Scottish Brides (41 page)

“Janet is not such a terrible name,” she said and leaned against him, half asleep still.

“Janet?” He pulled back and looked into her face. Her eyes opened reluctantly. “Have you a bevy of names, then? I'm talking about Harriet; I've no liking for that one. You've not the look of a Harriet, you know.”

She opened her eyes wider and shook her head slowly. “My name isn't Harriet.”

He speared his hand through his hair, with the oddest feeling that he had not heard her words correctly. Or perhaps he was still asleep on the grass of Glenlyon, sated and pleased and more hopeful for his future than he'd been in a long time.

“My name isn't Harriet,” she repeated. Her voice was soft, but he heard the words right enough.

He shook his head. “Aye, it is. Squire Hanson's daughter. My English bride.”

 

It was as if the words he'd spoken had been carried on tiny bullets that embedded themselves in her heart. His English bride. Which meant, of course, that he could only be one person. Not simply a Scots reiver. Not a man from Glenlyon, but their laird.

She could see his face in the dawn light. His eyes seemed to scream at her.

“I am not Harriet,” she whispered. She took one small step back from him. The distance might have been measured in miles for all the endless time it took. “My name is Janet.”

She took one more step back from him. Then another.

“And you're the laird of the Sinclairs, aren't you?” Her voice trembled.

He nodded. Once. A short, sharp nod. “Didn't you know it, lass? That was my clan about me all night. They greeted you well enough as my future wife.”

She shook her head over and over. But negating it didn't make this moment go away or wipe out the past few days. She'd fallen in love with him, with his smile and his laughter and his rueful admission of disliking reiving. He had loved her, and she'd held him when he'd shuddered against her, and he'd kissed her when she'd moaned. And now he stood looking at her as if she was a ghost.

“I'm not Harriet,” she said once more.

“Then who are you?” The words sounded no louder than a whisper for all their harshness. Did he find this moment to be as odd and strange? As if nothing were right about it, as if it was a dream induced by too many comfits or too many spirits.

“I am Harriet's companion,” she said dully. “I read to her when she's bored and straighten her threads and massage her forehead. That's all. I do not offer peace on the border nor a dowry for you.”

Silence lay between them, a valley in which nothing grew. Not explanations nor apologies or regrets. What she thought was incapable of being translated into speech, and whatever he felt was trapped behind his silence.

The dawn sky lightened. The odd stillness between them was marred by the sound of a bird calling from a nearby tree. An alarm of nature. “You'd better go inside, then, before you're discovered.”

She only nodded.

There were too many words they might say, and none they could. She lowered her gaze, turned, and walked away.

 

He told himself to stop watching her, to turn away as easily as she did. Both warnings were ignored as he stared after her. The hope that had so joyfully come to him the moment he'd met her and had only grown in her presence was gone. All his belief in the future was gone, too.

How many hours had it been? She'd tallied them so carefully. Ten hours—and then one magical night. That's all it had taken.

Twelve

 

 

 

“Who is he, Janet?”

The voice came from the yellow parlor. She stopped and turned her head. Jeremy stood facing her.

She looked at the chair that had been moved to the window. So, he had seen.
He is your sister's future husband. And my love.
Words she would never say. Should she not have felt more shame? Instead, she felt empty inside, as if part of her was missing. The most vital organ. A heart? Or perhaps only that place where such things mattered. It was not important if Jeremy labeled her a whore at this moment.

“You've been watching me all along, haven't you?” From the look on his face it was evident he had not expected the question. How unfair of her. But it made perfect sense. How else had she escaped detection? He had always been kind. Too solicitous, perhaps, even to abetting her wickedness. How had he turned Harriet's attention from her? By listening to his sister's complaints? By playing whist during those hours when Harriet would have checked on her?

“If you slip upstairs now, no one will know.”

She stared at him. He was two years older than she, but she'd always thought of him as younger. A man barely out of youth, but there was something about him as he stood in the dawn light, something that had matured in the hours since she'd seen him last. Or perhaps it was only because she'd changed so drastically herself.

“Why not sound the alarm, Jeremy? Tell Harriet what you know.”

“Would it make you feel better to be punished, Janet?” His voice was too kind, and she blinked back the tears that came too easily to her eyes.

“I suppose not,” she said. “Thank you, Jeremy.”

He followed her to the stairs, stood at their base, and looked up at her as she mounted them. It seemed as ponderous as scaling the highest mountain. When she stopped and looked back, he returned her look. His face was somber.

“If I can do anything for you, Janet, I will.”

“Thank you, Jeremy.”

“Will you let me know if I can aid you?”

“Yes, Jeremy, I will.”

He was talking of scandal, of course. If anyone would discover her actions this night, or if she was with child, she'd be sent away in disgrace.

She opened the door to her room softly, closed it behind her, and sat on the edge of the bed, her arms wrapped around her waist. She rocked back and forth on the bed, the motion oddly soothing.

He was to be Harriet's husband.

She knew she would die of this.

 

“You'd be wise to stay away from me, old man.” Lachlan glared at Coinneach, then turned away and handed the newly repaired pipe to James, who screwed it in place. Lachlan had been working feverishly since he'd returned to Glenlyon, but the occupations of his hands had done nothing to quiet his mind. “Or if you must be a prophet, tell me if this thing will ever work right.”

Silence met his anger. Just as well, for he wasn't in the mood for a discussion. He was more likely to strangle the seer. Damn the Legend. Damn the penurious state of his clan.

He turned and faced Coinneach. The old man was smiling, if the twitch of his beard was any indication. He'd long thought the old man kept his facial hair in order to look more like a wizard. All he needed was a pointed hat to appear the part. That, and a genuine ability to see into the future.

“It doesn't matter, you know. You and your damn Legend. We'll find a way to survive without it.”

The old man kept smiling.

“You never did believe in it. But your people do.” Was there censure in Coinneach's eyes? Lachlan turned away again and bent to retrieve another piece of pipe.

“I'll talk them out of it. They'll never feel the lack.”

“Aye, but you will.”

“Don't be getting cryptic on me now, old man.”

“Why are you here, and your wife in England? Ask yourself that, Lachlan. It is your own foolishness that makes you miserable and will continue to do so. Not any of my doings.”

Lachlan narrowed his eyes and wondered exactly how old Coinneach was. Too old to fight, certainly. Too old to imprison in the castle cellar.

But the old man's words were true. He'd watched her walk away and had done nothing. Instead, he'd felt rooted to the spot, relegated to a private hell of his own making. He'd felt suddenly and oddly angry—at her, for not being who she was supposed to be; at himself, for endangering his clan. Or had he simply failed Janet? That thought had kept him awake during the long morning, and had made his perusal of his home one of stark and terrifying honesty.

The east wall needed to be shored up. The dark brick was shining white where the mortar crumbled. Glenlyon's better furnishings had long since been sacrificed to a greater cause—that of the '45—or simply survival since then. Their cattle were scrawny things; even their chickens had a gaunt look. Their only hope for prosperity had been for their laird to wed it, and he'd failed at that, hadn't he?

Because he'd gone and fallen in love with the wrong woman.

The prophecy didn't matter. He'd made his choice and made it for all the best reasons. She'd charmed and enchanted him and made him laugh. He wanted to know what she thought and the dreams she had. He wanted to touch her again, lie with her in a bed and spend hours loving her.

What power did a Legend have when measured against this feeling?

He threw the pipe down and strode from the cavern. To blazes with the Legend; he was going to get Janet.

The second explosion, however, delayed his plans.

 

She didn't bother to answer the knock on the door, merely curled up in the middle of the bed and kept her eyes closed.

“Janet?”

“Yes, Harriet.” She wished there was a lock on the door. The very last person in the world she wished to see now was Harriet. Especially since Harriet had a way of discerning misery quickly and would easily see that she'd been crying. She'd made no sound, really; the tears had simply leaked from her eyes. A broken heart had not required any effort on her part.

There were some mornings when she'd stood at her window, watched the sun light the earth, turned north toward Scotland, and ached with longing. She would never be able to look homeward again, would never be able to bear the loss. Lachlan. Of course he was laird. She should have realized it. His speech marked his origin; the twinkle in his eyes, his daring. He had humor and wisdom, the body of a warrior and the face of an angel.

When she was a little girl, she'd dreamed of being so many things. She'd wanted first to be a princess, then to be a mother, then to work with her father in the distillery. When she was older, she'd wanted to fall in love, had imagined that she'd felt that way once or twice. When she was twelve, it had been Cameron Drummond. A year later, his brother Gordon. But none of the longing looks the two boys had exchanged with her had prepared her for this moment, or for Lachlan Sinclair.

Harriet's husband.

She clenched her eyes shut.

“Are you sickening again?” Harriet spoke from beside the bed, but she still did not open her eyes.

“I believe so, Harriet.”
Please, go away and leave me alone.
It was a prayer said in the depths of her mind, but it had no effect on Harriet. She only drew closer.

“Have you slept in your clothes, then, Janet? How slovenly of you.”

“Yes, Harriet.” Perhaps agreeing with her would speed her from the room. But it was not to be.

“Or do you hide a greater sin, Janet?” A hand reached down and flicked at her skirt. “You're nothing but a whore, aren't you, Janet?” The words were said in such a pleasant tone that their meaning did not make sense at first. “All this time? Have you been a whore all this time?” The coldness of her contempt sliced through skin and nudged against bone. The horrible fact was that she had no defense for such words, nothing that would mitigate Harriet's scorn. There was, after all, nothing to say. She was guilty of all that Harriet thought. Worse, yet, she had sinned with the man soon to be Harriet's husband. She had ruined herself. A glorious night, true, but the voice of her long-dead mother echoed in her ear, all caution and propriety. Had it been her Scots nature after all? Or unbridled curiosity, or simple recklessness?

“Leave her alone, Harriet.”

The sound of Jeremy's voice was an odd comfort. It was surprisingly firm, even angry. Janet opened her eyes and sat up. Her gaze turned to Jeremy, who stood in the open doorway, sentinel against his sister's condemnation.

“It's all right, Jeremy.” She swung her legs over the side of the bed and brushed her hair back from her cheek.

She had no time for mourning. Instead, she must be about the business of putting her future together. For the first time since Harriet had delivered the news to her, she was grateful she was not going to Scotland. It would be unbearable to see Lachlan day in and day out, all the while knowing that he belonged to someone else.

This moment, however, must be gotten through. Somehow.

Harriet looked from one to the other, like a terrier scenting a wounded rat. “What goes on here, brother?”

“Janet was with me, Harriet; more than that, you need not know.”

At another time, perhaps, the look on Harriet's face might have been amusing. But not at this moment. Janet only wished herself far away from this place, from echoes of Lachlan, from the sight of his intended bride.