by Kaki Warner
Did that mean he wasn’t taking her back to Scotland? Or that he was returning without her?
She stared at him, her mind reeling. And even though he didn’t move, she could feel him drawing away, and it sent a jolt of terror through her. “What are you saying? You’re giving up? You’re leaving?”
He didn’t answer. Just looked at her, and the resignation in his eyes cut her heart to shreds. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. “Oh my God…you’re leaving me…again…” And fearing what else she might say, she clapped both hands over her mouth.
“Lass.” He reached toward her, but she jerked back. “I canna stay, love. And I won’t ask you to give up your work. It would be wrong.”
You arrogant, noble, bloody, misbegotten bounder. She took her hands away, saw that they were shaking but couldn’t make them stop even when she clenched them into fists. If she thought her legs would hold her, she would have fled the room.
Dimly, through the buzzing in her head, she heard his voice, a low rumble that vibrated in the air around her. “I’ve watched you, lass. I’ve seen joy light up your face when you speak of your photography. And I’ve seen the results. You’re an artist, so you are. And I’ll not be taking that away from you.”
“What are you saying?” You bloody bastard. “Good-bye?”
“It’s for the best.”
“Whose best?” She lurched to her feet. Good-bye? The word thundered through her head, drove the air from her lungs. She had thought he had simply been angling for a way to get her to go back to Scotland with him—not that he would leave without her. For a moment, she couldn’t draw in a breath. “You—you’re leaving?”
“I must.”
“When?”
“I dinna ken. Soon.”
“B-but…”
“I canna stay, Maddie. And you canna leave.”
She stood before him, her legs trembling, her heart pressing against her lungs. Why now? It made no sense. Not after their night together. Not after finding each other again after all this time.
“B-but what about Denver?”
“Brodie will watch out for you.”
“But I need you.”
“No, lass, you dinna. You never have.”
Wearily, he pushed himself out of the chair. He stood for a moment, his face in shadow, his big form blocking the frail light from the lamp behind him. “There’s a saying in Scotland…dinna take a wife until you ken what to do with her.” He gave a soft, joyless laugh. “I’ve never known what to do with you, lass. You were not what I expected, and more than I hoped for. You were a light burning just out of reach, and I was half afraid if I caught you, you would burn right through me. And for these last few days, you have.”
She twisted her hands together. “Ash, don’t do this. I don’t want you to go.”
Reaching out, he gently stroked his hand over her hair. “You’ve built a fine life for yourself here, Madeline. Found a new family…a better one than what you left behind.” His hand fell away. “I wish you joy in it.”
“But you can’t just leave. What will you do?”
He shrugged. “I’ll go back to Scotland and learn how to be an earl.”
“You’ll hate it.” And you’ll turn into your father—choking on disappointment and taking it out on everyone around you.
“ ’Tis my duty.”
Fury ignited, burned through her in a hot, bright rush. “And you would never forsake your duty, would you, Lord Ashby?” She wanted to strike him. Pound her fists against his chest. Scream at him that he was wrong, wrong, wrong!
“Lass…”
But she had some small measure of pride left. So she lifted her chin and somehow managed to keep her voice from breaking. “Go then.” With a wave of her hand, she turned away. “Go tend your tasks, milord, and leave me to mine.”
As soon as the door closed behind him, Maddie stumbled into her room and fell across her bed.
The upstairs maid had straightened it. The dented pillows and tangled sheets had been smoothed and tucked and covered with the counterpane as if last night had never happened. Even the scent of him was gone. She pounded the bed with her fists, too angry even to cry.
Tricks and Agnes, roused from naps in the sitting room, came in to see what she was doing. But she had no reassurances for them. She was almost senseless with fury. Pain writhed inside her, hot and bitter and sharp as glass.
Damn you.
Then suddenly, as if he was right beside her, Mr. Satterwhite whispered in her mind.
You’re hiding…You need your husband…he’s a good man.
No! She clapped her hands over her ears to shut him out, but still the words circled and echoed.
A life that’ll amount to more than a collection of tintypes in some dusty book on a stranger’s shelf.
But what about her work? She needed that, too.
Yet if she had to choose…
She flipped over on her back and stared up at the ceiling, ideas churning through her mind. There had to be a way to work this out. There had to be something she could do.
Ash hardly slept, plagued by regrets and an almost overwhelming need to go into Maddie’s room, take her into his arms, and tell her it was all a mistake—he wouldn’t leave—they would work something out.
But what?
When dawn was just a dim pink glow behind the peaks, he rose, dressed, and calling Tricks, quietly left the suite.
His breath frosted in the air as he walked to the livery. Driscoll had just doled out the morning feed, and rather than interrupt Lurch, Ash went into Maddie’s wagon to wait for him to finish.
He sat on her wee bed, and the scents he would always associate with his wife settled around him like a perfumed mist. Flowers, soap, photography chemicals, Agnes. In the dim light, he studied the small space that held so much of her essence, picturing her before her tiny mirror, combing her hair, or warming her hands beside her wee stove. A life of status and luxury awaited her as a future countess, yet she was happier here in this crude wagon, surrounded by her photography plates and the tintypes pinned to the low ceiling above her bed.
He lay back and studied them, awed again by the artistry of her work. He could easily pick hers from the others, and not only because of her name across the bottom. There was a gentleness to it. A touch of magic in the lighting and the way she framed the images. Satterwhite had been right: she did see the beauty in everything around her, and somehow was able to capture that feeling in photographic images.
A picture of him with Lurch and Tricks caught his eye. Then another of him sitting by the fire with Satterwhite, and one of Satterwhite leading the mules to water. But none of his wife, and that saddened him. He would have liked having an image of her to take out and look at in the long, lonely years ahead.
The sound of horses moving from the barn into the paddocks told him breakfast was over. Rising, he left the wagon and went to saddle Lurch. A good long run would clear his head. Then perhaps he could find another solution to this coil he was tangled in.
“Luce, I know it makes no sense, and it’s exactly what I don’t need…but I love him.” Maddie’s voice cracked on the last words, and tears welled up again. She had already cried so much her eyes felt like puffy slits and her nose was raw from blowing it. But she couldn’t seem to stem the tears, no matter how hard she tried or how often she splashed her face with water.
Lucinda rose and crossed to where Maddie sat on the edge of the bed. When Miriam, the parlor maid, had come to freshen the suite she shared with Ash, Maddie had fled to the lovely rooms Lucinda had built for herself on the ground floor behind Yancey’s office. It was done up in pale creams and beiges and greens, a perfect setting for Lucinda’s blond, green-eyed beauty.
Sitting down beside her, Lucinda gave Maddie a one-armed hug. “I wish I could help.”
“You can. Tell me how much you hate him. Or how rude he was to ignore me—no matter the reason. Or that I’m better off wit
hout him and it’s good riddance to have him out of my life.”
“But I don’t hate him. Nor do I think you’re better off without him.”
Maddie pulled back to stare at her. “You don’t?”
“I rather like him.” At a knock on the door, Lucinda rose and went into the sitting room. Maddie heard Billy’s voice, the clatter of crockery, then the sound of the door closing.
A moment later, Lucinda appeared in the bedroom doorway. “And judging by the way he looks at you,” she said, picking up the conversation where it had left off, “I doubt he was ever indifferent, even if he didn’t write or come for visits. Now come into the sitting room. I have lunch set up on the table by the window.”
Although she had little appetite, Maddie rose and followed Lucinda. “But, Luce,” she said, plopping into one of the upholstered chairs beside a tall window overlooking the road to the livery and the mountains rising on the other side of the creek. “I would have to go back to Scotland. I might never see you again.”
“Admittedly, I don’t like that idea. But you can’t run around these mountains like a nomad forever. And giving up a title and a life of ease would be foolish. A woman needs security. Money will provide that.”
Maddie sniffed, which made her cough. “You Americans,” she chided, spreading a napkin across her lap. “You have such romantic ideas about titles. It’s not all glamour and ball gowns, I assure you. Being in London society is like living in a fishbowl with a school of flesh-eating piranhas taking nips at you every time you pass by. And Scotland is rainy most of the time, and filled with sheep that stink and people who hate you because you’re English. Not that I blame them. Dreadful practice, those Clearances.”
“Well, it’s certainly a lot better than living day to day in the poorest section of New York,” Lucinda snapped, clearly out of patience. “Spending your days kipping food and dodging constables, and your nights fighting off rats and alcohol-soaked procurers.”
Maddie’s mouth almost fell open. Lucinda rarely spoke of her younger years. Maddie knew her parents had died very young and Luce had been raised by an elderly guardian. She had even mentioned her hatred for what she called “those industrialist types” who kept the working poor in grinding poverty while they grew rich, and the “runners” who preyed on the starving immigrants as they came off the boats. Still, there was a great deal about Lucinda that Maddie didn’t know, like the full story of the man Lucinda had left at the altar and exactly how the New Yorker had come into possession of a valise full of money and railroad shares. But Maddie had never known how destitute Luce had been. How utterly without hope.
Battling new tears, she reached across the table and took Lucinda’s hand. “Oh, dearest, I’m so sorry. How foolish you must think me…after all you’ve gone through, to turn up my nose at what Ash is offering.”
Lucinda pulled her hand away. Maddie had forgotten that another legacy of Lucinda’s childhood was that she didn’t like to be touched.
“Not foolish. Shortsighted. We all have choices, Maddie. Didn’t you once tell me you wanted a family and children? Can you see yourself having them with any man other than Ashby? I doubt it. All I’m saying is that you consider that before you let your viscount slip away. Now, pass the rolls.”
Fourteen
Ash stayed out most of the day. Earlier, he had shot two grouse and had roasted them over a small fire. It felt good to be in the open again, tending such a simple task. It restored his balance, reduced things to an elemental level—find food, cook food, eat food. Out here it was just him, and his animal companions, and a vast windy silence all around. There was peace in that, comfort of a kind he had never found in cities and ballrooms and lofty castles. The soldier’s life was an extension of that simplicity. Fight, protect your fellow soldiers, kill or die if you must.
But he was no longer a soldier, and not yet an earl. Instead, he was trapped somewhere between the two, yet belonging to neither.
Leaning back against the saddle he’d removed from Lurch after their long run, he laced his fingers behind his head and stared up into a sky that was slowly fading. Already the wispy clouds had gone from white to gold and pink and now trailed across the sky in tattered purple streamers tipped with red and orange. Such skies were a rarity in the islands he called home. But here, framed by tall, frosted peaks and towering deep green forests, they were as common as the game that roamed the hills, as plentifully as the sheep back home.
A magical place, these mountains. He saw that now in a way he hadn’t before. Maddie had done that for him—taught him to see the beauty in the trees, rather than the enemy lurking within—to listen for the whisper in the wind, rather than the whine of musket balls. Maddie and her mountains had healed him. No wonder she dinna want to leave them.
Above him, in perfect silhouette, an eagle made lazy circles against the glowing sky. Envying its soaring freedom, Ash watched it drift down to the trees in a slow descent toward a huge nest atop a tall dead snag. Wings arched back, legs thrust out in front, it dropped down onto the nest, stretched once, then folded its great wings.
Safe for the night. Secure. Right where it belonged.
If a simple bird could find that, why couldn’t he?
It was late and Maddie was beside herself with worry.
When she had left Lucinda’s rooms after luncheon, and Yancey had told her he hadn’t seen Ash all day, she had been so filled with panic that he might have already left she had dashed to the suite and checked his room.
His clothing was there, his shaving mug still atop the bureau beside the pitcher of cloudy water she had warned him not to drink. Satisfied he hadn’t escaped her, and determined that he wouldn’t until she’d had her say, she had returned to her own room to wait.
Supper came and went. The clink of dishes from the hotel kitchen below their suite grew fainter, then stopped altogether. She rose and lit her bedside lamp, then stretched out on the bed, Agnes tucked under her arm.
She must have dozed off, because the next thing she heard was Agnes scratching at the door into the suite. She rushed into the sitting room and flung open the door, expecting to see Tricks and Ash. But it was only Billy, sent by Lucinda to see if Maddie wanted him to take Agnes for her bedtime outing.
After they left, she checked Ash’s bedroom again in case he had slipped by her while she slept, but nothing had been disturbed since her earlier inspection. Disheartened, she returned to the sitting room and sat in one of the chairs beside the window and stared out at the night. She still didn’t know what she wanted to say to him. Or how she could convince him to stay with her here, instead of going back to Scotland.
Sighing, she tipped her head against the high back of the chair. If only there was some way to make him understand the utter joy she felt in translating a vision in her head into an image on a sheet of paper, and in a way that was uniquely hers. If only he could see how hard she had worked to build a new life here, an independent life. Didn’t he realize there were only a handful of female photographers, and none who had their work published in a big London periodical? If only…
But then, it wasn’t just about what she wanted, was it?
Then it came to her. The solution. The only way they could each gain what they wanted without losing each other in the process.
When Ash stepped through the door of the suite, it was dark except for the glow of the small lamp on the table by the window and a dim light shining through the crack under Maddie’s door. He hesitated, wanting to assure himself she was all right, but recognized that for the weak excuse it was. Instead, he quietly crossed the sitting room, called Tricks into his bedroom, and shut the door.
He dinna light the lamp but moved in darkness to the window. Hands braced high on either side of the sash, he looked out at the starlit night. He would miss the stars. And the riotous sunsets. And Maddie.
Behind him, the door opened. He turned to see his wife silhouetted on the threshold. She was twisting her hands, as she did when sh
e was nervous, and seeing that small show of vulnerability in such a strong, independent woman made something catch in his chest.
“All right,” she said.
Someone who dinna know her well might have missed that tremble in her voice. “All right, what, lass?”
“I’ll go back with you.”
He tried to see her expression, but the light from the sitting room was behind her and her face was in shadow. He took a step forward and stopped. “Maddie, I canna—”
“Could you light the lamp, please?”
He hesitated, then did as she asked. When it was going, he turned back to her, and tried to hide his dismay at her ravaged appearance. It was apparent she had been crying and was fighting tears, still. “Lass—”
She raised a staying hand. “Please let me finish.”
“Of course.”
She stepped forward and stopped on the other side of the bed. An awkward but safe distance.
“I’ll go back to Scotland with you, Ash,” she said again. “I’ll be your countess, and God willing, I’ll bear your heirs. When it’s necessary.”
Before he could ask her to explain, she rushed on, as if fearing he meant to argue with her. “You said you have no lands or duties to attend as Viscount Ashby. And Donnan is a relatively young man. He could live twenty more years, and I pray God he will. So why go back now?”
“To help him.”
“Do what? When I was there, he spent more time in Edinburgh and London than at home. As did the earl. Glynnis managed Northbridge and the Kirkwell lands. She’s done it for years and loves it. Why not let her continue to do it for now?”
“Glynnis will marry our neighbor, Fain McKenzie soon. He’s been after her for years.”
She made a dismissive motion. “She’s turned him down twice already.”
“She has? Why? McKenzie is a good man.”
“Perhaps so. But she doesn’t love him as much as she loves Northbridge. As long as Donnan needs her, she’ll gladly stay. And as long as she stays, your brother doesn’t need you. Not as much as I do.”
