Whence Came a Prince (65 page)

J
amie rubbed his eyes, the ledger entries blurring after several hours with quill and ink. Thomas Findlay, overseer to Glentrool, had once taught Jamie all he knew of keeping estate records. “Noo that ye’re laird, sir, I’m blithe tae let ye handle the ledgers,” Thomas had informed him. “Ye can see for yerself whaur yer silver is spent and decide what’s best for Glentrool.”

What’s best for Glentrool.
A refrain oft repeated since his arrival home last month. His father had confessed that Rowena had seen to the duties he could no longer manage. Now Jamie knew the truth: His mother had handled everything. Not a penny or a person had come or gone without Rowena’s approval.

A tap at the open library door interrupted his musings. “Mr. McKie?” Thomas Findlay stuck his head in. “Have ye a moment, sir?”

Jamie motioned him forward, still uneasy with the formality of his new role. Thomas had called Jamie by his first name all his young life, even after he returned from university. Things were different now. He looked up from behind his father’s oak desk, folding his ink-stained hands over the ledgers. “What is it, Thomas?”

“Wi’ September here, sir, Henry Stewart needs yer permission tae arrange for the tups.”

Further evidence of his mother’s strict policies. Stew, Glentrool’s head shepherd and veteran of many an October breeding season, hardly needed Jamie’s sanction to perform his duties. “Of course he may arrange for them.” Jamie kept his voice even so Thomas would not misconstrue his irritation. There was no point belittling his mother’s methods. He would simply change the ones that needed changing.

Jamie sat back to resume his work. “Kindly give Stew my regards.”

The overseer remained, wool bonnet in hand, his curly black hair on full display as he bent his head. “Mr. McKie, ye’re doin’ a fine job. A’ the lads agree.”

Jamie hid his smile, though perhaps not too well. “Good of you to say so, Thomas.” How he hated such
mainnerlie
talk! Could he not simply shake the man’s hand, as he had Duncan’s, and thank him? ’Twas not a laird’s place, it seemed. “Your servants must respect you,” his father had cautioned him just that morning. “And a bit of fear never hurts.”

Fear was Lachlan’s stock in trade. Rowena had chosen manipulation. Jamie considered fairness the best means to an end. He would work hard, then ask the same of his people.

“Guid day tae ye, sir.” Thomas swept his cap before him and departed, leaving Jamie to his ledgers. And his memories of Rose, which were legion.

Her sweet laughter wafting down Auchengray’s stair. A wink when they shared a secret. The tilt of her chin when she was displeased. Her hand seeking his beneath the dining room table. The playful swat of her braid. An off-key cradlesong floating out of the nursery. Her small hands caressing his cheek. His unforgettable, irreplaceable Rose.

Jamie had found the best remedy for his grief: He diligently kept his mind and hands occupied from dawn until the gloaming. The nighttime hours were more difficult. Surrounded by darkness and a quiet household, he lay in his old room, listening to the flowing burn beyond the window and missing his sweet Rose. Though she had never been to Glentrool, never curled next to him in that bed, it was not difficult to imagine her there. He’d done so many times before they left Auchengray.

But Rose was not there. Instead, he had the large bedroom overlooking the loch all to himself. Evan’s old room adjoining his now belonged to Leana. It was the one nearest the nursery, and the small turret room could only accommodate Ian’s crib and Annabel’s bed. In deep mourning for her sister, Leana had not decorated her new bedroom in any manner. It remained as stark and unadorned as her black gowns.

Some nights when sleep would not come, Jamie heard her quietly weeping and found his own pillow wet as well. Of all the ways in which Leana was helping him to recover from Rose’s death, their shared tears in the night meant the most to him, though he’d never tell her so. She might become self-conscious, imagining him listening in the next room, or muffle her sobs, leaving him to mourn alone.

’Tis daytime now. To work, McKie.

Jamie spent another half hour balancing his ledgers before Ivy came to the door, inviting him to dinner. Had a bell been rung, as at Auchengray, he would have removed the clapper at once. At Glentrool the midday meal was lighter and the hour later, served at two o’ the clock. Supper was also delayed and more formal. Aubert saved his best dishes for the evening meal, dispatching course after course beginning promptly at eight.

Jamie rose from his ledgers, more than willing to trade his dull numbers for food and company. At their first meal together, Alec had insisted Jamie take his place of honor at the head of the long table. Jamie in turn asked his father to sit at his left hand, across from Leana, seated at his right. His mother would not have approved, but Jamie preferred warm conversation at his table, not silence and distance. With his back to the hearth, in which peat burned year round, thrice daily Jamie welcomed his family’s advice on the management of Glentrool.

He entered the dining room from the hall and found them standing at their chairs waiting for him. Some formalities remained. Jamie blessed the meat, then they took their seats as the kitchen staff entered from the far door of the portrait-lined room, bearing soup plates.

“So this is Aubert’s famous hotchpotch.” Leana lifted her eyebrows in anticipation as she tasted it. “Thick,” she said after a bit. “And … flavorful.”

Jamie smiled. “You have just described every one of Aubert’s soups. Even his broths manage to be thick. ’Tis a mystery to us all.”

His father ate slowly, leaning over his plate at such an angle Jamie feared he might dip his forehead in the soup. Of all his senses, Alec’s taste for highly seasoned foods remained intact. But the hand holding the spoon trembled, and his aim was not always true, sending the
spoonful of soup onto the table or, worse, his lap. Linens helped, but Alec still needed his valet, an Englishman named Gilbert, to set him to rights after each meal.

Jamie honored his father’s wishes: No special provisions were made at mealtime. Accidents were ignored and swiftly amended without a fuss. Soups and sauces were a challenge, but they were also what his father most enjoyed; hence, they were served.

In Jamie’s youth—which he now realized had continued well through his ordeal at Auchengray—he’d disregarded Alec McKie as weak, ineffective, useless. An embarrassment to the family. Now he knew differently. Spending time in his library, Jamie had discovered all that his father had accomplished in his earlier years. Seeing Alec separate from Rowena, standing in his own light rather than in her formidable shadow, had given Jamie a new appreciation of his father’s steady temperament. And compared to Lachlan McBride, the man was a saint.

Jamie finally understood the truth: His father was the wisest man he’d ever had the privilege of knowing. And the most merciful, for he had loved his prodigal son through it all. However many months or years appointed to him, Alec McKie deserved Jamie’s highest regard, and he would have it.
A wise son maketh a glad father.
Gladness was long overdue at Glentrool.

Jamie raised his voice slightly. “How have you spent the morning, Father?”

He pointed his empty soupspoon across the table. “Watching this fair lass dig her garden.”

I ken the appeal, Father.
Jamie turned to Leana, whose wispy hair and wind-chapped cheeks gave away her morning activities. “Plying the soil again, eh?”

“Robert and I are creating a physic garden. I hope you do not mind.”

“Mind?” Alec was the one who answered. “We’re fortunate to have a woman skilled in the use of herbs beneath our roof. You’ll find many such plants in the Buik, you ken. Coriander and rue, anise and hyssop.”

“I cannot grow those in Scotland, Mr. McKie. But I’ll have agrimony and speedwell, meadowsweet and valerian. And chickweed to help you sleep.”

“That’ll do.” Alec continued with his soup, nodding to himself.

Jamie tried to sound nonchalant. “Has Robert been … helpful to you?”
Respectful
was what he meant but did not say. Thirty and unmarried, Robert was reputed to have an eye for the lasses.
You’ll not look at this one.

“He’s a gifted gardener.” Leana’s response was more enthusiastic than Jamie had hoped. “His handbarrow is full of interesting tools I’ve not used before. Caterpillar shears, straw bells, and a clever transplanter with a long handle. I’ve managed all these years with a spade, a trowel, a pruning knife, and a garden fork.”

“And done quite well,” Jamie reminded her, alerting the maids to serve the next course. It was the first of September; Jamie had instructed the gamekeeper to provide woodcock for the dinner table since the bird was now in season. “Let Robert do all the strenuous work, Leana. I’ll not have you tiring yourself.”
Or risking our child’s life. Or yours.

When she looked at him, it was clear she grasped his meaning. “I promise to do nothing but point. And let Robert plant.”

“Well said, lass.” Jamie trusted her implicitly. But he would watch Robert Muir. “Bring on the grilled woodcock, then, for my father’s appetite is far from sated.”

Leana was more talkative than usual through the meal. Though her dress was somber, her air was light as she shared Ian’s latest accomplishment. “He distinctly said the word
shoe
.”

Jamie pretended to look shocked. “Is our son old enough to wear shoes?”

She smiled, shaking her head. “The child has only just learned to stand on his own two feet, and then not for long. He’ll not need shoes until he is truly walking and doing so out of doors.”

“Is that so?” For a woman who’d grown up without a mother, Leana’s maternal instincts were impressive. “What a store of knowledge you have. Where did you learn such things?”

Her shrug did not hide her pleasure. “By asking Neda questions. By watching Jessie Newall with her bairns. A woman prepares all her life to be a mother.”

So I see, lass.

Leana was a living portrait of motherhood, her body round with their growing child, her face lit with expectant joy. Even in her mourning gown, even in her sorrow, her delight in mothering could not be contained. Nor would he ever want it to be.

After pudding, Jamie returned to his father’s desk—it would be some time before he could think of it as his—and tackled the basket of correspondence that had accumulated after his mother’s death. Since his father could no longer hold a pen steady enough to write, the task fell to his heir.

Notes of sympathy were intermingled with bills that would require his immediate attention. He’d nearly sorted through the lot of them when Ian crawled through the door of the library and headed his direction, as if exploring Glentrool unaccompanied.

“Who is this coming to see his father?” Jamie abandoned his letters and leaned down, holding out his hands. “Can this fine-looking boy be mine?”

“He cannot possibly be anyone else’s.” Leana stood in the doorway, gazing at them both. “Look at those dark eyebrows of his, and tell me they are not your own.”

Jamie held Ian up and scowled at him fiercely, which the child promptly imitated. “The lad is mine,” Jamie agreed, smiling broadly so Ian would too. “I hope our second child favors you, Leana.”

She started across the room. “Pale, you mean?”

“Not pale. Fair.” He looked up to make certain she was listening. “Fashioned in gold and blue, the colors of the sky.”

“Ah,” was all she said, though her cheeks were far from wan.

The hour crept past midnight, the house fell silent, and still he could not sleep. Jamie tried various positions, always ending up on his right side, staring at the door to the adjoining bedroom where Leana lay softly weeping. However light one’s spirits were by day, in the quiet darkness, grief demanded its due.

For once his eyes were dry; he did not share her tears this night. Instead, Jamie longed to go to Leana, to comfort her. To listen, as she so often had listened. To console her with tender words.

Comfort? Listen? Console? Are you certain, Jamie?

He was not at all certain.

About his work at Glentrool, aye. About his feelings toward Leana, nae.

When Rose was alive, his path had been abundantly clear: His love for Leana had been pruned to the ground and the roots left to wither, while his love for Rose had grown and blossomed. She was his wife. She was his love. She was his life.

But now his beloved Rose was gone. And though his love for her remained steadfast and his memories fresh, it was her sister who sat at his table. The mistress of his household. The mother of his children. The woman he had once promised, “I will always love you.”

And so I have, Leana. And yet, have not.

With a groan, Jamie shifted to his left side, turning his back to her door and his face toward the rising quarter moon.

O
h, Rose. You would love this.” Leana held up her gift for Jamie, then buried her smile in the fabric before someone heard her and discovered her secret.

“Ian, you won’t tell a soul, will you?” She leaned down to kiss his round head before he took off across the nursery floor on hands and knees.

When the laird of Glentrool turned twenty-six next Monday—the twentieth of September—his unique birthday present would be ready.

Leana was having trouble keeping her stitches small enough, now that her fingers were starting to tingle. The same numbness, followed by a burning sensation, had afflicted her when she carried Ian. She had to put aside her sewing needle more often than she liked. And at bedtime she resisted slipping her hands underneath her pillow, or the pressure made the pain worse in the morning.

At least she was finally resting at night. After weeks of crying herself to sleep, Leana had come to a place of peace. The Sovereign One held Jamie and Rose close to his heart. She could trust him and let go.
Return unto thy rest, O my soul.