Island of the Swans (30 page)

“A—Alexander… please,” Jane stammered. “I should be getting home…” she added nervously. “They’ll be wondering where I am, as it is.”

The duke did not reply. An ominous silence grew between them as the coach swayed from side to side, threading its way through the late afternoon traffic in the direction of the town-house he had leased for the season. Finally, Alexander spoke in a voice devoid of emotion.

“We both know that your mother, your sister, and your brother-in-law have preceded you to Berwickshire to prepare Ayton House for the coming nuptials,” he said evenly. “So, you see, Jane,” he said, leaning forward slightly in the coach, his hand idly stroking her left breast, “when I received your invitation to St. Giles this afternoon, I assumed we had similar ideas in mind, and I made plans accordingly.”

Jane shrank against the tufted leather upholstery. Then, in a lightning move, she bolted to open the carriage door. Before she reached the handle, Alexander’s long arm and slender fingers blocked her escape.

“No,” he said matter-of-factly, with something akin to amusement tugging at the corners of his mouth. Jane took a deep breath and tried to steady her nerves. “I am Alexander, Duke of Gordon,” he said softly. “From this moment forward, you shall regard me as your husband, with all that that implies. I am the man who will govern your life. It is
my
body that will lie next to yours for years to come. It is I who will be the father of your children.”

No!
she thought with rising panic.
No one shall govern my life!

But when his lips seared hers, she was infused with the sheer force of his will that seemed determined to blot out all rational thought, all memory of Thomas Fraser. Alex’s mouth again began to roam her face and neck. His breath was hot on her ear once more, sending an insistent tingling coursing through her limbs. The duke suddenly pulled his body from hers, leaving Jane with a peculiar and unexpected sense of loss. He had a stubborn, challenging look in his eye.

“I shall be frank, Mistress Maxwell. I intend to bed you this night,” he declared, “and I promise you, your thoughts shall be of me!”

Alexander clasped her hand tightly once more, pulled her from his coach, and quickly led her inside the last building on the High Street, a mansion that flanked the walls of Edinburgh Castle. Racking her brains for some means of escape, she took little notice of the rich appointments of the downstairs rooms or the imposing family portraits that lined the staircase leading to the House of Gordon’s top apartments.

Alexander’s private suite was large and luxuriously furnished with rich mahogany paneling. It looked to Jane more like a library than a bedchamber. Leather-bound books decorated an entire wall, except for a small carved wooden fireplace adorned with a polished brass fender.

Jane’s eye was immediately drawn to a large bed with enormous down pillows and thick, forest green and brown tartan blankets suitable for a hunting lodge. Dark, moss green velvet curtains hung down around the head of the bed from a half-canopy attached to the ceiling. A large leather trunk with brass corners stood at the foot of the bed, along with a black and tan setter, curled up on the Persian carpet. Next to the sleeping dog, Alexander’s riding boots stood in their forms, a promise of outings to come. It was a totally masculine lair, inviting, but at the same time forbidding. Jane shivered, despite the cheerful fire glowing in the grate.

“Affric! Come!” Alexander commanded. The dog opened his soulful brown eyes and gazed at Alex adoringly. His master gestured toward the open door he and Jane had just entered. “Go see Cook. Supper’s in the kitchen,” he said. “There’s a good boy.”

Jane’s body tensed as she stood poised to spring past Alex and escape down the stairs. But as the dog padded out of the room, Alexander glanced in Jane’s direction and swiftly locked the door. With an elaborate gesture, he pocketed the key.

The duke bid her approach a window where a round table displayed a number of silver-covered dishes. “Come, my dear,” he said calmly, removing her cloak from her trembling shoulders. “You must be famished. Here is the meal I ordered for us after I received your summons to the cathedral. Please sit down,” he said, pulling out a chair for his disconcerted guest.

Jane could only stare as Alexander set about serving her portions from the assembled platters of roast lamb, potatoes, stewed fruits, and a bowl of buttered crab served with sweet scones. He poured a glass of sparkling wine Jane took to be champagne.

“To the bride…” he said, raising his glass in a mock salute. “To us. Now drink it down… there’s a good girl.”

Jane obediently drained her glass, and the two of them began their meal. At least, Jane thought bleakly, he hadn’t thrown her on the bed and simply ravished her.

Alexander kept up a steady stream of pleasantries as he urged her to consume more of everything that lay before them, including the wine, which went down smoothly and gradually infused her tense body with a comforting glow.

“Won’t you have some Fochabers gingerbread for a sweet?” he inquired solicitously. “’Tis a Gordon Castle specialty… especially nice with the wine.”

“’Tis quite wonderful,” she ventured timidly, feeling suddenly giddy from her third glass of champagne. She took a bite of the gingerbread made from treacle, currants, and ground cloves, speculating what might be in store for her after dessert.

“Good,” he said with satisfaction. “I’m glad you like it. Now come here, my dear. Please.”

As if sleepwalking, Jane rose from her seat a trifle unsteadily and slowly moved toward Alexander, who by this time was comfortably lounging in a high-back leather wing chair. He took her wrist, far more gently than at St. Giles Cathedral, and drew her down to sit in his lap. He resumed his game of playfully nuzzling her neck as he searched for the fastenings of her gown. Jane’s first impulse was to struggle against the warm, languorous feeling invading her body. But it was dulled by the effects of the wine and the pleasurable currents coursing downwards from the spot below her ear where Alexander continued to kiss her. She felt the stiffened bodice of her afternoon dress fall away from her flesh, and, after a moment’s effort at untying the laces crisscrossing her back, her corset as well.

“There, my love,” Alexander said huskily, turning her toward him. “Doesn’t that feel better? Now, if you will please rise…”

Jane stood before him in an agony of apprehension as he swiftly removed the rest of her clothing. After pausing a long moment to drink in the sight of her nakedness, Alexander quickly gathered her up in his arms and placed her gently on his bed. He drew back the bed linen and the thick woolen blankets and stood towering above her. Then, as he began to divest himself of his own clothing, Alexander hesitated, his hands at the buttons of his breeches.

“Will I be the first, or has the ghost won that contest as well?”

“No,” Jane whispered, with a mixture of shyness and sorrow. “You are the first.”

“Ah,” he said softly. “Then perhaps I have a chance.”

Jane closed her eyes until she felt the length of his body impose itself next to hers. She waited a moment for him to make his claim on her, but all was silent. After an interlude, she fluttered open her lids to see him smiling at her, a look of unexpected tenderness marking his features.

“The Duchess of Gordon,” he said quietly, tracing his slender finger lightly down her cheek, to her throat. “Jane Maxwell, the Duchess of Gordon.” He bent over her to brush his lips softly against her forehead as if anointing her in her new role. “That’s what you are, my love… that’s what I want this night to mean. You are
my
duchess. The past is finished. We are the House of Gordon.”

Jane rose up on one elbow in order to look him fully in the face, consciously blotting out the vision of Thomas that rose unbidden before her eyes. Slowly, she nodded her assent. The time had come to bury her memories once and for all, she silently lectured herself. She had no doubt, now, this complicated man was in love with her. Perhaps she could one day feel the same blinding commitment she had felt toward—

Jane clamped her eyes shut, willing the very name of Thomas Fraser banished from her mind. When she opened them, she leaned forward, and then, without hesitation, put her arms around Alexander’s lean torso. They both sank back against the pillows, his weight settling against her slender frame.

“
Help
me!” she whispered into his ear, nuzzling his lobe as he had hers. “Help me banish all the ghosts, Alex, so we can truly be… the House of Gordon…”

Elizabeth Maxwell’s spirits were gay, though she longed for her husband to return from Ireland in time to attend her niece Jane’s nuptials with her. It still seemed a miracle that the poor lass had finally made peace with the loss of Thomas Fraser, and was about to be married this day… and apparently, happily so.

Elizabeth surveyed her trim figure in the looking glass, pleased to see how her waistline had restored itself after Monty’s birth, and relieved that James had written her from Dublin to say his Black Watch regiment had arrived safely at its new post. It would only be a few short months before he would take his accumulated leave and be home before the end of the year for Hogmanay.

An urgent tapping at her door interrupted her pleasant contemplation of her husband’s imminent homecoming.

“Excuse me, mum,” said Tessa, the Fordyces’ upstairs housemaid, in a rather shrill, excited voice, as she approached with a silver tray. “The runner from Edinburgh has just arrived with this from Ireland, and I knew you’d be anxious to have it, straightaway.”

Elizabeth’s heart beat faster as she snatched the parchment addressed to her in James’s familiar hand and broke its seal. She had just begun to read its contents, with a stunned expression, when her sister-in-law, Magdalene Maxwell, entered the room.

“Elizabeth, dear, would you be so kind as to give me your opinion on the salmon mousse… I’m not sure ’tis even edible—” Lady Maxwell halted midsentence, staring at Elizabeth with a puzzled look after glancing at the letter clutched in her sister-in-law’s hand. “Elizabeth? Are you all right? Has anything happened to James?”

Elizabeth cradled the parchment in her lap and gazed out the window at the bustling activity taking place on the front lawn of Ayton House in preparation for the wedding.

“Thomas Fraser is alive,” she announced in a shocked voice. “He’s just arrived in Ireland. Somehow he survived that Indian massacre and made his way from Philadelphia. James must not yet have received my letter telling him about the wedding… he writes me that he is allowing Thomas emergency leave to come home to claim Jane’s hand.”

“No!” Magdalene nearly shouted, quickly closing the door behind her. “No, no,
no
!”

Lady Maxwell’s royal blue silk skirts crackled ominously as she approached her sister-in-law.

“You are
not
to breathe a word of this, Elizabeth!” she commanded menacingly. “I will never forgive you or speak to you or James again, if you do, nor will you or your children partake of my hospitality as long as I live!

“But the lass has a right to
know
he’s alive, Magdalene!” Elizabeth countered faintly, shaken by the ferocity of Magdalene’s determination the wedding should take place regardless of her daughter’s ignorance that the love of her life had virtually risen from the dead. “She has a right to choose for herself—”

“She’s
made
her choice, and you can see for yourself that since her arrival from Edinburgh, she and the duke have been behaving like genuine lovebirds,” argued Magdalene forcefully. “And besides, there are four hundred guests milling about outside this window from as far north as the Orkney Islands! We
cannot
tell her, Elizabeth! ’Twould be folly of the first order. In an hour’s time Jane will be the
Duchess of Gordon
!”

“That’s the main thing, ’tisn’t it, Magdalene?” Elizabeth said scornfully. “In an hour’s time,
you’ll
be mother-in-law to a
duke
!”

The dancing commenced almost the moment the Presbyterian cleric closed his Bible and the handsome groom, resplendent in a deep purple velvet coat and embroidered ivory waistcoat, stooped to kiss the bride. The afternoon of Friday, October 23, 1767, had turned into a splendid day. Catherine and John Fordyce’s Ayton House, scrubbed and refurbished for such a momentous occasion, stood bathed in dazzling autumn sunshine. Two hundred yards from the comfortable pink stone country manse, the soft green hills of Berwickshire, some forty miles south and east of Edinburgh, sloped gently down to the River Eye.