Wolf, Joan (43 page)

The question shook her from her reverie. "Of course," she replied, surprised that he would even ask.

"I was not sure that you would want to return to England," he said slowly, watching her out of suddenly guarded eyes. "You have all the reason in the world not to."

"Your life is in England, Edward," she answered after a minute. "I know that England is your home."

"And you?" he queried gently. "Will it ever be home to you, Van?"

She leaned over him so that their faces were very close and her hair streamed down around them, enclosing them in a tent of black silk. "Wherever you are is home to me," she said. His eyes lifted, and then he pulled her down on top of him.

Van's entire family, with the exception of baby Alasdair, was gathered in the salon when she and Edward finally made their way downstairs. Niall shot one look at his sister's radiant face before he rose to shake hands with his brother-in-law. "Glad to see you, Linton," he said sincerely.

"I was caught in Fort Augustus by the smallpox," Edward explained as he took Niall's thin hand in his own larger grasp. "I sent a message to Creag an Fhithich, but for some reason Morag did not forward it here."

Enlightenment dawned in Niall's eyes, so uncannily like his sister's. "So," he said.

"Morag does not excel at acting on her own initiative," Frances said regretfully. Then, when Edward looked her way, she gestured to the small, elf inly pretty girl beside her and said, "May I introduce my son's wife, Jean."

Edward went to bow over Jean's hand. She looked up at him out of big brown eyes and smiled shyly. "I am so happy to meet you at last, Lord Linton."

He gave her one of his most charming smiles, and replied, "Since we are to be family, please won't you call me Edward?"

"I would like that," replied Jean, her shyness completely banished by that potent smile. Van grinned and looked at her mother, who was rising.

"Dinner is ready," Frances said firmly.

For the first time in months, Van felt hungry. "Oh, good," she said innocently, "you waited for us. I'm starved."

Niall snorted and Edward looked amused. "Come along to the dining room, darling," Frances said serenely, ignoring the men. "I've ordered your favorite dinner," and she led the way out of the salon with ineffable dignity.

Van ate hugely, and after dinner, when they all returned to the parlor, she sat in a chair near the fire, letting the talk swirl around her and feeling full and sleepy and content. It was only when Edward began to talk of Scotland that she came awake.

"It was not just the Jacobite cause that went down at Culloden," he was saying to Niall. "It was a whole way of life. The government set out to break the clans, Niall, and I fear they are going to succeed."

"It is not so!" Niall replied. "The clans will follow their chiefs, no matter what the government says."

"The chiefs who still live are in exile," Edward said steadily. "The tartan and the kilt are outlawed. The glens have been emptied. Those who are left are leaderless." He held Niall's eyes. "It is my hope that in a few years Parliament will pass an Act of Indemnity and you may return home. But it will not be the same. I may have saved Morar for you, but still it will not be the same."

Niall glanced around the room and there was the flash of something wild and hunted in the movement of his head. Edward looked at him sympathetically. He guessed shrewdly that his brother-in-law had been happier during the months he had been hunted through the Highlands than he was in his comfortable exile in France.

"I will work for an Indemnity Act," he promised, "but it will take time. In the meanwhile, you could begin to act as your own agent here in France. Morar's cattle have been untouched. I have been experimenting at home with cattle breeding and I will be happy to send north some stock that I think will improve your breed. Your father always relied on a French agent to sell his goods; you will do better if you see to it yourself."

Niall's face wore a still, arrested expression. "Do you think so?"

"Yes," Edward grinned. "I've been known to do a bit of huckstering myself, so I know what I am talking about, you see."

"Yes," said Niall, "I do see. And it would give me something to do with myself!" This last was said almost violently.

His brother-in-law's blue eyes met his in perfect comprehension. "I know," said Edward softly.

Niall squeezed the small hand of his wife which had slipped into his. "You are going back to England, then?"

"Yes," said Edward, looked at his wife, and smiled very faintly.

"I must get someone to see to Morar, then." Niall's face was grim. "Someone to keep the clan together until I can return."

"I will go to Morar." It was Frances' voice and they all looked at her in surprise.

"I was rather hoping I could persuade you to come to England with us," Edward said after a moment. "I know my mother would love to see you."

Frances smiled at him. "Thank you, Edward, you are very kind. But as Niall said, someone is needed at Morar."

"It doesn't have to be you, Mother," said Niall. "It would be too lonely for you. I'll find someone else."

"But it won't be lonely at all," said Frances, and as she spoke she realized the truth of her words. "I have been lonely here in France," she went on. "Your father has seemed so far away. But in Morar he is close." Her eyes looked dreamy, her face very young. "Besides," she said, "it is what he would want me to do, to look after his people for him."

Niall got to his feet and went to the window, where he looked out at the foreign scene. The rest of them sat in silence until he turned around once more to face them. "I wish I could go with you, Mother," he said. The pain in his voice was raw.

"You were in Paris for three years, darling, at the university," Frances said gently.

"I know." He gave her a crooked smile. "But somehow it was not the same."

No, it was not the same, Van thought, watching him. Nothing would ever be the same for any of them again. In a sense, all the MacIans were doomed to exile, for the world they had known and loved was gone, and nothing would ever recall it again.

But the land remained, and for as long as she lived she knew something in her would miss the mountains and the lochs and the heather. No other place would ever call to her as did the glens of her own country. But what she had said to Edward was true: home to her was no longer a place but a person.

It had been so with her mother, she realized suddenly. The wild Scottish mountains must have been exile to the young English girl who had first arrived as a bride twenty-five years ago. And now it was the mountains she wanted, because they were the land of her love.

Perhaps one day she would come to feel the same about Staplehurst, Van thought, and looked at her husband.

At the window Niall drew a long, steadying breath. When he spoke his voice was light. "Ship me the Titian portrait, Mother. We can live for five years on what the sale will bring in Paris."

"I hope you will not need to wait five years," Edward said, and Niall turned to him with suddenly bright eyes.

"Well, for God's sake, Linton, see about getting yourself reinstated in the government, will you? I don't want to wait five years either!"

"I will do my best," Edward said gravely, and Niall grinned.

"I will have an agent of mine buy the Titian," Edward said to Van when they were once more upstairs in her bedroom. "Don't tell Niall. He can buy it back from me when he gets on his feet again. Or, better yet, we'll give it to Alasdair as a wedding present."

Van was already undressed and in bed, lying propped up against the pillows. "Thank you, m'eudail," she said softly. "What a good idea."

What grace of spirit Edward had, she thought as she lay against her pillows watching him undress in front, of the fire. He had known that to offer Niall money would hurt his pride and so he had thought of this graceful way of assisting him.

Edward finished unbuttoning his shirt and threw it on a chair. The firelight cast a golden glow on his bare shoulders and arms. Van smiled and asked the question she had been thinking of for the last few hours. "Do you think Signore Martelli would give me lessons again?"

He seemed to freeze and then his head came up and he looked at her. "Would you want him to?" he asked in an odd voice.

Van's fingers were unconsciously flexing on the brightly patterned quilt that covered her. "Yes," she said.

"Sweetheart." He crossed the floor and sat beside her on the bed. His eyes were brilliant. "I was beginning to be afraid you would never play again."

She was looking at her fingers on the quilt. "I know. It was as if all the music had been knocked out of me." She looked up at him with wide, grave eyes. "These last months I felt as if I were being torn in two. There was you, and then there was Niall." She reached up and touched his face. "I was so torn," she repeated. "There was no room for music in me."

"I know."

Her fingers moved caressingly along his cheekbone. She thought of Staplehurst, and the harpsichord, and the horses, and realized, wonderingly, that she was looking forward to going. "When can we leave for Staplehurst?" she asked.

"Tomorrow?"

She smiled with satisfaction. "Tomorrow," she repeated.

"Christ, Van." Her eyes widened at the tone of his voice and she stared up at him, her attention fully focused on him now. "Have you any idea of how frightened I have been?" he asked.

"Frightened? You?" She was astonished. "Frightened of what, Edward?"

"Of losing you. Do you think I did not realize how... how absent you were at times? Oh, not physically, but..."

"I know," she said softly.

"I was afraid the wounds were too deep, the division between us too wide."

She put up her other hand and held his face between her two palms. He was so completely beautiful, she thought. Inside as well as out. "It was never you," she said.
"You
were never part of that."

He put his hands over hers and moved her palms to his lips. He kissed them and then stood up to finish undressing. Van snuggled back into the bed. She had eaten so much at dinner and she was so sleepy... The bed sagged as he got in beside her. How lovely it was to have him there, she thought drowsily. She had been so lonely this past month.

She opened heavy eyelids to look at him. He put an arm around her and settled her comfortably into the hollow of his shoulder. "Go to sleep, sweetheart," he murmured, and even in her extreme drowsiness she could feel how his hard body was alight with laughter. She opened her mouth to say something, but before the words came out, she was asleep.

About the Author

Joan Wolf is a native of New York City who presently resides in Milford, Connecticut, with her husband and two young children. She taught high school English in New York for nine years and took up writing when she retired to rear a family. Her previous books.
The Counterfeit Marriage, A Kind of Honor, A London Season, A Difficult Truce, The Scottish Lord, His Lordship's Mistress,
and
The Rebel and the Rose,
are also available in Signet editions.