The Road to Love ; Hearts in the Highlands

by Linda Ford

  He clenched his hand to keep from reaching out and smoothing the hair from her brow. “I’m sure He’s especially lenient with first-time offenders.”

  “You speak as if you think I never do anything wrong. Nothing could be further from the truth.”

  “No? I can’t imagine you ever being naughty when you were a child. I bet you never disobeyed your parents like my niece and nephews for instance.”

  “I assure you I was as naughty as any child. Let’s see... I remember once I wanted to go with my brothers to a fair, but I was always told I was too young, or too frail, or too something. This time I hid in the wagon and when they arrived, I sneaked out and tried to follow them. But then I got lost. I must have been five or six, like the little girl here.” A smile warmed her tone. “Then I got so scared. I didn’t think I’d ever be found or find my way back.”

  “Did you?” He drew a stool over and sat down, wanting to hear more of her story.

  “After what seemed like hours, my brothers did find me. They were so angry. Of course, they were afraid of what they’d have to say to our parents if I hadn’t been found.”

  They both chuckled.

  “Well, if that’s all you did as a child, your slate is very clean indeed.”

  Her hands knotted the blanket. “I wish it were so. But I’m afraid my shortcomings were a lot graver than mere disobedience.” Her tone was so serious, he was afraid she would cause herself unnecessary distress.

  “I hardly think you capable of committing any grievous offense.”

  She was silent a moment and he began to wonder what awful thing she imagined she had done. Fought with her siblings? Stolen a sweet?

  “If I hadn’t been so awfully weak as a child, my parents would undoubtedly still be following their calling on the mission field in Jerusalem.”

  He stared at her through the gathering gloom of the hut. “I hardly think you would be the cause of changing their life’s work.”

  “It was because of my repeated illnesses that they were finally forced to come back to England.”

  Was that why she had undertaken such a life of servitude herself? To compensate for what she imagined she’d done to her parents? “I’m sure your parents felt it no sacrifice to do what was best for you.”

  “Yes, I always felt their unconditional love for me.” She looked down at her fists. “Sometimes that made it harder to bear...knowing how much they’d done for me. I know if I’d been as healthy as my brothers, they would still be in the field.”

  He was beginning to understand the enormous burden she carried. “You don’t know that. Life is too full of uncertainties, especially in a place as harsh as Palestine. It could just as easily have been one of your parents to have fallen sick.”

  She made no reply. But he felt her resistance to his argument. He knew well what it was to carry such guilt. Except in his own case, it was well-founded.

  The crofter’s wife approached them at that moment with a wooden bowl of porridge but Maddie hesitated. She looked at Mr. Gallagher. “I don’t think I’d better eat anything yet. I’m not sure...” Her voice trailed off.

  He turned to the woman. “Thank you, but I think all Miss Norton needs right now is some rest.” He turned back to Maddie. “I’ll leave you for a little while to do just that.”

  She nodded, grateful for his sensitivity. “Thank you.”

  She watched him walk away and sit with the family at their simple meal. With a sigh, she turned her back on them all and gazed at the rough stone slabs on the other side of her bed. She felt inordinately tired but not sleepy. The base of her head was throbbing. What a disaster. Lord, please see us through this calamity. Help us to explain to Lady Haversham tomorrow. Deflect her anger from her nephew. If she would dismiss me, please help me find another position. Tears filled her eyes once more. What a muddle. She mustn’t give in to self-pity. She focused her prayers on her brothers and the lives they were touching, but it was hard to concentrate and she realized her words were sounding like nonsense.

  She began reciting a psalm. Before she had finished it, she drifted off to sleep.

  * * *

  Reid made his way through the dark hut toward Miss Norton’s bed, careful to bypass the other sleeping occupants.

  He leaned over to touch her shoulder and paused, listening to her even breathing, noticing the way the slivers of moonlight offset her features. He pressed his fingertips to her shoulder, hating to wake her.

  She didn’t stir and he began to fear her sleep was too deep.

  “Miss Norton,” he whispered.

  Her eyes opened. “Wha—”

  “I’m sorry to wake you like this, but I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

  Her glance darted about her. “Where—?” She finally focused on him in the dark. “Mr. Gallagher.”

  He breathed a sigh of relief that she had recognized him. “Can you remember anything? Who are you?” he asked softly.

  “Maddie,” she whispered back immediately. “Maddie Norton.” Then she thought a moment. “I...we...we were climbing... Ben Lawers, and I fell. I ruined it for you!” She turned stricken eyes to him.

  “You ruined nothing,” he said, her name resounding in his thoughts. Maddie. The name fit her. He pictured a carefree girl, vulnerable and tenderhearted. How he wanted to pull her to him and keep her safe.

  But how could he keep anyone safe? He hadn’t managed to keep Octavia safe.

  “How am I doing?” He could hear the smile in Maddie’s whispered voice through the dark.

  “So far so good,” he said, seating himself on the stool by her bed.

  “You seem to know an awful lot about doctoring.” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

  “It comes in handy when one is miles from the nearest clinic. I’ve had to do my share of doctoring.”

  “In the desert?”

  He nodded, then realizing she wouldn’t be able to see him clearly in the dark, said, “Yes. Knowing how to dig out a bullet is always valuable. Setting a bone can be complicated but I know enough about making a splint until a proper physician can be had.”

  “How did you learn so much?”

  Seeing she was wide-awake, and finding it better to keep her so awhile, he continued. “A doctor traveled in our company once and I watched him and asked a lot of questions. He said I made a good nurse. Taught me a lot of useful tricks, like waking a concussion victim in the night.”

  They sat quietly for some minutes. When he began to wonder if she had fallen asleep, she suddenly spoke. “Tell me about your wife.”

  He froze. Nobody ever asked him about Octavia, too respectful of his silence on the subject of his wife. He felt as if Miss Norton had intruded onto sacred ground. He shifted on the hard stool, making a conscious effort not to take offense, seeing Miss Norton’s silhouette lying there in the dark, her eyes closed. She might not even be in her right mind, woken up in the middle of the night after suffering a concussion.

  He cleared his throat, not sure where to begin. “She was a very special woman.”

  “How did you meet her?”

  Her eyes remained closed and he found he didn’t have the heart to rebuke her curiosity. “At a garden party. I had just come down from Oxford and my parents had thrown a large party. There was Octavia, at nineteen, as beautiful and fresh as one of my mother’s just-opened roses.” He couldn’t help smiling in the dark, remembering the moment. “I was a blushing, stammering twenty-one-year-old. I don’t know how I got through the introduction.”

  “I can’t imagine you losing your poise. You seem so worldly and sure of yourself in every situation.”

  How little she knew of him. “Well, I assure you, I was none of that on this occasion. Not only did I stumble over her name, but later, as we were walking through a garden path, I tripped over a flagstone and went sprawling.”

 
She laughed softly, and he chuckled at the memory of his most embarrassing moment. “What happened next?”

  “By the time I managed to get on my knees, my best trousers torn, the palms of my hands scraped, I was planning to emigrate to India and never return to England, my humiliation was so great.”

  She stifled her laughter with a hand. “Oh, you poor dear! My own story pales in comparison.”

  Feeling something strange at the sound of the endearment on her lips, he went on with his story. “Well, thankfully, the situation improved. When I looked up, there she was, kneeling beside me, concern written all over her pretty face, begging me to tell her I was all right. I fell in love at first sight and haven’t ever recovered from it.”

  He could feel her gazing at him through the dark.

  “How soon before you were married?”

  “A year later. Her father wanted her to wait until she reached her majority, but after a year of my constant presence at the house, he relented.” He chuckled again. “So we enjoyed a decade together.” He sighed. “Those were the happiest years of my life. We traveled a lot...until she fell ill. I don’t remember an unpleasant moment with her.”

  “You never had children?”

  Reid’s lips firmed into a hard line, not expecting such a forthright question.

  “I’m sorry, that was indelicate of me to ask.”

  His anger evaporated. How could she know? No one did. “No...we never did.” He looked down at the outline of his folded hands, not ready to tell her about the circumstances of that subject. He’d never be ready to talk about that.

  “That’s the one thing I regret most about never marrying...not ever having children....” Her voice drifted off. “I would have loved to have been a mother....”

  The words cut him to the quick. She’d have no idea how much.

  She yawned. “I think it will be light soon. Do you think I’ll survive the night if I go back to sleep now?”

  He dragged his thoughts back to the present. She must be exhausted. “Yes, I believe so. Ewane will probably be up around noon with some help to carry you down the rest of the way.” The words came out automatically, his tone steady, revealing nothing of the pain her words had reawakened in him.

  “Surely I’ll be able to walk by then.”

  “Not yet. You need to take it easy and let your head mend. Just for a few days at any rate or however long a real doctor recommends.” He rose from the stool, feeling his stiff legs. His arms ached from the distance he’d carried Miss Norton.

  “I’ll catch a few more winks myself,” he told her, although he wondered whether that would be possible, now that he’d awakened the past so thoroughly.

  * * *

  Maddie waited until she heard the sound of Mr. Gallagher’s footsteps retreat. Only when she was sure he’d left the hut did she allow herself to react.

  Although she’d made him believe she was ready to drop off again, in truth, sleep was the last thing on her mind.

  She went over their conversation in her head. All Mr. Gallagher’s words, his whole tone of voice when talking about his late wife, expressed complete devotion. Reid Gallagher still loved his first wife, as deeply and purely as on the day he’d first met her. Maddie stared dry eyed through the dark. With each word of his, every inflection of tenderness in his voice, she’d felt all her hopes snuffed out.

  He’d been candid about his love. She had no reason to doubt it. No wonder he’d never remarried in all these years. No wonder he still wore his wedding band. No woman could ever hope to compete with such a sacred memory, least of all a penniless, aging spinster with nothing to recommend her—no connections, no looks and no charm—none of the attributes of Cecily Mason and any other lady his aunt and sister threw in his path.

  Her future stretched before her, one colorless day drifting into another as she continued her servitude to Lady Haversham. Somehow she’d have to bury her growing feelings for her...employer. She hesitated over the word, which sounded too cold and formal for the man who’d carried her down the mountainside in his arms today and sat by her side and made her smile and in a matter of seconds had broken her heart so thoroughly....

  What did one call that kind of person?

  A man with whom one had fallen desperately, hopelessly in love?

  Dear Lord, don’t let him know, never let him suspect how I feel about him.

  Chapter Twelve

  The next day the gillie, Ewane, arrived with another man. Feeling like someone feigning illness, Maddie protested against being carried all the way down to the glen in a litter, but Mr. Gallagher was adamant. She was not walking more than a few steps.

  Now she lay on the litter, once again tucked into blankets by Mr. Gallagher, and felt its gentle sway. She bit her lip, stewing in her sense of powerlessness. She hadn’t felt so helpless since she was a girl in the Holy Land, suffering bouts of illness. She remembered how she’d hindered her parents’ work overseas, and now she had destroyed this man’s climb to the summit. The comparison might seem ridiculous but Maddie couldn’t help drawing the parallels as she watched his strong back at the front of her litter. He’d insisted on carrying one end of it.

  * * *

  They arrived back at the house by early evening. Both Lady Haversham and her niece stood at the front entry when Maddie was carried in.

  Lady Haversham leaned on her cane and glared at Maddie. “What is the meaning of this? You caused me the utmost worry yesterday. I couldn’t sleep a wink the whole night, isn’t that so, Vera?”

  “Yes, indeed. I had to sit up with her. Reid, where in the world did you take off to with Miss Norton?” She turned shocked eyes onto Maddie. “And Miss Norton, I’m amazed at you, sneaking off like that, leaving your employ—”

  Mr. Gallagher interrupted his sister. “That’s enough, Vera. Can’t you see the woman is injured? Now, clear the way, everyone,” he told the hovering servants in a stern voice.

  Maddie sat up on the pallet, horrified at the accusations. “I can make it up the stairs on my own.” Before Mr. Gallagher could stop her, she’d swung her legs over the side. It was only in the shocked silence that followed that she remembered her garments. She swallowed, staring down at the trousers she still wore.

  Lady Haversham’s sharp intake of breath told Maddie all she needed to hear.

  “Excuse me, my lady.” She faltered then turned and stumbled from the area, her only wish to disappear from the looks of disapproval all around her. She clutched the stair rail, her legs feeling weak, but determined to mount the flight of steps.

  She ignored Mr. Gallagher’s “Miss Norton—” Instead of insisting on accompanying her, she heard him give a sharp order to one of the maids, who hurried to her side.

  “Here, miss, take my arm and I’ll help you to your room.”

  “Thank you,” she mumbled, hardly daring to look the woman in the eyes.

  By tomorrow she knew she’d be on a train heading back to London, unemployed. She had no one to blame but herself. Did all spinsters on the verge of turning thirty do such foolish things?

  * * *

  Reid refused to discuss Miss Norton with his aunt and sister until he’d sent for a doctor. Only then did he escort the two ladies into the library and shut the door behind them.

  “Really, Aunt Millicent, did you have to light into the poor woman like that? Didn’t you see she was injured?”

  His aunt sat down in the wing chair and took deep, gasping breaths, one hand over her breast. “What did you expect me to do? You and the woman go missing yesterday and then I see her carried in on a stretcher, and her outfit!” She turned to Vera. “Did you ever see such a scandalous thing?”

  At her niece’s vigorous shake of the head, her attention returned to Reid. “Can you blame me? Here I thought Miss Norton was a respectable lady. I brought her to live under my roof.” She closed her eyes
and shuddered.

  “Auntie, are you all right?” Vera asked. “Do you want me to get you your maid?”

  “Give me a moment.” Her voice was faint. “I’ve had such a shock.”

  Reid raked a hand through his hair, at a loss of how to deal with his aunt’s hysteria. How long before the doctor arrived? Miss Norton had slept much of the way down, so he was more convinced than ever she had suffered a concussion. He wished he could go up and see how she was but was afraid that would only make things worse. If he’d known their entrance would cause such a disturbance, he’d have brought Miss Norton in through the back. Then he swore under his breath, disgusted at this subterfuge. He was tired of the way Maddie was treated—

  “Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said, Reid?” He swiveled around to face his aunt, who didn’t look any too well herself.

  “What?—Excuse me, Aunt Millicent, I’m simply concerned for Miss Norton. She suffered quite a blow to her head and I’m anxious for a doctor to see to her.”

  “A blow to her head? Whatever did you do to her? Oh, my goodness, my nerves can’t take anymore—” His aunt began to fan herself.

  “We were merely hiking up to the peak of Ben Lawers when she lost her footing and fell several feet. She hit her head on a rock and lost consciousness for a few moments.”

  His sister gasped. “Is she all right?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve known men to suffer less profound blows and be seriously injured. It can even prove fatal.”

  “But...but she’s all right now, isn’t she? She appeared fine,” Vera insisted.

  “She might appear fine, but we have no idea what internal injury might have befallen her. She could have a skull fracture, for all we know. I’m almost certain she suffered a concussion.”

  His aunt fanned herself more vigorously. “Oh, my heavens. How could you take her up there? I’ve suffered enough.”

  Vera went to her aunt. “There, Auntie, Reid is scaring us unnecessarily. He’s used to talking to men and has forgotten the sensibility of ladies. I’m sure Miss Norton will be fine. Her color was good and she walked up the stairs herself.”