Grace in Thine Eyes (14 page)

A stone bridge carried them out of the settlement and over the swollen Water of Girvan, where the moist air was at its thickest. The signpost for Dalduff farm appeared suddenly in the mist. Though they could not see the steading, the clucking of the brood hens signaled its location to the west. The road began to undulate—now rising, now falling, ever winding, one mile, then another. After one especially sharp bend, they left the mist behind. Jamie exhaled, glad to view the countryside again. The sun, still low on the eastern horizon, draped the land in a pale, clear light, with only a few wisps of fog remaining.

“Another fine day in the making.” He turned to Davina, surprised to find her holding her sketchbook. “Surely you don’t intend to draw while you ride?” He said it in jest, meaning only to make her smile, but she frowned instead and gripped the book more firmly. In one of her moods, perhaps? He’d not grown up with a sister; judging by his daughter, young women seemed prone to alternating fits of joy and despair.

“We can stop in Maybole, if you wish. A fair size village with several old ruins to tempt your artist’s eye.” He pointed out a few possibilities
as they rode through the sleepy town, its residents only now beginning to stir. “Maybole castle?” Nae, she did not want to sketch its tower and turrets. “The Collegiate Church?” Nae, the arched stone doorways, however venerable, apparently held no appeal.

Davina had something on her mind; that was certain. He stole a glimpse at her profile—gaze straightforward, brow slightly furrowed, chin neither tipped up in defiance nor bowed down in dejection, mouth shaped in a pensive sort of pout. Was she worried about crossing the sea? The lass had never been in a boat larger than the skiff moored at their own dock. Might she be having second thoughts about so long a visit on Arran? Or some concern about her reception from the Stewarts?

His questions were not answered until they rode out of the village and started across the high ridge leading to Ayr. Davina touched his sleeve, then held out her sketchbook, opened to a page without any drawings, only words.

Jamie slowed his horse and took the book from her trembling hand. “Whatever is the matter, Davina?” Appalled to see tears in his daughter’s eyes, he brought Magnus to a full stop. “Do you not feel well?”

Though she pointed to the open page, he could not look away from her face, so marked was her anguish. Instead he took her gloved hand in his. “I will read this, Davina, but only if you assure me that doing so will ease your distress.”

She bobbed her head, which sent tears spilling down her cheeks.

“Oh my child.” He released his hold on her and searched his waistcoat pockets in vain for a handkerchief.

But Davina had one of her own. After patting her cheeks dry, she held the dainty linen to her nose and drew in a long, shaky breath.

Jamie recognized the embroidery; Leana had finished stitching the handkerchief only days earlier. “A pleasant fragrance, lavender.” He kept his voice even, waiting for Davina to compose herself. “Strong, like mint, but sweeter.”

She lowered her handkerchief, then aimed her gaze at the page. Whatever was written there, the time had come to read it.

Jamie looked down, unprepared for what he found.
Please forgive my brothers
.

An ache rose inside him. The heaviness of grief and the sharpness of pain twined into one.

“
William! What have you done to your sister?
” His voice, roaring at a six-year-old boy.

“
Oh Father! I did not … I did not mean to … hurt her …
” Will, sobbing hysterically. Sandy, collapsed on the grass in shock. Davina, unmoving, pale and still as death.

Jamie shut his eyes, clutching the sketchbook in his hands, but the memory and the ache grew sharper.

He’d flung the broadsword into the pines as if it were made of straw, then gathered his small daughter in his arms and strode toward the house, his heart in his throat. “
Davina, Davina! Can you not speak to me?
”

Will and Sandy had circled round his heels like dogs, panting for air, trying to keep up with him. He’d ignored them, moving across the lawn toward Leana, who was running with arms outstretched, calling their daughter’s name.

Davina did not answer. Would never answer …

A gloved hand rested on his.

Jamie lifted his head, bile stinging his throat. “I am sorry, Davina. You were very brave to ask this of me, but I …”

Eyes bright with tears, she touched her heart, then his, a gesture he knew well.
I love you
. No spoken words could have humbled him more. She slipped the book from his grasp and underlined the phrase with her finger, drawing a question mark at the end.

“
Why
can I not forgive your brothers? Is that what you are asking?”

He saw the answer in her eyes.
Aye
.

The horses moved beneath them, restless. “Walk on,” he said softly, praying the motion might dislodge the misery locked inside him. “Davina …” He swallowed again, despising the bitter taste in his mouth. “If your injury had been an accident. That is to say, truly an accident, with no one at fault …” He groaned, knowing how she would respond.
It
was
an accident, Father. The twins never intended this to happen
.

He started again. “I realize your brothers did not mean to injure you, Davina. But they stole Grandfather’s broadsword, knowing they were wrong to do so.” Hadn’t he told them never to touch it? Hadn’t
they sworn they would not? “And they wrestled with it,” Jamie said more emphatically, “ignoring the danger involved. Knowing they could hurt someone.”

You, Davina. They hurt you
.

He forced himself to continue. “Will said you warned them to be careful. In fact, begged them to stop. Is that not so?”

Davina shrugged, nodding slightly.

“But Will and Sandy ignored you, caring only who won the sword.” His voice was strained from the telling, his heart from remembering. “Now do you see? How can I forgive your brothers when they alone are to blame? For that matter, how can
you
forgive them, Davina?”

He regretted his question the moment he asked it. When she looked away, he regretted it even more. Before he could apologize, a flock of bleating sheep wandered onto the road, trailed by a patient shepherd.

While they waited, Davina quietly reached over and reclaimed her sketchbook. She wrote in haste, then handed the book back to him just as the last sheep leaped out of their way.

Jamie glanced at the page, and his heart sank.

Mercy is a gift
. His own words. Spoken at his own table.

Then Davina’s words.
I gave my brothers that gift long ago, Father. Will you not do the same?

Eighteen

Auld Ayr is just one lengthen’d, tumbling sea.
R
OBERT
B
URNS

H
er father’s dark features were etched with pain.

Nae!
Davina stared at him in dismay. This was not at all what she’d intended. In seeking to spare Will and Sandy further shame, she had merely redirected it.

Father, please
. When she tugged at the sketchbook, he released it without comment. She then snagged his sleeve, forcing him to look at her as she briefly covered her eyes, the gesture she used to communicate embarrassment or shame.
I am sorry
.

“Nae, my daughter.” He hid his own eyes for a moment, employing her language. “I am the one who is sorry.” When he lowered his hand, naught but sincerity shone on his face. “Sorry that you, of all people, had to find the courage to ask this of me. And sorrier still for neglecting your brothers.”

She pointed to the watch in his waistcoat pocket. Would he grasp her meaning?
It is not too late
.

“You are quite right, Davina. We still have time, your brothers and I, to make amends.” He brushed the dust off his coat with deliberate strokes, as if considering something, then met her gaze. “When Will and Sandy return at Lammas, I shall speak with them at length. In truth, ’tis a decision I made while in Edinburgh.”

She had not erred, then, in asking him so difficult a question. While her father’s attention was drawn to a red-crowned linnet poking about the rough ground, she quietly put away her sketchbook; it had served its purpose well.

They rode in silence for a time, though not uncomfortably so. Their high vantage point gave them a fine view of distant blue hills and fertile farmland. As the morning progressed, she sensed her father’s spirits
beginning to lift. His brow was smooth once more and his posture straight. When he spoke, she heard no tension in his voice.

More travelers joined them as they neared Ayr. Farmers and gentlemen alike made their way to and from the royal burgh, tipping their hats as they walked by—strangers, all of them. She’d spent seventeen years in the same parish, surrounded by familiar faces, knowing everyone’s station, gentry to servant. On Arran she would need her cousins to inform her, else she might address someone incorrectly or not give proper courtesy.

Her father eyed her green bag. “If the proprietor of the King’s Arms requires music for our lodging, will you oblige him?”

She knew he spoke in jest—innkeepers wanted silver not song—but Davina gamely pantomimed sweeping a bow across her bent arm.

“You can be sure Michael Kelly will not forget
your
name. I believe you carried away his heart in your fiddle bag.”

She shook her head, then hunched over her saddle, pretending to use a cane.

“Too old for you, eh? I presume a younger man would be to your liking. Dark haired, like your brothers? Or fair haired, like your mother?”

Golden like the sun
. Davina had studied her cherished sketch yestreen. More Viking than Scot, she’d decided. And more braw every time she pictured him. She busied herself with the folds of her skirt, lest any color stain her cheeks and give away her thoughts.

“A gentleman with auburn hair, then,” her father suggested. “Of sufficient property to merit my approval and sufficient intellect to earn yours.”

Davina rolled her eyes. Property? Intellect? How very dull.

“I see you do not agree with my criteria for a suitor.” His voice was stern and his visage more so. She was not fooled for a moment. “My complete list of qualifications is a good deal longer,” he insisted, “and your mother’s requires a second page.”

Davina threw back her head in a soundless laugh, nearly losing her bonnet in the process.
A list?
The very idea.

Her father laughed as well, tugging her bonnet back in place. “However diverting you may find the subject, I can assure you of this:”—he
paused, his expression more serious—“The gentleman who wins my Davina’s hand will not do so easily.”

She touched her forehead.
I understand, Father. And I am glad
.

The sun was nearing its zenith when they descended into a wooded valley and crossed the River Doon over an old sandstone bridge. Its single, high arch spanned the placid waters below and carried them into the village of Alloway.

“Ah, the auld kirk.” Her father pointed to the roofless remains, an ancient bell still hanging in the belfry. Graves stood where pews once rested; the windows were naught but stone ribs. “ ’Tis haunted, if Rabbie Burns is to be believed.” He made an
ugsome
face, then whispered hoarsely, “When glimmering thro’ the groaning trees, Kirk Alloway seem’d in a
bleeze.
”

Still holding the reins, she lifted her hands, wiggling her fingers like a blazing fire.

Her father laughed. “Aye, if only in the poet’s vivid imagination.”

The pair wound their way through the small farm village. Clay cottages, covered with lime and roofed with thatch, were set in haphazard fashion on both sides of the road. Each dwelling had its own garden of summer vegetables. Dairy cows were corralled by
dry stane dykes
and pigs confined to their sties, while geese and chickens had the run of the place, squawking and flapping about the congested roadway.

As they headed northwest, one-story cottages gave way to farmlands newly sown with barley. A stiff breeze, tasting of salt, bore down on them. “We’ll arrive in Ayr in less than an hour. Keep an eye to the west.” Jamie gestured in the general direction of the sea. “The blue outline of Arran should make an appearance shortly. Some say the island looks like a sleeping warrior.”

She heard the anticipation in her father’s voice and felt it in her spirit as she scanned the western horizon. The only shoreline she’d ever seen was Wigtown Bay at the mouth of the River Cree, a tidal, silt-laden estuary. Nothing like this wide-open view of deep ocean and endless sky.

And then she saw it: the Isle of Arran, a long, rugged silhouette of mountains rising from the sea. Bigger than she’d imagined. Remote and mysterious looking. As if the island were not part of Scotland at all but
its own world.
My world
. Just the sight of it made her eyes water and her heart race.

“Come, lass.” Her father tugged on her elbow. She’d brought Biddy to a stop without realizing it, her gaze fixed on the horizon. “Tuesday is market day in Ayr. We’ll be trampled by cattle if we stand still.”

Davina rode on, dodging the flow of people and livestock, trying not to lose sight of the majestic profile jutting from the water. The tallest peaks were hidden by a solitary bank of clouds, as if the island had its own weather. Might that be the case? The outskirts of Ayr closed in round them as they entered the town by way of the Carrick road. Though she craned her neck to catch a glimpse now and again, Arran was finally gone from view.

“You will have your fill when we sail in the morning,” Jamie promised her. “For the moment, suppose we find the High Street, the King’s Arms, and our dinner, in that order.”

The air was thick with the smell of horses and laborers in the summer heat. Merchants and tradesmen lined both sides of the Carrick Vennel, their names boldly painted on crosspieces above the lintel. A carpenter named McClure had his door propped open, sweeping sawdust into the street. Two-wheeled gigs were available for hire from Thomas Brown, and an anvil rang out from Cuthill’s blacksmith shop beside it. Coal merchants, ironmongers, and stonemasons added to the riotous din.