Whence Came a Prince (61 page)

At last Leana knelt beside him, her cheeks wet with tears. “May I … hold my sister?”

She received Rose’s body as a mother would a child, cradled in her
arms, head tucked against her breast. “Oh, Rose, how can I … What will I do … without you?”

Knowing all they had been through, all they had meant to each other, Jamie’s grief was compounded until he was numb with pain.

After a time, Leana lifted her gaze, her sorrow mirroring his. “I must wash and dress her now. Would you call Eliza for me?”

Jamie stood, his legs nigh to buckling underneath him. He could not bear to see the woman who had given him so much pleasure reduced to a … body.
God help me, to a corpse.
“I will get Eliza,” he told her. The women of the household were needed now. “And then I will see Reverend Moodie. If he will even speak with me.”

“Jamie.” Leana laid her hand on his arm. “He will understand. You were … not yourself.”

“I was entirely myself,” he muttered, grief giving way to shame as he bolted down the stair, ignoring the pain in his leg. He strode down the dim corridor with an uneven gait, his steps slowing as he reached the door to the maids’ room. The lasses loved Rose as well and would be undone by the news.

Eliza opened at his knock, her cheeks chapped from crying. “Oh, Mr. McKie.” She sagged against the doorjamb when he told her. “I’m sae sorry. I dinna ken what else tae say.”

“I’m sorry as weel, Mr. McKie.” Annabel stood behind her, wringing her hands, while Ian sat at her feet. The boy clapped at the sight of him, smiling as ever.

“Here, lad.” Jamie lifted the child into his arms, not caring if the maids saw fresh tears in his eyes. “Come cheer your father’s heart.” Rose had adored her stepson, and he had warmed to her as well. Even young as he was, Ian would miss her. “You are all the family I have now, Ian.” Jamie swallowed hard. “Just the twa McKie men, aye?”

There would have been five of us.
The realization struck him a crushing blow.

Rose had so longed to be a mother. She’d talked about little else last spring. Cursing her father had not shortened Rose’s life, no matter what the minister might insinuate; he did not know Lachlan McBride. The very thing she’d wanted most—motherhood—had cost Rose her young life.

Not true, Jamie.
The nagging voice inside him would not be silenced.
Leaving Auchengray cost Rose her life. If you had waited until the bairns were born
…

Suddenly feeling ill, he handed Ian to Annabel. “Eliza, you are needed up the stair. Will you be … That is, can you … manage?”

She straightened her white cap and wiped her cheeks with her apron. “I can, sir.” Ducking round him, she hastened off to do her duty by her mistress.

“And you, Annabel.” He ran his hand across his hair, trying to get his bearings. “Will you and Ian be all right?”

“We will, Mr. McKie. I’ll see tae supper for us a’. Are ye bound tae visit wi’ the minister noo?” When he nodded, she inclined her head toward the pitcher and basin in the room. “Though I’d make a puir valet, I’d be honored to see ye properly groomed afore ye go.”

Shaved, combed, and scrubbed, Jamie left the Cree Inn a short time later, studying the sky as he walked toward the bridge, trying to determine the hour. Three o’ the clock, he guessed. Though the fog had dissipated by noon, the air was still moist. Gray clouds blotted out the sun.

He crossed the Penkill, aiming for the manse beside the kirk, where he was met at the door by Mistress Moodie, a brown-haired woman with a timid smile. “Mr. McKie. We’ve been expecting you.”

Reverend Moodie rose from his chair when Jamie entered the parlor. Both men stood for a moment, eying each other, until Jamie cleared his throat and said what he’d come to say. “I beg your pardon—”

“And I beg yours, sir.” The minister crossed the room, extending his hand. “My earlier admonition was true, but harsh and poorly timed. I cannot think what I might have done had a stranger been thoughtless enough to say such a thing about my wife. Do forgive me.”

Taken aback, Jamie shook the man’s hand. He’d not known many ministers to be so quick to apologize.

“ ’Tis clear, Mr. McKie, you’ve come with tragic news.”

Jamie stared at the carpet, trying to keep his emotions in check as he forced out a single syllable. “Aye.”

He bade Jamie sit, a cup of tea appeared, and words of sympathy were spoken. After a suitable interlude, the minister shifted their conversation to matters of necessity. “The beadle cannot work on the Sabbath, but I’ll have him dig the grave at first light.”

“Nae, my … family in Glentrool has a … mausoleum …” The thought of his young wife sealed in a granite tomb made Jamie’s empty stomach churn.

“Glentrool is ten miles off,” the minister reminded him. “Since it is improper to carry a coffin on a wheeled conveyance, you would need to find several men willing to carry her kist a great distance on their shoulders. Have you friends in the village on whom you could depend?”

Jamie knew the answer. That morn in the kirk not a soul had welcomed him home to the parish. “I’m afraid I have been gone from Monnigaff … too long.”

“Then ’tis best to bury your wife here, Mr. McKie, on hallowed ground. I’ll have the beadle ring the deid bell through the village this evening. Mr. Lamont will also meet you at the inn at nine in the morn for the procession, soon after the joiner comes.” Reverend Moodie stood, his duties discharged. “Your family misses you, I am sure. May the Lord comfort you this night.”

Jamie stumbled back to the inn, seeing nothing but the grass beneath his feet.

Rose is dead.
His mind kept turning the words over, examining them, rejecting them. She was here yestreen. Alive, if not well. Had he imagined it all? Was it another of his vivid dreams? Perhaps when he climbed up the stair, when he walked into the room, he would find her recovered, sitting up.
You’ve come to rescue me.

A desperate hope, a foolish wish, but it fueled his steps through the inn. He barely knocked before throwing open the door and turning toward the bed.

Rose lay in utter stillness, dressed in a rose-colored gown. Her gloved hands were crossed over her breast, pennies covered her eyes, and her skin was like wax.

He staggered backward, stunned by the truth afresh.

“Jamie.” Leana stood, beckoning him closer. “I regret we could not
dress her in the gown she last wore.” She glanced at Eliza, sniffling in the corner. “Though such may be the custom, the blue dress was no longer … appropriate.”

How like Leana to put it so delicately. “You have chosen well,” he managed to say, stepping closer. The damask gown was the one Joseph Armstrong had tailored for their December wedding. “Those are … your mother’s gloves.” Jamie remembered Leana’s giving her sister the treasured silk gloves on the Sabbath last for her seventeenth birthday.

Another layer of grief fell across his heart like a plaid: Rose had died on her birthing bed. Just as her own mother had.

Jamie looked down at her now, though it was not Rose who lay before him. Not his warm and vibrant wife, with her charming smile and her flindrikin ways. This was a shadow of that dear lass. The small dish of earth and salt resting on her breast served as a patent reminder: earth for the corruptible body, salt for the incorruptible spirit.

He would wake tomorrow, and Rose would not be there. Nor the next day. Nor all the days of his life.

Leana touched his sleeve. “Jamie, I hope you will not feel I’ve overstepped my bounds.

“You could never do so.”

“I found …” She lowered her head, showing him her swirl of wheat-colored braids. “A wooden box … a small box for your … for.

My sons.
He turned away, holding back the sob that welled in his chest.

She said nothing for a moment. “Jamie, there is no shame in grieving.”

Her tender words, like a key, opened the pain locked inside him. A sound came forth, the low lament of a wounded animal, trapped and in agony.
My sons, my own sons.
He had never held them, had never blessed them.

When Leana presented him with the tiny coffin, he wrapped his hands round the wood.
May Almighty God bless you, my sons.
The words of his father, of Alec McKie. Spoken too late.

She said softly, “The joiner will come in the morn, aye?”

Jamie gripped the wooden box. “Early, the minister said.”

“When he does, we will put this box beneath Rose’s head, like a pillow. For you and I both know that children who’ve not been baptized are buried beneath the wall of the kirkyard.”

Jamie only now remembered that unkind practice. “In the gloaming.”

“Worse, they could be buried on the north side of the kirkyard. ‘Amang the goats,’ as Neda used to say.” She let out a lengthy sigh. “Rose would ne’er want that. I thought it best if we simply buried her precious bairns with her.”

“Well done, Leana.” He gave her back the small coffin, afraid in his grief it might slip from his hands. “As always, you have thought of everything.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “I did not think of how to save Rose.”

“Och, lass.” He cupped her elbows. “You did all that you could. Her death weighs on my shoulders, not on yours.” When she did not protest at once, his greatest fear was confirmed.
Leana blames me as well.

L
eana sat in tear-filled silence, surrounded by candlelight, wrapped in memories: Rose running across the garden, her braid dancing in her wake; Rose bravely standing up to their father, then marching up the stair and hugging her tight; Rose holding a length of cotton next to her eyes and declaring the fabric a perfect match.

Come back to me, Rose.
But she could not.

The hour was late; the candles were steadily burning down to stubs. Realizing the family did not have the customary lighting—remnants of Yule candles from the year past—the innkeeper had generously donated a dozen tapers from their kitchen stock. Since midafternoon the small group had maintained a
lykewake
, a vigil meant to guard a loved one’s body until it was duly buried. The maids had long since retired to their beds; only she and Jamie remained, seated on low stools a foot apart.

Her sister’s face almost looked animated, a cruel trick of the flickering candlelight. Bathing her, dressing her had been unspeakably hard. Leana had wept from first to last. And yet each moment had been sacred. To think that, while she held her sister’s body, her spirit was in the hands of the Almighty was more than she could comprehend or imagine. And comforting beyond measure: Her dear Rose was not alone.

The gloves were the most difficult of all.
Mother. Rose.
Running her hands over the seams, remembering the special times she had worn them, Leana offered a prayer of thanks that she had given them to her sister while she still could.

You are always so good to me.

Leana knew better. But she took solace in knowing her last gift to Rose was her best.

“Leana?”

Deep in thought, she started at the sound of her name.

Jamie’s voice was low, hoarse. “Will you inform your father? Or shall I?”

“It might be best if I wrote to him.” When Jamie did not respond, she added, “Unless you would rather—”

“Nae, lass.” He angled toward her, candlelight gilding the planes of his face. “The news will be painful enough without also being in my hand.”

“I shall put pen to paper at dawn.” She’d write Neda at Kingsgrange as well, then post both letters before they left for Glentrool. As concerned as Jamie was about his parents, they’d not tarry long in the village after the morning funeral. “Might you send a messenger ahead to Glentrool?”

“ ’Tis not necessary. We’ll be home by midafternoon. And my mother will much prefer hearing the news in person.” He stood, stretching his long legs. They had spoken little since midnight. Both of them were exhausted from lack of sleep and bleary-eyed from weeping.

“Jamie, why not rest an hour or two in your room? I will be fine here alone. Rose will be in good hands.”

He looked down at her. “No finer hands have cared for Rose than yours.” With that, he leaned down and brushed a kiss across her fingers, a gentleman’s gesture of respect.

She folded them in her lap, suddenly self-conscious. “A bit of sleep will do you good.”

He stepped lightly toward the door, aware of the hour and the inn’s sleeping patrons. “Only if you will promise to do the same when I awaken, for I’ll not be long.”

Jamie honored his promise, returning while the sky beyond the window was still the color of ink. Leana had no fear of being alone with Rose’s body, but she was glad to change places with him, if only to allow him time alone with his wife.

When she stretched out on his bed, Leana found it no more generous in size than hers had been. The sheets were still warm from his body, though, and bore his scent: a stray whiff of thyme from his bath, lavender on his pillow from the wound she had dressed, some plain soap the
inn had provided. Most of all, the bedding smelled like Jamie, a masculine scent she had never quite forgotten.

Leana turned her head away, taking a deep breath of unscented air, clearing her mind. She was there for one purpose—a restful hour—so she might have enough strength for the trying day ahead. Closing her eyes, her hands wrapped round her growing child, she sank into the thin mattress and sought the blessed release of sleep.

“Leana.” A knock at the door startled her awake. “The joiner is here.”

She was on her feet in an instant, brushing the wrinkles from her gown, touching her hair. Was it truly morning? Naught could be done but a quick splash of cool water from the washstand. She’d see to a proper toilet as time permitted.

Jamie stood in the hall, waiting to guide her back to the room she’d shared with Rose.

Leana followed him in silence, preparing herself for the shock of seeing her sister’s body in the bright light of morning. So pale, so still. Leana turned away until the room stopped tilting.