Grace in Thine Eyes (58 page)

“I’ve not required a chaperon for more than a decade, but that time has come.” He returned to the study with Mrs. Threshie close on his heels.

When they stepped inside the room, she hung back, her face flushed. “I’ve nae need tae hear yer quate
wirds
wi’ Miss McKie.”

“You do not need to listen,” he murmured, leaning toward her. “You need only to watch from a distance. To be sure I behave like a gentleman.”

The older woman patted his arm. “Sir, ye couldna behave onie ither way.”

Leaving her at her post, Graham walked through the cozy room with its dark wood panels and book-lined shelves, its broad desk and shuttered windows. Davina had taken the chair beside his desk. Her fiddle lay across her lap, her hands idly plucking the strings.

“Bless you for waiting, Miss McKie.” He’d almost called her by her Christian name. Much as he loved the sound of “Davina,” such familiarity was not fitting.

Where to begin? He opened the oversized bottom drawer of his desk and began lifting out his supplies: his paints and brushes, his papers and sponges. Beneath them in a shallow box were the paintings themselves, well hidden from prying eyes.

Davina quickly became engrossed, examining each of his supplies with care before putting one down to study another. He had yet to open his paintings, his growing self-consciousness making him wish he had never proposed such a foolish thing. But Davina had played for him. Trusted him. Revealed her soul through her music. Could he not show his paintings to her? trust her? open his heart and let her inside?

Graham placed the unopened box of paintings on his desk, his hands resting on top. “One April, Susan and I visited London and discovered an exhibition of watercolors on Lower Brook Street. Hundreds of works were on display, all done by master painters. Having seen only oils—portraits, mostly—I’d never imagined such a thing. Still lifes and
landscapes, bold colors and muted ones, all created with nothing but water and cubes of pigment. I came home with this …” He splayed his hands. “And with grand dreams of teaching myself to paint. But then my wife fell ill …”

The words stopped. Trapped in his throat. Lodged in his heart.

When Davina touched his hand, they broke loose.

“She was so … sick, Miss McKie.” He hesitated, not wanting to continue.

I know
, Davina’s eyes said.
I am listening
.

“Yet I could not help her …” He ground his teeth remembering. “I could not … save her.”

A mist of tears.
Somerled
. Aye, she understood.

“When Susan died, my heart died with her. On the day of her funeral, I came home to an empty house, not knowing what to do with the endless hours. And so I began to paint.”

He slowly opened the wooden box, embarrassed when his hands shook. One by one he laid his watercolors in front of her, beginning with the first he’d painted. A hillside, dark and desolate. A hawthorn tree, bent with age. A winter garden, reduced to sticks.

Graham had not remembered there being so many. But when he tried to hurry past them, Davina tugged each painting from his hands, her gaze roaming over the thick paper with its wavy edges. The longer she looked in silence, the more uncomfortable he became. ’Twas hard enough to show them to her, but not to know what she might be thinking, to fear she might be laughing at his lack of talent.

Nae
. He’d not painted them to impress anyone. He’d painted them to find his way home. By the look of her, Davina understood. She ran her finger along the wide border, well away from the watercolor, as she eyed the wildflowers, painted on a happier day. The geese, sketched on a wind-swept morning. The Cree, rippling beyond his door.

Finally he showed her a watercolor he knew she would recognize: Loch Trool with her standing on the pier. A tiny figure against the fastness of the glen. Half a dozen touches of brown paint. A suggestion of Davina, no more than that. But she knew who it was and why she was included.

Davina lifted her head and looked straight into his heart. Her eyes said the only words he needed to hear.
Aye. Wait
.

Indeed he would. “Lord bless you, Miss McKie.”

“Och, Mr. Webster!” In the far corner of his study, Mrs. Threshie threw her apron over her head and wept.

Eighty-Two

Endurance is the crowning quality,
And patience all the passion of great hearts.
J
AMES
R
USSELL
L
OWELL

M
r. Webster often appeared at Glentrool unannounced. But this time he’d given her notice.

“I will come on Thursday afternoon,” he’d promised, his hazel eyes hinting at secrets. “If the weather is fine, we’ll go boating on the loch. Oh, and do bring your sketchbook, Miss McKie.”

Thursday had come. The weather was ideal: clear skies, warm autumn sun, a gentle breeze off the loch. She waited for him on the pier, sketchbook in hand. Not her new one, full of blank pages, but her last one, full of memories. Honest soul that he was, Graham deserved to know the truth; she would hold nothing back.

Davina watched him approach the pier and lifted her hand in greeting as soon as she thought he might notice. He hailed her but did not urge his mount into a gallop. Graham Webster did things at a steady pace. Not in a hurry, yet never late.

“I am honored to find you waiting for me.” He dismounted with the practiced ease of a gentleman well acquainted with horses, then handed the reins to a waiting stable lad. “May I greet your parents before we climb into the skiff?”

She shook her head and pointed east toward Glenhead.

“Visiting Ian’s future in-laws, is that it?” He brushed the dust from his coat and knocked it off the brim of his hat. “Only one week to the wedding. I cannot imagine how harried your mother must be.”

Harried?
Davina smiled at the description, then slowly walked about the pier, trying to imitate her peaceful mother, who often worried but seldom showed it.

“Ah. She has my temperament, then.”

Davina paused her steps. Graham
was
much like her mother. Gracie. Generous. Patient beyond measure. Impossible not to like.

He’d already steadied the boat by the pier. “Will you feel uncomfortable without a chaperon?”

She thought he was teasing until she glanced at his face. To think, he would endeavor to protect her reputation! Davina gestured toward the property round the house, where Robert and some of the hinds were busy about their work, then extended her arm to include the wide open glen.

“I see your point.” Chuckling, he climbed into the skiff. “There’s little privacy in the middle of a loch. But there are also few interruptions.” He offered his hand to help her aboard. “I look forward to the time alone with you, Miss McKie.”

After gingerly taking their seats inside the wobbling boat—Graham in the center, Davina nearer the front—he soon had the oars working in a steady rhythm, and they left the pier behind. She tipped back her head as they glided across the water, reveling in the sensation of the sun warming her face and the wind teasing her hair. According to the calendar, summer had taken wing. Perhaps the two of them might hold it captive a bit longer.

When they reached the center of the loch, Graham pulled in the oars and fit them inside the boat, careful not to brush the wet blades against her gown. “Might we both sit in the middle?” He inched over, minding his balance. “There’s room next to me. And I believe ’twould make it easier to page through that intriguing sketchbook of yours.”

Davina handed him her book first, the stub of a pencil still attached. Then she moved toward him with slow, cautious steps, crouching all the while. Safely settled beside him, she reclaimed her sketchbook with the fleeting wish that she’d not been so brave and had brought her new one instead.

Nae
. A gentleman who painted exquisite watercolors in the loneliness of his study knew what it meant to be troubled on every side, yet not distressed; cast down, but not destroyed. The contents of her book would not frighten away such a man.

He held out his hands. “May I?”

Davina placed her sketchbook there, like an offering.

The first pages were from early spring: drawings of birds’ nests and catkins and blackthorn blossoms. “You have a fine eye for nature and a skilled hand.” Graham eyed her drawings more closely. “Softly tinted with watercolor, these would be worthy of framing, Miss McKie. Would you let me teach you?”

She felt an odd fluttering inside as she wrote along the margin.
I would enjoy that very much
.

He continued studying each sketch. Later in the spring her drawings turned to her mother’s garden. And then to hawthorn newly in bloom. And to May Day. She held her breath when he turned the page that revealed Somerled.

“A braw lad.” He stared at the sketch. “Though I cannot say I recognize him.” Graham looked at her, his brow creased. “Did he come to Glentrool on May Day?”

In a manner of speaking
. She found herself loath to mar the drawing and so leaned across him to write on the opposite page.
Good-morrow, good-morrow, fair yarrow
. Would he know what that meant?

“Come, tell me before tomorrow,” he recited, “who my true love shall be.” Graham touched the paper, following her pencil lines. “Did you dream of this man?”

When she nodded, then touched her barren ring finger, Davina saw that Graham understood the rest.
Aye. ’Tis him
.

However uncomfortable she felt, there was no turning back now. She showed him her drawings of Arran, knowing where the pages of standing stones and wooden bridges would lead. When they came to the list of difficult questions she’d asked Somerled, Davina covered them with her hands and looked into Graham’s eyes.
Are you certain?

“I want to know everything there is to know about you.”

She lifted her hands, then hid her face.
Please, let me not be ashamed
.

Graham studied her questions at length without saying a word. After he turned to the page Sandy had found and read aloud, Graham closed her sketchbook and returned it to her, a sheen in his eyes. “I am
sorry that Mr. MacDonald hurt you. In all the ways that he hurt you. Yet ’tis clear that you forgave him. Such grace, Miss McKie. Such unmerited grace.” His eyes searched hers, longer than he’d looked at the page. “As to the question of what will become of you …”

Davina felt the boat shift beneath her. Or so it seemed.

“A week before Midsummer Eve, I asked your father permission to court you.”

Stunned, she could only gape at him.

“Your parents chose not to inform you while you were on Arran, preferring to tell you in person.” Graham’s voice was even, though it seemed their decision grieved him. “When you returned home, after all you’d suffered, they thought it best not to mention my interest.”

Davina rubbed her brow, trying to make sense of it. Had her parents meant to spare her because Graham had changed his mind? She found a page that was not covered and wrote in the margin,
What are your intentions now, sir?

“Honorable,” he assured her. “I do not, however, wish to be your suitor.” He waited until she looked up at him. “I wish to be your husband.”

Her heart rose and sank at once.
My … oh, Graham … ’tis too soon
.

He spoke gently yet firmly. “Such games of courtship are for children who do not know what they want. I am very sure what I want.”

But I am not sure … I am not ready …
Davina pleaded with her eyes, too distraught to write down what she was feeling.

Graham knew. And answered her question before she could ask. “I am willing to wait, Miss McKie. A very long time.”

You would wait for me?

Aye, he would. Davina saw it in his eyes, in the set of his mouth. Though her body had been bruised and her life stained with scandal, this kind, intelligent soul—a gentleman of means who might have any lass in Galloway—this handsome widower had chosen her for his bride. And would give her time to heal.

You would wait for me?
She wrote two words with some effort.
How long?

Graham took her free hand in his. Not grasping, merely resting it in his palm. “I will wait until your heart is whole.”

Aye. That day will come
. A sense of peace fell over Davina as she carefully wrote,
And when my heart is whole, it will be yours
.

“As mine is yours, Miss McKie.” Graham kissed her hand. “Always.”

Author Notes

But though the beams of light decay,
’Twas bustle all in Brodick-Bay.
S
IR
W
ALTER
S
COTT

I sailed into Brodick Bay on a blustery autumn afternoon, buffeted by strong winds and a chilling rain, the water gray green and choppy with whitecaps. The Caledonian MacBrayne ferry did not make another crossing that day or the next, so foul was the weather—more akin to early March than mid-September. Arran was lost in the sea spray, as my photographs taken from the boat deck attest. But once I drove down the ramp and turned north onto the two-lane shore road that rings the island, I found Davina’s bonny Arran amid the heather-carpeted hills, hidden beneath the mist.

My first stop was the Arran Public Library; my second, the local bookshop. Research via the Internet has its rewards, but nothing can compare to holding a book, especially a used one: the leathery scent of the binding, the rough texture of the paper, the realization that others have clasped that same volume in their hands.

Several books from Davina’s time period are mentioned in the novel. She carries Sir Walter Scott’s
Lay of the Last Minstrel
(1805) in her valise. Had Jamie not been dripping wet in that Edinburgh bookshop, he might have looked for Scott’s
Marmion
for her, published a few months before his visit, as was Elizabeth Hamilton’s
The Cottagers of Glenburnie
. My copy of
Cottagers
is a third edition, also from 1808, printed for Manners and Miller. The author’s comment in the preface of her book perfectly expresses my affection for Scotland: “A warm attachment to the country of our ancestors naturally produces a lively interest in all that concerns its happiness.” Aye, it does, lass.