Thorn in My Heart (55 page)

Truth is the work of God;
lies are the works of man.

M
ADAME DE
S
TAëL

L
eanas heart crept into her throat as she watched Jamie and Rose disappear into the spence Sunday evening. She would not let herself crouch near the door, not this time. For truth to reign in their house of secrets, she needed to be honest with herself and with others. In honor of Saint Brides Day, the portent of spring and all things new, she would put aside her eavesdropping and simply knit.

It was dark outside her window, a white winters night with a light blanket of snow draped across the hills. Pulling her chair closer to the hearth for warmth and light, she sang a tune suited to the day. As a child, she'd thought the song had been written just for her, a lass named McBride:

Leana had indeed been a bride. For a day, then a night, then a too-short week. Before the brief month of February ended, she would know whether the bride would also become a mother. Hope had made a nesting place in her heart, though she tried not to disturb it by adding feathers. God alone decided such things. She was learning by the hour to trust him with her future.

Moments later the spence door opened, and Jamie startled her by calling out. “Join us, Leana, if you would, please.” Just hearing him speak her name warmed her more than the fire. She put aside her knitting,
smoothed a hand across her hair, then walked toward the open door where Jamie waited for her, his gaze giving away nothing. She bobbed her head at Rose and her father in silent greeting, then tried to catch her breath in the tense, peaty air. Lachlan and Rose were seated, and Jamie took his place between them, his hands resting on the corners of their high-backed chairs. Perched on the edge of the box bed, Leana longed for someone to break the silence.

To her surprise, it was Rose. “Father, I am glad you agreed to meet with us.”

“It seems I had no choice in the matter.” His jaw was hard, his eyes narrow as he drummed his fingers on the Buik in his lap.

Rose wisely responded first with a smile. “All the more reason for us to be grateful.”

After a brief pause, Jamie spoke, clearly choosing each word with care. “Uncle, I think we would all agree that this…unfortunate situation has put a great strain on everyone at Auchengray. You in particular, I imagine.”

“A presumption you have no right to make.” Lachlan's lips hardly moved, so rigid were his features. “Unlike my daughters, I assign feelings little value. I simply do my work and see that others do theirs. You, for example.” His gaze bored into Jamie's. “Have you been keeping up with your labors? I thought the stables looked a mite slitterie when I last saw them.”

Leana saw Jamie's hands flex, then curl into lethal-looking fists. Sometimes words cut mair than swords, Duncan would say.
Be careful Jamie.

“You are mistaken, Uncle,” he said evenly, though his voice was anything but calm. “The stables are well cleaned and in good order.”

Lachlan's blatant look of disregard would earn him a throttling in any public house. “Then Duncan is doing his job. As, it seems, are you.”

“It is that precise obligation which is the point of this evenings meeting.” Jamie stepped around her father's chair so that he addressed him direcdy. “It would seem that Leana has not…that is to say, she does not carry my child.” Jamie glanced over his shoulder at her for a
moment, though his gaze did not quite meet hers. “I can think of no good reason to put this household through another six months of misery. Could we not have the marriage quiedy annulled so that Rose and I might marry and leave for Glentrool at once?”

Nae!
Leanas hand pressed against her stomach.

Lachlan smiled, but there was no joy in it. “I can give you one verra good reason to remain at Auchengray another six months: because that was the bargain we made, Jamie. Those were the terms, that you would work for Roses hand in marriage.”

“Then its only my work that concerns you.” Jamie paced in front of him, well armed, it seemed, with arguments. “I will see that sufficient silver is provided to more than pay for a farm laborer through Lammas. Two, if need be. My presence in the steading will hardly be missed.”

Leanas face grew cold, then her arms, then her hands. Jamies days at Auchengray were at an end. His words would not penetrate her fathers hard heart, but money would.

“You would prefer to buy your wife with Alec McKie's silver rather than earn her by your own efforts?”

Jamie scowled, his pacing halted. “You forget, my father's money is mine.”

“And
you
forget that I know why that is so.”

Leana watched a series of emotions move across Jamies features. Anger, but only for a moment. Acceptance perhaps. Then something like resolve. Jamie spoke again, his voice neither hot nor cold. “You are speaking of deception, are you not? Then let us speak openly, with all of us here, about my wedding day. A day of whispered half-truths and unreasonable demands. Of threats made to Leana, and
to
me.”

Leana gripped the edge of the bed, desperately wanting to leap into the air.
Jamie!
He had come to her defense. He had stood up to their father. He had spoken the truth in a room littered with lies.
Dear Jamie.

“Threats, is it?” Lachlan quiedy put the Buik aside, then smoothed his waistcoat in place as though he had no other concern but his appearance. “Half-truths? Are you calling me a liar?”

Jamie thrust out his chin. “I am.”

Lachlans voice was unnaturally calm. “A deceiver?”

“If you like.”

“You should know, Jamie McKie. You, who are a master at lies and deception.”

The atmosphere in the room thickened, as though fresh peat had been thrown on the grate. Jamie's skin grew ruddy. “There is no need to discuss that here.”

“Oo aye! I think there is.” Lachlan stood, thrusting his face in Jamie's. “It is past time that my daughters know what manner of man they've entrusted with their affections.”

Leana stared at him, a sense of dread growing inside her. “Father, whatever do you mean?”

His eyes were sharp as dirks. “I mean that Jamie fled to Auchengray because his brother threatened to kill him if he remained at Glentrool.”

Both sisters gasped. Jamie stood stiff as a corpse and said nothing while Lachlan continued to fill the air with accusations. Could they be true?
Oh, Jamie.

“He stole his brothers heirship. Evan, the firstborn, should have been the heir. Instead his clever younger brother, Jamie, fooled their decrepit father into thinking he was Evan and claimed the whole of Glentrool for himself.”

Rose was near tears. “Is that…true, Jamie?”

Jamie ground out his words, rough as sand. “It was my mothers plan.”

“Aye, and it was a good plan,” Lachlan agreed. “Which makes Rowena the canny one and you no more than a willing party to deceit.” He eyed Leana. “ Tis a weak child who cannot bear a test of his moral strength.”

Nae.
She turned away, sickened by his words, poisoned by their venom. No matter how she tried to swallow, the bitter taste remained.
Jamie, a deceiver. Just like my father.

She stood, the room spinning around her. “Forgive me, but Im…ill.” Fleeing from the spence, leaving their startled faces behind, she headed for the front door and dashed out into the freezing night,
struck with a sudden need for fresh air and a discreet bit of shrubbery where she could empty her stomach in private. She felt no better when she finished, as though she were still frill of something foreign. What had she eaten for dinner at kirk that noon?

She tipped her head back, drinking in the cold air in great gulps, hoping it might calm her stomach. Tiny flakes of snow fell on her cheeks and hair, cooling her feverish brow. Nothing would calm her thoughts, which spun in sickening circles. Jamie would leave. Rose would leave. And she could do nothing to stop them.

Hear ye not the hum
Of mighty workings?

J
OHN
K
EATS

L
eana!” Rose slipped toward her on the icy lawn, eyes wide with fear. “You look positively dreadful. Are you sick?”

“I… was.” Leana swallowed, resting her hand on Roses arm until the stars above stopped spinning. “If you might help me to my room.”

Rose guided her up the stair, clucking like a hen. They passed Rose's room, then Jamie's, before mounting the stair to the third floor while Eliza located a warming pan and hartshorn shavings to clear Leanas head and keep her from fainting.

Leana drank a glass of water, then slid beneath the covers of her hurlie bed, grateful even for the thin mattress.

Her sister knelt by the bed, undoing Leanas braids, then brushing her hair back from her brow. “Leana, is it true what Father said? About Jamie deceiving his family?’

“Jamie did not deny it, so I fear it must be true.” Still shivering from the snow, Leana pulled the covers tighter beneath her chin. “Let Jamie tell you the details himself, dearie. Father has a way of twisting a story to his advantage. Perhaps it is not so bad as it appears.”
Or perhaps it is worse.

Rose wiped Leanas brow with a damp cloth, gnawing her lip as she did. “Leana, I must speak with you about something else. Your illness may be…well, it could be my fault.”

“
Your fault?”
Leana tried to sit up but thought better of it and sank back down. If she was with child—though she dared not hope for such a blessing, not yet—Rose was the one person whose fault it was
not.

Poor Rose was busy wringing the cloth in her hands, her features
distraught. “I put…I put
leaves
under your mattress. Here, beneath the hurlie bed. Oh, Leana! That's what must have made you sick!” Rose fell onto the mattress with a loud groan.

Leana bit back a smile. How she'd missed her sister's dramatic ways. “What kind of leaves were they, dearie?”

“Hawthorn!” Rose blurted out, starting to sniffle.

“Ah.” The leaves of a thorn. Meant to keep Jamie away from her bed. “You had no need of that old superstition, Rose. Jamie has eyes for you alone.”

“ ‘Twas not his eyes I was worried about,” Rose murmured, and Leana laughed, despite her queasy stomach. Rose did not laugh. “He looks at you, Leana. Did you know that?”

“Looks at me?” A cool chill danced up her arms. Neda and Jessie had both said the same.

“Aye, when you're not looking at him.” Rose sighed heavily, straightening back up. “I believe he loves me, Leana, though he professes it so often I fear he's trying to convince himself.”

Leana kept her voice even. “And do you love him, my sister?”

Rose nodded but said nothing for a moment. Finally she confessed, “I do love him, Leana. I do. But not, I think, the same way you do. Not with the same…” Her gaze darted about the room, as though the word she needed sat propped on the washstand.

“Passion?”

“Aye.” Rose hung her head. “I am still young, Leana. And there are many things about…about men that I do not understand.”

Leana smiled, reaching out to tug Rose's braid. “That will not improve with age.”

“Will it improve with marriage?”

“Most definitely.” Her sister would be wedded someday, she consoled herself. Even if it was not to Jamie.

A light tap sounded on the open door. “May I come in?”

Leana lifted her head only long enough to see Jamie bent inside her doorway before she collapsed back on her pillow. “Aye,” she said, suddenly exhausted. “With both of us here, you may come in.”

He ducked his head and made his way toward her, his expression filled with genuine concern. Or so it appeared. She did not know what to believe about him now. He knelt next to Rose, but his gaze remained locked with hers. “Your father and I were both anxious to know of your…your condition, Leana.”

Her neck warmed. “My condition?”

“Aye. If you are still ill or feeling better. If a doctor should be called…”

“A doctor?” She and Rose exchanged glances. “Father would hardly pay for a doctor to come all the way from Dumfries. Not unless I was on my deathbed.”
Or my childbed.
She touched Jamie's hand, which rested lighdy on her bedcovers. “Do let Father know I will be fine once my stomach settles.”

Rose wrinkled her pretty nose. “What do you suppose is the cause of it?”

Jamie stared at Rose for a moment, as though gauging her grasp of the possibilities. “Perhaps her dinner did not agree with her,” he said at last. “Why not run and get Neda? She might have just the concoction to help Leana sleep.”

Leana watched her sister's buoyant departure with a heavy heart. It was clear Rose did not understand what might be happening. But Jamie did. Leana saw the fear in his eyes. He had run from his responsibilities at Glentrool. Now he wanted to run from Auchengray, and there was only one thing that would stop him.

Jamie bent forward, his eyes searching hers. “Leana, I'm sorry you had to learn about what happened at Glentrool from your father and not from me.”

She turned her head away. He was too close, and she loved him too much. “Does it matter what I think of you? Isn't Rose's adoration enough?” When he did not answer immediately, she turned toward him again, sorry for speaking so bitterly. “Forgive me, Jamie.”

“Forgive you?
Och
, Leana. It is quite the other way round, and you ken it well. This eve I did my best to shirk my duty to you, to end this pretense of a marriage and spirit Rose off to Glentrool.”

She kept her voice light and her apprehension hidden. “Has Father agreed to your offer of silver rather than labor?”

His groan answered for him. “He insists that our terms have not changed and that we cannot be certain that you are not with child. ‘Not yet/ he said, as though he understood such private matters.” Jamie leaned closer, his eyes wide, his gaze pleading. “Unless
you
know, Leana. If you were certain that it…that a child was no longer a possibility, your father might reconsider and send us packing.”