Kilgannon (26 page)

"We welcome ye to our home, Laird Alex," Duncan said. "And yer new wife as well. Will ye come and have bite or a glass?"

"Whisky would be perfect, Duncan. I thank ye," said Alex, dismounting and then reaching up to help me. I slipped down into his arms and then into the mud, feeling it ooze into my velvet shoes. Obviously I would have to find something more suitable to wear on these visits. Or stay on the horse.

"My wife doesna have the English, Lady Mary, but she welcomes ye as well," Duncan said, bowing to me.

"Tell her thank you for me, Duncan," I said. "No, let me try." I attempted a simple greeting and could tell by their faces that I had been successful. The woman replied and I realized she had invited me to either eat or drink. I was at a loss how to accept at first and then remembered the words. I wanted to say that I would be delighted to eat her oatcakes, and I thought that I had. Obviously I hadn't. Duncan's wife put her hands to her mouth, her eyes dancing, and behind her the children were giggling. Turning, I saw everyone in the yard trying to suppress laughter and Alex grinning widely. "What did I say?" I whispered to him.

"Ye said ye were delighted to eat her foot." He laughed aloud and kissed my hair as the others guffawed.

"How did I say that?"

"Verra clearly."

I looked at her feet, clad in rough leather shoes that were covered with mud, and I turned back to Alex. "Tell her I've changed my mind," I said. "I'll just have something to drink." He roared then and told them, and the moment passed. Thank heavens I had said something funny and not something insulting, I thought. Otherwise, these smiling faces might now be reaching for their weapons. With a suppressed sigh, I longed heartily for Louisa's drawing room in London.

No doubt they'll remember me as an idiot, I thought later as we rode away. I turned to wave again and a little boy ran forward, grinning widely and thrusting his foot out at me. I laughed and he handed me a flower, limp and bedraggled from being held in the grubby hand. We smiled at each other and he waved as we turned up the glen to go higher. I looked after him and then at the flower in my hand. It was a rose, small and pale, a kind I'd never seen.

"What kind of rose is this?" I asked Alex when at last we paused beside a bum to let the horses drink.

He looked at it through narrowed eyes. "White?"

"No, seriously, Alex," I said. "One of Duncan's boys gave it to me, so it must grow near his home. What is it called?"

"I have no idea, lass."

"Beg pardon, madam," said Thomas, leaning forward on his horse. "It is a wild rose."

"Wild? And so delicate?"

Thomas nodded. "Aye, madam. It is small and easily bruised, but it will grow back again and again. Once it has taken root ye cannot budge it for all the effort ye'd give."

We looked at the diminutive flower and I held it to my nose. "It's beautiful. And very fragrant," I said, pleased.

"Aye." Thomas nodded. "That disguises how hardy it is."

"We should give the rose a verra special name, Thomas," said Alex with a smile, his eyes full of mischief.

"Do ye have one in mind?" Thomas asked in a mild tone.

"Aye, I do at that. And it's only the one name that will do."

"Ah, do tell us, Alex," laughed Thomas.

Alex turned to include all the men. "Who do we know who is small and verra beautiful and easily bruised?" Eyes turned toward me. "And," he continued, "is as pale as those petals?

And has numerous thorns?" He laughed heartily at his own joke. "And is the hardiest flower in Scotland?" They all looked for my reaction. I shook my head and raised my hands as if mystified.

"I can think of no one, Alex. Do you mean yourself?"

"Oh, aye, lass. I'm verra small and verra beautiful."

I looked at the faces watching me. All right, Alex, I said to myself, and smiled wickedly. "You're not small, Alex," I said demurely, "but you are very beautiful." I ignored the snorts of laughter and waited. Alex
laughed. "Aye
, well, that's the truth of it," he said as he restrained his dancing horse and met my eyes. "We'll call it the Mary Rose."

"Aye," said Thomas next to him. "Verra good, Alex."

"Naturally," said my husband as he led us from the stream.

That night as we prepared for bed I found the rose again—Ellen had put it in a cup of water and placed it in our room. Alex took it from me and held the tiny flower in his hand. "Mary Rose," he said, smiling tenderly. "It suits ye, lass."

"Silly man," I said as I turned back the bedcovers.

"Not silly, Mary Rose," he said, and put the rose back in the water. "Smart enough to see beyond yer beauty to yer strength."

I turned to face him. "Which you are constantly testing." "Aye, but I suspect yer tougher than all of us, my Mary Rose." He wrapped an arm around my waist and kissed my neck, then slipped my robe from me as his lips traced down my neck to my shoulder and my arm. "The toughest rose in Scotland."

"I am not tough," I protested.

"Oh, aye, lass. Yer mind is." He paused as he moved his mouth to mine. "But yer body is verra tender, Mary Rose."

LATE SPRING WAS A BLAZE OF BLOSSOMS, THE HEATHER alive with blues and purples that I could not have imagined. The glen was overflowing with flowers, the trees in light-green leaves that darkened with every day. I was beginning to feel more at home. My Gaelic was stronger now and I was able to talk with many of the clansmen. I still missed London and my family, but Louisa wrote often, her letters full of news and gossip. She promised a visit in the fall. And Will wrote as well, telling me of Betty and our friends and Mountgarden. I wrote to them of my life here and tried to make it all sound wonderful. It was wonderful. But there were days, when Alex was gone, when I wondered what I was doing here at the end of the earth with these strange people. Ellen was a breath of home each day, but she was changing as well as I, and she spent more and more time with the boys or the other young women. Or with wee Donald, who had been enraptured with her since he'd escorted her to Bristol.

The boys helped as well. We had a tradition now—the story at bedtime. I would sit in their room making up silly and fantastic tales, their father often with us, or they would join us in the library. How I loved that room, my favorite in the castle. Alex's grandmother Diana had designed the library as well as the rest of the house, and this room was her most successful. Tall shuttered windows that looked out to the orchard stretched from deep window seats to the ceiling, enclosed by shelf after shelf of books. The wood of the walls and shelves glowed with a deep red gleam. The huge fireplace dominated one wall, chairs pulled up to it in comfortable disarray. Alex's grandfather's desk filled the other end of the room, and it was here that I would sit after the boys went to bed, or on a cold afternoon or quiet morning, and work on the Kilgannon accounts. I was surprised at how quickly that had come about, but I was very pleased. The factor, Thomas MacNeill, was efficient at managing all the details and the people who ran Kilgannon smoothly, but Thomas liked the tallying no more than Alex, and it had been neglected. When I complained to Alex that he would be gone all day and then spend the evening at the desk, he showed me what he was doing. He explained and I asked questions.

"Ye could do it better, couldn't ye, lass? Will told me ye managed the accounts at yer parents' estate for years." He sighed and looked at the papers strewn across the desk. "Would ye consider doing it, Mary? I ken ye've done it before, and ye can ask me or Thomas for any help ye need. Mary, truly, if I never had to do this again I'd be grateful." I considered. Deirdre managed the house beautifully, and although they spent more and more time with me, the boys still had many to look after them. I was going slowly there,
trying
to avoid a misstep. But the accounts I could do without displacing anyone. As I debated what to say, Alex leaned back and tossed a piece of paper onto the pile with a sigh.

"Do you think you should discuss this with Thomas? Or Angus?"

Alex shook his head. "No, I think I should discuss this with ye. Thomas and I have talked on it, to tell ye the truth. He hates it as much as I do. He'd rather be outside directing the work. And it was Angus who reminded me that ye did the Mountgarden accounts. Tell me the truth of it, lass. If ye dinna want the job, say the word and I'll not ask again." He crossed his arms on his chest as he studied me. I can do this, I thought. I will do this. I nodded. "Good," Alex said, pleased. "Then the job's yers. And I thank ye, Mary, for I have no love for it."

But I did. The order that I could bring pleased me, and though the task was daunting because it had been so neglected, I soon made headway. Most evenings we would sit in the library after the boys had gone to bed, Alex buried in a book or in a chess game with Angus or Matthew, Deirdre at her needlework, and me at the desk. Malcolm joined us often, and he would play chess with one of the others or just talk. He rarely spoke to me. One night, while Alex and the boys sat in one of the big chairs poring over an atlas and talking about sea monsters, Malcolm restlessly roamed the room. Deirdre looked up from her sewing but said nothing. Angus and Matthew were engrossed in their game, oblivious to the rest of us. I watched Malcolm surreptitiously as I worked and he prowled the shelves. When I put my pen down and watched him openly, he turned to me with a smile, gesturing to my stilled pen. "Yer in no mood to work anymore, Mary. Come and see what I've found."

"What?" I tried to keep my voice light. He smiled, a charming smile that made him look very young, and laughed, beckoning me with a ringer. Deirdre looked up with a slight smile as I stood. He drew a wooden box from a shelf and carried it with much ceremony to the desk, placing it in front of me with a flourish. The top of the box was carved with a border of intertwining branches enclosing a regal lion in profile, his front right leg raised and his tail in a flourish behind him. I recognized the MacGannon crest, but below it, instead of the clan motto, ALEXANDER MACGANNON had been carved in bold letters. Malcolm grinned at me.

"Open it," Malcolm said, and glanced at his brother, who was still explaining that no matter what stories Thomas told, there were no water horses or sea monsters in Loch Gannon. Jamie was unpersuaded. Ian was watching to see who was the most convincing.

"Alex," Malcolm called, "look what I found." He gestured to the box and Alex looked up, vaguely at first, then sharply, and smiled.

"I've not seen that in years," Alex said, coming to stand in front of the desk, the boys following him. The brothers smiled at each other while Deirdre watched us from her chair. "I don't even remember what's in it," said Alex as he turned the box to face him. "See, laddies," he showed his sons, "this box was made for me by the MacDonald as a christening gift."

"Did you like it:" asked Jamie, looking up at his father.

Alex laughed. "I dinna think I cared. I was a wee infant, ye ken." Jamie watched his father with a doubtful expression. "It's true, Jamie," Alex said, ruffling his son's hair. "I was a bairn once. And this was a gift to that bairn."

"What's in it, Da?" Ian leaned over the box and traced the lettering. "Baby things?" "No, yer da's drawings," said Malcolm, as Alex opened the box. "As long as I can remember," he continued, "yer da was drawing, and he used to put all of the best ones in here." The box was full of yellowed paper, some of it very brittle, and Alex picked the pages up with care. Each was a drawing, some of Kilgannon or Loch Gannon, but most of the sketches were of people. Alex spread them out before us one by one, "Look, here's Da, Alex," Malcolm said as Angus and Matthew at last rose from their game and joined us. Malcolm held up a picture of a man who looked remarkably like him, with the same thick neck arid chest, but the face was so like both of the brothers that I gasped and met Alex's eyes.

"Aye, it's my father." Alex spoke without inflection. "I was twelve when I drew that. It's who yer named after," he said to Ian.

"It looks just like him," said Angus, picking up another. "And here's ye, Mother." He showed Deirdre the sketch.

She smiled and came to stand next to her son. "I remember the day ye drew this, Alex," she said, taking the sketch from Angus. "Ye labored so hard over it I was afraid to look at the result."

"It looks just like ye did then," said Angus. And it looked like her now. Alex had captured her bone structure, which had not changed, but the softness around the cheeks had faded, and the eyes looked wearier now as she looked at the picture with a fond smile.

Alex took another sketch from the box. "Here's my grandmother, lass," he said, handing me the page. The drawing showed a woman no longer young. Her face was Alex's in feminine form, the same straight nose and well-defined mouth, long eyelashes, and balanced features. Her jawline was softer, and despite the fearless gaze, the face was very womanly. Alex smiled as he watched me look from the sketch to him. "Aye," he said. "We do look like her." He was right; they all did. Angus, Malcolm, Matthew, even Ian and Jamie, looked like Diana—Alex and Matthew most of all.

"She always said she'd leave her mark on the MacGannons," laughed Deirdre, and I realized with a start that Diana had been her mother-in-law. A formidable one, no doubt. I passed the sketch to her. "This was drawn shortly before she died," Deirdre said, "but Diana was not about to admit that she was ill." I looked more closely at the picture, the lines around her mouth and the strain around her eyes now evident. Diana had been older, and ill, when she sat for this picture, but she was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen. Alex's smile was bittersweet.