Want. Have. “Aye.” He could not say no. Because she was his wife. And because there were moments in the wee, dark hours of the night when he did want her, for all the wrong reasons. Forgive me, Rose.
A pair of magpies landed by their feet, interested in the grain, hopping about with their black tails raised, their pied plumage stark against the colorless ground. Leana smiled faindy at them. “Do you know the old nursery rhyme?” she asked, nodding at the birds as they flew off. “One magpie for sorrow…” Iwo tor joy…
“Aye, for joy,” she whispered, pinching her lips. “Three for a wedding…”
He grew still. Fearing, hoping. “Four for a boy.”
“Would you…welcome a son, Jamie?”
He shrugged as though it hardly mattered. “I have no son yet.”
“But you will. I know it, Jamie, as only a woman can. ‘Tis a son that I carry inside me. Surely that must please you.”
“Now you're insisting I be pleased with this news? You ask too much of me, Leana.” He swung away from her, scaring the chickens as he strode about, wanting to shout, wanting to shake something hard until it broke in his hands. “I need time to think. Time to reason things through.”
She touched her fingers to her lips, as though holding back what she wanted to say. At last she spoke, her voice low. “You will have more than enough time. Nearly six more months of work. Then we must haste to Glentrool while I can still travel—”
“Glentrool?”Yie bit off the word, then spit it out, so bitter was the taste in his mouth. Leana had no right to speak of his home, the home where Rose was meant to live. “Do you think my brother, Evan, will welcome our arrival in the glen after all that happened between us, knowing the birth of this child will seal his fate?”
“It is sealed already, Jamie. God alone knows the time and place.”
“The time and place for this child's birth is here, at Auchengray, where he can be safe.” And where I can be near your sister. Rose, who made him feel young and carefree, without responsibilities, without risk, without asking him to be a father before he'd learned to be a husband. Or was it worse than that? Had he not yet learned to be a man? He ground his teeth, furious with himself, with Leana, with Rose, with anyone who wanted something from him when he had nothing left to give.
Leana lowered her head and stepped back, preparing to leave. “This is your child. Where he will be born is your decision to make.” She glanced up as she turned, leaving her heart in his hands. “I will always love you, Jamie. It is my calling…” Tears shone in her eyes. “And it is my curse.” She was gone like the magpies, flying across the wintry landscape.
Let Leana be cursed then.
He had said the words.
Then you brought this on yourself, Jamie.
“Nae!” Jamie snatched up what was left of the sack of grain and flung the contents all over the barnyard, swinging the sack in big arcs, shaking the last seeds loose, setting the whole barnyard into frantic motion. “This is not my fault, God! Its your fault!” He railed at the heavens, throwing the empty sack at the sky. “ ‘I will never leave you,’ aye? Was that what you promised me? Then I will leave you! Nothing has gone right in my life. Nothing”
“Ye dont mean that, lad.”
Jamie whirled around, his eyes struggling to focus, and found Duncan standing behind him. “I do mean it!” he shouted at the overseer, not caring if the man flinched at the harshness of his words. “Everything I own and everyone I love has been torn out of my arms. All of it! My future has been decided for me. By my mother, by my uncle, by my cousins—”
“And by God. Or have ye forgotten that he's chosen to bless ye?”
“Dont I have a choice?” Jamie screamed the words, loud enough for God and all of Galloway to hear. “I'm sick of it, do you hear me? I'm tired of doing what others expect me to do.” He grabbed a shovel and plunged it into the midden for the sheer pleasure of seeing the muck fly. “I'm weary of having no choices of my own.”
“Jamie, Jamie.” Duncan carefully took the shovel from his hands. “When ye fight Gods choices, ye re bound to be miserable. Mebbe yer arms needed to be emptied so they could be filled with something better.”
Jamie threw up his hands. “Who or what could possibly be better than Rose McBride?”
Duncan chuckled, not unkindly. “Yer first love, lad. And I dinna mean Leana.” He tossed the shovel aside, lowering his voice as he did. “I've watched ye, Jamie. Watched ye put up a meikle fight, tryin to keep God awa from yer door. To keep love away from yer heart.”
“That's not true!” Jamie fumed. “I am more than ready for love.” How could a man as wise as Duncan Hastings not see the obvious? “It's Roses love I want. Not God's and not Leana's.”
“Och! D'ye think that wee lass has enough love to right all the wrongs in yer life? No woman does, Jamie. Though if I may say so, ye're a fool not to see that Leana's love for ye is grand and wide and much mair than ye deserve. ‘Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing/ aye? Well, there are few sae good as Leana.”
Jamie looked away in shame, fixing his gaze on the flock of magpies who'd circled around for another peck at the scattered grain. He could hardly argue with the plain truth. Leana loved him completely. He saw it in her eyes, heard it in her words, felt it in her touch.
Her voice, whispering his name, haunted him at night. Jamie. The whole of their week in Dumfries, he had given her crumbs, and she'd feasted on them as if they were a banquet.
“I ken ye're deep in thought, lad.” Duncan pressed a hand on his shoulder. “I'm pleased to see it. From what little I overheard, it seems God has seen fit to make ye a faither. Ye've some growin to do first. ‘Tis a day that'll change ye, Jamie. For the better, if ye're like most men. For the worse, if ye're like Lachlan McBride.”
Jamie's hands balled into fists. “I will never treat my son the way Lachlan has treated me.”
“Aye.” Duncan brushed his hands on liis breeches and started toward the house. “Ye might give some thought to how ye treat the babe's mother then. She deserves yer care and attention, Jamie. Now and in the hard months to come. ‘Husbands, love your wives,’ that's what the Buik commands us to do. Find it in yer heart to love her, lad. She's waitin for ye to do that verra thing, but no woman can wait forever.”
Sixty-Eight
Jealousy is always born together with love.
FRANCOIS, DUC DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Rose bowed her head halfway, so she could still keep an eye on the others. Her father pulled the candle closer to the Buik, working his jaw as though with enough effort he might sound like Reverend Gordon. “Hear the word of the Lord: ‘To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.’ ”
She pressed her lips so tighdy together she feared she might bruise them, yet if she opened her mouth, she would scream. Hoot.! ‘Twas the worst season of her young life, with no purpose to it whatsoever. Family worship had only begun, and already she was in a sour mood. Supper had been dreadful. Neda had served hotchpotch, a soup thick as porridge and even less appetizing, no matter how much her father praised it. The neck of one of her poor lambs drenched in too many vegetables made an ugsome stew, to Roses way of thinking.
Her father's voice ground out the words from Scripture like a flesher grinding beef: “A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.”
Aye, that was the truth of it. Jamie McKie had planted when he should have plucked, and now a babe would be born, but not to her. Not at all. To her sister. Rose stared at Leana, whose head was bent over her folded hands, her braids gleaming in the candlelight, and felt nothing but hatred toward her. And nothing but love. Her own Leana, dear to her as the mother she'd never known, had stolen the man she adored and carried his child.
Much as she hated to admit it, Rose feared she might be partly to blame. If only she'd set her cap for Jamie to begin with and not pushed him into Leana's arms. If only she'd told Jamie she loved him bef
ore she left for Aunt Megs. If only she'd refused to travel to Twyneholm in unpredictable December weather. If only she'd demanded her father tell the kirk session the truth about her wedding day. And if only this household would treat her like a woman instead of like a child, her life would be very much nicer indeed!
Rose made up her mind. She would scream. Aye, she wouldzrA see what they thought of their charming little Rose then. The idea lost appeal when she considered spending the next day reciting the Shorter Catechism as punishment. Though anything would be better than what she'd endured this day, listening to the servants sing and laugh as they worked, relieved with the glad tidings. Now they could hold up their heads on market day, knowing things were settled at Auchengray and that they would no longer be whispered about while they picked over soup bones and fresh fish.
When her father read “A time to weep, and a time to laugh,” Rose nearly did both at once, choking on the emotions that roiled inside her like an angry sea. How dare Leana capture her beloved Jamie! Was it because she was the older one? The most skilled at running a household? It certainly was not because she was the bonniest. Rose glanced at her sister again, shaking her head. If anything, the unseen babe washed the last bit of color out of Leana's cheeks. Jamie would soon grow weary of so bland a face.
Rose rested her chin on her folded hands, hoping her father might not notice her poor posture. Some days she wished that Jamie had never come to Auchengray. Life had been much simpler without him, to be sure. But other days it was not Jamie she wished gone, but her sister, even though Rose had loved her for all of her fifteen years. Alas, the choice was not hers; they were both staying. Jamie and Leana would not leave for Glentrool until August, her sister had confided in her before supper. Perhaps not even then, if Leana could not easily travel.
Her father paused in his reading, frowning in her direction as though he could hear her selfish thoughts. She straightened and meekly bowed her head while he continued. “A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.” Had he meant that for her then? That she and Jamie were not to embrace ever again? Och! It was so unfair. He loved her, truly he did. If only she might hide his name in the Valentines Dealing at Susanne Elliot s! Come Saturday afternoon Rose would draw out his name on a tiny slip of paper, and they would exchange gifts, and he would be her valentine for all of 1789. Wouldn't that be grand?
She felt her chest rise and fall in an imaginary sigh. It was no use hoping such things.
Lachlans voice had fallen into a pounding rhythm. “A time to get, and a time to lose.” A time to bse, Father. And a time to cast away her dreams.
Lachlan had called her into the spence after she'd come running through the house, calling Jamie's name like a banshee. “Rose, you are not to carry on like a spoiled child,” he'd cautioned her, his expression more dour than usual. “You're a young woman of means. I'll find you a proper suitor when the time is right.”
“When would that time be, Father?” She'd not meant to sound flippant but couldn't take it back once she'd said it.
“A time of my choosing,” was all he'd said. Which meant no time soon, she feared. She'd spent the balance of the day in her room, pretending to read, while Leana was off spinning wool at her wheel, and Jamie stomped about the barnyard, to hear Duncan tell it, angry with God and all of creation. Rose glanced at Jamie, his dark hair taudy knotted at the nape of his neck, his smooth brow facing her. How serious he looked! Not her lighthearted, laughing Jamie at all. But braw as any Scotsman who ever walked the Galloway hills.
He was seated next to Leana. A bit apart from her sister, Rose was gratified to see, though it would not be long before they climbed into the same bed in the room next to hers. Aunt Meg's description of what to expect on her wedding night had been most unsatisfactory. Perhaps it was best not to know. Leana had known, and that knowledge had ruined her life.
No, Rose. It ruined yours.
She gritted her teeth as her father closed the Buik with the last line of the passage. “A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.” Rose felt more hate than love and no peace at all. The worst six months of her life loomed before her. If she was doomed to suffer, she would see to it that the entire household suffered with her.
“I chose this passage for a purpose under heaven,” Lachlan said, his gaze moving around the room. “ ‘Tis a day in which two lives are truly joined and a third is anticipated.” He paused, staring at Leana and Jamie, as they all were. Leana was blushing. Jamie was sullen. “The McKies will remain with us through Lammas. Longer, if I can convince them to make their home at Auchengray for another season.”
Another breeding season, he means. Rose saw Jamie's eyes flicker and guessed he was thinking the very same.
“We will have a time of peace in this household,” her father said, his meaning clear. “Let us call upon Almighty God and ask his Holy Spirit to reign over us all.”
Lachlan prayed, using words like a hammer, driving home sharply pointed truths until no tool could remove them. For a man bent on having his own way, by any crooked means necessary, her father spoke of righteousness and forgiveness with authority. Perhaps he was required to know only how the words were pronounced.
Rose kept her head bowed, proud of herself for doing so, and dutifully prayed for peace. Yet inside her heart, a war was raging. She loved her sister; she hated her sister; she wanted happiness for Leana and Jamie; she wanted Jamie McKie for herself.
Sixty-Nine
The deepest rivers make least din,
The silent soul doth most abound in care.
WILLIAM ALEXANDER, EARL OF STIRLING
Leana waited for Jamie in their darkened bedroom, just as Jamie had waited for her on their wedding night. He, however, had been fast asleep, and she was more awake than she could ever remember, her heart dancing a fiddlers jig.
Odd to be nesded inside the box bed that had changed her life forever. She'd expected him long before this, but poor Jamie had been through a very trying day. Duncan had hinted about a scene in the barnyard after she'd left, and Rose was inconsolable at dinner and supper both, feeling sorry for herself, making everyone miserable. Neda had done what she could, serving Rose's favorite syllabub, patting Leana's shoulder in passing, seasoning the air with grace—all to no avail. Family worship had been blessedly short, for Neda's hotchpotch did not sit on her stomach as well as she'd hoped. They'd all dispersed on the last amen, Rose to her sewing—a task she only faced when she was already in wretched spirits—Jamie to read, and Leana to prepare herself and their bedroom, praying the next part of their married life might begin on a happier note.
The bedding had been aired, fresh candles were lit, and she'd dressed in the same nightgown she'd worn for her bridal week, neatly pressed by Eliza. Hours earlier the quiet, dark-haired servant girl had left behind her life in the scullery to serve as lady's maid to her mistress, according to the terms of Leana's tocher. The babe in her womb had forced her father to acknowledge the marriage at last.
Now Leana waited, almost breathless to see her husband, her hand smoothing over the wooden box bed walls, remembering.
Jamie, come to me!
He did, at last, stepping into the room with a taper in one hand and his book in the other. “Leana?” he whispered. “Are you still awake?”
“Aye.” She tried not to laugh. “I am.” As though she could sleep after weeks in a tiny hurlie bed, after weeks without Jamie! “Quite awake.”
As Jamie undressed in the flickering candlelight, she watched him without apology, letting the sight of him awaken a desire she'd feared might never see daylight again. He was her husband now—not for a day or a week but for the rest of her days. Jamie, oh my Jamie! It was good, it was right, for her to love him in every way she could.
He slid beneath the covers and pulled the bed curtains shut behind him, wrapping them in a world without shadows or sound. They simply breathed together for a moment, their bodies warming toward each other.
S
he'd thought all day about what she would say when she had Jamie to herself, but now the words were gone. There were only feelings, emotions so close to the surface of her skin that if he touched her, she might ignite and burn to ashes.
“Jamie.” She loved saying his name. She would begin there. “Jamie, my love.”
He touched a finger to her lips. “Leana, don't. Don't ask more of me than I can give you.”
She kissed his fingertip, then pressed his hand against her cheek. “You've already given me a child in my womb, and for that I'm grateful. I promise I'll be patient.”
When he withdrew his hand, her cheek cooled. The strain in his voice was palpable. “How patient?”
“Very patient, Jamie.” She smiled in spite of the tension between them. “Its one of my few virtues, or have you forgotten?”
“I have not forgotten.” He turned to lie on his back and folded his hands beneath his head, his jutting elbows holding her at bay. “And you have many virtues, Leana.”
“I'm glad,” she murmured, longing to know what those qualities might be. But she was not Rose. She would not insist he flatter her and list them. If Jamie had found some good in her, that was enough. “By patient, do you mean that you prefer we not…”
He sighed heavily and turned his face toward the bed curtains. “By patient I mean good night.”
The night was far from good. She tossed and turned, unaccustomed to Jamie's presence, her stomach queasy, her thoughts troubled. In the wee, dark hours, when she was certain he was well asleep, she drew close to him, curving herself around him like spoons in a drawer, praying he would not awaken and push her away. Warmed by his body, she finally slept, only to wake in the morning and find him gone and his pillow cold.
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