Island of the Swans (73 page)

“I am better pleased to make one more bairn in this world than to make war and be the death of twenty,” he’d told her during one of their frequent tête-à-têtes.

It was amusing and stimulating to be in his company, and today was no less an example of that than usual.

“You know, Your Grace, I
refuse
to be castrated by Calvinism!” Burns suddenly exclaimed. “Yet half of what I wish to write would be declared bawdy and debauched, and that thought sometimes stays my hand.”

“Does it now?” Jane teased. “From what I hear of those rowdy meeting of the Crochallan Fencibles at Dawney Douglas’s Tavern, bawdiness and debauchery are the order of the day.”

Burns cocked a lecherous eyebrow and then laughed heartily.

“’Tis the influence of Edinburgh upon me, m’lady,” he chortled. “Have you ever seen such a fine, fair, uninhibited city as this? Houses abuilding, bucks strutting the High Street, blackguards skulking… whores leering… ’tis the fault of Edinburgh herself that I should have sunk into such dissipation as I have!”

“No doubt,” Jane said dryly. “But your work. Will you write more?” she insisted.

“I have much in me to write, if only I could say what’s in m’heart, Duchess,” he said, suddenly serious, his black eyes boring into hers with riveting intensity.

“Ah… then we can all look forward to more poems soon, I hope,” Jane replied evenly, rising from her chair to break the spell his eyes had cast on her.

She crossed to the drawing room windows and gazed into the small park in George Square, surrounded by a neat wrought iron fence. Yellow daffodils poked their bonnets through the greenery, reminding her of the abundance of spring flowers that must be blooming along the verdant River Spey, which ran through the estate at Kinrara. And on the Island of the Swans, she thought to herself, purple clematis must be clinging to the pale sandstone castle walls…

“If only I could write the song I’ve heard in my head since the day I first met you in this very room,” said Rabbie, standing behind her, abruptly ending her reveries. The poet’s plea rang with the rich inflections of Jane’s youth. “’Twould be a rhyme of such passion and truth, the Kirk would stone me for it.”

Suddenly, Jane felt two enormously strong hands clutch her shoulders. Startled, she turned around. Her lips parted with surprise an instant before Robert Burns kissed her with explosive desire. His muscular arms enfolded her in a bear’s grip so tight she could hardly breathe.

“Rabbie!” she protested.

His kisses grew more passionate, as if by his sheer strength he would master her resistance. Her immediate response was to feel laughter bubbling to her throat. However, his increasing ardor manifesting itself against her thigh signaled that his declarations of affection were taking a serious turn.

“Beauty,” he mumbled, kissing her with mounting passion.

The rigid mound in Burns’s breeches filled Jane with alarm. His lips seared the tops of her breasts, calling forth gooseflesh all over her body as he whispered a string of endearments against her skin.

In a corner of her brain she exasperatedly chastised this impudent rake, awestruck by the outrageous cheek of a man who was a decade younger than she. However, her body, so long denied the comfort or pleasure of a man, was responding instinctively to his deliberate and feverish attempt to arouse her. Despite Jane’s best efforts to repel him, Burns’s large, farmer’s hand insinuated itself within her bodice.

“You must
stop
this!” Jane panted, tugging with all her might against Burns’s hand, which now firmly cupped her breast.

“Oh, m’lady…” Burns groaned, still intent on the conquest of her bodice.

In some dim recess of her mind, Jane thought she heard the sound of masculine voices in the front foyer filtering through the closed door of the drawing room.

“Stop!” she choked, wrenching herself away from the poet’s forceful grip, and tearing a lace ruffle on her velvet gown in the process.

A few moments later, the door to the drawing room opened and Jane found herself face-to-face with her husband and the butler, William Marshall. The quartet stared at each other blankly for a second before Alex shifted his gaze to the figure of Robert Burns. The poet was wearing his only presentable attire: form-fitting buckskin breeches and a blue coat studded with brass buttons. His sunburnt ploughman’s face seemed a ruddier hue than customary, and his breathing was somewhat labored.

Alex’s startled glance encompassed the telltale swatch of dainty lace dangling from the neckline of Jane’s dove gray bodice. A thunderous look spread across his face. The Duke of Gordon abruptly turned on his heel and stalked out of the drawing room, nearly running down his astounded butler in the process.

“I’m so sorry you must leave before the duke takes tea,” Jane managed to say to her guest, waving a distracted arm in William Marshall’s direction. “Do show Mr. Burns out, please, Marshall,” she added in a strangled voice. “I must excuse myself and look in on the children. Good day.”

Jane had reached the top landing by the time Robert Burns found himself standing on the cobblestone streets of George Square. She pounded on Alex’s door, but he refused to answer.

“Please, Alex!” she whispered hoarsely, “Let me in! I must talk to you!”

He didn’t reply, but she heard the sound of a heavy object being dragged across the floor. Drawers opened and slammed shut. She waited outside his door for several minutes, but Alex still did not emerge from his self-imposed exile. At length, her duties in the nursery and the need to keep up appearances in front of the staff forced her to retreat to her own bedchamber. Less than an hour later she heard the sound of a carriage and hoofbeats on the street in front of the townhouse.

Peering down from her window, Jane watched William Marshall assist the housekeeper, Mrs. Christie, in taking a seat next to the carriage driver, while a footman loaded Alex’s trunk on the roof. Alex himself emerged through the front door, his traveling cape slung over his shoulders, its high collar obscuring his face. There was a moment’s conference between Marshall and the duke before the butler assisted his employer inside the carriage.

Jane tore herself away from her vantage point at the window and took the stairs two at a time, hurtling through the front door and onto the street.

“Wait… wait, driver!” she shouted up at the horseman.

Ignoring the disapproving glances of Mrs. Christie from atop the carriage, and the disdain imprinted on William Marshall’s thin lips, Jane wrenched open the coach door and leapt inside.

“There is no point, Jane—” Alex began icily.

“This is absolutely ridiculous!” Jane interrupted him angrily, slamming shut the carriage door.

Her plan to approach her husband calmly and sensibly went out the carriage window.

“At least draw the curtains, if you insist on this display!” he said between clenched teeth.

Jane yanked the velvet blinds shut and faced Alex across the upholstered coach.

“I am not
infatuated
with Robert Burns,” she whispered hoarsely into the gloom. “I was tempted to seek some comfort from him, I’ll admit, because you’ve been so cold and horrible this entire year. But the minute that rustic kissed me, I knew I was not at
all
infatuated—and that’s the God’s truth, Alex!”

Alex stared at her for a moment, considering her outburst, and then shook his head.

“And Thomas Fraser? Can you say the same of him?” he said coldly.

“I can say in all truth I am not infatuated with Thomas Fraser,” she said wearily. “’Tis not been our problem, nor ever has been.” She looked at him intently, continuing, “When will you see, Alex, that Thomas and I had a dream that couldn’t come true… through nobody’s fault! Now I’m trying to learn to live without that dream. To care for and honor and enjoy the people closest to me… and the person closest to me is
you
!” she said hotly. “When will you begin to
trust
that I truly care for you and cease punishing me for what cannot be helped?”

“Please get out of the carriage,” Alex replied darkly. “Please leave me be.”

Jane stared at him, stunned that he did not respond in the slightest to her heartfelt words.

“If you can’t
possess
every fiber of my body and every corner of my soul, then you won’t
trust
me, or have me in your life—is that it?” she shouted in frustration.

Alex maintained his icy silence. Jane waited quietly for a long moment, hoping for any response. There was none. Despondently, she pushed against the leather-lined carriage door and stepped into the cool spring sunshine.

William Marshall’s smug countenance indicated that he had heard every word of their conversation. Without a glance in Jane’s direction, he nodded to the driver, who snapped the reins smartly. The horses trotted around the miniature park, past the yellow daffodils nodding a silent farewell. Jane watched the carriage turn the corner and head down Nicholson Road toward the coach station located at the White Horse Inn.

Jane waited nearly a month for some word from Alex. She hoped that during the time he spent alone in drafty Gordon Castle, without the company of the children or even the presence of his butler-confidant, he would reflect, as she had, that the two of them had much to conserve. But no word came. Not even a message to the girls or little Alexander was included in the fat missives sent to William Marshall and then forwarded to Charles Gordon for his attention.

When the first week of May came and went, and still there was no communication from Fochabers, Jane quietly ordered Nancy Christie and the other maids to prepare to depart for Gordon Castle, uninvited. For her trip north, Jane was forced to divide her large household into two coaches. Overriding Marshall’s protests, she determined that she, Charlotte, Madelina, and Susan would set out immediately in the first coach, followed by the butler, Nancy Christie, and the younger children on the next run north to Inverness scheduled for two days later. She hired local livery for the last leg to Fochabers, with instructions for a second hack to take the Marshall group to Gordon Castle as soon as they arrived.

Jane’s carriage rolled past the stone gates after midnight on a chilly clear evening in mid-May. She directed the coachman to proceed to the stables where he could sleep for the night before making the return journey to Inverness in the morning.

The latest of the Affrics gave a low yelp of pleasure when Jane and her party quietly let themselves into the chilly foyer. The great-grandson of Alex’s original setter wagged a greeting with his thick black tail and then curled up on the Turkish carpet in front of the low-burning fire.

“Poor Affric,” said Charlotte, shivering in her cloak. “I wonder why Papa made him sleep here, instead of in his bedchamber?”

“’Tis bitter cold,” Susan agreed, her teeth starting to chatter. “May we bring him up with us, Mama?” she pleaded.

“If you wish,” Jane whispered, anxious that their arrival should not rouse the household. “Your beds aren’t likely to be made up, darling, since the plan was to surprise your papa.” She said it nervously and herded the sleepy young women up the massive oak staircase in the newer wing.

“We’ll be fine, Mama,” Madelina said, kissing her cheek.

“Good night, Mama,” Charlotte said, her eyes searching her mother’s anxiously. “Our love to Papa.”

“Of course, sweetling. You’ll all see him in the morning. There’s the good lassies.”

“Come, Affric,” Charlotte commanded.

The dog happily trooped behind the girls to their rooms while Jane headed down the corridor in the opposite direction toward the old wing.

She noticed the light of a candle approaching her from one of the first bedrooms along the lengthy hallway. Mrs. Christie suddenly appeared in the gloom, blocking Jane’s passage. The housekeeper’s stringy hair streamed down her bony shoulders cloaked in a threadbare nightdress. The sharp-faced woman stared dumbly at Jane. Her openmouthed surprise was quickly replaced by a look of cunning that spread across her craggy features.

“You wasn’t expected,” the housekeeper said abruptly.

“Obviously not,” Jane snapped. “Now, step aside!”

The scrawny harridan returned to her room in a huff, slammed the door and turned the key in the lock.

A feeling of unease stole over Jane as she continued down the silent corridor. From the door of her old bedchamber, the massive four-poster loomed menacingly against the wall, its forest green bed curtains drawn shut like a velvet tomb. Jane rested her carpetbag on the floor and shrugged off her cloak. Fatigue numbed her body, and she quickly slipped out of her traveling suit and stays and stumbled toward the bed, clothed only in a light shift.

“Who goes there!” whispered a muffled voice from behind the bed curtains.

“’Tis I… Jane,” she replied softly, startled by the suddenness of Alex’s words. “I know we’ve arrived at an ungodly hour, but I was so longing to see you, Alex, that I—”

She parted the heavy drapery and stared into the blackness.

“Don’t come in here!” Alex replied sharply.

“Oh, Alex… please! Dinna let’s argue about—” Jane began, groping for the edge of the bed. Her hand encountered soft flesh and she heard a woman’s gasp.