice was markedly calmer. “I am your husband, Grace. It is my duty to protect you and our children. But I failed in that duty, just as I failed Eleanor. If you want to blame anyone for the pain you are feeling right now, if you want to blame anyone for taking our child away, then blame me. I did this, Grace. Not you. Take that hatred you have for yourself and direct it on me. But for God’s sake, stop torturing yourself!”

  Grace simply stared through him.

  Defeated, Christian released her and turned, heading for the castle, unable to stand the suffering any longer. As he approached the door, he saw Deirdre watching him. He didn’t speak to her, just shot her a look as he strode past.

  “What you did was good,” she said, bringing him up short at the door. “You have brought her to thinking again.”

  Christian took in a slow and deep breath. “What good will it do, Deirdre?”

  Deirdre smiled at him, taking his arm and walking with him inside the castle. “Wait and see, my lord. Wait and see.”

  Two mornings later, Grace sat at her bedchamber window, wondering why there wasn’t anyone in the courtyard below. At this hour, the estate was normally bustling with people seeing to the day’s tasks, yet not a single person appeared. Everywhere she looked—the stables, even the fields—all was deserted. Where had everybody gone?

  She stood and walked across the room to the door, opening it slightly to peek onto the hallway outside. It was Wednesday, when they always would strip the bed linens for washing and take up the carpets for beating, yet neither Flora nor Deirdre were anywhere in sight. Neither was Liza, she suddenly realized. She hadn’t come with Grace’s morning tea and oatcake for breakfast.

  A niggling of uneasiness began to prick at her inside and Grace slipped silently into the hallway, walking slowly to the stairs. She listened a moment below. Silence. No muffled voices, no clatter from the kitchen. Nothing. She went halfway down the steps and still she could hear nothing but the silence.

  When she reached the bottom step, Grace looked on to the vast emptiness of the great hall and knew something had to be terribly wrong. How could dozens of people suddenly vanish without her having noticed? It was almost as if she were walking in a dream.

  As she headed down the stair for the service rooms, she thought she heard a sound, a faint keen that seemed to have come from the direction of the kitchen. She looked to the doorway and again heard the sound, slightly louder. Concerned now, she started toward it, entering a room that was normally warm and welcoming and filled with the smells of baking, where a basket of oatcakes was always waiting on the center table, where a kettle for tea could always be found on the fire. But there was no teakettle, no fire in the hearth. Every dish and cup had been tucked away in its cupboard.

  Another keen, and Grace turned to where the cradle stood at its place beside the hearth. She felt a tightness seize her deep inside her chest, felt her knees tremble slightly. Cautiously she approached, looking inside to where little Iain MacLean lay on his back, his tiny legs kicking as he stretched and worked his growing limbs.

  When he realized she was there, he let out a wail.

  Grace looked around the kitchen, wondering why he had been left unattended. “Deirdre?” she called but received no response. What if he were hungry, she thought. What if he needed a changing?

  Grace left the kitchen and walked out into the courtyard, searching for someone, anyone, to tell her what had happened. Inside the kitchen, Iain’s cries grew louder.

  “Deirdre!” she called out. “Seonag!”

  No one came in response to her summons. Behind her, Iain had begun to scream.

  “Is anyone here?” she called, shouting up to the castle towers, but again no response. Her heart was pounding inside her chest as she began to truly fear something terrible had happened. Realizing that no one was coming, Grace quickly retraced her steps to the kitchen. Iain had worked himself into a wailing fury, his tiny face now a bright red. Grace knew a moment of panic—she hadn’t the faintest idea what she should do. She had such little experience with babies. She quickly grew frightened.

  “Deirdre, please—” Her voice cracked with her fear. “Where are you? I need your help in here. Please!”

  She leaned over the cradle, hoping to quiet the infant’s cries. “Shhh, everything is all right, Iain. I’m sure your momma or Aunt Deirdre will be back very soon.”

  Please let them come back very soon.

  But Iain only cried all the louder, and soon was hiccuping harshly on his screams.

  In a full panic now, Grace did the only thing she could think of. She reached inside the cradle and took, the infant up to her. The moment he felt the warmth of her body, Iain quieted. Slowly Grace began to rock him in her arms the way she had seen Seonag do so many times.

  By the time Christian returned, Grace had come to realize exactly what he had done. In the weeks since losing their child, Grace had found herself unwilling to look on the face of a child without feeling a sickness in her stomach. If she’d ever had to walk near Iain’s cradle, she would take another direction so as to avoid going near him. She purposely avoided the nursery that had been set up off the great hall, choosing instead to take the south stairs to her bedchamber.

  And because of this, Christian had arranged for her to be left alone with Iain, knowing she would be forced to put aside her hopelessness to tend to him.

  Grace wasn’t angry at what he had done and she told him so when he came slowly into the kitchen where she had just placed the sleeping Iain in his cradle.

  When she saw him, saw the anxiety on his face, she could only admonish herself for how she had treated hi
m. “I am so sorry, Christian. I have been terrible to you and—”

  “Shh.” He drew her into his arms, burying his face in her hair. “I am just relieved to see Deirdre’s idea proved a sound one. She said it had taken much the same action for her to come to terms with her own such loss. Still, I worried you would resent me for having allowed this.”

  Grace shook her head. “How could I ever resent you for giving me back what I thought forever lost? I can only be grateful to you, Christian, for what you have done. In bringing me to this, you have given me back my heart.”

  Christian felt a well of emotion surge up inside of him—happiness, gratitude, relief, and for the first time in nearly a month, he smiled down into the eyes of the woman he loved more than life, thanking the heavens, the saints, and even Cliodna for giving her back to him.

  “No, Grace, it is you who have given me my heart.”

  And then slowly, he lowered his mouth to hers.

  Epilogue

  Summer had given way to autumn, burnishing the Highlands in splashes of orange and gold. As was the custom, the festivities for the harvest day ceilidh would begin at dusk after the day’s tasks had been seen to and the animals had been fed and bedded down for the night.

  Earlier that morning, on the bluff overlooking the loch, the sun had cast its dawning light on a ceremony that had joined Andrew and Liza, and Alastair and Flora in marriage. For luck, the brides had carried tufts of white heather in their bridal bouquets and when the vows had been exchanged, there was a rush by the young men in the company to get the first kiss of the newly wedded wives.

  Afterward, as the people of Skynegal made their way back to the castle, they’d each placed a stone upon a cairn built to commemorate the day. Christian and Grace, the laird and his lady, had placed the first two stones, followed after by the newly wedded couples, and then the others. When the last stone had been set by one of the children whom Christian had lifted up to reach it, the cairn had stood nearly eight feet tall. The company had cheered Nis! Nis! Nis! while the morning sun struggled through the mist and the birds of Cliodna soared overhead, calling out their legendary song.

  The mood of celebration had continued throughout the day and with the coming of night’s shadows, rush torches had been lit about the courtyard, while small cruisgeans, or crusie lamps, shone from the various wooden tables that were set out with food and drink. The children had gathered in a small circle, sucking on sweet aniseed gundy sticks, eyes wide as they listened to McGee telling one of the many adventures of Rob Roy, told to him by his father who’d heard them from his father before. The elder tenants watched on, reminiscing about their own carefree days of youth while McFee and several of his contemporaries assembled at the opposite end of the courtyard, readying to play upon a motley orchestra of fiddles, pipes, and drums.

  The darker the night sky grew, the more spirited the gathering became. By the time the moon was high and full above them, everyone had eaten their fill, the ale and whiskey were flowing freely, and a lively circle of dancers were hopping and turning about the courtyard to the hoots and whistles of those clapping their hands.

  High upon the near tower, watching down on the merriment below, were the laird and his lady. It was a chill night and they were each dressed in the Skynegal tartan. Christian stood with his arms wrapped protectively around Grace, her head tucked snugly beneath his chin as they looked out onto the scene in the courtyard.

  It had been a day filled with celebrations, and there was yet one more celebration to come—over the news of the tiny life that lay nestled inside of her. Deirdre had calculated that the child would be making his appearance some time the following spring. And as Grace looked down on this place and these people that she loved so much, as she felt the protective strength of Christian’s arms around her and knew the touch of a Skynegal breeze against her face, she could only think that Nonny had been right all along. Perfect knights did certainly exist, dreams weren’t given without the possibility of coming true—and a miracle is always only a belief away from happening.

  Slowly Grace turned to face him, this man she loved more than she ever thought possible, a knowing smile lighting her eyes. “Christian, I have something to tell you…”

  Author’s Note

  In the course of my research, I will sometimes come across some tidbit from history that will draw my attention more than others. I will often pursue that same tidbit until it eventually ends up becoming a part of one of my stories. For White Knight, that tidbit was the Scottish Highland Clearances.

  They began as early as the late-1700s and continued in some areas of the Highlands for nearly a century. Imagine that you are living on a small, barely surviving farm. You have lived on this land all of your life, as had your father and his father before him. You do not own this land, yet you were raised with an innate love for it, a respect for the clan traditions of your ancestors and a pride in your heritage. You pledge allegiance to your chief, the great landowner, and for centuries your people have protected him and his kin in times of war and attack, oftentimes sacrificing their lives for him. This pride and love you feel isn’t something recently come by; it is centuries in the making.

  Despite what hardship may come to your tiny place in this remote ancient land—war, poverty, or disease— the thought to abandon your heritage never crosses your mind.

  Now imagine one bleak rainy Highland day. You are a farmer and thus you have already begun cultivating your small plot of leased land to grow the crop of oat, barley, or potato that will sustain your family through the coming year. You have invested everything you have in it—your time, your labor, your money. It is your life’s calling, this farming, the work of both your heart and your soul.

  Imagine, just as the crops have managed yet again to break their way through the harsh and oftentimes unforgiving Highland soil, your laird’s factor comes to pay you a visit. He hands you a document written in a language you cannot read, still he manages to breach the communication barrier enough to deliver the horrible news that your home and the land it sits upon will no longer be made available for you. Even before your precious crop can be harvested, you will be made to vacate with your family and possessions. If you are one of the more fortunate, you might be offered an alternate plot of land on the estate, but it is likely a bare fraction of the size you occupied before. Your sole source of income is now terribly depleted. When you mention this to the factor, he tells you that you should abandon your farming, this work of your heart, and become a fisherman on the coast, only you have never known this work and there is no one to teach you. You make do as best you can, until the day the factor comes again, bearing another unreadable document, ordering you off the land again, only this time there is no alternate plot. You are simply expected to leave, abandoning the gravesites of your family, your heritage, the land you so love, so that the laird may bring in a new tenant to replace you, the sheep that will bring him a tidier profit.

  The instances of the Clearances I have illustrated in this story, the evictions, the burnings, are all based upon actual accounts from the time period. Some have argued that the evictions were carried out “for the good of the people being displaced,” that the Highlanders were a “lazy, indolent people who were satisfied to live in poverty rather than seek new and improved ways of making a living.” What these individuals fail to appreciate is that it wasn’t the impoverished state of living the Highlanders clung to. It was the land and their connection to it, a quality as much a part of their character as the mist is to the heathery Scottish hills, a characteristic that has made legend of the personages of William Wallace and Robert Roy MacGregor.

  While my heroine, Grace, is a completely fictional character, some of her ideals were shared with other humanitarians of the time, those few who saw the immorality of the “Improvements” and sought alternate ways of nourishing the Highland economy. Dowager Lady MacKenzie of Gairloch was indeed responsible for organizing relief efforts through the building of roads in Wester Ross
after the potato famine struck the Highlands in the mid-1840s. From all accounts, this great lady was a woman of character and vision. She taught herself Gaelic as well as ensuring that her sons would learn the language from their Gaelic-speaking nursemaid. She saw that they were then tutored at home instead of sending them away to university so they could better understand their people and thus manage their estates more successfully than the non-Gaelic speaking landowners could. Still other landowners provided housing and food for the displaced Highlanders, taking them onto their own estates as tenants, even if it meant bankrupting themselves in the process, all in the name of humanity.

  If you are interested in learning more about the Scottish Clearances, there has been a memorial fund established. It’s purpose is purely educational; the founders seek to inform the world of this often overlooked period of time in Scottish history. Their vision is to erect a permanent memorial to serve as a reminder “to the world of this unnecessary human tragedy.” I invite my interested readers to contact me by mail or through my website for additional information about the Highland Clearances Memorial Fund.

  I hope you enjoyed reading Christian and Grace’s story. As many of my readers will already know, this is the third book of what I had originally planned as a trilogy. However…

  While I was finishing this story, there came a voice from the text that begged to be heard. The voice was that of Christian’s sister, Lady Eleanor Wycliffe. She will take us to the mysterious Western Isles of Scotland, a mythical setting peopled with eccentric characters, charming customs, and even an ancient curse. I hope you will look for her story, entitled White Mist, in the coming year.

  I love to hear from my readers. Please write to me through my website at http://www.jacklynreding.com or c/o Post Office Box 1771, Chandler, AZ 85244-1771. Thank you for sharing your time with me, and with Christian and Grace from White Knight. Until we meet again some day, at another time, in another story...