Borrowed Dreams (Scottish Dream Trilogy) (29 page)

“I ran
into the doorjamb in the dark last night,” Violet explained to her fellow
serving maid. The younger woman was hanging over her shoulder, looking at the
ugly bruise at the edge of Vi’s mouth. “Really, Bess. ‘Tis nothing.”

“If
that’s so, then why did ye ask me to go and help Lady Aytoun dress this
morning?”

“I feel
silly enough, and you know how she is.” Violet finished applying more of the
white powder over the bruise. “She gets worried for nothing. I thought if I
wait a day or two, then she won’t be pestering me about being more careful and
all that.”

The truth
was that Violet had seen many bruises much worse than this on her mistress’s
face when the squire was alive. The young woman had a sneaking suspicion that
her ladyship would not be fooled by the story of running into a door. 

She had
already asked around this morning. What Ned had said about being married seemed
to be true, or at least some of the servants she talked to had heard that
rumor, too. Violet wondered where her mind had been this whole time. How was it
possible that she had made such a mess out of her life in so short a time?

The two
women descended the back steps together. Violet paused by the door to the
servants’ hall, looking for an excuse not to go in. She could hear the voices
of people gathered there for their noon meal. “I have to take a walk over to
the stables. I’ll see you later on.”

“Come on,
Vi. Ye had no breakfast,” Bess chided. “Why don’t ye go in, and I’ll run and
fetch whatever ye want from the stables.”

Violet
shook her head and started backing out. “I want to check on Moses’s dog, and I
promised to do some mending for him. I’ll be back.”

“But Moses is probably here, too.”

Violet
was already moving to the door as the young black woman finished her words.
With a wave, she went outside and pulled the wool shawl over her head.

The true
horror of how Ned had treated her had not reached her until now. As she made
her way toward the stables, she realized that although she had been abused, she
felt like she was carrying a mark of shame. It wasn’t so much who did this to
her that mattered, but that she somehow deserved it. Well, perhaps she did, she
thought.

No, Vi
argued silently. Ned had no right to strike her, even if he was a man. She felt
sick to her stomach at how unfair everything was.   

With the exception of a couple of
grooms working in the stalls, the stables were quiet. Moses’s dog—her back leg
bound tightly with splints and strips of linen—hopped toward Violet, nuzzling
her hand before flopping back down on the straw by one of the stalls. Violet
moved past the tack room to another small room that Moses had been given.

The small area was clean and tidy,
and his clothes were hung neatly on pegs along one wall. Vi found his pile of
mending folded in a corner on a barrel by his mattress. Picking up the worn
clothing, she sat down on the barrel, took her thimble and a needle and thread
from her apron pocket, and went to work.

Her heart ached, and she found
herself batting away occasional tears. Violet knew she wanted to stay inside
the gates of Melbury Hall, but she was afraid that the time was coming when she
would be cast out. That was what happened to girls like her. Girls who
foolishly gave themselves over to what they thought they wanted.

She had to take what time here she
was given and then face up to whatever the future might bring. She held up
Moses’s shirt. This was what she needed now. Time to be alone. Time to work and be useful.

The voices of people entering the
stables made Vi pull the shawl tighter around her face. She looked up as Amina
and Jonah came into the room with Moses behind them. She should have known Bess would not hold her tongue. 

Amina was carrying a plate of food.
Jonah held a wooden cup. Both were looking at her with concern, but Moses’s
dark eyes were angry enough to set the building ablaze.

“Violet is hurt.” He moved around
the other two and came to crouch down beside her. He pushed the shawl away from
her face. “Who, Vi?”

Her chin sank to her chest, but he
gently lifted it.

“No one hurts Vi. I’ll kill him.”

The young woman took one of Moses’s
large fists between her hands and shook her head. The tears trickled down and
she realized that she couldn’t be alone and separate. These people loved her
like family.

“I don’t want you to kill anyone
for me, Moses. You are here, and that makes me feel better. I’m safe here. I
know that now. ”

******

His life
had changed. Everything had changed. Before, he had been at the center of a
world that was vibrant and filled with action. Now it was as if he were on the
outside, looking at the world through a tiny window.

No, Lyon
Pennington had never before had to look through this…this keyhole at his own
life. And the view was so different. Oddly, he found himself focusing on and
fathoming the subtle things, the small changes, concentrating on moods and
responses, recognizing that so long as an individual had the ability to take a
breath, he or she had a life to live. Embracing life despite the hardships was a
concept Lyon was coming to appreciate.

This morning, before their guests
had arrived, he had joined Millicent downstairs when she had been tutoring some
of the younger children in the servants’ hall. The group had been lively and
noisy. She had been patient and encouraging.  

The joys at Melbury Hall were
simple. Life was uncomplicated. To Millicent’s credit, no one seemed to dwell
on how they had suffered before or what was different about them. She had
created a haven where people worked hard and lived happily.

So different from Emma’s vision for
Baronsford. If, indeed, she’d even had a vision. 

He shook off the thought. He had no
wish, either, to think about his own past.

Lyon focused his gaze on the
profile of his wife near the window. She was seated beside Mrs. Trimble. The
rector’s wife was continuing to speak, but Lyon could tell Millicent’s mind was
elsewhere. He wondered if she was thinking of the same things that had been
occupying his mind for most of the morning—their hours of lovemaking last
night. As he watched her, she absently touched two fingers to the full lips he
had so enjoyed kissing.

Lyon admired the soft glow in her
cheeks. She had been changing before his eyes since their marriage. Lyon could not believe that he had considered her plain once. Every time he looked at her
now, a different aspect of her beauty presented itself. It was as though a
different woman had been living within each of the veils that protected her. As
her confidence seemed to grow, another veil was peeled away and another woman
revealed.

Millicent’s gaze flicked away from
their guest and locked with his. He saw the memory of their intimacy and the promise
of passion reflected in those sparkling eyes. The excitement of what was to
come made every limb in Lyon’s body feel alive. He wanted her alone again. She
had awakened an insatiable beast inside of him, and he couldn’t wait to have
her again to himself. Apparently reading his mind, Millicent looked away, a
blush darkening her cheeks.

“…will take care of the additions
and the renovations of the schoolhouse.”

Lyon gave a nod to Reverend Trimble
in response to whatever it was the rector had just said.

“The Earl and Countess of Stanmore
feel ‘tis the right time, considering the continuing growth in Knebworth Village. And though naming the school after Mr. Cunningham is unprecedented, they
feel strongly that—considering how devoted that young man was to teaching our
children—this is a fine way to keep his memory alive.”

“Of course. A fine idea.” Lyon recalled hearing the former schoolmaster’s name from Gibbs. “How long ago did this Mr.
Cunningham die?”

“A year and a half ago,” Mr.
Trimble answered.

“He was a young man, I believe you
said?”

“I suppose he would have been about
your age, m’lord. He was a Scotsman as well.”

“And how did he die?”

There was a slight pause. “He was
shot.”

“Really? A hunting accident?”

“I don’t believe so, m’lord.”

An uncomfortable silence fell over
the room. Reverend Trimble cleared his voice and—sending a quick look in
Millicent's direction—began to explain.

“Due to an unfortunate
misunderstanding, Mr. Cunningham met his end at Melbury Hall…down in the
Grove.”

A haunted expression marked
Millicent’s face, and she dropped her gaze to her lap. Lyon remembered seeing
the same sadness taking over his wife when Trimble had visited them here
earlier. He couldn’t help but wonder if the cause might be the same. 

Millicent rose abruptly to her feet
and walked to the window.

“Then the death of this Cunningham
was intentional?” he pressed.

“I was not present, m’lord, when
everything happened,” reverend Trimble replied.

“Tell me what you know.”

“Those who were there,” the rector
explained quietly, “say that Squire Wentworth shot Mr. Cunningham.”

Lyon told himself it was not
jealousy, but curiosity was beginning to stab at him. “Was it a duel?” 

“Nay, m’lord. The unfortunate
incident had to do with some long standing disagreements between the squire and
Mr. Cunningham over the treatment of the black workers at Melbury Hall. Mr.
Cunningham and Lord Stanmore and I—being fiercely opposed to holding
slaves—were considered by the squire to be his enemies.” Mr. Trimble cleared
his voice again and darted a nervous glance at Millicent’s back. “The story
behind all of this is too long and tragic for such a pleasant afternoon as
this. Some time when your lordship is willing to spend an afternoon at Knebworth Village, I should be delighted to give you the entire history of it.”  

Before, Lyon had been willing to
let the ghosts of their pasts alone. But after last night he needed to
understand all of it. Millicent did not care for her first husband. That was
obvious. But Lyon needed to understand the role of Cunningham in her life.    

“Early next week,” Lyon announced, “I shall try to convince my wife to bring me along to the village. There is
much that I would like to learn about my new home and neighbors.”

****

“There was no reason to assault
Reverend Trimble with all those questions,” Millicent said somewhat tetchily as
soon as she was back from escorting their guests to their carriage. She leaned
her back against the door. “Lyon, if there is anything that you need to know
about Knebworth Village’s past, I will be happy to provide the answers. If
there are some deep-rooted secrets that you believe people are keeping from
you, I am the one you should ask.”

“And you will answer?”

“I will.”

“And I can ask anything?” he
challenged, his blue eyes piercing across the room.  

She refused to be baited or to fight
with him. At the same time, she was not going to allow the past to thrust a
wedge of mistrust between them. Mistrust had marred her marriage to Wentworth,
and Millicent was not about to let it poison this one. Especially now that she
recognized how much she cared for Lyon.

“You may ask anything,” she
answered, pushing away from the closed door.

“Even if it involves your own
past?”

“Even so,” she said, determined to
follow this through to the end. “Of course, I expect the same courtesy from
you.”

“I doubt that there is much that
you do not already know about me. Gibbs told me you spent a great deal of time
in the dowager’s company on the day of our marriage, getting answers to all
your questions.”

“That ‘great deal of time’
consisted of less than two hours. And how could I have possibly received
answers to all my questions when at the time I didn’t even know what our…our
involvement would be?”

“Are you having regrets about last
night?”

Millicent turned to face him. The
sudden look of vulnerability she saw etched in Lyon’s face opened her eyes.
This man was not Wentworth. There had been no accusations, no distrust. This
man wanted to know more about her.

“How could I regret the most
fulfilling night of my life?” 

Lyon stared at her for the span of
an eternity and then raised his hand. His voice quavered a little when he
spoke. “Come here.”

She went to him without a second’s
hesitation. He pulled her onto his lap, and Millicent wrapped her arms around
his neck and held him.

“I am sorry if I sounded like a man
adrift,” he said softly. “But the truth is that nothing between us has followed
any logical path. We were thrown into this marriage, knowing practically
nothing beyond the other’s name. Having taken matrimonial vows, I was moved
into your care, while neither of us had any idea what demands or expectations such
a marriage would bring. And yet so much has changed from that first day.” Lyon’s hand caressed her and drew her tighter against his chest. “We have both been down
this road before. We have been married. And I believe I am speaking for both of
us when I say that we want to do better than the first time.”

Millicent’s head moved beneath his
chin as she nodded. She couldn’t live through these days dwelling on the fact
that their future together could be so brief.

“What the dowager would not have
told you about my past was that my first marriage was not as peaceful as she
wished it to be. And as I spend more time thinking back over what was wrong, I
realize now that the root of my problems lay with my lack of trust. I was a
master of
asking
nothing but
acting
on anything that raised my
suspicions. I assumed wrongly. I fretted over shadows. I acted rashly on things
that I think now might easily have been explained. I didn’t ask; I just
expected to be told.” He let out a frustrated breath. “You didn’t even ask, and
here I am explaining. Rambling.”