by Karen Ranney
“What did you wish for when you were a boy?” she asked.
“What did I wish for?” he repeated, looking startled at the question.
He sat opposite her, his back to the horses, and regarded her with such a vague glance she knew he was recalling the past and not seeing her.
“I suppose I wished for the things all boys do.” He looked away, as if suddenly embarrassed. “That last year,” he said, “I wanted to stay at Ballindair.”
“Didn’t you like school?”
He sat back, smiling. “I enjoyed learning. I had a tutor at home, but it was nothing to all those minds assembled in one place. I could ask questions of anyone, not simply my father.”
“Was your father proud of you?” she asked.
He continued looking out the window as he spoke. “I suppose he was.”
“Did he never say?”
He turned to her. “Why are we discussing my past, when you’re so reticent to speak of your own upbringing?”
“Because my upbringing in Inverness was nothing to living at Ballindair,” she said.
He only nodded, as if he agreed with her.
For several minutes they didn’t speak. She folded her hands, pretending an interest in the passing scenery. In reality, she was thinking about her own wish.
In Inverness, she’d wanted to survive. She wanted food, heat, and some sort of future.
When first coming to Ballindair, she wanted a way to accept her role, to cope with her circumstances.
Now? A way to tell the truth, to stop living the lie. To make Morgan understand and accept what she’d done and make it right, somehow. Wasn’t that the most foolish wish of all?
The coachman evidently knew his way, because he drew to a halt several minutes later.
When he opened the door, he cautioned, “I’m sorry, Your Ladyship, Your Lordship. I can’t go no farther.”
Stepping out, Jean was assaulted by the grimness of the landscape. The verdant glen had given way to gray, brown, or tan, with an occasional startling note of green. As if the earth wanted to remind a visitor this was not a stark and alien land after all.
A whitewashed long house, similar to the deserted one she’d seen earlier, sat shelved on a steep hill, bracketed by gorse, rocks, and clumps of purple heather. A serpentine path led to it, winding around boulders that looked as if they’d been tossed there by a giant, querulous child.
She waited until Morgan was beside her to start walking toward the cottage.
“What are they doing living in such a desolate place?” he asked. He scuffed the toe of his boot in the rocky ground. “I doubt this would grow anything. Why did they choose this place?’
“Mr. Seath gave them the cottage,” she said. “Or the use of it, at least. They had no other place to go.”
She argued with herself for a moment before telling him the rest. “Your father evicted them, so he could put sheep in their place.”
He halted beside her on the path and stared at her as if she’d suddenly sprouted two heads. He didn’t move, even when she continued walking.
“Where did you hear that?” he asked when he caught up with her.
“From Mr. Seath,” she said.
“You can’t be right,” he said. “You must have misunderstood.”
She stopped, held onto her skirts with both hands and stared down at the gravel path.
“You don’t have to believe me,” she said. “I can understand if you don’t. But Mr. Seath was given orders to evict twenty families. He was able to move eleven of them. Four of them decided to immigrate. Two went to live in Inverness, and he lost track of the other three.”
She glanced up at him to find his jaw squared, his blue eyes flat and cold.
“My father wouldn’t have done that. He wouldn’t have evicted his own crofters.”
“Your father was a human being. Only a man, capable of making mistakes. Don’t imagine him as something he wasn’t.”
“I haven’t imagined him,” he said stiffly.
“Then you’re not looking at him with an adult’s eyes,” she said, as kindly as she was able. “When you’re a child, a parent can never do anything wrong. But when we grow up, Morgan, we begin to see our parents as people. We begin to understand they make mistakes just like we do. We begin to see them as fallible. It’s important to do so, I think. So we can begin to forgive them.”
“I have nothing for which to forgive my father.”
His lips were thinned and there was color on his cheeks, as if he blazed with unspoken words.
“Define honor, Morgan.”
“Sorry?”
“Define honor,” she said. “What is honor to you?”
“I hardly think it’s necessary for me to explain how I feel.”
“I think you define honor as perfection. An honorable man is someone who does all things perfectly. I don’t know anyone like that.”
“A man of honor is someone who obeys his own code.”
She smiled. “What’s a man’s code? Does every man have his own secret code? Isn’t that anarchy? Shouldn’t you subscribe to a community code? Something other people could agree upon? Something less selfish?”
He folded his arms.
“You’re saying my father was selfish?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps he was.”
Morgan’s eyes swept over the glen, taking in the desolation. For a few moments they both pretended an intense regard for the moor, the shimmering river winding through the hazy glen, the shadow of the mountains in the distance, and the approaching storm.
“Perhaps your code is just as flawed,” she said softly.
He glanced at her.
“You divorced Lillian, a thoroughly shocking thing to do.”
“No less shocking than her bedding every man in London.”
“Exactly,” she said.
His eyes narrowed. “You’re a very cunning conversationalist, Jean.”
“Am I?” she asked, pleased. She headed back up the path, Morgan following.
He still looked angry.
She shouldn’t have said anything. Who was she to condemn his father?
“Why?” he asked.
She glanced at him.
“Why are you going to bring her back? Regardless of her poverty, she shouldn’t have stolen from Andrew.”
She shook her head. “I don’t believe she stole Andrew’s watch,” she said. “Neither does my aunt,” she added, recalling Aunt Mary’s conversation.
I think Catriona’s at the heart of this, Jean. She looked sly as a fox, she did, with that little smile of hers like she was pleased with the whole thing.
She walked back to where he stood.
“I don’t trust Andrew,” she said. “And I don’t trust my sister.”
“You think she had something to do with this?” he asked, looking surprised.
“Yes,” she said, feeling disloyal and relieved at the same time. “Catriona is not above using others to her bidding. For some reason, I think she wanted Donalda sent away. What better way than to prove the girl guilty of theft?”
“What’s to stop Catriona from accusing her again, if what you say is true?”
She slapped her hands down on either side of her skirts. “Nothing,” she admitted. “Or perhaps simply because I’ll be watching her.”
She turned and began walking up the path again, not once glancing back to see if he followed her. But she heard his footsteps, and let out the breath she was holding.
Today was a day of revelations, wasn’t it? Yet the greatest of them remained hidden. Who was she to criticize anyone when her own character wasn’t sterling?
Her mother had always told her that secrets fester. They were like starter for bread dough: fermenting in the darkness. Or was her true identity a secret? Wasn’t it simply a lie?
Chapter 31
RULES FOR STAFF: Elevations in rank are granted for exceptional work and proper attitude.
Up close, the cottage was larger than
it appeared from the road. Efforts had been made to shore up the sides of the structure, and the thatch had been replaced with new grass.
Two sheep grazed contentedly nearby, making Jean wonder if they’d migrated from the larger herd. Did Donalda’s family survive on purloined mutton? Smoke floated in gauzy tendrils from the hole in the thatch and hung against the cloudy sky a moment before dissipating.
From inside came the sound of laughter, so alien to what she thought they’d encounter that she glanced at Morgan.
He strode past her to knock on the door. To Jean’s surprise, Donalda came to the door. For once, she was not in the Ballindair uniform of dark blue dress and white apron. Instead, she wore a plain white top and a dark green skirt.
Seeing the earl standing behind her, she bobbed a curtsy, then turned and called inside the cottage.
“Mam, it’s the MacCraig and his wife.”
Not once did Donalda look directly at her, and Jean honestly couldn’t fault her for that. If what she suspected was true, and Catriona had orchestrated her termination, then she would be viewed as the enemy.
Donalda stepped aside to allow Morgan to enter. He greeted Donalda’s mother, a shorter, older version of her daughter. Her hair, as black as Donalda’s, was arranged in a bun at the nape of her neck. Her smile was accompanied by a wariness in her gaze conveying only one message: Strangers brought trouble.
A boy, looking to be about four, pushed his way past her skirts, staring up at Morgan. There, the source of the laughter, a smile still on his face and in his blue eyes.
“You be the MacCraig, then?” he asked.
Morgan nodded, his answering smile nearly as charming as the boy’s.
The interior walls of the cottage were rough, the chinks between the stones filled with crumbling mortar. From where she stood, Jean could see holes in the roof, the gray skies promising rain that would turn the hard-packed dirt floor to mud.
Even in Inverness her circumstances had never been as dire.
The lone window opened up to the darker hill and its shadows. Yet touches of beauty caught her eye. A table and two chairs were pushed up against the wall, a bouquet of heather in a crystal vase acting as centerpiece. A bureau served as pantry and washing area, the ewer and basin sitting atop it made of Ballindair porcelain.
Donalda stepped in front of her mother, her gaze meeting Jean’s.
“Mrs. MacDonald gave me that,” she said. “And the dishes, too. When the earl’s men burned our home.” She glanced at Morgan. “We’d nothing left but the clothes on our backs.”
“Donalda.”
Jean turned toward the source of the voice, and realized part of the cottage had been sectioned off for another room. A man stood there, supporting himself on two crutches carved from tree branches. Someone had drawn a stick figure on the side of one crutch, and she glanced at the little boy, wondering if it was his handiwork.
The man’s face was long, as if pulled down by the weight of his troubles. His nose was hooked, his chin pointed. Yet for all the imperfections of his features, he had kind eyes, humor lurking in their blue depths.
“You’ll be polite to guests in our home,” he said, the strong burr reminding Jean of her own father’s voice.
“We don’t mean to disturb you,” Morgan said. “But we’ve come to speak to Donalda.”
For a moment fear flashed over the girl’s face, but then her features settled into a firm resolve. She nodded just once, forced a smile for her parents, then led Jean and Morgan back outside the cottage.
Once they were a little distance away, Morgan asked, “Did you steal Andrew’s watch?”
Donalda only blinked at him, no doubt surprised by the directness of the question.
She grabbed the material of her skirt, stared up at him and shook her head. “No, Your Lordship, I didn’t. I’d never take anything that wasn’t mine.”
He glanced back at the cottage. “Have you told your parents, then?”
“Not yet.” She stared down at the ground. “I couldn’t find a way to do it.”
Jean stepped forward, placed her hand on Donalda’s arm. “Then there’s no reason to. We want you to come back to Ballindair with us.”
“I’ll not be called a thief,” she said.
“No one will call you a thief,” Jean said.
Donalda looked to Morgan for confirmation, a gesture to be expected. Still, the girl’s distrust stung.
“No one will,” he repeated.
Donalda took a deep breath, nodded, then placed both hands against her reddened cheeks.
“I’ve left my things there,” she said, pointing to a large boulder. “I didn’t want Mam to see me with the bundle. She’d know for sure I’d been turned out.”
She looked up at Morgan again. “I lied, sir. I told her you’d let me come for a half day and sent me home in the wagon. I’d not been able to come home for an age because of the distance.”
He only smiled at her. “I think a white lie is acceptable in this case, Donalda.”
He left them, returning to the cottage, no doubt to explain that Donalda was needed back at Ballindair. If Donalda’s mother was like other females in Morgan’s presence, she’d melt at the sight of his smile.
“Why?” Donalda asked, turning to Jean. “Why are you being kind when we both know it’s your sister who planned this?”
“Because you’re innocent,” Jean said, turning and walking back toward the carriage.
She would tell the truth when she could, perhaps to make up for living the bigger lie.
Once back at Ballindair, Morgan took his leave, making his way to the lawn where Andrew was still painting the scenery. The sky was darkening ominously. Was Andrew going to sit in the rain and paint a Highland storm?
He stood watching him for a moment, well aware the other man had already noted his presence. A sign of their discord, that Andrew didn’t turn and wave, or call out to him.
This moment had been coming for months, maybe years.
He needed to mark the day on a calendar somewhere. Perhaps he should take up his father’s habit of journaling. What, exactly, would he write?
On this date, I put away childish things. Or: Today, my life was revealed to me as never before.
Perhaps he’d never been willing to see what was in front of his eyes. That had been his excuse with Lillian. He’d told himself he hadn’t been looking for her infidelity, but it was glaringly apparent from the first days of their marriage. He simply hadn’t wanted to admit it until he’d been made a laughingstock.
And his father? What is honor? Jean’s question and his effort to define it had left him floundering.
His conversation with Jean had sparked another question. Why had Andrew argued so vociferously against his marriage to her? Had he known that Jean was one of those rare people who saw clearly and spoke the truth? Had he worried she might see through him as well?
Morgan approached his boyhood friend.
The noxious mixture of paint, turpentine, and some mixture Andrew used to prepare his canvas overwhelmed any hint of flower, blooming bush, or fresh breeze. How did the man tolerate the stench?
He stopped at Andrew’s side. “I think it’s time for you to leave,” he said.
“I’ve overstayed my welcome, then?” Andrew asked, turning his head to look at Morgan, his smile not meeting his eyes. “Is it your wife, Morgan, that’s done this to us?” He didn’t put down his brush, but continued shading the side of a particularly odd looking bush. No, it was a tree.
“Jean has nothing to do with this. This is just between you and me.”
“As it’s always been.”
“As it’s always been,” Morgan said.
Andrew carefully wiped off the brush, then placed it in its holder.
“Did you bed Lillian, Andrew?”
“Would I do that to a friend?”
“Did you?” Morgan asked.
“She was a bitch in heat, Morgan.”
“And you were just one o
f her mongrels, is that it?”
“Do you really think that of me?”
“Until today, I would’ve said no,” Morgan said. “Until this moment, I would’ve argued with anyone who dared suggest it to me.”
“And now?”
Morgan wasn’t sure what he felt, but it wasn’t surprise, curiously, or disbelief. Had he always known?
“Don’t look at me all lordly, Morgan. I don’t have the same rigid concept of honor you do.”
Since he wasn’t exactly certain what that meant anymore, Morgan remained silent.
Andrew stood. “I’ll be gone by morning. That is, if you’ll loan me a coach. Or do you want me to walk away from your grand castle?”
“I’ll do anything, including giving you the damn carriage, if it means you’ll be gone.”
“You’d toss aside our friendship for a woman?”
“For Lillian? No.”
Morgan left before his anger could make him say something that would only escalate this confrontation. There was a time to fight, and a time to walk away.
He walked away.
Jean sat on the chair in the sitting room, smiling at the seamstress as she scurried out of the room, followed by the two young girls who assisted her. All three wore harried expressions, as if they wished for a few more hours in the day.
Catriona had appropriated the Rouge Room, the name coming from the color of the pale red draperies and the bed curtains. Beneath Jean’s feet was a carpet of beige, woven with blowsy pink flowers. The furniture was larger than in the Countess’s Suite, the vanity easily accommodating a woman in full skirts sitting at the bench seat. Two armoires sat side by side. Had Catriona given orders to move furniture from another room? Or had she chosen this suite because it could accommodate her growing wardrobe?
The room smelled of sandalwood, no doubt from the potpourri dishes on the vanity and bureau. Ever since childhood, Catriona had been sensitive to odors, one of the reasons she’d been excused from scullery duty.
How many dresses was her sister having made? Perhaps, on another day, she’d care enough to ask, but there were weightier matters to discuss.
Catriona came out of the bedroom, patting her hair into place. She was attired in a new dress, a striped blue fabric.
