Island of the Swans (44 page)

“I shall deliver it myself, m’lady,” Thomas replied, his eyes roaming across her face as if reacquainting himself with her features. Then, without another word, he moved on down the receiving line.

It seemed an eternity to Jane before the last subaltern paid his respects. She quickly grabbed the arm of the startled young soldier and commanded him to escort her across the floor where Thomas was waiting beside a chair, holding two cut-crystal punch cups in his hands. Hamilton and Simon, engrossed in conversation, hardly noticed her departure.

“Thank you, lad,” Jane said to the young soldier she’d commandeered, the tone of her voice a clear dismissal.

“Some refreshment, Your Grace,” Thomas said wryly, offering her the glass as the bemused subaltern melted into the crowd.

“Don’t do that,” Jane said sharply.

“Offer you some punch?” Thomas asked mildly.

“No,” Jane replied. “Don’t call me Your Grace.”

“Ah, but you are, and a duchess to boot.”

“I’m not of a mind to spar with you, Thomas,” Jane said wearily. “What’s done is done. Can’t we at least be the friends we always were? I’d like to know how you truly are… what you do as a soldier… what your life was like in Ireland. Are the Irish as savage as the Indians in America?”

Thomas tilted back his head and laughed loudly. Jane noticed that the scars on his face had faded considerably since the last time she’d seen him and, rather than detracting from the twenty-eight-year-old’s good looks, gave his features character. Assisting her to sit down, he pulled up another gilt chair and clinked her glass with his.

“Here’s to friendship and the woman whose friendship I have never forgotten,” he said lightly, but his eyes sought out hers, intently questioning.

“Nor have I forgotten your friendship,” she answered simply, resting her punch cup in her gloved hand and staring at its crystal rim.

“Are you all right, Jenny?” Thomas asked suddenly, his voice filled with concern. “You look… sad.”

“I
am
sad, Thomas,” she answered, surprised at the sensation of tears brimming her eyes as she glanced up at him. She was too emotionally exhausted—and he was too perceptive—for dissembling.

Thomas remained silent for a few moments, and then asked her quietly, “Why didn’t the Duke of Gordon grace us with his company this evening? Is he ill?”

“Ill?” Jane repeated thoughtfully. “Yes, in a fashion. I fear he is sick with jealousy at the thought that you and I should meet again. He returned to Gordon Castle—on urgent estate business, I was told—but that ’twasna the reason.”

“And
you
!” Thomas prompted softly. “Is the duke’s jealousy, after eight years of marriage, what’s making you sad? I would have thought just the opposite. Hasn’t he just demonstrated his feelings for you are still strong?”

“’Tis not a
game
we’re playing here, Thomas, to see who cares for whom the most, or keeps the upper hand!” Jane replied heatedly. “’Tis people’s
lives
! I said I was sad… and I am. For the three of us… and now there are the children—”

Jane looked away to stem the tide of anguish that suddenly swept over her. She could never abandon her children, and that’s what she would have to do if she separated from Alex and went to live with Catherine and John Fordyce in Berwickshire. She would have to leave them in her husband’s custody. Scottish law clearly favored men in all domestic matters—especially men as powerful as the Duke of Gordon. As far as the law was concerned, she and the children were mere possessions.

Suddenly, Jane recalled her husband’s overwhelming strength as he pressed his weight against her rebellious body on the bed upstairs. He had defiled the trust implicit in their intimacy by demonstrating to her he could take her against her will, whenever and however he wished. Alexander Gordon held all the cards. Perhaps it
was
all a game, this contract of marriage. A game she could never win.

“Your first born is well?” Thomas asked quietly, observing the emotions that had played across her face.

Charlotte
, she thought, disconsolately. The babe she carried when she’d last met Thomas at Loch-an-Eilean.

“Aye, she’s well,” Jane answered, swallowing hard. “She’s just turned seven years. She’s here at Culloden House, upstairs in the nursery. Lord Huntly and the babies remained at Gordon Castle.”

“Ah, yes, John Forbes told me you’d had several bairns, including an heir,” he continued, “and that you are the best of mothers to them all.”

Jane turned and smiled weakly.

“That’s dear of him to say,” she answered, turning to stare out the window, which overlooked the rows and rows of tents scattered among the stark trees and hedges of the estate’s parkland. She thought of the cozy hours in the nursery where she had taken it on herself to read to her children and drill the older ones in their sums. “Aye, I love my children very much,” she said finally, gazing at Thomas once again. “Susan’s the wee one… and there’s Madelina, who’s three, and little George—Lord Huntly—he’ll be six in February.”

“Twenty-five years old and the beautiful mother of such a braw brood… Then
why
are you sad, my Jenny of Monreith?” Thomas asked, his voice vibrating with intensity.

“Because I wish they were
yours
!” Jenny whispered in anguish, a feeling of recklessness taking possession of her. “I’m sad because I can’t stop cursing the fate that condemned the three of us to be miserable all our lives, with nothing solid to hold on to, and always feeling… feeling something’s
missing
! Alex knows he can never have
all
my love; you know you never can possess
any
of it… and I…
I
feel as if I’m being carved in two
every day of my life
!” Jane felt the tears starting to brim over her eyelids. She stood up hastily. “I must leave this room or I’m going to faint or be sick!”

“Jenny!” Thomas said, rising quickly, “I
must
see you again!”

“That’s not possible,” she replied agitatedly, searching the milling crowd for a glimpse of Hamilton to escort her out of the reception. “I leave at dawn for Kinrara.”

Their eyes met, and for an instant, each knew that the other held in mind the same memory of standing side by side atop the tower of the small, crumbling castle, set like a jewel in the center of Loch-an-Eilean.

“Kinrara?” Thomas repeated softly.

Jane nodded.

“I’ll
be
there the day after tomorrow,” he whispered fiercely, taking her arm. “I swear it!”

“No, Thomas… you mustn’t come to Kinrara—” she began.

“I’m granted three days’ leave before the regiment starts training in earnest,” he interrupted, his eyes boring into hers. “I shall spend them at Loch-an-Eilean, whether you come to that ruin on the island or not! And now,” he said more calmly, “may I offer you my arm? I’m sure you must wish to retire to prepare for your journey.”

Jane was virtually unable to reply. In a trancelike state, she allowed Thomas to return her to Hamilton’s side, and, within minutes, her brother had escorted her out of the stiflingly hot room to the broad staircase that led to the blessed solitude of her chambers.

Eighteen

L
ATE THE FOLLOWING AFTERNOON, THE
G
ORDON PARTY ARRIVED
in the heart of the Spey Valley. Jane marveled at the spate of unseasonably mild weather that greeted them as they passed the pile of stones marking the entrance of the estate. The small entourage of carriage and ponies arrived at the cluster of whitewashed shielings capped with thatched roofs, which stood in a clearing. Rust-colored roe deer foraged among the dried grasses for a winter’s meal. The small animals froze at the sound of the coach, and then bounded in a jagged pattern out of sight.

The farmhouse, which was merely the largest of several cottages, sat in the hollow that flanked a bend in the River Spey. It was just as Jane remembered it from her brief sojourn almost eight years earlier. The whitewashed stone building with its shaggy roof nestled into the ground, and a curl of smoke drifting up from the chimney told them they were expected.

Jane inhaled the pungent scent of pine in the air and let out a contented sigh. Its delicious smell told her she could only be in one place: Kinrara.

Angus Grant, the estate’s sharp-eyed factor, had reacted swiftly to the message that had preceded Jane’s arrival by only eight hours. Despite such short notice, the dwarfish Highlander had seen to it that the interior of the small, one-room structure had been aired and swept. Jane noted with pleasure that a pattern of worn Turkish carpets forming richly colored rectangles covered the plain pine floor. The straw bedding stuffed between lengths of stiff linen in the corner had been freshened, and there were oatcakes and bannocks resting in fragrant profusion on a wooden table near the cooking hearth. Tallow candles placed strategically around the room illuminated the cozy space, casting a warm, inviting glow as Jane stepped from the dwindling daylight across the threshold.

The stone walls and simple furniture were in stark contrast to the elegant rooms at Culloden House, and the appointments compared poorly to the magnificence of Gordon Castle. Yet, Jane felt at home. Utterly at home. She smiled broadly as she turned around, her roving eye drinking in the smallest detail of the humble cottage.

“’Tis lovely, Angus,” Jane breathed happily. “Thank you for making us feel so welcome.”

For the first time since she had stared into Alex’s thunderous reflection in the mirror in the ornate bedchamber of Culloden House, the knot of tension in her breast began to ease.

“I’ve taken the liberty of readying the old bothy down the lane for Lady Charlotte and your maid, Nancy,” the estate factor said, pointing through the small window toward the neat white bungalow a hundred yards away. “Your footmen are welcome at my cottage, and the driver will be snug in the wee stable to the back, looking after the ponies.”

“You’ve fit us into this magical place like fingers in a glove, Angus.” Jane smiled at the gnome of a man, stooped from his years of hard labor, diligence that had ultimately won him the prized position of estate factor. “I plan to closet myself right here for a few days and do nothing but rest. Our journeys recruiting troops for my brother Hamilton these last weeks have been exhausting.”

“Aye,” said Angus Grant with the natural ease of a native Highlander, one who respected his laird and lady, but was never subservient toward them. “You deserve a respite, Duchess, after all the good you did for the regiment.”

“Mama, are we to have that other little cottage all to ourselves?” squealed Charlotte, hopping up and down at the window that overlooked her assigned residence. “’Tis like a doll’s house, only Nancy and I’ll have it for our very own!’

“That’s right, pet,” Jane smiled, pleased that her eldest child didn’t complain of a lack of luxury or common comforts. She seemed to sense the magic of Kinrara just as Jane had that first time she’d traveled here.

“Mama… look! Mrs. Grant has come with our supper!” Charlotte said excitedly, gesturing through the window at a plump woman, her arms pulled taut to her sides as she toted two enormous woven baskets of food.

“A thousand Highland welcomes, m’lady!” beamed Flora Grant, setting down her burdens on the stone hearth so she could bob a curtsy. “Unusual fair weather we be havin’ for this time of year, but no complaints, no complaints! ’Tis fit for a duchess, so we are blessed that you’re here!”

Nancy Christie retrieved one of the baskets under Flora’s direction, after being assured by her mistress that she could cope perfectly well without a lady’s maid in such a simple setting. The young lass and a very animated Charlotte headed off to explore their own accommodations.

“Sleep well, poppet,” Jane called after them gaily through the front door, her spirits soaring as she caught sight of her first swan, winging back to its nest on Loch-an-Eilean. “Breakfast will be waiting for you both when you awake.”

“Thank you, m’lady,” Nancy called, whirling around to make one final curtsy.

“I’ve brought roasted grouse and oatcake and some cheese and tea, and a wee dram of whiskey, m’lady,” said Flora Grant, unloading the contents of her second basket onto the deep-set windowsill including a jug of Kinrara’s own brew. “’Tis simple enough fare, but wholesome for you.”

“Aye, Flora,” Jane thanked her, “’tis the simple life I long for—and the food to go with it. Thank you for your kindness… and you too, Angus,” she said, turning to Flora’s husband, who stood at least a head shorter than his wife. “I know our unexpected arrival made much work for you both, but ’tis wonderful to see Kinrara again.”

“Och! Dinna fash yourself,” Angus replied, reddening at her compliments. He gestured abruptly with his woolen cap at his wife of forty years, and the two of them vanished down the pony track that led to their own shieling a mile away.

The fire crackled in its grate as Jane walked slowly around the room, luxuriating in the solitude permeating the cottage. She unbuttoned the confining jacket of her heavy woolen traveling costume. Tossing the garment over one of the few chairs in the single room, she breathed deeply, savoring the peace and tranquility that surrounded her.