One Man's Love (10 page)

She took the message and stared at it curiously. Her late husband’s name stared back at her in a black, perfectly executed penmanship.

Brandidge Hall was a serene place, so much so that she could hear the individual footsteps of each person as they walked through the fifty rooms. She rarely heard laughter or conversation, the earl having disliked discourse between his servants. Patricia wondered, sometimes, if they ever smiled at each other or winked in passing.

Her husband had a taste for the French, and even this room, her private retreat, bore signs of his influence. The lady’s writing table was a delicate piece, with its curved legs and intricately carved top. She put aside her needlework, walked to it now, and placed the envelope down on its inlaid surface.

“A letter, Mama?” David asked, turning from his position on the settee. The gray cat sitting on his lap glanced up at him in remonstrance, her pale yellow eyes narrowed in annoyance. David smiled down at her and resumed his affectionate petting. Sometimes Patricia thought that animals loved David in a special way. That particular cat, named Ralph in honor of David’s first and only tutor, would never have sat on her lap for so long.

“Yes, dearest,” she said. “From your brother.” If only it had arrived when Gerald had been alive. It would have pleased him so much. Opening the flap, she began to read Alec’s words, telling herself that it was necessary to do so, if only to obtain his address.
He must be informed of his father’s passing and his own ascension to the earldom.

He went on for several pages, the words to his father those of a fond son, not one who had not communicated in so many years. She wondered, now, if she had contributed to the separation between them. She had not fought against his decision to join the regiment when he was eighteen.

Perhaps because it had been increasingly difficult to compare the two brothers. Alec had been a charming boy with a ready smile. He showed a determination to do as he wished, however, despite what his father wanted for him.

Patricia glanced at her son and smiled fondly. She had known ever since he was a small boy that David was different. At first his difficulties were not noticeable to most people, even to her closest friends. But as time passed and David remained immured in a world other boys left behind, it became obvious that he would never advance to adulthood in his mind.

It would have been easier, perhaps, if she had treated him as most of her friends did their children,
leaving their intimate needs to be catered to by a variety of paid servants. But from the very beginning he had been dear to her heart.

In those years when her friends had reported glowingly of their own progeny’s triumphs, Patricia had smiled politely and ached inside.

David was a kind young man with not a word of dislike for anyone. Instead, he viewed the world with a wide-eyed wonder as if expecting all the best from it. He saw nothing but friends in even the most suspect of places, and would willingly give his last penny to anyone who asked. Because of his innate goodness and innocence, he needed protection and almost constant guidance.

Nature had provided him with good looks in compensation for other deficiencies. Her son was almost perfectly handsome with his dark brown hair and large brown eyes.

“Can I read the letter?” he asked now.

“Certainly,” she said, holding it out for him.

He carefully placed the cat on the adjacent cushion and rose, taking the letter. “I remember Alec,” he said, smiling.

Although he read the letter carefully, Patricia knew that he would not understand the meaning behind all the words. She repeated to him what Alec had written.

“I wish I could see him,” he said, passing the letter back to her. “He was very tall.”

“You are his equal now,” she said.

“I’m tall,” he said proudly.

She nodded and smiled, hiding the spurt of pain at the sweetness and vacancy of his expression. Over the years she’d become accustomed to that ache just as she was her breath and the beat of her blood.

“Perhaps he’ll come to see us soon,” she said, hoping that it was, indeed, the case. The meeting with the solicitor had frightened her.

“I’m afraid, my lady,” he’d said, “that the earl made no provisions for David. Could it be that he wished his son to provide for him?” he added, his voice filled with kindness.

“Yes,” she said, folding her gloved hands together on her lap. “He did. I was just hoping that he might have made other arrangements as well.”

The solicitor shook his head, his expression one of compassionate gravity.

Every penny was entailed to Alec and could not be touched until he returned to Brandidge Hall. There was some hint he was in Scotland, but the records were so poor that there was no way to determine exactly where. But she’d learned that the Duke of Cumberland himself had been his sponsor, so she had had her solicitor write to him in hopes that the duke would tell her what she needed to know.

Now Patricia knew where Alec was, but the knowledge did not aid her. Even when Alec returned, whenever that might be, there was no guarantee that he would provide for David. Or even for her.

She and her son shared an uncertain future.

“It’s important that we see him quickly,” she said, speaking the words aloud before she thought them. She didn’t like to worry David and withheld most concerns from him.

“Do you love him more?” David asked, frowning.

“No, of course not,” she said, folding the letter again. “You are my son,” she said. “Alec had a different mother.”

At his look, she sighed. She would have to explain it now.

“Alec’s mother died,” she said, “and his father and I married. You are our son.”

“Are you going to die, Mama?”

“No,” she said, in order to soothe him. Another worry—what would happen to him when she died?

“Why can’t we go to see him?” he said, smiling at her angelically.

She stared at David, the thought so simple that she should have thought of it herself. The rebellion was over; there would be little danger in traveling through Scotland. There she could speak to Alec about the one concern she had over all: David’s future.

“Indeed, David,” she said, smiling at her son. “Why can’t we?”

It was a pleasant thing to have a woman around, Donald Tanner thought as he crossed the distance between the fort and the ruined castle. He held a ewer filled with steaming water with both hands and a pile of clean washing cloths tucked under his arm.

He wished that Fort William was not too new to have attracted wives. In a year or two they’d arrive, perhaps. Flowers would be planted along the perimeter of the fort and soft laughter would be heard as commonly as the rough oaths that rang through the courtyard now.

Women brought something with them that was lacking in the presence of men. Or maybe, he thought, it was simply that with women around men could forget about war for a while. He’d learned to read through the kindness of a barracks wife, a vicar’s daughter who’d married an infantryman and now followed the drum.

He stepped through the courtyard, carefully balancing the ewer, knocked on the door, and waited pa
tiently for Leitis to open it. When she didn’t answer, he pushed it open, walked inside, and set the ewer down on the table. He frowned when he realized the room was empty, but then he glanced toward the privy door. To give her more privacy, he left the room again.

After a few more moments in which he tapped his foot and occupied himself by counting the rows of bricks in the opposite wall, he knocked on the door again. When there wasn’t a response, he entered and crossed the floor, hoping that the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach was only his breakfast and not a dawning suspicion.

But when he knocked on the privy door and she did not answer, he realized that it was as bad as he had feared. He pulled open the door and walked down the short hallway.

“Miss?” The echo of his voice was the only response.

Leaving the colonel’s chamber, he hurried through the archway and around the piles of bricks to gain a clear view of the land bridge and the glen. There was no sign of her.

The colonel wasn’t going to be pleased. His commanding officer wasn’t angry often, but when he was, every man knew that it was better to avoid him. He had that way about him, of speaking in a low, tight voice with his eyes singeing holes through you. Donald hadn’t been reprimanded all that many times, but the experience had left him wishing not to repeat it.

A feeling of presentiment struck him then, not unlike the Sight some of the Scots claimed to have. From the way he’d looked at the woman last night, Donald was certain that her disappearance was going to greatly displease the colonel.

T
he village of Gilmuir was, in comparison to the rest of Alec’s patrol area, well fed and prosperous. It startled him to realize how much the Highlanders had suffered this last year. It was one thing to see the gaunt figures of the men in Inverness, another to see the dirt-streaked face of a young child too weak to cry.

They rode north from Gilmuir into an area that had not been linked by General Wade’s roads. No doubt Wade would have thought the area uninhabitable, stark as it was. A purple haze, only occasionally lit by streaks of sunlight across the valleys, shadowed the hills. A lake they passed appeared almost like blue crystal, tranquilly reflecting the forests and high, snow-dusted mountain peaks encircling it.

What clachans remained were tucked into protected areas between the hills, in glens that were gray with slag or brown with mud. The huts of one small hamlet cowered on their foundations like abused animals, their inhabitants equally silent and wary.

A woman stood in the doorway, clutching the hand of a child with a skeletally thin face. The mother wore a guarded expression as she watched the column of soldiers pass, but it was the look in the boy’s eyes Alec would forever remember. As if he had witnessed too much for his tender years and silently waited for the next misfortune.

That look, he realized as the day progressed, was common among the people he saw. They were survivors even as they held on to their humanity with an almost desperate grip. The shadow of what they had once been was there in the proud tilt of a chin, thinned lips, and eyes that glittered with hate.

Another realization came to him as they passed slowly through the territory that had been given him to oversee. There was nothing left of the Highlands to defeat or subdue. If there was resistance, it was in the thoughts of men like Hamish who lived in another time, or in the glances of the women who pulled their children close to their skirts and whispered of the English devils.

He had yet to meet a hale and hearty man who might have fought against him.

“A long way from the comforts of England, sir,” Sedgewick said, looking around him with disdain. “I’d never thought that anyone could live in this manner until I was posted here.”

“Did you never think to feed them?” Alec asked, turning in his saddle. Fort William was more barnyard than fortress. A few cattle would never have
been missed, but would have made a difference in the lives of these people.

“Why should we, Colonel?” Sedgewick asked, surprised. “The fewer barbaric Scots, the better.”

“I believe that wholesale genocide is not the aim here, Major,” he said impatiently. The truth, however, was just the opposite.
Do your duty, Colonel.
In his mind, Cumberland’s voice echoed.
Subdue them by any means. Kill the beggars if you have to, Colonel. Make them know that England rules them with an iron fist. Starve them, burn their homes, teach them a lesson.

Sedgewick evidently didn’t care that the Highlanders he might have saved were mostly women and children, along with a few old men. He did not see them as individuals, but only as a race of people who had dared to rebel against the might of the Empire and therefore should be punished.

Sedgewick and the Duke of Cumberland thought alike in that regard.

It was almost noon by the time they reached the farthest point of the quadrant, but there was no sign of Hamish. None of the people they met confessed to knowing him or his whereabouts. But then, Alec had doubted from the beginning that they would betray the old fool. He had expected Hamish, however, to be piping on the highest hill in plain sight, in cheerful disregard for the English laws and the danger such action might bring to Leitis.

“We’ll stop for the noon meal on the other side of this settlement,” he said to Harrison, knowing his adjutant would send the information down the line.

This place was little more than a few mud huts gathered together in the vee of a mountain valley. Grass grew on the roofs of the houses, once a grazing place for sheep. But there were no animals in sight now.

An old woman stood leaning heavily on a whittled cane, unmoving as they approached. Her white hair was neatly braided, her dress tidy, the worn shawl she wore bearing the look of having been lovingly woven. She was painfully thin, her hands gnarled like the root of an old tree, her features drawn and pale. However, there was no fear on her face, only a simple acceptance of their presence.

He slowed his horse and dismounted. Behind him the column of soldiers halted. Walking down the path to where she stood, he bent and spoke to her.

“How can I help you, Mother?” he asked softly in Gaelic. He’d had time since returning to Scotland to refresh his memory of the language. In Inverness the ability to understand the prisoners’ conversation had proven disturbing rather than helpful, but this was the first time Gaelic had passed his lips since he was a child.

She didn’t look surprised at his knowledge of the language. Her eyes, a soft green and surprisingly young in her lined face, studied his, as if she could see beyond his appearance to the man beneath. Slowly, her gaze moved from his shoulders to his boots, but there was no disdain in her glance. Yet the absence of expression was as telling as anger would have been.

“I need nothing, English,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper.

He had the thought, errant and unwelcome, that she was a ghost of this place, left behind to speak for all of them.

“Where are the others?”

“I have a few neighbors, English, but they are hiding from you. Fear makes them cautious.”

“But you’re not afraid?”

“I’m too old to be afraid,” she said, and unexpectedly smiled. The expression made her face younger,
hinted at the beauty she had been in her youth and might have been in her old age had near-starvation not made her haggard.

“Have you any food?” he asked.

“I have dirt, English,” she said, her smile never fading. “A hill full of that.”

He dismissed the unwelcome thought that it might have come to that in the past year and motioned to Harrison. His adjutant dismounted and stepped forward.

“Bring my provisions,” Alec said. The loss of one meal would not harm him, but it might well mean the difference between life and death for this woman.

“Is that wise, sir?” Harrison asked, glancing over his shoulder at Sedgewick. He sat impassively waiting, his attention fixed on Alec.

Alec pressed his fingers against the bridge of his nose, closed his eyes, and wished his headache away. Harrison was right. Any act of charity would be construed as aiding the enemy. Information he suspected Sedgewick would not hesitate to use against him.

“I’ll not take your food, English,” the old woman interjected. She shook her head as if to accentuate her denial, then turned slowly and began to walk toward her cottage. She was so weak that she had to stop a number of times, leaning heavily on her cane. He approached her, held out his arm, and when she would not take it, took hers. A quick sideways frown from her only increased his irritation.

“You would die rather than take my food?” he asked.

“You have taken everything else from me, English. I’ll cherish my pride.”

“You cannot live on pride,” he said.

“Nor can you live without it,” she said simply, silencing him.

He walked with her, stood in the doorway of her cottage. He’d expected her to shut the door in his face, but she had no energy left for that. Instead she sat on a chair beside the door, gripping the cane tightly with white fingers and leaning her forehead against the backs of her hands.

The cottage was little more than a mud crofter’s hut, round, with a chimney hole cut in the roof. In the center of the earthen floor a small pit had been dug for a fire, both a source of warmth and a place to prepare meals. Now, however, it was cold, the ashes swept clean.

Against one wall were a small table and the mate to the chair in which she sat. On the opposite wall, cut into the stone of the hill, was a bed of sorts, piled high with animal skins. But the most surprising article of furniture in the hut was a loom.

He entered the cottage, ducking his head beneath the lintel. His fingers trailed along the wood of the frame.

“Do you weave?” he asked.

“I used to,” she said, her voice whispery thin in this silent place. “Before my hands grew too pained. My daughter took it up.”

He glanced at her. “Where is she?”

“Close enough,” she answered, her gaze intent on him. “Beneath the cairn stones.”

“I’m sorry,” he said simply.

She smiled slightly. “I cannot blame you for that death, English. It was a hard birth, and neither she nor the child survived it.”

“Would you sell me your loom?” he suddenly asked.

“What would I do with your coin, English?” she asked, amused.

“Then trade,” he suggested. “Your loom for food.”

She studied him again silently. “Why would you want such a thing?”

“To right a wrong,” he said, offering her a truth.

She finally nodded, and he went to the door, motioned for Harrison. The trade was concluded when two men loaded the loom into a rough cart purchased from another villager.

Before they left, Harrison brought not only Alec’s provisions, but also his own, piling the food on the old woman’s table.

She glanced up at Alec, her smile gone.

“It’s a path you’ll take. Not an easy one,” she said enigmatically, “but one that your heart makes for you.”

“A fortune?” he asked kindly.

“A truth,” she said, smiling once more. She touched his arm in parting, a gesture that felt, strangely, almost like a benediction.