Thorn in My Heart (37 page)

When I was at home, I was in a better place;
but travellers must be content.

W
ILLIAM
S
HAKESPEARE

R
ose peered out the bedroom window into the wintry darkness, touching the silver brooch pinned close to her heart. Dawn was an hour away, yet already she heard Willie working outside the stables below, harnessing old Bess to the chaise. “Promise you'll take good care of my bridegroom while I'm gone, Leana?”

“Aye.” Her sisters voice was nigh as chilly as the room. “Jamie will be well looked after.”

Rose turned to touch Leana's cheek in tacit thanks, wishing her sisters smile didn't look so strained. Since the afternoon nearly two weeks past when Jamie and she had delivered the wedding invitations, Rose had sensed Leana pulling away from both of them, quiedy folding inside herself like a handkerchief about to disappear in a pocket.

And now
she
was the one preparing to vanish from sight. Custom required the bride to flit for the week before her wedding, so flit she must. “ ‘Ts improper to have you and Jamie living under the same roof before you wed,” her father had cautioned. “Your Aunt Margaret will keep your mind off things and well out of harm's way.” Rose had offered to stay closer to home—visit Susanne Elliot's family in Newabbey perhaps—but her father had been firm. “Twyneholm,” he'd said. Twyneholm it was.

She would return on the morning of her wedding day with her Aunt Meg in tow. The women of Auchengray would await her arrival, gown and kell at the ready, while down the hall Jamie would be in Hugh's capable hands.

A week!
Hardly enough time to know her own heart, let alone alter it.

Her father was right: Twyneholm was the ideal diversion.

Leana folded a pair of long woolen stockings and tucked them inside Rose's traveling trunk. “I cant imagine how Jamie will survive without you for seven days,” Leana said, her tone more amiable. “Duncan and I will see that he's occupied. And what will you find to keep you busy in Twyneholm, do you suppose?”

“If I know Aunt Meg, she'll put me to work scrubbing the floor or polishing her silver.”

“Her silver?” Leana's slight laugh warmed Rose's heart. “Have you forgotten? Our dear aunt has one silver plate she uses to impress her neighbors. Your polishing chores will last all of an hour. And the flagstone floor will not require more than a wet rag on a dry morning to set it to rights. Do it first thing so you wont come home with chapped hands for your wedding day.”

“Heaven forbid!” Rose glanced down at her hands, already more pink and rough than she liked. “Mother's gloves will do for the ceremony, but I dread thinking of Jamie touching these pitiful hands on our wedding night.”

“Come, let me see them. I've a remedy for everything, you know.”

When Leana lighdy brushed her outstretched hands, Rose felt a lump creep into her throat. Leana's touch was as gende as their mother's must have been.
Oh, Leana.
What would she ever do without her sister when the time came to leave for Glentrool?

Leana turned her hands over, inspecting the palms. “Beeswax and pine resin make a fine healing balm. Aunt Meg will have plenty of wax stored from her hives. I'll see that Willie slips some fresh pine boughs in the chaise before you leave. Won't that add a lovely fragrance to your journey?”

“Mmm.” Rose closed her eyes at the thought of it. “Like Christmas.”

“Wheesht!” Leana held a finger to her lips. “Father might hear you.” She laughed in spite of her warning. “Or worse, Reverend Gordon.”

The kirk had long ago banned any celebration of Christmas or the Daft Days that culminated on Twelfth Night—too pagan, too papist, and entirely too frivolous. Each winter Neda reminisced about one
December in her youth when a certain minister had visited his parishioners unannounced on the 25th, checking to see that all were busy about their labors and that nothing festive was cooking on the hearth. Neda, it seems, had hidden the roasted goose beneath the bedcovers in the spence and banished the puddings to the cellar, biting her tongue to keep from wishing the dour man a blessed Christmas as he left.

Hogmanay, however, remained on every Scottish calendar, a practice which the kirk reluctandy condoned. More than any other year in recent memory, the McBride family would have reason to rejoice when the kirk bell rang in the New Year. Until then, Rose was off to another parish to count the days, with only her aunt for company. Not that she minded. Aunt Meg was, to put it mildly, an original, though she had no use for the womanly arts. Rose handed her sister a few last items to include in her trunk, groaning as she did. “Pack my sewing kit and darning needle as well. I fear I'll have need of them both.”

The corners of Leana's mouth lifted into a genuine smile, her first of the morning. “And soap to scrub your feet?”

“Oo aye! I'd almost forgotten.” Rose stared down at her stockings, dreading to see how the skin beneath them might look by the light of day. “Yestreen was a bit of nonsense, wasn't it?”

Neda stuck her head in the doorway. “Necessary nonsense, lass. ‘Tis your wedding, and all must be done according to custom, including the foot washing.”

Last evening Jamie had gathered with the men of the neighborhood in the front room, with Duncan serving as the proper overseer. In the kitchen, Susanne Elliot supervised the lasses. “Stockings off, Rose, and plunk your feet in the tub of water Neda's drawn for you. Nice and warm, eh?” Amid much giggling and splashing, Rose's wet feet were rubbed with candle grease and soot until they were black as could be. “Doesn't our Rose make a lovely bride?” Susanne teased. No sooner had Rose's friends washed her feet clean with soap than another blackening ensued, even as the men blackened Jamie in the next room. The night's revelry dissolved into laughter and song, not ending until Rose and Jamie sent their guests home long past midnight.

The couple had met on the stair—stockings in hand, feet streaked with black, her skirts soaking wet, his breeches the same. Their smiles were weary but their hearts full. She'd tugged on his shirttail, hanging out in shameless disarray. “You look a fright, Mr. McKie.”

“As do you, Miss McBride.” His gaze had traveled the length of her, making her shiver on the moonlit stair.

“One more week, guid sir.”

“Seven verra lang days, my bonny wee bride.”

Tears stung her eyes. “Jamie, am I too young for you?”

“Never, lass.” He smoothed her hair back from her brow, his gaze lighting her face like a candle at midnight. “Am I too old?”

She'd shaken her head, then kissed his palm and hurried up the stair, afraid to say more, wary of exploring the unfamiliar sensations that sang inside her.

Aye, Twyneholm was the very thing to get her mind off her handsome bridegroom and the moss green eyes that saw more than she dared imagine. Whether she loved him, she could not say. But he was bonny; aye, he was that.

In the murky light of approaching dawn, Willie waited for her by the chaise. The orraman was as patient as their old mare Bess, whose breath filled the morning air when she whinnied, her tail swishing, her huge eyes half closed. Leana appeared while Willie was loading the trunk. In her arms were freshly cut pine boughs, and on her face was naught but a sister's love.
Dear Leana.

Leana handed Willie the evergreens to store, then wrapped her arms around Rose in a last embrace. “Godspeed, Rose,” she whispered beneath the hood of her wool cloak. “See that Willie keeps a firm hand on the reins and a careful eye on the roads.”

“Aye.” Rose blinked away the tears pooling in her eyes. “Tell…tell Jamie good-bye for me.” She glanced up at the window to her bedroom, where Jamie should have been fast asleep. Instead, she caught a glimpse of him at the window before he stepped back, away from view. According to custom, Jamie was not to see her for a full week, not until he walked into the kirk and found her waiting for him.
Soon, Jamie. Soon.

By the time she'd climbed into the chaise, Neda and Duncan had come out to wish her a safe journey, joined at last by her father. He kissed her cheek, his unshaven chin scraping against her skin. “See that you're home by noon on Hogmanay, lass.” His features were drawn in a scowl, yet his eyes shone. “If you're late, Jamie may grow weary and marry another.”

Rose laughed merrily, grateful for her father's jest. It eased her leaving, which was becoming more difficult by the minute. In two weeks she would be leaving for Glentrool forever.
Och!
It didn't bear thinking. “Farewell, dear family.” She patted Willie's arm to signal she was ready. “My prayers are with you all.”

“And with you, dearie.” Leana waved as Bess jerked forward, pulling the chaise down the drive. “Hurry home, Rose!”

The harness bells jingled in the frosty air, drowning out the last of their farewells. Rose settled back in the chaise, grateful for the heated brick beneath her feet and the warmth of her fur muff and heavy green cape, for the winter morning was bitterly cold. They turned onto the road that took them west along Lochend, its surface glassy and still. She gazed at Maxwell Park as they trotted past, admiring the enormous front door festooned with garlands and the windows bright with candles. Lady Maxwell had no doubt been awake for hours, putting the final touches on her plans for Hogmanay, so different from her own.

What if, on the day Lord Maxwell's letter had arrived, Lachlan had approved her debut after all? How different the past weeks would have been! Better or worse, Rose could not say. She only knew that Jamie loved her.

Every winter,
When the great sun has turned his face away,
The earth goes down into a vale of grief,
And fasts, and weeps, and shrouds herself in sables,
Leaving her wedding garlands to decay.

C
HARLES
K
INGSLEY

H
ow long, Willie?”

Her gray-haired companion grunted beneath his checked bonnet. He'd often teased her about being a troublesome traveler, complaining about the weather, asking how much farther they had to go, much like an impatient child. “Five miles to Milltown, where we take the military road south for another ten miles to the Brig o’ Dee and on to Twyneholm.”

“Hours, Willie,” she said, nudging him playfully with her muff. “Not miles.”

“Five hours, Miss McBride. We'll arrive at dusk, if the road is good and the toll takers are quick about their business. And if we're verra lucky.”

“Och! I'm weary of hearing about lucky this and unlucky that.” She poked her lower lip out, then thought better of it. An almost-married woman should behave like an adult, much as it pained her to think of leaving her pouting days behind. “If you'll not object, Willie, I'll doze a bit. “Twas a short night.”

With nothing to draw her attention but gray skies, gray fields, and a meandering gray road, she nodded off, rocked to sleep by the swing of the chaise and the steady clop of Bess's hooves on the hard ground. By the time Rose was jolted awake along a rough patch of road, they'd traveled nearly halfway and were gaining speed on the long downhill
slope at Haugh of Urr. They stopped at a stable near the parish kirk, where the mare enjoyed her oats while Rose and Willie dined on cold mutton and crumbly bannocks. Willie let the horse drink her fill from a swift-moving burn and rest her legs for a short time before they pressed on for Twyneholm.

They passed a few gendemen on horseback, some peasants on foot, and a carriage or two, but the road was otherwise a barren track across the rolling Galloway landscape with the freezing wind as bitter company. The winter sun never showed its face, hiding from dawn until dusk behind heavy clouds that boded snow. They crossed the Brig o’ Dee with a noisy clatter, then climbed round Keltonhill. Willie pointed his face southwest, direcdy into the wind. “An hour and we re knocking on yer aunties door, lass.” Bess must have understood his words, for her hooves fairly flew across the ground, the bouncing chaise forgotten.

“Twyneholm!” Willie cried, pulling back on the reins as the parish kirk came into view. Situated at a high crossroads in the center of the parish, surrounded by a cluster of cottages and houses, Twyneholm was not large enough to call itself a proper village but offered a pleasant prospect nonetheless. The main road led downhill, where a burn ran through the center of things. Bess trotted toward it, even as Rose sat up straighter, her spirits lifted by the sight of the thatch-roofed cottage nesded by the waters edge.
Aunt Meg.

She was watching from the window and bounded out to greet them before Willie managed to rein Bess to a ftdl stop. An older version of Leana, her fair hair now faded to silver, Aunt Meg had skin like fine parchment, pale gray eyes, and a full set of teeth, displayed in her welcoming smile. “Rose!” she sang out, ignoring convention and helping her from the chaise without waiting for Willie to do so. “My bonny niece, come to see me before her waddin!” Her aunt hugged her mightily, fur muff and all, and then nodded at Willie. “Attend to your horse, man, then hurry in for a dram to warm you and a hot meal to hold you ‘til the morns morn.”

Rose was ushered over the threshold without ceremony, her eyes quickly adjusting to the dim light inside the cozy house. Her aunts
stone cottage was as neat as a pin, every surface gleaming beneath the rushlights. Rose wondered if there would be any work for her after all, since the flags were well scrubbed and the curtains carefully mended. Aunt Meg's one silver plate, prominendy placed above the hearth, had been polished to a fine sheen. “The place looks grand, Aunt Meg. How ever will we pass the time?”

Her aunt rolled her eyes dramatically. “Talking, of course! Getting you ready for your new life as James McKies wife.”

Rose put aside her muff and unwrapped her cape, noticing at once how toasty warm the two rooms were. “But, Auntie dear, you…you've never been married.”