So in Love (15 page)

Betty surprised her by nodding, as if she agreed. “Will you be leaving us as well?”

Inherent in the question was another one that wasn’t voiced:
Will you be leaving Douglas?
Evidently, it wasn’t prudery but loyalty that stiffened Betty’s back and made her voice sound like ice.

“When I’m no longer wanted,” Jeanne said, offering Betty the hard-won truth.

Betty nodded again. “Give me the directions,” she said. “I’ll fetch your necklace this afternoon.” A moment later she was out the door, leaving Jeanne in the empty room.

“When I’m no longer wanted,” she said again in the silence. How many nights had she lain awake, thinking of just that? How many hours had been spent reliving those moments with Douglas? She knew that she would stay until he sent her away, but she would not leave first. How odd to suddenly understand the enormity of her need for him.

A wiser woman would have been frightened. Instead, she only smiled faintly, thinking that, despite her care and caution, she had become a prisoner after all.

D
ouglas looked around the clan hall, relieved that he’d finally begin the journey home tomorrow. He’d stayed the full time, even though there had been plenty of reasons to leave Gilmuir early. Negotiations were under way for a new warehouse site in London. In addition, two ships, the
MacRae Maiden
and the newly refitted
Moira MacRae
, were due in from India. Men who had been boyhood companions in Nova Scotia captained both ships and he anticipated seeing them again.

If his impatience to return to Edinburgh was based partly on the fact that Jeanne was there, it was an admission Douglas had no intention of making to another human being.

Moving through the clan hall, Douglas nodded to a few villagers. Finally he sat at the table, a replica of one that had been here for generations. After the ’45, Gilmuir had been put to the torch before being razed by English cannon. Nothing had been left of the old castle but a few walls, a corridor, and the ruins of the priory. Alisdair had gradually rebuilt the fortress, adding on two wings and several towers.

The hall was an impressive chamber. Three stories tall, it was festooned at the ceiling with replicas of banners the MacRaes had possessed through the centuries. Small metal lanterns sat inside yellow-painted embrasures, casting intimate circles of light over the hundred or so people gathered here. There was enough festivity and laughter that no one noticed his silence.

Margaret, like the other children, had been sent to sleep in the loft on the third floor. None of the parents truly expected their children to fall sleep easily. There was too much excitement during this last night, too many conversations to listen to, and too much activity to witness.

Someone passed him a tankard, and he drank appreciably, savoring Brendan’s newest batch of whiskey. His brother had married Elspeth nine years earlier and a few years ago had taken over her father’s distillery.

“I’ll take a hundred barrels,” he said as Brendan sat beside him.

His brother laughed. “If you’ll take two hundred, I’ll throw in my brother-in-law to help you over the winter.”

Douglas raised one eyebrow. “Trouble in Inverness?”

“Jack needs a diversion,” Brendan said in a low tone.

He remembered Brendan’s brother-in-law from a previous visit to Inverness. Newly married and working at the distillery, Jack had been a happy young husband. Circumstances changed a year later when his wife died in childbirth.

“Elspeth thinks he needs a change of scenery,” Brendan said, looking fondly across the table at his wife.

“She looks tired,” Douglas said. Like most of his sisters-in-law, she’d done too much to prepare for this event. Since he’d arrived, he had a chance to witness exactly how much work the gathering required.

“She’s expecting again,” Brendan confided.

Douglas took another sip of his whiskey. “What does
that make, six children? Are you single-handedly trying to repopulate the Highlands, Brendan?”

His brother grinned but didn’t answer. Leaving the table a moment later, he went to sit beside his wife. Douglas couldn’t hear their whispered conversation but he could imagine it. Brendan would be urging her to rest while Elspeth reluctantly agreed. She wouldn’t go, however, until Brendan joined her.

Concern and caring, togetherness, a respite from loneliness, love—that’s what he’d witnessed in the MacRae marriages this past month. He’d never before been envious of his brothers, despite the fact that by the time he was born they were nearly men. He’d not had their camaraderie when he was a boy, but he’d had something they had not—the undivided attention of both his parents.

While his older brothers were sailing the seas or building ships, he was growing up in Nova Scotia, living a life appreciably different from theirs. The contingent of Scots who had emigrated from Gilmuir nearly fifty years ago had lived in hardship. His youth, however, had been spent in relative comfort. His brothers had been educated either by his parents or a Jesuit priest who had taken refuge among the émigrés from Scotland. Douglas, however, had wanted to attend the Sorbonne in Paris and had done so.

It was the loss of their parents that had brought the five brothers closer together and strengthened their bond. Over the past seven years Douglas had grown to know them, respect them, and consider his four brothers his best friends.

But he had no intention of telling any of them about Jeanne. He doubted any of them would really understand either the circumstances or what he felt. He wasn’t entirely certain he did.

The festivities were increasing in volume. Douglas leaned back against the wall and watched the dancing, feeling oddly as if he were simply an observer at this most
familial of occasions. Alisdair’s wife waved to him and he forced a smile to his face for Iseabal’s benefit.

Across the room he saw Hamish, and slowly he made his way to his brother’s side, greeting those people who called out to him. For three years he and Hamish had sailed together, Douglas learning a great deal about being a ship’s captain under his brother’s tutelage. Hamish had also taught him a great deal about life as well, those lessons learned through observation. His older brother had taken him on when he was seventeen years old, angry, heartsick, and feeling belligerent toward the world. Despite the fact that Hamish was newly married and no doubt had wanted to be alone with his bride, he’d given him patience, understanding, and enough work that he’d fallen exhausted into his bunk at night. When the time had come, Hamish had also listened, given him advice, and unfailingly assisted Douglas when he was determined to return to France to find his child.

“Is Mary ready for visitors?” Douglas asked.

“She’s had all hands on deck this afternoon cleaning,” Hamish said with a smile.

Every year at the Gathering all the brothers and their wives met aboard Hamish’s ship. The children remained at Gilmuir, tucked into their beds while the adults made the journey down to the firth. The event was an intimate one filled with recollections and laughter, and occasionally some solemn moments.

He excused himself and mounted the stairs to the loft. In moments he found Margaret’s pallet, and sat down on the edge of it.

“Wouldn’t you be more comfortable in your own room?” he asked his daughter. Each of the cousins had his or her own room in one of the wings Alisdair had added to Gilmuir. If Brendan’s brood kept growing, however, his brother would be forced to add to the fortress.

She shook her head vehemently from side to side, send
ing her black curls swinging. “Please, Papa, no. Everyone is looking forward to tonight.” She pulled on his sleeve until he bent down to hear her whisper. “Robbie has promised to tell me the story of Ionis the Saint.”

“A very great tale indeed,” he said, remembering one of the stories that swirled around Gilmuir. The priory, it was said, had been built on hallowed ground, a place where pilgrims had once come to pray.

He looked around the large loft. It was evident from their appearance that the children were related. Black hair was predominant, and in a few faces he saw the MacRae blue eyes. He doubted, for all the presence of blankets and pillows, that there would be much sleep going on tonight.

Iseabal was tapping Robbie’s nose with her finger, a gentle admonition that her youngest child no doubt required. Riona, sitting beside her own two children, smiled at him and he smiled back.

Margaret followed his gaze, her eyes suddenly becoming pensive.

“Would you tell me a story, Papa?”

He knew, without asking, what story she wanted to hear. Amid all this maternal affection she would naturally feel the loss of a mother more acutely. Several of her cousins glanced at him with interest, and he suddenly realized that the tale was not going to be for her ears alone.

“Please Papa?” she said, scooting down on the pallet. He covered her with the sheet and tucked it below her chin.

“Once,” he began, “I lived in Paris.”

“When you were going to school,” she interrupted.

He nodded, hiding his smile. “Yes, when I was going to school.” The story was one he’d told her since she was a baby. But then, he’d never thought to see Jeanne du Mar
chand again. Now he wished he’d invented a little more, and depended on the truth a little less.

“You were studying philosophy,” she said.

“Who is telling this story?” he teased.

She only smiled at him and for the moment was content to let him continue.

“I was studying philosophy,” he said. He had been so filled with himself back then, so certain of the world. Everything had been either black or white, with no grays in between. If he wanted something, all he had to do was reach out his hand and grasp it. He had never failed, never been denied anything, had never felt pain. Later he looked back and winced at what a naïve, gullible, and impressionistic fool he’d been.

“And you saw her one day,” Margaret prompted.

At his nod, she clasped her hands together over the sheet, so obviously impatient with him that he smiled.

“I saw her walking to her carriage with her maid at her side.” Too easily, his mind replayed that instant. “She was the most beautiful creature I’d ever seen.” She’d laughed at something her maid had said, in such an unrestrained manner that he’d been captivated. This was a fulsome laugh, not the polite titter used at the French court or the embarrassed chuckle an Englishwoman might employ, half covering her mouth with her hand as if to hide her less-than-perfect teeth. Jeanne had laughed with such great abandon that he’d stopped and watched her, smiling at the sound of her amusement.

Margaret had the same lust for life.

He glanced at his daughter. “She smiled at me just then,” he said. Suddenly he was no longer only a student in Paris. He could have been a courtier from a bygone time, a suitor in medieval Italy. She had the capacity to render him both more and less than he was simply with a smile.

“And you followed her home.”

“Yes,” he admitted, “I followed her home.” Only to find
that she was the daughter of the Comte du Marchand, and so well guarded that he’d despaired of ever seeing her again. “I watched and waited for her,” he said, abruptly conscious of the audience to his tale. Iseabal leaned against the wall and smiled at him, and he realized she had probably never heard the story before.

“There was a stone fence around her Paris home. I climbed it one day, and sat there debating what to do next when I saw her. She was walking through the gardens, a book in her hand.”

He’d jumped down and gone to her. Jeanne had turned at his approach, so startled that she’d dropped the book to the ground.

“I picked up her book and handed it to her.”

“And that’s when you knew that you loved her.” Margaret smiled, satisfied.

“Yes,” he said. “That’s when I knew.” As simple as that, he’d fallen in love, the emotion coming to him in a way it never had before and probably never would again, suddenly and cataclysmically. He’d not expected to find himself enchanted by a pair of fog-colored eyes and a pink mouth that curved into such a delightful smile. Immediately, he’d wanted to reach out his hand and feel the silken texture of her hair, let the tendrils wrap themselves around his fingers. Then he would pull her gently to him and kiss that surprisingly seductive mouth.

She had smiled at him, however, asking him in French if he was a trespasser or a burglar.

“Neither,” he’d said in his very bad French. “Only an admirer.”

“Of me?” she’d asked, changing to English so quickly that he could only stare at her in stunned amazement.

“Dear God, yes,” he said, an answer that made her frown at him. “I’m sorry, but you’re so beautiful,” he tried to explain.

She’d laughed then, her amusement further ensnaring him. “You shouldn’t be here,” she said a moment later, banishing him with a slight smile.

“Probably not,” he’d replied, feeling reckless. “But I’ve been brought here against my will. By you.”

She’d laughed again, and he’d laughed with her.

“What did she do then?” Margaret prompted, bringing him back to the present.

“She wanted to know my name.”

“The very next day,” Margaret added, “you began to meet in the garden.”

“Yes.” He smoothed his hand over the sheet in an effort to organize his thoughts. Every day for months they had met in the secluded garden at the rear of the house. There, he’d loved her, beneath a venerable tree near the corner, a secluded bower that had become their first trysting place. He could still recall that time as if he had just left her, the memories of her so poignant and perfect in detail that they would no doubt forever rank among the most precious of his recollections.

“A few months later you asked her to marry you,” Margaret said impatiently. “Of course she said yes.”

He realized he was faltering in his tale, so he continued. “Yes, we married,” he said, unabashedly lying to his only child. The story was one he’d concocted a few years earlier, never realizing that it would appeal to Margaret’s sense of drama and adventure. “But we had to steal away, because her father did not approve.”

“He was a mean old man, but she was beautiful like a princess,” Margaret announced, a little louder than necessary. No doubt the words were meant for her cousins, most of whom were listening.

He bent over to kiss her on the forehead. He smiled at her but that didn’t soften her sudden frown. She could be very critical of his storytelling abilities, so he continued
with his fabricated tale. “We sailed around the world until we discovered that you were going to be born.”

“Were you very happy?”

“Very happy,” he said, glancing up to discover Iseabal and Riona looking at him. Their compassion was surprisingly painful, so he concentrated instead on Margaret’s intent face. She had her eyes closed and he wondered if she was imagining her mother.

“She had black hair just like mine, didn’t she, Papa?”

“She did.”
And does, a thick mane that gleams in the sunlight and in the soft glow of candles.
He still, even now, wanted to thread his fingers through her hair and feel the softness of it.