by Karen Ranney
The thought alone was almost worth touching George.
She’d have to kiss him first. She’d have to stand on her tiptoes and place her lips against his. Why had she not remembered that he was so tall?
She pushed any thought of kissing her husband out of her mind and concentrated instead on the journey. Her horses were very calm, unexcited by the approaching storm, but then they were not thoroughbreds but of sturdier stock. They’d never race for sport, but they could pull a plow.
George had liked horses, she recalled. He’d even wagered on a few races, if what her father had said was correct. More than a few, if he’d been so desperate to marry an heiress.
“It’s no sin for him to marry for money, Charlotte,” her mother had said five years ago. “He has a title, and we have a fortune.”
“It doesn’t seem like a fair trade,” Charlotte had replied.
“For whom? A woman’s destiny is fulfilled in a good, stable marriage arranged by her family. Your father’s business will be strengthened by a relationship with an earl, not to mention you’ll become a countess.”
She’d believed her mother, as a good daughter should, and she’d had no difficulty marrying George. The problem had been in staying married to him.
They were almost in Inverness, the coachman needing no further directions before turning down the lane and making the final climb up a small hill. Spencer was also a gentleman farmer, he liked to tell her, but she never commented in return that he didn’t seem very prosperous at that endeavor. Most of his fields were fallow and those that had been cultivated had not yet been harvested. At the moment, however, Charlotte didn’t care about his success at farming.
She needed a friend.
When the carriage stopped in front of his house, she sent the driver to the door and waited. An unaccompanied woman did not attend a man in his own house, even a woman with her odd marital situation. But Spencer could join her in the carriage without causing any eyebrows to lift.
If she’d only brought Maisie, the two of them could have waited in Spencer’s drawing room as they’d done many times before. But Maisie had been given instructions to give each of the teachers an envelope prior to their departure. Inside was a bonus that they would not expect: their final pay plus a little extra stipend, a reward for such a very good year.
The young girl at the door seemed to be arguing with her driver. For a moment, Charlotte was almost tempted to disembark from the carriage and mediate. Whatever he was saying was causing the girl to shake her head back and forth.
She knew before Franklin returned to the carriage, his hat in his hand.
“Your ladyship,” he said, “he doesn’t seem to be at home.”
“Truly?”
“He’s in Edinburgh, your ladyship, on court business.”
How very odd. She shouldn’t have been so surprised, but Spencer, from his own words, didn’t travel often. “I have all that I need in Inverness, Charlotte. Why ever should I go anywhere else?”
He’d been looking at her at the time, in what she’d construed as a tender fashion, and she couldn’t help but feel that he was stating something else entirely different. Something intimate and warm, and until she was divorced, utterly scandalous.
As she decided upon her course of action, the rain began, spotting the driver’s cloak.
“Very well, Franklin,” she said reluctantly. “We’ll return to Balfurin.”
“Is there a message you would like to leave, your ladyship?”
“Simply that we called, perhaps.” She reached into her reticule and pulled out her card, handing it to him through the open door. “If you’ll give the girl this.”
He bowed slightly, and returned to the doorway while Charlotte leaned forward and closed the door against the rain. She sat back against the cushions, wondering what she should do now.
She had no other choice but to return to Balfurin, but she hated to do so since George was there. George, with his smug—and charming—smile, who had fascinated most of her students. George, with his strange and loyal companion. George, who kept looking at her as if there was something on the tip of her nose that fascinated him.
She rubbed the end of her nose now with one gloved finger.
He’d won again. A second later she chided herself. How foolish. He’d had no inkling of her errand. Nor was she desperate to talk to someone. Not at all. Most definitely not.
Ever since she’d come to Scotland on that fateful day five years earlier, she’d ceased being dependent upon anyone. Who could she talk to in those early days? Old Nan? The woman wouldn’t have anything to do with her because Charlotte was English. Jeffrey? The old man was the same type of Scot but whereas Nan avoided her, Jeffrey made a point of being obnoxious and in her way all the time.
There had been one young boy at Balfurin in the beginning. Thomas, she recalled, had gone to sea, an undertaking she’d blessed with some misgiving. But he’d left Balfurin without a backward glance, making her wish, for an hour or so, that she was as courageous about her future.
“Why did he come back now?” She addressed the question to the roof, and a thunder of raindrops answered her. Why not two years ago when she had to ask cook to be especially economical in her meal planning because Charlotte was concerned about paying the greengrocer? Why not three years ago when she was so distraught about money that she wondered if she could afford to pay the teachers’ salaries? What about four years ago, when she’d spent all her money on the most expensive of Balfurin’s renovations and there were still few students? Or what about when she’d stood in the courtyard looking about her, determined not to go back to England and yet uncertain she’d made the right decision to stay.
No, he had to arrive now, just when things were looking their brightest.
She closed her eyes and listened to the wind. Leaves scratched against the windows as if nature were indulging in a bit of mischief and flinging them at the carriage.
A gust of wind swayed the vehicle, and she grabbed the strap above the window to keep her balance. The storm hadn’t seemed so fierce when it had begun, but then, everything in Scotland was unexpected, from the sheer raw beauty of spring to the gentle tranquility of summer. But she hated winter—it seemed like the season of death, when living things became dormant and there was nothing to the landscape but ice and snow.
George probably loved the winter. How odd that she didn’t know. But there were few things about him that she did know. He liked mustard, that she remembered from their few dinners together. And roast beef. He claimed that Scottish cows were tastier than English ones. As if she ever knew the nationality of what she was eating. He liked the feel of silk against his skin. He’d said that once; she couldn’t remember the occasion but she did recall that it had been inappropriate at the time. What was his favorite color? His favorite song? His favorite book? Did he even choose to read?
She knew more about the footman who’d stayed in Lady Eleanor’s room last night.
What on earth should she do about that situation? Should she even mention it? Did she need to reprimand the young man? Or congratulate him?
Yesterday, she’d been the headmistress of a soon to be profitable school for girls. Simply that and no more. Her life was manageable, if a little dull. Her days were orderly, her routine fixed. She knew what Monday would bring, and Tuesday, as well as every other day of the week.
Today, however, her missing husband was in residence, and she was the center of attention for a very determined and not easily dissuaded group of women who wanted to instruct her on the amatory arts.
The wind howled around the carriage as she heard Franklin shout to the horses. Slashes of lightning darted from the clouds to spear the hilltops. The frightened whinnies of the horses mixed with the drumming sound of the rain, and the crack of Franklin’s whip.
Perhaps she should have considered the weather before setting off from Balfurin.
Charlotte braced herself against the seat as another gust of wind threaten
ed to tip over the carriage. Was this how her life was going to end? Not as ancient as Old Nan, looking out over Balfurin with a feeling of accomplishment, but crushed by a carriage in a brutal storm?
Now was the time to pray, but she couldn’t think of a word. Perhaps she’d given God too many reasons in the past five years to punish her, including a host of sins for which she’d ultimately have to provide an explanation. Pride, the greatest. She hadn’t gone home as a good daughter would. Instead, she’d remained at Balfurin, stubborn, determined, shamed. Vanity, that was a sin, wasn’t it? She’d liked the way she looked last night in her new and only ball gown, and had regretted that Spencer hadn’t seen her entrance into the ballroom.
The horses screamed, and she clenched her eyes shut and wished she could do the same for her ears.
Was she being punished for not welcoming her husband home? God did like unions, didn’t He? He also approved of submissive wives, and she could easily recall a dozen or more passages from the Bible proving it.
She’d seen that look in George’s eyes, a strange and vulnerable expression lasting only a moment, but it had pulled at something in her. But she’d ruthlessly pushed away the surge of tenderness she’d felt. She was doomed to die by storm, then, because she had absolutely no intention of being submissive to George MacKinnon.
If only Spencer had been home, she’d have waited out the storm in his company. Perhaps she might even have moved into the drawing room, certain that anyone would understand in the circumstances.
But it wasn’t Spencer’s fault. If blame had to be assigned, she was the one who should bear the brunt of it. She’d needed comfort, support. A moment of weakness that she was paying for now.
George was no doubt sitting warm and comfortable beside the fire in the Laird’s Chamber. Or was he entertaining the last of the girls in the Great Hall?
The thunder boomed again. She pitied Franklin in his exposed perch. The farther they traveled, the more tempted Charlotte was to rap on the ceiling and tell Franklin to slow down. Perhaps they could just simply stop in the middle of the road and wait for the worst of the storm to subside. As it was, the carriage was being buffeted from one side of the road to the other. As they began to travel up the largest hill, it felt as if a celestial hand was pushing them backward.
She was not a woman given to fainting spells, and she discouraged such histrionics in her students. But there were times when it might have been preferable to lose consciousness for a moment or two.
This was one of those times.
The thunder was booming directly above her, the noise so deafening that she lost her hearing for a moment. Unexpectedly, the carriage shook with the impact of lightning striking right outside.
The horses reared, and suddenly, the carriage lurched and they were off the road, careening downward, and then slipping sideways. Charlotte held onto the strap with both hands as she was thrown from one side of the carriage to the other. Her elbow hit the glass of the window and she heard it crack. She tried to grip the seat but her hands slid off the tufted cushions.
An eternity later, they stopped moving. Charlotte knelt on the seat, her breath matching her heartbeat in rapid cadence. She kept her eyes closed for a minute, forcing herself to have the courage finally to open them and take stock of the situation.
The carriage was wedged sideways as if the wheels on one side had snapped. The sound of the storm was still raging above them, but now she could also hear the screams of the horses.
Her body shook, and she was very much afraid she was going to have a bout of hysterics, but she was still alive. Evidently, God didn’t think she deserved to perish in such a fashion.
A few moments later, she heard Franklin’s voice coming from the window near the roof. She looked up but she couldn’t see his face through the grill.
“All you all right, my lady?”
“I think so,” she said, hearing the quaver in her own voice. She must be in control of the situation. But at this particular moment, she was barely able to speak, and movement seemed impossible.
“We’re on the side of a hill, my lady.”
She nodded and then realized if she couldn’t see him, he probably couldn’t see her either. “I have deduced that, Franklin, from our angle.”
“I could come around and get you, my lady, or we could wait until the storm passes. No sense in your getting soaked.”
At the moment, she didn’t want to move a muscle, let alone disembark from the carriage.
“I think it’s better if we wait,” she said. “You should come inside the carriage, Franklin.”
“I’m already soaked, my lady, but I thank you.” A moment later he spoke again. “One of the horses is badly injured, my lady.”
Even if Franklin hadn’t told her, the animal’s screams would’ve alerted her to its condition. She closed her eyes again and wished herself far away from here. But wishes didn’t transport her anywhere. She remained exactly where she was, witness to the dying screams of an injured animal.
“Do what you must, Franklin,” she said, knowing without being told what would happen.
A few minutes later the screams stopped.
How long did the storm last? Probably no more than a quarter hour, although it felt much longer. She left her watch brooch at Balfurin and had no idea how fast or slow time was passing. Finally, however, the storm seemed to wane and move off, no longer pinning them in place. The roof was leaking, the silk on the ceiling now stained and water marked. She measured the path of one droplet from the edge of the window to the middle of the roof, and then watched as it fell to her skirt.
The door abruptly opened and Franklin stood there, drenched from the top of his bare head to his muddy boots.
“I could go back to Balfurin, my lady and get help. It’s nothing but mud up to the ankles as far as the eye can see.”
“I do not melt, Franklin,” she said firmly. “I can certainly walk in a little mud.”
“You’d be safe enough here, my lady.”
“Nonsense,” she said, wrapping her scarf around her neck and inserting her hands in the slits of her cloak. She wished she’d had the forethought to wear heavy gloves. But she’d wanted to be fashionable more than she’d wanted to be warm. Vanity—she’d already judged herself guilty of that sin.
“It is not all that far to Balfurin,” she said, stretching the truth a bit. She had no idea how far they were from the castle, but if Franklin could make the walk back, so could she. “We’ll make it in an hour or so.” Or double that, she corrected mentally.
“If you’re sure, my lady.”
“I am,” she said. She was the headmistress of the Caledonia School for the Advancement of Females. She was no fainting flower.
Franklin helped her climb out of the carriage, and she slid into the mud. He was wrong; it wasn’t ankle deep, it was nearly knee deep. They were at the bottom of an incline. On a sunny day, she wouldn’t have considered it much of a hill, but now it seemed nearly impassable.
Franklin turned toward the horse at the front of the carriage, and she resolutely headed in the other direction. The earth had been transformed into wide muddy rivulets. Each step was an effort to pick up her feet and then allow them to sink down into the mire.
She’d worn her most fashionable shoes. Vanity again. It no longer mattered, because in the next step, she lost her left sole. She rooted around for it with her hand, and finally found it, holding it in front of her like a dark, dripping trophy. Halfway up the hill she lost the rest of the shoe. She unbuttoned the other shoe and continued climbing in her stocking feet.
She was wet, covered in mud, and sweating profusely beneath her wool cloak. One of the bones of her stays was digging into her side, and she was almost tempted to unlace it and free herself from the discomfort. Her bonnet had slid down until it covered one eye, and a very peculiar odor was emanating from the dark blue ribbon. But she was the headmistress of the Caledonia School for the Advancement of Females and, as such, was an example
of decorum.
Even muddy, sweaty, dripping, and exhausted.
“Are you all right?”
She looked up. Of course he would be there, sitting atop a horse as if he were born to it. One of her horses. One of her best horses. Equine ability was one of the courses taught at the school, and she’d purchased two mares for her students to ride.
Of course, George would look none the worse for wear except for being a little wet from the rain. He wore a heavy greatcoat that was dotted with moisture but was otherwise perfectly attired.
She felt bedraggled, a female wreck, and the ugliest possible creature compared to him.
“What are you doing here?” she asked.
Instead of merely answering, he dismounted and came to her side.
“I wanted to know where you’d gone. Unfortunately, I was caught by the storm.”
She held up a muddy hand holding part of her shoe as if to keep him at bay.
“I’m fine,” she said. “I do not need your assistance.”
“Of course you do, don’t be foolish.”
She stared at him, wondering if it was possible to dislike a man more intently than she did him at this moment. She walked around him and began to head for Balfurin.
“Where are you going?”
“Home,” she said.
“Wouldn’t you prefer to ride?” He turned his horse—her horse—and began following her.
She ignored him, intent on the sight of Franklin coming up the hill walking the remaining horse. George went to help him, and together they managed to get the struggling animal to the road. The two men conferred over the animal’s leg. Twice, Franklin nodded, as if George had said something especially brilliant. She looked away and sighed, wondering when, exactly, the two men had become such fast friends.
George startled her by unwrapping his stock and winding the silk garment around the animal’s knee.
When had he become so altruistic?
“It should be all right if you walk him slow,” he said. “A little liniment tonight, and a compress, and he should be good as new.”
