Elisabeth shivered, though not from the cold. She’d never felt so alone. Was there nowhere she could turn for comfort? No one she could trust completely?
Her husband was still dressing when Duncan Belhaven knocked again, demanding the use of their shared lodgings. A woman’s airy laugh slipped through the cracks in the door—a jarring counterpoint to the strained atmosphere within.
The soldier bellowed, “Surely ye’ve finished by now.”
“Aye, aye,” Donald grumbled, yanking on his coat, then jamming his feet into half-buckled shoes. Stock untied, periwig in hand, he flung open the door and scowled at his roommate. “Have you nae patience, man?”
“Nae mair than ye did, Lord Kerr.” Broad-shouldered and copper-haired, his fellow Life Guard strode into the room, one of the tavern maids firmly attached to his side. “We’ve not the luxury of a lang hour. Jeanie must return to her labors.” Mr. Belhaven winked boldly at Elisabeth. “I’ll thank ye to take yer leave, milord. And yer bonny mistress with ye.”
Donald’s eyes narrowed. “Lady Kerr is my wife.”
“Och! Begging yer pardon, mem.” His exaggerated bow did not improve matters.
For a moment Elisabeth feared Donald might challenge him with steel or fist. Both were ill advised since the other man was taller, broader, and clearly stronger. Instead Donald snatched his riding boots from the corner, grabbed Elisabeth’s hand, and stormed into the hall without another word.
The door shut behind them with a decided bang.
“Idiot,” Donald grumbled, stamping toward the stair, though his anger seemed to dissipate with each footfall.
A single wall sconce illumined the sagging wooden floor and unpainted walls of the narrow hallway. When they reached the midway point, Donald turned to look at her, his features bathed in a bright yellow pool of light. “Pardon my temper, lass. Belhaven is a good soldier, but he sorely tries my patience.”
She merely nodded, shocked by what the candles revealed. Deep furrows were carved into his chalky brow, and fear haunted his eyes.
Whatever bravado her husband might show the world, the sad truth stood before her. Elisabeth took the white cambric stock from his hand. “’Tis my turn to dress you.” She tied the stiffened fabric round his neck, willing her hands to remain steady.
Donald’s gaze never left hers. “We’ll not be alone like this on the morrow.”
“I know,” she said quietly. The whole of Edinburgh would descend on Holyroodhouse to see the prince ride forth. But here in the empty hallway, no one watched or listened.
“My dear wife.” He lightly rested his hand above her birthmark, hidden beneath layers of wool, silk, and linen. “I must ask you again. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”
She swallowed the lump rising in her throat. You are forgiven. Aye, she could speak the words. But would she truly mean them? The faces of all the women who’d danced with her husband, or smiled at him, or flirted with him swept through her heart like midwinter snow. “I am not certain.”
“What must I do, then?” Donald caught her chin before she could turn away. “I’ve vowed to change my habits, and I will. Can you not trust me?”
“I… cannot.” Tears stung her eyes. When he started to circle his arm round her waist, she stepped out of reach. “Please don’t.”
A look of anguish crossed his features. “Have I lost your love as well?”
“Nae.” Elisabeth stepped out from the shadows so he might see her face as clearly as she saw his. “Even if I wished it so, I could not stop loving you.”
Donald’s voice was low. “Do you wish it?”
Pain pressed down on her like a millstone, grinding her will into dust. As deeply as it hurt to love him, ’twould hurt far more to lose him. “Nae,” she said at last.
He kissed her brow, clearly relieved. “Then I shall work to earn your trust. And your forgiveness as well.”
A door flew open at the far end of the hall. Slurred voices and muffled laughter spilled out before the door abruptly closed and silence returned. The distraction gave Elisabeth time to gather her cape round her and her courage as well.
“Lord Kerr, I must go.”
He did not object, only straightened his clothes, then offered his arm as if they were any happily married couple with naught on their minds but a good night’s sleep. “Milady?”
While they retraced their path down the stair and through the noisy public room of the inn, Elisabeth’s mind ran ahead to their parting on the morrow. So much had yet to be said. How could they repair the torn threads of their marriage across the miles with mere pen and ink?
“No sign of my brother and his wife,” Donald said above the din, “but I believe I see Gibson waiting at the door.”
She peered across the room, her view impaired by too much smoke and too few candles. Or was it the fresh wash of tears in her eyes? “Aye, ’tis him.”
Donald moved his arm round her waist as if expecting her to be torn from his side. Alas, the prince would accomplish that in less than a day. Weeks, even months, might pass before she welcomed her husband home. Who knew what sort of man might return to cross her threshold? Scarred and weary from battle, hardened by the cruelties of war, the Donald she knew might never return.
A different husband. That was what he’d promised her. Yet for all his faults, for all his weaknesses, Donald was the man she loved.
You are a fool, her mind said.
You are faithful, her heart responded.
When they reached the inn door, Gibson greeted his master with a deep bow. “Guid eve, milord. I trust ye are weel.”
Donald delivered his riding boots into the servant’s hands. “I shall look far better when you’ve polished these. Send them by caddie in the morn, aye?”
As Gibson juggled the boots in one hand and his lantern in the other, Janet stepped round him, her chin thrust forward at a haughty angle, her small mouth drawn into a pout.
Donald inclined his head. “Many apologies, madam.”
“I have been waiting a very long time,” Janet grumbled.
Elisabeth realized Andrew was nowhere to be seen. “Are you quite ready?” she asked.
“Quite.” Janet spun on her heel, sweeping her hem across the rough floor.
Something was amiss. Elisabeth could hardly sort it out with her own emotions in turmoil.
“Forgive me, milady, but I must go.” Donald tightened his hold on her. “I’ll send a messenger the moment I’ve news of our departure.”
She eyed him a moment longer, fixing in her memory his tall, lean frame, his cool blue eyes, the narrow line of his mouth. “Look for us in the forecourt,” she said softly, curtsying before her tears began in earnest.
As Donald bowed in return, she hastened for the open door leading to White Horse Close, forcing herself not to turn round, not to look back, not to call out his name.
Forty
What a whirlwind is her head,
And what a whirlpool full of depth and danger
Is all the rest about her.
GEORGE GORDON, LORD BYRON
J anet tarried at the top of the forestair, an impatient look on her face. “The dowager will have worn the carpet thin, fretting over us.”
Elisabeth leaned down, pretending to brush the dust from her skirts, all the while mastering her emotions. “Gibson will hire sedan chairs and have us in Milne Square well before the drum sounds,” she assured her sister-in-law, grateful the two would not travel home on foot. The climb was long, the night cold, and Janet’s company often less than cordial. “I trust Mr. Kerr is well?”
“Well enough,” Janet snapped, then turned and started down the stair.
Her sister-in-law seemed even more pernickitie than usual. Since Janet’s gown was neat and every hair in place, perhaps she and Andrew had kept their distance in the confines of their borrowed room. Elisabeth hoped the couple had not argued on their last evening together, a regrettable way to send a man off to war. Her own distressing hour with
Donald was hardly better.
“This way, leddies.” Holding aloft his lantern, Gibson led the way, scowling at any and all who looked in their direction. Shrouded in darkness, the courtyard teemed with soldiers and travelers, cutpurses and ne’er-do-wells. Gibson carried neither pistol nor sword on his person, but Elisabeth knew he would not hesitate to reach for the small dirk hidden beneath his livery if needed. When they reached the Canongate at the end of the vaulted pend, he quickly hailed a sedan chair for her and pressed a silver sixpence into the chairman’s hand. “I’ll have anither for yer sister-in-law afore lang,” he promised, and sent Elisabeth westward.
With Donald’s boots on the floor beside her, she gripped the seat and braced herself for the jostling ride uphill. They hurried past change house and tavern, brewery and well, tolbooth and kirk before charging through the Netherbow Port and into the town proper. She heard the chairmen shouting in Gaelic, not slowing their pace until they trotted by the entrance to Halkerston’s Wynd and into Milne Square.
Disembarking at Baillie’s Land, she beckoned a caddie bearing a paper lantern to tarry by her side while she waited for Janet. For a ha’penny he would lead them safely up the stair and carry Donald’s heavy boots as well. “My sister-in-law will be here shortly,” Elisabeth promised the lad as they stood shivering in the cold, vacant square.
Out of the corner of her eye, she watched a small figure emerge from the dark recesses of the wynd and approach her with confident steps. A woman, Elisabeth quickly realized, younger than she, small and lithe, with fair hair and light-colored eyes that gleamed in the lantern light. She’d seen her before. At market perhaps?
Boldly sauntering up to her, the lass thrust out her palm. “Have ye a coin to spare a fisherman’s widow?” Her brown drugget gown was clean but worn, the sleeves patched, the lacing in her bodice frayed.
Instinctively Elisabeth touched the silk reticule hanging from her wrist. Some cutpurses were women who devised clever means of distracting their marks. But the lass didn’t bear the look of a thief. She also didn’t have a silver beggar’s badge sewn to her clothing, permitting her to beg in the parish.
“I am sorry to hear of your loss,” she told the young widow, holding out a ha’penny. “Do you live in the neighborhood?”
“Aye, not far from here.” The lass tipped her head, studying Elisabeth for a moment, then took the copper coin and gave her a half curtsy in return. “Just now I’m bound for the Canongate.”
Elisabeth gaped at her. “Surely you’ll not travel unescorted? ’Tis nearly ten o’ the clock.”
“I’m quick on my feet,” the widow said with a cunning smile. “And I’ve a gentleman waiting for me at White Horse Close.” She turned to leave. “Guid morrow to ye, Leddy Kerr.”
Her too-familiar manner gave Elisabeth pause. “You know my name?”
“Och! Wha in Edinburgh doesna?” the widow said over her shoulder.
“Mine is Lucy Spence.” With that she fairly skipped off, disappearing into the night.
The caddie made a sound of disgust. “A crafty limmer, that one,” he grumbled. “Begging yer pardon, mem.”
Elisabeth turned her head, hoping to stem the flood of gossip before it began. There were soldiers aplenty in White Horse Close waiting to greet such a woman. Whatever the Widow Spence’s unfortunate situation, the details were hers to keep.
Pushing back her hood from her brow, Elisabeth looked up at the night sky and caught a glimpse of the moon. A tiny sliver of light was missing from one side. For the next fortnight cottagers would cut their peat, gardeners would plant bulbs, and wise couples would delay their weddings.
By design she’d married Donald on the sixth day of the moon, a most fortuitous day. Yet all her devotion had not yielded what she’d hoped for: a contented husband at her table and children round her skirts. Instead, her husband was untrue and her womb empty.
Gazing at the bright orb, she remembered the words her grandmother had taught her and wondered if they might yet rekindle her dwindling faith.
Glory to thee forever
Thou bright moon, this night.
She waited but sensed nothing. She listened but heard not a whisper. The stillness inside her was absolute, like a well gone dry, hollow and abandoned.
The caddie held up his lantern. “Leddy, she’s here.”
Janet emerged from the sedan chair, her complexion as white as bleached muslin and her balance unsure. “Lady Kerr?” she said weakly, stretching out her hand for support.
Elisabeth was beside her at once, helping her toward the stair as she motioned to the caddie. “Go two steps ahead, lad. And hold the lantern as high as you can.”
The turnpike stair was too narrow for them to manage side by side. Elisabeth walked behind her sister-in-law, one hand lightly resting on the small of her back. “No need for haste,” Elisabeth said calmly. “We’ll cross our threshold soon enough.”
But the climb took far longer than expected. Janet was unsteady on her feet and confessed to feeling nauseous. “’Twas the sedan chair,” she moaned, “or the oysters.”
Since early September Elisabeth had watched her sister-in-law consume heaping plates of oysters harvested from beds in the Firth of Forth. As to Janet’s unsettling journey in the sedan chair, Elisabeth had never seen such a marked reaction. Still, her discomfort seemed very real indeed.
When they neared the fifth floor, the caddie ran ahead and banged on the door, announcing them in a breathless voice. “The leddy’s taken ill!”
Mrs. Edgar was on the landing in an instant, helping Janet manage the last few steps. “Whatever has happened to ye, Mistress Kerr? Come, let me see ye to yer bed.”
Elisabeth paid the caddie an extra ha’penny. “Tarry on the stair,” she told him quietly. “We may have need of the apothecary.”
“Aye, mem.” He touched the brim of his dirty wool bonnet. “Say the wird, and I’ll flit to Mr. Mercer’s on the High Street.”
By the time Elisabeth had closed the door and shed her wool cape, Mrs. Edgar was loosening Janet’s stays before she tumbled to the carpet in a faint. Elisabeth came to the housekeeper’s aid first, moving Janet to her bed, then pressing a damp cloth against her sister-in-law’s brow, offering what little information she had. “Her illness came on rather suddenly,” Elisabeth said, omitting any mention of oysters. The rest of the household had eaten their evening meal without consequence.
Mrs. Edgar slipped off Janet’s damask slippers and began rubbing her stocking feet, clucking like a mother hen. “A cauld nicht for thin shoes,” she fretted. When Elisabeth asked what might be required from the apothecary, Mrs. Edgar had a swift answer. “Tincture o’ fresh ginger root to settle her stomach.”
Elisabeth dispatched the caddie on his errand, then found the dowager in the drawing room, pacing back and forth across the carpet.
Marjory motioned Elisabeth closer to the mantelpiece. “Tell me, Lady Kerr.” Her hazel eyes were filled with concern. “What transpired at the inn?”
Elisabeth pressed her lips tightly together lest she blurt out the truth. Your son confessed to adultery. And begged my forgiveness. Instead, she said what she could. “’Twas filthy, crowded, and noisy.”
“I’m not surprised.” Marjory glanced at Janet’s bedchamber door and added, sotto voce, “Your sister-in-law seems most distraught. How was she earlier this evening?”
“Rather out of sorts,” Elisabeth admitted. “But her color was fine and her balance steady. Only when she arrived in the square did she mention feeling nauseous. I suspect the sedan chair—”
“And I suspect something else.” Her mother-in-law had a knowing look in her eyes. “I have long waited for one of my sons to produce an heir.”
Elisabeth’s heart skipped a beat. “You believe Janet is—”
“I do,” Marjory said firmly. “She’s been more irritable of late and seldom breaks her fast before ten in the morning. I was the very same with both my sons.” The dowager clapped her hands together
like a woman about to pray. “Isn’t it thrilling?”
Elisabeth managed to nod. “Aye. Thrilling.”
“Andrew may give us some hint on the morrow,” Marjory was saying. “In the meantime we’ll keep a close eye on Janet. Women cannot hide such secrets for very long, you know.” Skirts in hand, Marjory swept into Janet’s bedchamber with Elisabeth dutifully following behind.
The wood-paneled room, smaller than Elisabeth’s bedchamber and with half as many windows, felt snug and warm, the coals in the fireplace still glowing. With Andrew’s weaponry gone, Marjory could not abide having bare walls and so had acquired a series of small oil paintings at auction. “For a song,” she’d confided, “with so many folk leaving town.”
Mrs. Edgar was fussing over her charge, plumping Janet’s bed pillows, then pouring fresh tea in her cup. “Peppermint leaves and chamomile flowers,” the housekeeper said proudly. “The verra best for whatever ails ye.”
“She forced me to eat a dry oatcake too,” Janet said, making a face. “Days old and no butter.”
“My mither wouldna use onie ither remedy,” Mrs. Edgar declared. “Plain and dry. See if ye dinna feel better afore ye sleep.”
Janet exhaled, sinking deeper into her feather mattress.
Mrs. Edgar quit the room, leaving Elisabeth and Marjory to draw their chairs closer to the bed. Janet’s unbound hair fanned across her pillow. A pale violet sleeping jacket framed her wan face.
The dowager spoke first, patting Janet’s hand as she did. “I am glad to see you eat something. You’ve been absent from table the last few mornings.”
Janet turned her head as if embarrassed. “Nae appetite, I’m afraid.”
“Might there be some reason?”
Elisabeth winced, thinking the dowager’s question too probing. A gentlewoman was not usually forthcoming with such intimacies. At least not until her condition was undeniable.
Here Burns My Candle Page 23
