Elaine Coffman - [MacKinnon 04] (2 page)

There had been a time in her life when sorrow had been an
impersonal thing. Now it had a name: loss.

She came out of her daze to find the Reverend MacDonald
observing her. She gave him a look as direct as the one he gave her, then
shrugged her shoulders and looked away, as if saying,
If God cares about me,
He will have to show me. I hurt too much to cry out to Him anymore.

Then, without a backward look, Margaret Ramsay walked from
the room. Her composure was one of strength, but her eyes were quite, quite
sad.

She started down the great staircase, looking out a window
in the stairwell, noticing as she did that Adair Ramsay’s coach was parked near
her own in the driveway. He hadn’t wasted any time in claiming what was now
his. She quickened her step, not wanting to encounter the man if she could
avoid it.

Her steps were rapid, and light as her slippers, skimming
over the stone steps faster than the flutter of a bird’s wing, but she was not
quick enough to avoid Adair Ramsay’s spiteful weasel face.

“A moment with you, madam, if you will,” he called to her
from the library as she passed. Whirling around, she saw him standing in the
shadows of the room. The heavy damask drapes were drawn, but no candles were
lit, and the gloom was broken only by the precious amount of light that seeped
around the cloak of draperies. She stood in the doorway and peered into the
long shadows.

“Come into the room,” he said, motioning her in with his
long, bonelike fingers.

Maggie took a few more steps and then stopped, her head held
proud and high. As she looked at this man she hated above everything in life,
her heart hammered with an unsteady beat. “You have everything I owned, you’ve
destroyed the man I loved. What could you possibly want now?” she asked.

He seemed to throw himself around the desk, coming to few
feet from her. “God’s witness, madam, I can scarcely believe you would
deliberately taunt me with your words when I only want to give you a bit of
advice.”

“What? That I should ease my sorrows with a glass of
hemlock?”

“I have no desire to see you dead.”

“No, I dinna suppose you do. Why should you? Only my husband
was so privileged to receive your death wish.”

He ignored her comment, but his expression turned even more
cruel. Maggie took an involuntary step back and felt a shiver go up her spine
at the grating sound of his laughter. “I would warn you, madam, to rid yourself
of any fancy notions of regaining the dukedom or Glengarry Castle.”

“Your warning is pointless. My husband is dead. The dukedom
canna pass to me.”

“Aye, but I speak of your son.”

Maggie stepped forward, her hands in fists at her side. “Are
you threatening my son?”

Adair took a step back. His face relaxed. “Not at all. I am
merely giving you advice, madam. Leave things as they are. If you set about
stirring up a hornet’s nest, it might be you who gets stung. You may have
nothing to lose, but your son has.”

“How can he lose something a second time?
You
have
his title now, or have you forgotten?”

“I wasna speaking of a title.”

“You
are
threatening him,” she said, feeling her
heart pounding harder now.

“Start digging around in all these ashes again, and I will
see that you regret it. There is no place you can go, no place you can hide,
that I won’t find you.” He looked toward the coach. “The lad takes after his
father. I would hate to see him follow in his footsteps.”

Maggie felt a terrible sense of dread. She knew what he was
saying, knew the threat he was making. How desolate this place seemed, how
different from the memories of happier times when she and Bruce and their
children were securely nestled here.

Once she was inside the coach, Maggie took one last look at
Glengarry Castle through the window. She started to lower the shade, then
changed her mind as she settled herself back against the hard seat. She looked
at Maude, the children’s nanny, who, with a typical Highlander’s loyalty,
refused to leave them, even when Maggie explained she had no way to pay her
wages. Glancing up and seeing Maggie’s eyes upon her, Maude leaned forward,
patting her hand. “Why don’t you try to get some rest? I’ll tell the children a
story.”

Maggie closed her eyes for a moment, but it was no use. Her
body might be tired, but her mind would not, could not, sleep. Opening her eyes
again, she picked up a slim volume of
Hamlet
she had in her wicker
basket. After reading for a few minutes, she paused, staring off into space.
Poor
Hamlet, he had as many difficulties in life as I.
As the thought faded, she
wondered if her own life would end just as tragically.

Here she was, at the lowest point in her life, as uncertain
about the future as she had been a year ago, when Bruce died. Gathered around
her were her weans, her three children, still no more than babies. She couldn’t
help wondering what would become of them.

God never shuts one door that He doesn’t open another…

For a moment she wondered where that thought had come from,
then remembered that Reverend MacDonald had said as much the day he preached at
Bruce’s funeral.

“If you’re planning to open any doors, I’d say it’s about
time,” Maggie said, studying the overcast sky through the small window of the
coach.

“Did you say something?” Maude asked.

“Do you believe in miracles?” asked Maggie.

“Of course I do. Dinna you?”

Maggie thought about that for a moment. “Aye, I suppose I
do. There wouldna be much reason to go on if I said I didna.”

“Dinna you go to worrying yourself sick over all of this.
Things will work out. No matter how long and dark the night is, the sun always
comes up in the morning.”

“I know,” Maggie said absently, resting her head against the
wall of the coach. “It’s just that I’m worried about making it through the rest
of the night.”

“You’re troubling yourself over nothing,” Maude said.

“Aye,” Maggie said with a sigh. “I suppose you’re right.”
She looked down at her book, finding her place, and began to read:

“‘When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in
battalions.’”

She paused to reread the verse, then read it aloud to Maude,
who said, “That’s nothing to worry yourself over. I’d say you’ve already had
your battalion of sorrows. Now’s the time to be expecting a miracle.”

“A miracle is the only thing that could change our future,”
Maggie said. “I dinna mind telling you, Maude, I’m worried and just a little
scared. My father’s health isna good, and he’s barely able to support himself.”
She looked at the anxious faces of her children and said, “Maude, what’s going
to become of us?”

“Hold to your faith and dinna worry. You’ve a lot to hope
for.”

Maggie shook her head. “My hopes died a long time ago. All I
have left is doubt.”

“Even doubt has a sunny side. We’ll get on fine. You’ll see.
One of these days you’ll be married to a good man and look back on all of this
and say, ‘Old Maude was right.’”

Maggie looked skeptical, then she leaned her head back,
closed her eyes, and said, “Any man who would marry a penniless woman with
three children would have to be stark raving mad.”

Northern California, 1857

When Adrian Mackinnon announced, with the same ease with
which he poured syrup on his flapjacks, that he would soon take a wife, there
were many reactions, none of them congratulatory.

“The man has gone stark raving mad,” one logger whispered to
another.

“I never thought I’d see the day,” said another.

“It’s what happens to a man when he spends too much time up
here in these woods. He goes crazy. Not enough sunshine,” whispered a logger
called Clem Burnside. He was talking to another logger by the name of John
Schurtz.

“I understand a man needing a woman,” Schurtz replied, “but
no
man needs a wife.”

“A wife?” Shorty Savage repeated, choking on the word.
“Hellfire! If it’s a wife he wants, I’ll give him mine.”

Dudley Dunlap hooted with laughter. “That goes for me, too.
Criminy! I’ll even throw in a dozen kids, just to sweeten the pot.”

“We ain’t talking about no poker game, Shorty,” said Tom
Radford.

“Aw, I don’t know ‘bout that,” Shorty said. “Marriage or
poker, they’re both a gamble. Trouble is, when a poker game goes sour, you can
throw in the cards, but when it comes to a wife, you cain’t.”

“Now, you ain’t tellin’ the truth, Shorty. You can throw in
the cards when you’re married. Ain’t that what you did when you left
your
wife?” asked Dudley.

Shorty scratched his belly. “Well now, I ain’t never thought
of it that way, but now that you bring it up, I reckon it is.” He shook his
head. “Should’ve thrown them in a lot sooner—by the time I got around to it, I
had to travel nigh on three thousand miles to get away from that woman.
Lord-a-mercy! She had a nose like a bloodhound.” He took another bite, then
spoke while still chewing. “I can’t imagine any man with his traces hooked up
right actually
wanting
a wife, let alone going to all the trouble to go
out
lookin’
for one. Wives and wisdom,” he said, giving his head another
shake. “The two don’t mix. Don’t mix
a-tall
.”

“The only comfort I’ve had in life,” said Hoot Howell, “is
that I never had a wife.”

“Me, too,” said Ern Ingersoll. “Ain’t seen a woman yet that
would let you fall into her arms without tryin’ to get you in her hands.”

“You know what they say about marriage,” said Clyde Bishop.
“The bachelor is a peacock. The engaged man is a lion…”

“And the married man is a jackass,” John Schurtz finished,
as the cookhouse shook with laughter.

“Say what you will,” Adrian said, casually waving a forkful
of flapjacks in the air as he spoke, “I think it’s high time I took a wife, so
I’ll be heading on down to San Francisco for a couple of weeks.”

Fifteen forks hit the table. The room grew deathly quiet.

“A wife?” someone whispered, as if something terrible would
happen if the word
wife
was even spoken out loud. “Did he say a wife?”

“My wife is dead, so let her lie; she’s at rest, and so am
I,” said Ox Woodburn, and the cookhouse shook with laughter once more.

“You must have been doing your thinking in a powerful
hurry,” said Big John Polly, “because two days ago you were doing everything
you could to convince Tom Radford that a woman was the last thing any man
needed in his life. Why the sudden change?”

Adrian exchanged his fork for a coffee cup. “I don’t know.
Maybe trying to convince Tom Radford that he didn’t need a wife is what got me
thinking that I did. Last night I was sitting in front of the fire, scratching
my dog on the head and sipping a glass of brandy, when I began to think about
everything I’ve built up here, and it suddenly occurred to me that I don’t have
anyone to leave it to. That seemed to rob me of the pleasure I’ve always found
in knowing I made my dream into a reality.”

“You’ve got three or four brothers you can leave things to,
and more nieces and nephews than you can count on two hands. Write a will,” Big
John said. “Save yourself a passel of trouble.”

Adrian raised his brows in surprise. “Why, I thought you and
Molly were happy.”

“I didn’t say I wasn’t happily married, I said it’s a passel
of trouble staying that way, and it is.”

Adrian laughed. “It must be worth it, if you’ve stuck it out
this long. What is it now, thirty years?”

“Twenty-five,” Big John said, just as someone shouted he
deserved a medal for valor.

Laughter erupted, but in the midst of it, Adrian grew
pensive. “I want sons to raise. I want to teach them to love and respect what
I’ve built, to carry on after I’m gone. I don’t want everything I’ve worked for
to die with me.”

“A man who talks like that will end up with daughters, sure
as shootin’,” Shorty said, “mark my word.”

Adrian sent Shorty a look, and Shorty buried his face in his
flapjacks, choking when Clem laughed and slapped him on the back.

“Let’s go talk someplace else,” Big John said, his chair
scraping the floor as he pushed it away from the table.

“A woman, a dog, and a walnut tree, the more you beat ‘em,
the better they be,’” John Schurtz shouted, and everyone laughed.

“Schurtz, it sounds to me like you don’t like a damn thing
about women,” Big John said.

“Aw, Big John, that ain’t fair. I do. I do. I like their
silence
.”

Big John looked at Adrian, and the two of them broke into
laughter.

The two men left the crew of lumberjacks laughing and
mumbling among themselves as they walked outside, ambling on down the hill
toward the sawmill. “I don’t know,” Big John was saying. “Sounds to me like
you’re wanting a wife for all the wrong reasons.”

“What makes you say that? Is there a
right
reason?”

Big John laughed. “Of course there is. Don’t you believe in
love?”

Adrian ignored that. “Children have always been a legitimate
reason for marriage.”

Big John laughed. “There’s a heap of difference between
what’s legitimate and what’s right, Adrian, but I don’t reckon I know much
about anything, so don’t listen to me.”

“But I am listening,” Adrian said. “Go on, keep talking.”

“Well, the way I see it… What I mean is… Aw, hell! What a
man calls a legitimate reason and what a woman calls it ain’t necessarily the
same thing. You go bounding down to San Francisco telling every woman you meet
that you’re pro-marriage because you want sons, and you’ll be finding a lot of
doors slammed in your face. Women are scarce as a ten-cent steak in San
Francisco, and the kind of woman you want isn’t going to want to marry a man because
he wants sons.”

“Don’t forget, I’m a rich man.”

“Any woman that’ll be swayed by money isn’t the kind you
want either. There are more rich men than there are respectable women in San
Francisco. The kind of woman you would settle for will have a list of things
she wants, and at the top of that list will be things like being loved—and
courted.”

“Loved?” Adrian threw back his head and laughed. “A woman
will know—if she’s wise—that possessions and money will serve her far better
than love.” He looked at Big John, his brow drawn together. “What makes you so
certain you know the kind of wife I want, anyway?”

“Because I’ve known you for a long time. I’ve seen the way
you’ve changed since your brother married and sold his part out to you. In the
years since Alex and Katherine returned to Texas, you’ve become a hard, bitter
man, Adrian. It doesn’t take a smart man to understand that your bitterness
came out of the hurt you felt, knowing the woman you loved preferred your
brother over you. As for the hardness—I suspect it came when you set out to
prove you didn’t care, that you don’t need anything. I reckon that’s why you’ve
become such a perfectionist—why you won’t settle for anything but the finest
and the best. I could be wrong, but I think that’s your way of proving
something to yourself.”

“I don’t have to prove anything.”

“Then prove it by proving me wrong.”

“About what?”

“The kind of wife you’ll go looking for.”

“Which is?”

“A woman as perfect and beautiful as the mansion you built
for yourself. A woman every man will envy you for having. A woman who’ll never
be able to measure up to your standards, because the woman who can has never
been created.”

But she has,
Adrian heard his mind say,
and her
name is Katherine.

The fact that the boss of the California Mill and Lumbering
Company intended to take a wife swept over the camp like wildfire, and like the
loggers in the cookhouse, the majority of the men in camp agreed that Adrian
must have been out of his mind the day he made his decision. Not that anyone
begrudged a lonely man like Adrian finding a little comfort and companionship.
Besides, with women being as scarce as they were in these parts, it wasn’t too
likely that he was going to find himself one, anyway.

But, in thinking that, they all underestimated Adrian
Mackinnon.

Over the past ten years, Adrian had become accustomed to
getting what he wanted. If he couldn’t build it or bargain for it, he would buy
it. And he never settled for anything less than the very finest. He hadn’t
become one of the richest men in California by letting a few stumbling blocks
force him into changing his mind or his direction. There were other ways to
deal with obstacles besides backing up or turning away.

Adrian said goodbye to Big John and headed on down to the
mill office, but once he arrived, he couldn’t seem to concentrate on the work
he had waiting for him. Today he couldn’t keep his mind on his business—or even
his future, and the taking of a wife. Today his mind seemed set on the past.

And the past meant Katherine Simon.

It had been a long time ago. What? Twenty-three years since
the Comanche raided Parker’s Fort and kidnapped his little sister, Margery.
Adrian stared off into space, his fingers unconsciously toying with a pencil.
He knew that the raid on Parker’s Fort had somehow changed the course of his
life, and left him with too few memories of the family he had lost because of
it.

Margery. He could remember she had been six years old the
day she was taken—but then, he and his twin brother, Alexander, had only been
seven.

Seven years old, and terribly afraid. He remembered just how
scared he had been that day, when his father, John, told his eldest son,
Andrew, to stay with their mother while he took his remaining five sons with
him to track the Comanche raiding party. When they returned, the first thing
they saw was two new graves and a burned-out house.

Adrian’s father was never home after that. He had spent the
next year looking for Margery and the band that had killed Andrew and Margaret.
Adrian and Alex were eight by the time the sheriff had ridden out to their farm
in Limestone County, Texas, to tell the five remaining Mackinnon boys that they
were orphans.

And then fate had scattered the five brothers like chaff.
Tavis and Nicholas went to Nantucket to learn a shipbuilder’s trade; Ross
became a womanizer and a hell-raiser, finding himself on the receiving end of a
shotgun wedding before hightailing it for Scotland to inherit a title; and the
twins, Alex and Adrian, did a stint in the Texas Rangers, then signed up to fight
in the Mexican War with Zach Taylor before hitting the gold-dust trail to
California. After striking it rich, they headed up to Northern California to
put their gold into lumber.

His life had gotten away from him after that. Alex had
written that fateful letter back home, intending to ask the love of his life,
Karin Simon, to come out West to marry him, and in a drunken stupor, had
written the name of her sister, Katherine, by mistake.

Adrian had been afraid many times in his life, but he would
never forget the gut-wrenching fear he felt the day he saw Katherine, the love
of his life, walk off that ship in San Francisco. Something inside of him had
died.

Looking back, he saw it had been for the best that Alex and
Katherine had ended up back in Texas. Alex had never been able to get the
farmer’s dirt out from under his fingernails, and Adrian swore half of
Katherine’s blood had been made from that same blackland dirt.

Adrian leaned back in the chair and closed his eyes. He
could never remember not loving Katherine Simon, from the moment he had first
seen her down near Tehuacana Creek, crying from a bee sting. She couldn’t have
been more than five or six then, and he, not much older.

He sat up. There was nothing to be gained by thinking about
Katherine now. She had never loved him, and now she was married to his brother.
But the pain was still there, as well as the yearning. Since the day Katherine
married Alex, Adrian had sworn he would never again be second best.

The pencil in his hand snapped in two.

The first thing Adrian did after deciding he wanted a wife
was to leave his sawmill in the coastal woods of northern California and take
the first available ship to San Francisco.

“Two weeks isn’t giving yourself very much time to find a
wife,” John Schurtz said that morning as Adrian prepared to board the
Gold
Rush
.

Aboard ship, Big John Polly was saying much the same thing.
“A man would be hard-pressed to buy a prime piece of horseflesh in two weeks
time, Adrian. You sure you don’t want to stay in San Francisco a little longer,
just to have time to…” Seeing the way Adrian was glaring at him, he finished
his sentence in barely audible tones, “Just to give yourself a little more
time?”

Adrian replied with mounting irritation, “If I don’t find a
wife in two weeks, I’ll have to resort to something else, won’t I?”

Big John’s bushy gray brows rose in surprise. “Well, I don’t
know about resorting to something else, but if that’s how you feel…” He shook
his head. “I hear tell that some fellers take a shine to animals, although I
ain’t never had a hankering for that sort of thing myself.”