The Heart Queen

by Patricia Potter

  And so he had kept his voice measured, his arms to himself. In the great hall, he’d listened to the rumors, the charges. Marjorie Campbell, the late earl’s mother, had seized upon him the moment she learned his identity.

  “We are honored by your presence.”

  “My condolences on the loss of your son,” Neil said. He also considered telling her he was a friend of the countess, but then he probably would not learn anything. And, in truth, he was considered no friend by Janet Campbell, not if her measured greeting had been any sign.

  He’d allowed the dowager countess to believe that her family was important enough to draw a marquis to her son’s funeral and listened as she regaled him with all her daughter-in-law’s faults.

  “She could even kill the children,” the woman had muttered, not caring whether anyone had heard. He’d been appalled by the depth of the animosity in the hall, by the way the dowager countess had moved from visitor to visitor, spreading the poison as she went.

  Then she’d moved closer to him. “I hear you have the ear of His Grace, Lord Cumberland. You should ask him to look into the matter.”

  “What about the authorities here?”

  She waved her hand in disdain. “They fear to do anything, but His Grace could rule that Lochaene should go to Reginald, my oldest son. ’Tis only right.”

  He’d had to swallow the bile in his throat at her plotting on the day of her son’s burial.

  “I will tell him all that has happened,” he promised and tried to sidle away.

  She followed. “She is a Jacobite, you know. You tell His Grace that. I am sure he would prefer this land in the hands of a family who has been loyal to him and his brother, King George.”

  “I am sure he values loyalty,” Neil agreed, knowing full well that Cumberland valued nothing but his own power. He would toss these people off their land in a second if he thought he would gain from it.

  He drank one glass of not very good ale, then had a need for fresh air. It was then he noticed Janet trying to balance a heavily laden tray.

  Without thinking, he rushed to her aid, and was surprised when she accepted his offer.

  But up the stairs and into the nursery, he was all arms and legs and awkwardness. He knew his size terrorized the children, or was it all men? He knew that look in their eyes, the fear of being hit. Bloody hell, he knew it too well.

  He’d wanted to leave but he could not. He saw her face as she tried to reassure the children. Her too-pale, too-thin face relaxed, and those dark blue eyes filled with love. And tenderness. The kind he remembered from those brief days together. The years between those days and this one disappeared, and he was seized with a need and longing so great his legs almost buckled under his weight.

  He stepped outside. He had to, before he made a great fool of himself. He knew he had to leave. This night. Or he would break the vow he’d made. But first he had to let her know she had a friend.

  It was the least he could do.

  He thought of Rory, who had repeatedly risked his life to save others, people he didn’t know, people he’d once fought. He wished he had only a measure of Rory’s character. And yet how many years had he decried his cousin as a wastrel and fool? Even a coward. He should have seen under the facade, should have taken the time to find the true worth.

  He tried to help others now in his own stumbling way. He’d tried to better the lives of his tenants, tried to influence neighboring landlords from clearing their lands. But it was so little compared to his cousin.

  What would he do if someone came to him for help? Would he risk the people at Braemoor for strangers? It was a question without an answer.

  Several moments later, he heard the door open.

  An exclamation escaped Janet when she realized he was still there, standing in wait for her.

  She quickly moved away. Little this day had hurt as much.

  “I will not be touching you, lass,” he said. “I just wanted you to know I’ll be leaving Lochaene this night.”

  Her mouth formed an O in surprise, but she did not reply.

  “I did not mean to frighten the wee ones,” he said. “I did not think I was that fierce.”

  Her face did not soften. “They have no reason to trust men,” she said. “And neither do I.”

  Another blow. He knew he had wronged her, and now he knew that he probably should have told her the real reason he had done what he had years earlier. He’d truly believed then that it had been the kindest thing to do. And now … there was no reason to explain. Nothing had changed. And it would accomplish little. He would not hurt her again, and he needed the distance her anger insured.

  Still, he had to let her know that he could help. “Janet, if you need anything, if you need … a friend, or if you ever need help, come to me.” It sounded stiff, even to him.

  “I do not need help. Not from you. Not from anyone.” Pride radiated from her body while a sheen fogged her eyes.

  “I … just want you to know that I will be at your call. I can help.”

  “Aye. I understand you are a friend of the butcher.”

  He put a finger to her lips. “Do not let anyone else hear that.”

  “I would expect that from one of his lackeys,” she said. “Now if you will excuse me.”

  “Janet,” he started.

  “Lady Lochaene,” she corrected.

  “Lady Lochaene,” he said obediently. He was doing this all wrong. It had been a mistake coming here. But he’d never been good with social niceties.

  She lifted her chin. “If you do not mind, I wish to spend time with my son.”

  “No’ until you hear me out,” he said.

  “I have heard you. I do not need your help. My son is the new earl.”

  He hesitated, then said, “I have been asked to intercede with Cumberland to have the lands stripped from him.”

  She stilled. “He canna do that.”

  “Not if I have anything to say about it. But you must know that your husband’s family is plotting against you. I meant it when I said you have a friend.”

  Her gaze bore into him. “One I can depend on? I think not, my lord.”

  He deserved every word, and more. No matter how noble his intent years ago, he’d obviously hurt her far beyond what he’d believed. Bitterness had edged her words when she’d said neither she nor her children had any reason to trust men. She made it clear that he had done nothing to make her feel differently.

  What in God’s name had Campbell done to her? Worse than what he’d done?

  He couldn’t help himself. He lifted his hand and ran a finger down her cheek, feeling its softness.

  She flinched.

  Pain twisted inside him. He stepped back, nodded, then went down the stairs, straight out to the stable.

  He’d delivered his message.

  It was time to go home.

  Chapter Three

  Janet remembered Braemoor’s words. She remembered the intense look on his face, as if he were willing her to believe him.

  But she knew she couldn’t. She did not think she could ever believe a man again. She certainly never intended to depend on one again.

  Her first thoughts were for the children. She dismissed Molly and promoted a lass who’d worked in the kitchen. She’d always been kind, and kindness was the quality that Janet wanted most.

  She also had a battle with Reginald, who’d wanted to move down into her husband’s room. She’d said no, that the children would move there. She wanted them close, and she installed young Colin’s bed in her own chamber. She found the lasses a puppy—a herding dog—from one of the drovers, and a kitten from the barn cat.

  Grace’s face lit like a thousand candles in the night.

  She immediate snuggled the puppy in her arms as Annabella took the kitten.

  With shining eyes, Grace looked up at her. “What should we name him?”

  “That is up to you. The three of you have to agree on both names.”

  “I want one, to
o,” Rachel said, looking uncharacteristically disgruntled.

  Janet hadn’t thought about three animals. Now she knew she should have.

  “They belong to all of you,” she said. “You can take turns playing with them. Then we will see.”

  Rachel looked only a trifle mollified. She went over to Grace and started to pet the puppy. “He is a wee thing.”

  “He will soon be large enough to be trouble,” Janet said wryly.

  “Oh, he will never be trouble,” Grace said. “He will be very, very good.”

  “We can call the kitten Princess,” Rachel offered.

  Annabella objected. “That’s ord’nary. She is not ord’nary.”

  “Why don’t you wait a few days,” Janet interjected. “Then you can come up with two very fine names. You can make up lists.”

  The lasses looked at each other. Grace, then Rachel, nodded. Annabella stuck her chin out pugnaciously. “I want to name the kitty.”

  Janet looked at the two older lasses. They nodded.

  “All right, then,” Janet said with mock seriousness. “You can tell me your decisions next week.”

  When she left the room, the three were crooning over their new charges, giggling as she had never heard them giggle before. She leaned against the door outside for a moment, just listening, particularly to Grace. Of the three, she had always seemed unable to be a child and regarded every person with a wariness that disturbed Janet.

  When she went downstairs to fetch some milk and bread for the animals, she overheard the cook arguing with a tradesman about the bill and she stepped in.

  He glared at her. “I willna be sendin’ more goods here.”

  After he left, Janet questioned the cook.

  “Ain’t no one been paid for months,” she said. “I would leave except for my husband herds sheep and we have a croft here. If I left, we’d both be driven from the land.”

  Janet went from there to Reginald’s room. He had taken over the management and the books without asking her. She had allowed it because she wanted the time to spend with the children. Now she felt ready, and well enough, for war.

  He wasn’t there. He was off on a hunt, said his wife Louisa as she nursed her baby who would soon be six months old.

  Janet grinned down at the child. Children delighted her. Their innocence gave her joy. She would like several more children, in fact, despite the pain of delivery. Louisa had said she never wanted another. But that feeling usually wore off.

  “He looks well,” she said.

  “Aye,” Louisa said shortly.

  “You will ask Reginald to find me when he returns?”

  “Why?”

  “I want to go over the books with him.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “Why would you do that? It’s a mon’s business.”

  “It’s my son’s business, his inheritance.”

  Louisa glared at her and Janet left. She should have checked on things before now. She went down to the stables. One lad was feeding the horses. The barn itself was in need of cleaning; the stalls were filthy.

  She went down the aisle. The horses looked thin.

  “Have you been feeding them their oats?”

  “We donna have any,” the boy said.

  She remembered his name. Kevin. Kevin McDougal.

  She went over to one of the stalls. The animal stuck his head out and she ran a hand down his neck as he nickered softly. She used to ride frequently but Alasdair had disapproved, as he disapproved of so many things she enjoyed. She might as well have been locked in her room. Why hadn’t she rebelled?

  Because she feared Alasdair would take it out on the children. They had always been the weapon he’d used to control her.

  “Why have the stalls not been cleaned?” she asked.

  Kevin looked rebellious. “There is only me. I canna do everything.”

  “I will help you, then.”

  “You, my lady?”

  “Aye, I’ll not have them stand in this filth. And I will see if I can get you some help.”

  Kevin did not look optimistic at the prospect. “Lord Reginald said no one was needed.”

  Reginald was not a lord. He was the honorable Reginald Campbell. Janet wondered who had instructed the lad to call him lord. Was it pretension? Hope?

  She was beginning to see the depth of the problems facing her. She’d been lost in a mixture of conflicting emotions during the past few days. She’d been intent on quieting the fears of Alasdair’s daughters, of relishing the time she had with Colin. Her sense of freedom had warred with guilt that she’d not done better with her marriage.

  But she had no intention of handing over her son’s estates to the care of the Campbells. Reginald was an ambitious, mean-spirited man and his wife, Louisa, was his match. Their only redemption was their infant, David.

  She sighed, wishing for an ally. Any ally.

  If you need a friend …

  She needed so much, most of all a friend. A trusted friend.

  Neil Forbes was not that. He could never be that. The devil take him for appearing out of nowhere. She’d tried to banish him from her thoughts over the years, but it was for naught. She kept remembering standing next to him in the stables at Braemoor. He’d known each of the horses. He’d never let them be neglected.

  Janet wished she’d known more about what was going on. But her husband had all but kept her a prisoner. The cook had disregarded her orders in favor of those of the dowager countess. She’d been able to teach the bairns, to play with them, to care for them. And only that because her husband had so little concern for them. As long as she kept them away from him, he rarely interfered, except for commanding that they sleep apart from her. He did not want clinging children, he’d said often enough.

  In the beginning, she’d protested. Then she discovered that the more she protested, the more he took it out on the bairns. But, she wondered, mayhap she should have tried harder.

  But her heart had been wounded, first by Neil, then by her father’s and brother’s deaths, and finally by her husband. How many times had he told her how inadequate she was? She had made the children her world.

  She couldn’t do that any longer. To make their world safe, she had to make her own safe.

  Until now, she hadn’t realized how immense that task would be.

  She knew nothing about managing an estate, and she did not trust anyone in the family to do it for her.

  And now she’d just offered to muck out stalls. As if that would help in any measurable way. But mayhap in a small way. A beginning. A small stab at control, at independence.

  A pitiable one.

  Still, she felt excitement well inside her for the first time in years.

  Mayhap mucking out the stalls would help muck out her mind.

  Upon his return to Braemoor, Neil spent several hours with Jock, who was one of four tacksmen at Braemoor. They leased property from the marquis, then in turn rented it to the crofters. Three of them, Neil suspected, cheated their tenants. Jock was the one honest one who cared about the people who rented from him.

  As the new marquis, Neil had the right to cancel the leases held by the tacksmen. Contracts varied throughout the Highlands; this one continued only through the lifetime of the marquis. Once a marquis died, the contracts were no longer valid.

  Jock could lose his livelihood and he knew it. He fidgeted until Neil said, “Sit down, Jock.”

  Jock sat down, looking as if he were facing the hangman. “Did I do something wrong, my lord?”

  Neil studied him for a moment. He was a fine-looking man, tall and strongly built with a shock of red hair and honest blue eyes. Neil knew he was in his mid-thirties and was a distant kinsman; he’d inherited the position of tacksman from his father, who’d died five years earlier. Like Neil, he had no wife; unlike Neil, there was no reason for that to be true. At least as far as Neil knew.

  “No,” he finally said. “I wanted to thank you for looking after Braemoor while I was gone.” He hesitated, th
en offered, “Would you have a glass of brandy?”

  Jock looked as if Neil were about to poison him. Afraid to take it. Afraid not to take it.

  Neil sighed. Rory had had such an easy relationship with people around the estate. It must be a talent, having friends. A talent he’d never cultivated. He’d been too busy walking the sharp edge of a knife. He poured a dollop of brandy into a cup and handed it to Jock.

  “I wanted your opinion,” he said.

  “My opinion?” Jock replied dumbly.

  Neil realized then he’d never once asked for the man’s opinion since he assumed management of Braemoor. Before Rory had left, Neil had never been quite sure of how much control or responsibility he actually had, and he’d been bitter that Rory, not he, had inherited.

  He’d always believed he had a love for the land and husbandry that his predecessors had not. They’d cared only for the money the estates had brought. Rory had cared, but Neil had not known that until it was too late. Neil had done what he thought was expected: extract what he could from the earth and try to do little harm in the process.

  Then Rory’s body—or what was thought to be Rory’s body—was found on the coast, assumed to be the latest victim of the Black Knave, and suddenly Braemoor became Neil’s. The poor relation, the orphaned bastard, was suddenly lord. He’d visited all the crofts, but he hadn’t known how to put the tenants at ease. He hadn’t been able to express his concern for them. He hadn’t been able to translate his hopes to them.

  He felt like a fraud, and knew they must feel the same.

  But now over the months he’d developed a plan, one he hoped would help every soul who lived on Braemoor.

  Poor Jock looked like he was about to be consumed by a dragon. He clutched the cup with hands so clenched they were white.

  “Ye are no’ goin’ to be clearin’ the land, are ye?” Jock finally ventured, obviously convinced that was the reason for this interview.

  “Nay,” Neil said. “No one will be evicted.”

  Jock’s frown cleared but his brows remained furrowed. Neil couldn’t blame him. His uncle, the old marquis, had paid precious little attention to either the lands or the tenants. During Rory’s brief tenure, he acted the fool and indicated no interest at all in Braemoor. In truth, Rory had no reason to care about it. Neil had been given full responsibility, and he’d thought then that it was merely because Rory hadn’t wanted to be bothered. It wasn’t until later he’d discovered that Rory had thought he would be a good steward of the land.