Wedgewick Woman (10 page)

The Laird did not know what to do.  She knew it. 

Before long a gathering had formed.  The entire bunch took one look at Cork, then at Bria and broke into guffaws.

Laird Carmichael found himself standing in the midst, and finally gave up and joined them.  After a few moments of hilarity he hollered loud enough for all to hear, “Get the pigs back into their pen.  See to it.”

The group snickered as they went back to work, glad to see their Laird in such a state.  Laird Carmichael realized he hadn’t laughed that well for many a year and decided to break the scheme of things and take himself outside the walls to find his favorite tree.

“Ross, call for Knight.” He shouted in his best voice which seemed weak even to his own ears, and found that Ross was himself chasing a pig.  Bria stood aside watching the entire scene and he noted the intimate smile that passed between her and Ross.  He felt a pang of jealousy stab his heart.

Passing a squealing young pig to Cork, Ross commanded a stable boy to bring the Laird’s mount.  Cork, still smiling at his master’s fit of laughter, stood sentinel at the pen’s door, slamming it shut each time a pig was returned and bearing up against it with all his might.

Chapter
17

The people watched, talking among themselves, as their Laird settled himself astride Knight and sauntered out of the castle doors alone.  Clan Lairds rarely went outside the gates without guard. Laird Carmichael had often spent time alone outside the gate.  They had heard him tell Ross that he would be alone this eve. Perhaps the Laird was not happy since his wife’s death. Even the peasants in the valley had heard of her wild and unwifely ways.  Surely the Laird was glad to be rid of her they mused.  Yet a man must have his woman…and heirs surely.  The whispers began rumors throughout the clan.

Laird Carmichael looked at his people talking quietly.  Most likely they were starting new rumors which he hated.  Perhaps he should not be the Laird of the clan, but birth had placed him in the position.  Sensing he needed to think, he withdrew his hold on the stallion’s reins and let him have his head.  Giving full control to his spirited mount they raced across the meadows yellow with wildflowers.  Buttercups, daisies, foxglove and clover assaulted his senses.  The lush grass in varying subtle shades of green carpeted the broad hills and low valleys.  The familiar view renewed his heart, his love for Scotland never wavering.  Finally, when Knight had his run, he settled under his favorite tree…a white-barked birch and stared out over the River Tweed.  Its rushing sounds lulled his mind backward to memories of earlier days that were still fresh in his heart.  He and Helen sat under this very same tree for their first journey outside the castle only a few weeks after their marriage. 

Not quite knowing what to do with a wife, his father had suggested to his son that he teach her to ride.  She, of genteel English nobility, had agreed immediately, much to his surprise.  He had helped her mount the
beast
, as she called the horse and he taught her basic riding skills.  In those moments when he was alone with her, mindful that the guards watched their backs, he found that she was a willing and quick learner.

Her smile so beautiful, and her laughter, betrayed his young heart instantly.  They had barely begun to share their married life when he’d been drawn by her loveliness so well he began to think perhaps he might love her.

After each outing he felt more drawn to her as each day passed. When they were alone they were very happy; until just four months later when he noticed her openly staring and inviting men’s attentions. At first he had foolishly refused to believe it since they’d been so enthralled with each other. Soon the flirtations became so bold that even his father spoke to him about settling his young wife and making sure she did not soil the name of Carmichael.

To assuage his father he’d tried to be more sensible and take her riding, sent her on trips to London to purchase any sort of frippery she desired, even walked the grounds at her every whim when he’d rather be about with some of his young friends, who by now thought him predictable and boring.

Having known his own mother only until the age of eight, he did not fully understand the way of things between a man and a woman.  Did his mother cry every time she did not get her way…somehow he seriously doubted his father would have allowed such whimperings. 

Memories, few as they were, of his mother were of a tender, caring, soft creature, who cared more for others than herself.  He had few recollections of seeing his parents together, of his father caressing or even speaking kindly with his mother.  So all he learned, he learned at his father’s table.

Angrily, he remembered the words of his father the day of the accident, “You have not chosen well.  You’ll spend the entire of your life appeasing the spoiled lass.”

The words were burned into his mind.  For it was not he who had chosen his wife, but his father. He made himself a promise never to honor a bribe.

Lee lay his head against the birch and let the winds blow across his face, the sun settling lower over the hill blinding his eyes so that they closed. 

Even now he could hear Helen’s laugh.

“Lee, come let’s walk.” She’d appear at the door walking on her toes in excitement, her blue eyes searing into his knowingly, her gown swinging to and fro, as she made her way toward him.  Dropping herself in his lap, for he was often working on the accounts, she persuaded him with soft kisses and fluttering eyelashes. 

All of his excuses were met with pouting looks that would drive any man wild to be with her, so he called for a secretary to come and take his position, while he walked the grounds with his young wife.

“Please darling, do not be angry with me when I ask you this.” She would begin and before he’d known what she was about he would be up to his ears in promises he would surely have to keep.  “You know that you are so busy, and I’m…we’ll, I’m so lonely at times I wish Mother would come for me.”

“Helen we are married.  You cannot return to your Mother and besides she has not shown her face these last eight months.”

“It is as you say and I am all alone.  That’s all the more reason for me to be about town.  To attend the opera, shop on Bond Street, things you are not the least interested in.”

“You are not alone.  You have me.” He would caress her and she would burrow her soft golden head into his shoulder and he felt like a man bound to protect and defend.  Quick, she would engage him in playful chidings until they would fall to the ground laughing like children.

“Don’t.” He’d admonish when she’d trap him against a tree and reach up to kiss him full on the mouth, for his wife had no sensitivities even though she knew the guards followed them. 

“Do you think it unseemly?” she would tempt him.  “’Tis no more than what goes on between men and women in all households.” She shrugged.

“But not under the trees in the midst of daylight with all the guard to see.” He pushed her away, displeasure in his eyes.

“How else can we attain heirs?” She feigned embarrassment but he knew she was not in the least shy and retiring in that regard.

Later he would know that she had enticed him in front of the guards only to make them jealous; for before their marriage had reached the first year mark, he’d found her with her laces fully undone in the arms of his closest friend, Sean MacArthur.

From that day, even though she tried her best to soothe his rancorous heart, he had hated her with a bitterness that frightened even himself.  After several futile attempts to revive their farce of a
marriage
, Helen had done her best to get her revenge at his refusal to even touch her.

He had tried not to notice the vicious, sneering looks she would give him, then turn and instantly become a smiling vixen to a passing man; be it servant or guard, she cared not which. 

And poor Sean MacArthur; Lee felt pity for him as well, for she had gone on to another, having no attachments even to her lover.  Sean  left the castle, though Lee had not asked him to.  Within three months Sean was killed in battle.  Lee, thinking that he’d joined a small clan known for their aggressive behavior to assuage his guilt, knew his closest friend had paid the ultimate price — his life.

During the last months of their marriage he learned to close his heart, fasten it down with a fierceness he had not known he possessed, and let her go.  Finally the last year she went to London and he did not see her for months.

After his father died, barely two years into the marriage, she had gone even more daft, if that were possible, thinking she could get a satchel of money from her weak, young husband, now that he was chief Laird…and try her follies in the London saloons.

The last time she arrived home, she seemed different.  Something changed, but he couldn’t quite figure it.  She spent most of her time in her room and barely ate.  Finally at the urging of Mrs. Calvert, who had carried up her meals and came back with not a morsel touched for three days, he had gone up to see his wife.

Busy now as Laird of Dunbeernton Castle, Lee was loathe to see her.  With his father gone he had more duties, did not wish to be pounced upon for even more funds, and truthfully cared not a whit if she had eaten.

Eventually, after much talk about the castle, Lee knew he had to give his wife some attention, else the female servants would have his head.  They stared with open disgust at his person every time they passed.

When Mrs. Calvert had come to him a second time, hands on hips and with that deploring look of hers, he had gone to Helen.

Tapping at the door of his wife’s room he found her curled upon the bed her bedclothes tangled about her thin body and her hair in such disarray as he had never witnessed.  Walking up to the bed he called her name and she turned hollow blue eyes to his and stared.

“What do you want?” she whispered. 

“What is wrong with you?” he asked harshly.

“What is that to you?  You do not love me.” She stated flatly.

“Should I?”

“No.”  She turned away again.

Lee didn’t know what to say.  His heart had been so bitter that he had hardly a care; but he could not let this dejected creature, his own wife, lay there in such a condition and not do something.  She
was
under his care.  Instinctively he knew his mother would have offered kindness instead of retribution for wrongs committed.

So he sat beside her and took her hand which was nothing more than thin white skin stretched over blue veins and fragile bones. 

“Tell me all.” His voice gentled.

She looked away and he saw the tears begin to slide down her thin cheeks and felt the ogre.  “Speak to me.  I will not hold anything against you.”

She turned her tear-filled blue eyes to him and announced.  “I am a failure.” And broke into a fit of sobs so that he enclosed her slender body into his arms and holding her to his chest, tried to comfort her.  When she would not be comforted, he pulled her onto his lap and held her thus for many minutes until her sobs quieted.

“Oh Lee I have been a fool.  My life has been ruined.  I have lost all that I love.” She cried. 

Before the night was over he had spent it with his wife in a renewed commitment of his own heart to be a better husband to her. 

Within a fortnight she had left him again.  He heard through the London gossips that her lover had jilted her and she had run home ashamed that she had suffered such a vulgar humility in front of the
ton.

When word arrived that her lover wished to see her again she had gone off and for Lee that had been the end of it.  He would sever himself and his heart from her once for all.

“Mrs. Calvert,” see that the servants pack Lady Carmichael’s things.” He had announced the next day.  “And there is not to be one item left in this castle that belongs to her.  Is that understood?”

When Mrs. Calvert learned of Lady Carmichael’s recent goings-on in London, she said, “Lord Carmichael, I shall see to the task myself.  I shall leave nothing behind.” She promised.  She nodded her white head, plunked her thick fists at her hips, and gave him a look he could not discern.  But her walk said it all for she stomped up the stairs and he did not see her for the rest of the day.

Within the week his entire clan knew of his unfortunate circumstances, much whispering and talking behind the hands told him it was so.  Anxious to reassert his position as Laird of the Carmichael’s he made great work of adding a completely new wing to the castle and reinforcing the walls with a new idea he had designed.

The next news he received months later concerning his wife came from Annabel Wedgewick, that his wife had passed.  He returned a missive to Helen’s mother asking that arrangements be made to have his wife entombed in London; that he would not be in attendance.

Weeks later the charges had come in; one signed by his wife’s mother for a head stone costing an outrageous amount.  He paid the costs and hoped that it was the end of the entire affair. 

From then on he thought little of Helen, preferring to throw himself into his work as Laird of the Carmichaels.