Fair Is the Rose (45 page)

“Willie! Willie!” Eliza waved him closer.

Two pale blue ribbons lay inside the plain paper. “Won’t these look lovely?”

“They’re meant tae match yer eyes,” Willie confessed, his face reddening.

Each present was more thoughtful than the last. Sewing needles from Birmingham. Freshly dipped beeswax candles. Lavender water. French writing paper. Pressed flowers. Even her father had a gift waiting for her. Yet the servants, who earned no more than seven pounds a year, were the most charitable of all. “However can I begin to thank you?” she wondered aloud when all the gifts were opened and all the faces round the room were shining. “You are all too kind.”

Neda, who had the look of an instigator, smiled broadly. “Will ane o’ ye be guid enough tae bring yer mistress anither cup o’ oats? Hers is lang gone cold.” Eliza and Annabel both took off for the kitchen with the others trailing behind.

“Such a vulgar display of affection,” her father grunted, plunging his spoon into his porridge. “Have these people forgotten their place?”

“Their place is near our hearts,” Leana murmured, then held up his gift. “Thank you for the new pen, Father. ’twill make my letters look more elegant, to be sure. And the French writing paper is lovely, Rose.”

“
Joyeux anniversaire,
” her sister said, a timid smile on her face. “You might want to look through it … later.” She shifted her gaze, fidgeting with her napkin.

“I will, dearie,” Leana promised, taking a long look at her sister. Rose had been so quiet the past few days. Pensive and subdued. Leana prayed that her sister was not still suffering the last vestiges of her croup. Not only her womb might be affected but also her heart, Dr. Gilchrist had said.

Jamie caught her eye next. “I, too, hope your birthday is a happy one, Leana.” His warm gaze said what he could not.
I love you
. “Is the sash the right color for your blue gown?”

“Aye, ’Tis perfect.” She prayed her smile would convey her thoughts.
I miss you
.

Annabel arrived with a fresh cup of porridge and a small pot of wild daisies. “Time ye were back in yer
gairden
, mem. I picked these from the lawn, but they canna compare tae the flooers ye grow.”

“On the lawn, you say?” Leana touched their tiny white petals. “Could you place your foot over seven at once?”

“Oo aye!” The red-haired maid clasped her hands. “ ’Tis spring, or nigh tae it.”

“Ten days, by my count. Come the first day of spring, the women of Troquire parish will be sneaking off to Saint Queran’s Well.”

“Not if the kirk session hears of it,” Lachlan muttered, putting his butter knife aside with a dull clang against the wood.

Rose’s eyes shone with a curious light. “What sorts of women go there?”

“Barren ones,” Leana answered without thinking, then froze.
Oh, my poor sister
. But it was too late.

The color seeped from Rose’s cheeks. “You say the waters from this well heal … barrenness?”

“So they say.” Leana hastened to make amends. “ ’Tis centuries old, a crumbling heap of stones. And anyway, May is the better month.” She shrugged, hoping she might change the subject. “Father is right. ’Tis not seemly for a Christian woman to visit a saint’s well on the Sabbath.”

Rose wrinkled her brow. “But do they not call them ‘
holy
wells’?”

“Aye.” Lachlan’s unshaven beard bristled. “Holy
papist
wells.”

Leana cringed at his callous tone. There were but six Roman Catholic families in the parish, including Lord and Lady Maxwell. Lachlan knew them all by name and belittled them at every turn. Except the Maxwells, of course. Intolerant as he was, Lachlan still deferred to wealthy neighbors who might be of some benefit.

Leana ate her porridge in silence, aware of Jamie watching her. She longed to know what he was thinking, what he was planning. Yet to slip off together for a quiet discussion would be to invite disaster on their heads. She tried to be content with snatches of conversation in the hall, glances exchanged over meals, a brief touch in passing. They were hardly enough to satisfy her woman’s heart, for she missed his tender kisses and the heat of his hands.
Jamie, Jamie
. To think of never sharing his bed again was to die a slow death, hour by hour. To think of Rose’s loving him instead was beyond imagining.

Too soon the week ended. Too soon the sun rose on another misty Sabbath morn.

Leana dressed quietly, preparing her heart, quelling her nerves. Neda came looking for her, offering a bannock for Leana’s long walk since she’d not appeared at table for breakfast. “I have no appetite for food or drink,” Leana admitted. “An empty stomach is best.”

“Perhaps.” Neda slid the bannock in her apron pocket. “Duncan and I would be honored tae walk ye tae the kirk this morn. Seems a shame for ye tae travel alone. I ken Jamie canna take ye, but surely we can.”

“Bless you.” Leana bowed her head. “I’m not sure my own mother would have been so generous.”

“Och! Ye didna ken yer mither as weel as I did, sorry tae say. She’d stand by ye at the kirk door and help ye mount the stool as lang as she kenned yer heart was
richt
afore God. Niver was a woman mair attuned tae mercy than Agness McBride.”

“However did she countenance my father?” Leana said, then pressed her hand to her mouth. “Forgive me for speaking ill of him on the Sabbath.”

“Wheesht! I’ll not tell a soul, for ’tis the fifth commandment ye’ve broken.” Neda winked at her. “ ’Tis a guid question ye’ve asked, wi’ an easy reply: For a’ his mony faults, yer mother luved the man and earned the respect of a’ wha kenned her. And speakin’ o’ respect …” Neda opened the door behind her. “I’ve a guid man standin’ beyond yer nursery door, hopin’ tae wish ye weel this sorry day. Ye’ll see him, aye?”

Jamie
. Leana smoothed back her hair and pinched her cheeks. “Aye.”

“Duncan and I will be waitin’ in the hall.” The last she saw of Neda was her kindhearted smile.

Jamie’s expression was more tentative as he entered the room, as if testing her mood. “I see you’re ready, Leana.” He stepped closer, resting his fingers on the sleeve of her harn goun. “My prayers go with you, and my feet will soon follow.”

His scent, his warmth, filled the air around her. Overcome at the nearness of him, she lowered her gaze. “I wish you did not have to see me like this.”

“I would see you any way I could.”

She heard the rough tenderness in his voice, the banked desire.
My husband. My love
. “Jamie, I dare not ask you to kiss me.”

“Then do not ask.” He pulled her against him, crushing the sackcloth against her body and his mouth against hers.

Fifty

They say sin touches not a man so near
As shame a woman; yet he too should be
Part of the penance; being more deep than she
Set in the sin.

A
LGERNON
C
HARLES
S
WINBURNE

J
amie tasted her kiss all morning. He was proud of himself for stealing no more than that. And ashamed of taking what was no longer his.
Forgive me, lass
.

She stood by the kirk door in the bright March sunshine. More parishioners were kind than cruel this time, but meanspirited ones still walked among them. Jamie tarried mere steps away, silently daring anyone to hurt her, while Neda and Duncan stood on the other side of the door, distracting folk with a blithe welcome.

I should be standing by the jougs
.

Hochmagandy was not a sin one committed alone. It required two willing parties. He may not have been sober on his wedding night or fully awake when she climbed into his bed, but he had been willing. Aye, he had been that. If he’d spoken Rose’s name, even once, Leana would have confessed the truth at once and fled from his box bed. Was it not his fault as much as hers then? If not more? He kicked at a clump of mud, shame heating his cheeks.

I should be wearing sackcloth
.

When he settled into the pew at the second bell, Ian nestled in the crook of his arm, Jamie realized his fine cambric shirt felt uncomfortably tight about the neck. Sinners belonged in a harn goun. He should have asked Leana to make a second one, with longer sleeves and a fuller cut across the shoulders. The clerk’s reading of the marriage banns only made things worse.

I should be climbing onto the stool
.

The beadle delivered Leana to the repentance stool after the first prayer. No one gasped aloud this week when she climbed onto the narrow seat, though the murmuring swelled, as if a conductor had raised his baton. At the turn of the sandglass, Reverend Gordon began his sermon from Isaiah. Jamie listened, his heart perched on a high stool, beating in time with Leana’s, begging her forgiveness.

I should be with you, beloved
.

On the Sabbath last he had defended her. Supported her. Refused to rebuke her. Proclaimed, at some risk, his feelings for her before the congregation.
’Tis Leana McBride whom I love and nae other
. Then why did he still feel guilty? Why did his insides grind like Brodie Selkirk’s millstone?

Because Leana is paying the price for her sin. And you are not
.

The sermon ended, and Jamie’s agony began in earnest. Now Reverend Gordon would offer a second rebuke and invite his parishioners to do the same.

“Flee fornication,” the minister stated boldly. “The Buik tells us, ‘Every sin that a man doeth is without the body; but he that committeth fornication sinneth against his own body.’ Leana McBride compears before this assembly a second time that she might be reminded to flee sin rather than to follow it, for her body’s sake.”

Jamie rested his chin on his son’s head.
But her precious body produced Ian
. Good had come from bad, blessing from sin. Was that the grace of the Almighty at work? Did God’s mercy stretch that far, that wide?

“Know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?” Reverend Gordon peered over his glasses at Leana. “To whom do you belong, Leana McBride? Speak, and let us hear you.”

Her voice rang like the kirk bell. “My body, my soul, and my mind belong to the Lord.”

“Aye, and the Buik tells us, ‘to avoid fornication, let every man have his own wife, and let every woman have her own husband.’ Do you have a husband, Leana? Is there a man who will claim you?”

I will gladly claim her
. Jamie slid forward on the pew, as if waiting for a cue to stand.
Say the word, Leana
.

She sat up straighter, smiling as though she could not wait to give her answer. “I do indeed have a husband. ‘For thy Maker is thine husband; the L
ORD
of hosts is his name.’ ”

Jamie sank back, ashamed of his disappointment.
Forgive me, Lord. For I ken she is yours
.

Reverend Gordon nodded at her, trying not to look pleased and failing. “So then. You will state again your wish to repent.”

She slid gracefully to the lower stool and then to the floor, presenting herself to the congregation, her soul bared before them as plainly as her head and feet. “I do repent and plead for your forgiveness.”

“Only God has the power to forgive our sins,” the minister reminded her. “Though ’Tis our Christian duty to show you mercy. And so we shall.”

After the benediction Jamie found her in a sunny corner of the kirkyard, where parish members convened for a bit of gossip and a bite of cold meat between services. Duncan and Neda stood guard a few feet away, giving Jamie and Leana a moment’s privacy before the rest of the household appeared.

He turned Ian around so he could see her. “Look who is waiting for you, lad. Your fine mother.”

Leana held out her arms to collect their wriggling son, not quite meeting Jamie’s gaze. “Jamie, I must ask a favor. A difficult one for me.” She bent over Ian, as if hiding her shame. “You cannot … kiss me again. This morning …”

“Aye, lass.” His heart fell to his knees. “I had no right.”

“Nae.” She dropped her voice to the faintest of whispers. “You had every right, for I welcomed it. But your kisses are too tender, Jamie. And my love for you is too great. ’twill only make what is to come more … difficult.”

He reached out to comfort her, then drew his hand back. “I ken you speak the truth, though I do not like to hear it.”

“Nor I, Jamie.” She glanced toward the kirk. “I sensed you sitting up there with me this morning.”

“You did?” Guilt, like the tidal bores of the Solway, washed over him without warning. “I belonged up there, Leana. Right beside you.”

“Nae.” Her blue eyes watered, if only from the sun. “Were you to mount the repentance stool, we’d both be marked as ill-deedie parents. And whom do you suppose would be given Ian to raise?”

He hadn’t given the awful possibility a moment’s thought. “Rose? Your Aunt Margaret?”

She slowly shook her head. “My father.”

God help us
. “Leana, that cannot happen. Must not happen.”

Lachlan McBride’s booming voice carried across a dozen headstones. “What are you two blethering about?”

Jamie spun on his heel to face him. Leana wouldn’t lie, not even to protect herself. He, on the other hand, still had enough swickerie left to fool his uncle. “Leana cannot—nae,
must
not fall off the repentance stool. The flagstone would break her neck.”

Lachlan looked at him askance, absently pulling out his pocket watch, then slipping it back inside his waistcoat. “ ’Tis an odd thing to concern yourself with, Jamie.”

Neda appeared, brandishing a willow basket. “Suppose we concern ourselves with dinner. I’ve pigeon pies for everyone. Mr. McKie, might you find us somewhere dry to roost?”

Jamie guided the family toward a pair of unclaimed stone benches near the abbey ruins, surprised that Rose hadn’t found someone her own age to share dinner with, as she often did. It seemed she’d lost whatever parish friends she’d once had. A fleeting wave of sympathy passed through him.