03 - Dreams of Destiny

by May McGoldrick

  “If anyone needs a doctor, ‘tis you. I have only a few minor bruises. You, on the other hand, are not yet recovered from childbirth.”

  “I have recovered completely.”

  The quiet answer, followed by the young woman moving to the far side of the chamber to see to closing the curtains on the window, told Gwyneth she had broached the wrong subject. Violet was still grieving the loss of her baby. Any mention of it only scraped the scab off the wound.

  “I shall agree to have a physician look at me only if you accept some of my conditions. The first is that you not look on yourself as a servant.”

  Violet stopped and looked in Gwyneth’s direction. “We are born and raised to take our rightful place in the world. I cannot sit idle and pretend to be more than I am just because you wish it.” Violet walked toward her. The dark circles under her eyes spoke of her weariness. “You gave me a new breath of life in bringing me back here. Now I must do what feels right for me to fit in. I am a woman of the serving class.”

  It was frustrating. There was so much she hoped to do for Violet. Gwyneth had no choice, though. She didn’t want to drive Violet away.

  “Very well. But will you at least allow me to set some rules?”

  “Perhaps. It depends on what they are.”

  Gwyneth motioned to the other woman to sit down on the bed beside her. She waited until Violet had done so. “Since you told me that you were a lady’s maid before, then you should have no objection about accepting a position here.”

  Violet gave a nod of agreement.

  “Then you shall be a companion to me here…with a salary. You will not be answerable to the housekeeper, and you shall do no manual labor in the household. Your duties are to attend only to me.”

  “Attending to you means addressing you properly, and dressing you, and arranging your hair, and using my needlework skills to sew or mend your dresses, and to see to—”

  “None of that,” Gwyneth said stubbornly. “I want a companion I can trust, someone I can talk to about my stories. I want to be able to read them to you, and ask your opinion. We can read together and I can teach you to ride, as well.”

  Violet sat pensively, obviously considering the conditions.

  “You will find me far more demanding than Lady Aytoun. I shall fill all your time.”

  Violet looked at her doubtfully, and Gwyneth found the lack of argument encouraging.

  “If I am not exposed and disinherited, your salary shall be twenty pounds a year. If you wish, you can have for a half day off on Sunday, one evening out a week, and a day off each month. My other condition would be that you will occupy a bedroom on this floor where I can call you as needed.”

  Violet looked at her suspiciously. “You are getting too liberal again, Miss Gwyneth.”

  “You shall call me Gwyneth.”

  “Miss Gwyneth.”

  “When ‘tis just the two of us…Gwyneth,” she stressed. “And I shall take care of explaining the arrangements to my aunt and the housekeeper as soon as they arrive.”

  Violet rose to her feet. “Then I shall go and ask Robert to send for the doctor.”

  Gwyneth shook her head with a smile. “Do not bother. Knowing him, he already has.”

  ****

  During their search, David had indeed crossed paths with Walter Truscott and the two of them worked together combing the area west of Baronsford. Thus far, they’d had no success in locating the woman they were looking for, but neither was ready to quit. They were preparing to separate, however—David to Gretna Green and Walter to cover the roads leading to the ships at Greenock—when a groom sent from Baronsford caught up with them and told them of Gwyneth’s arrival and of the second woman traveling with her.

  “This could very well be the one yu are looking for,” David told Truscott as he turned his horse in the direction of Greenbrae Hall.

  “I doubt it, David. The coincidence is fairly unlikely, wouldn’t you think.”

  “Gwyneth left Gretna Green alone and on horseback,” David argued. “We hear now that she arrived at her house with another young woman of about the same age.”

  “What did the other woman look like?” Truscott asked of the groom who had brought the news. “Do you at least have a name?”

  The man shook his head. “I only know what I was told by his lordship. The lad from the Hall said naught to me, sir.”

  Walter shook his head. “Lyon and Millicent want Violet found even more than I do. They would have said something if they thought there were a possibility that this young woman could be her.”

  “Walter, I’m not going to argue the bloody point with you,” David snapped. “I’m going to Greenbrae Hall. Gwyneth gave me the slip and I’m thinking she must have traveled through the hills to get there. Whoever ‘tis at the Hall with her, she met on the way from Gretna Green. Now, how many bloody women do you think are wandering around out here?”

  “I suppose there is only one way to find out.”

  “We should reach Greenbrae Hall by noon, if we ever start. If this woman is not the one you’re looking for, you can get a fresh horse and still beat the lass to Greenock…if that’s where she’s going.”

  Riding back, David found himself growing more impatient. His inclination to strangle Gwyneth as soon as he got there did little to soothe his restlessness. She not only refused his offer of marriage, but by running away, she had rejected him, as well. The intimacy they’d shared and all of his assumptions of her attraction toward him meant nothing if she wasn’t about to give their relationship a chance. He wondered how much of Gwyneth’s objection to his proposal had to do with Emma.

  He was trying to forget the past, but they were not letting him. Not Lyon. Not Gwyneth.

  David glanced at his cousin riding beside him and brooding in silence. Slightly younger in age, the two had been good friends for all their years growing up. He would have done anything for Walter, and he knew his cousin always felt the same way about him.

  “I might need your help in a delicate matter over the next few days or so.”

  Truscott’s expression cleared immediately. “Anything. What is it?”

  “You are one person who was close to both Emma and Lyon from the start of their marriage to the very end. I need to dig into the past, find out what happened. You might be able to answer some of my questions or at least lead me in the right direction.”

  “I thought you came back to make peace, David. What do you think you can accomplish by churning up the past?” Walter asked, obviously annoyed.

  “Nothing. I know I shall accomplish nothing,” David retorted shortly. “But I am being given no choice in this. Lyon believes I am still consumed by my memory of Emma and her death. Gwyneth thinks the same. She wouldn’t even consider my bloody offer.”

  “What offer?” Truscott interrupted.

  David realized he had not meoned anything about his marriage proposal to either Lyon or Walter. But how could he, when the intended had refused him and run away. “That’s a long story.”

  “We’ve got a long ride ahead of us.”

  David shook his head. He was not ready to tell his cousin how complicated he’d made things for himself and Gwyneth. In making love to her, he’d left her no option but to marry him. Convincing Gwyneth of that, however, was obviously another challenge altogether.

  “About Emma,” he continued. “I know neither Lyon nor Gwyneth will be happy until I bury the memory of Emma once and for all. So I plan to do exactly that.”

  “And it matters what Gwyneth thinks?”

  “Yes. It matters.”

  Walter looked at him hard, but did not press him further on that.

  “Well, David, your brother must not be thinking straight. In dredging up Emma’s death, you’ll only be stirring up scandal and hard feelings—I should think—for the new countess. The woman will be having a bairn soon, for God’s sake. Why should either of you want to upset her?”

  “I’ve not even met her, but I’ve no desire t
o do anything to insult or upset her. And I plan to be discreet,” David explained. “I only want Lyon and Gwyneth, the two people who are pushing me to do this, to know what I’m doing.”

  Truscott rode a few moments in silence. His face was a mask when he finally turned to him. “Nothing about Emma shall ever be discreet. Do you remember the basket of snakes the Indian magician had in Edinburgh?”

  “At Lord Eglinton’s house. Of course I remember it.”

  “I believe opening a door to the memory of Emma is like lifting the cover of that basket. You shall find nothing but a twisting, writhing mass of poison and death. ‘Tis an experience those at Baronsford could do without. We need not go through that again, David.”

  “I have no choice, Walter.” David said determined. “My words do not appear to be enough. My declaration that my interest is directed only toward the future is not enough. Lyon, for one, needs proof.”

  Truscott frowned and shot a glance at David. “I still think both of you are making a mistake.”

  “You may be right.” David looked at his cousin. “But will you help me?”

  “I have no other choice, do I?”

  ****

  When Emma came looking for him in the village on market day, there were at least a dozen people standing nearby.

  “’Tis important that I talk to you.”

  “I cannot. I still have a great deal of work I need to do here.”

  “Please, Walter. I shall not take too much of your time.” She placed a hand on his arm, despite the prying eyes.He paused, too long for her liking, for she snapped, “If not for my sake, then for your precious cousin’s. I need to speak to you.”

  Walter knew she would make a scene if she had to. No price was too high for the control she seemed more and more to live for.

  He knew he would be a fool to agree. More than a year had passed since they had made love in the tower house. It was almost that long since they’d exchanged a civil word with each other. He no longer dreamed of Emma, though. He did not fantasize about her when he was with other women. Making love to her that first time had opened his eyes. Her actions afterward and toward other men sealed his belief that she would never be happy. Never.

  “I cannot get away now.” He motioned with his head toward a grove of trees beside the small chapel. “But I shall talk to you there, if you insist.”

  She glared in the direction that he’s gestured and strode off ahead of him.

  Like an obedient dog, he was expected to follow. Walter was angry enough to let her wait, to ignore her, but ‘twas for David’s sake that he finally turned and walked after her. The trees would not hide them from passersby, but offered enough distance that no one would overhear them.

  “He has asked me to marry him,” she blurted as soon as he reached her. “He tells me he loves me. He wants to marry right away. He wants an answer from me today.”

  Walter had always known about David’s intentions. A blind man could see how his cousin felt toward Emma. David never pursued any other women. Emma was the only one he ever saw—ever desired.

  Walter pushed back the guilt he still carried about what he and Emma had done. It was like a fist in his chest. Anger flared within him. She acted as if it were a nuisance having the son of an earl ask for her hand.

  “What business is this of mine?” he asked thickly. “You are going to marry him, are you not?”

  She looked at him as if he’d grown two heads. “Why would I do such a foolish thing? Why would I tie myself in a marriage when I already know I should be unhappy.”

  Walter had never any expectations. He’d always known there was no future between them. But David’s situation was different.

  He stared at her, unable to comprehend what she was asking him.

  “I shall never marry David.”

  Walter said the first thing that came into his head. “Then set him free. He can take a different road, given the chance. Tell him the truth. Send him on his way.”

  “I cannot!” She whirled to face him. “What happens if David’s offer is the best one I am ever going to receive? How can I say no to him when I am not certain my father will leave me enough to tempt someone of more value?”

  “And that is your only reason for not telling him the truth?” he asked sharply, his head clearing. “You have no regard for what he feels for you? For what he has always felt for you?”

  “I am still only nineteen years old. ‘Tis not too late for me to marry. He thinks that he needs to do something noble just because we’ve been…well, together.”

  David was so blinded by his love that he wouldn’t even think to ask who else Emma had been intimate with before him. But it was so easy to be blinded by her.

  She paced before him on the grass. “What kind of life is he offering me. A military life. I shall be locked away in some horrible corner of the world. I shall be away from Baronsford.”

  She continued to talk, but as she stormed and complained, Walter realized that he was free. For the first time in his life, he was free.

  “Where are you going?” she said, a note of panic in her voice.

  He said nothing, but continued to walk away.

  CHAPTER 15

  The bandages wrapped around her chest, added to the sling holding her arm still, might as well have been designed to torture her. She could not move, and Gwyneth felt trapped in her own bed.

  “I suspect a fracture of the shoulder blade,” the doctor from Melrose warned. “But of course, it could be only bruising. We know more when I come back in a week. By then, some of the swelling should get down. ‘Twill be easier to tell.”

  “I am expected to lie here, trussed up like some holiday fowl, for an entire week?” Gwyneth shook her head. She looked at Violet and hoped for arguments from her on her behalf. The young woman appeared intent to receiving the doctor’s instructions on some kind of medicinal tincture he was leaving behind.

  When the doctor had arrived, it was clear the two had immediately recognized each other. Gwyneth guessed he must have been the one who had seen Violet before the childbirth. He appeared extremely pleased to find her here at Greenbrae Hall.

  “The bandages should be changed frequently, should they not?” Gwyneth was determined to find a way out of this forced bondage.

  “No,” the doctor said sharply. “‘Tis important that they should remain as they are until I return. “Although ‘tis recommended, I am not suggesting purging, as yet. But if ye do not remain in bed, young woman, there shall be no improvement. That I promise. Then, I shall have no choice but to proceed with more aggressive treatment.”

  She shivered. The threat was serious enough to shut Gwyneth’s mouth. At least, the cut on the back of her head was beginning to heal, and the lump had already subsided.

  She had been well enough to ride most of a day with Violet to Greenbrae Hall. She should have refused this visit. Despite the continuous throbbing and the sharp pain whenever she moved her shoulder, she knew she had improved since her initial fall from the horse. Gwyneth chose to keep her complaints to herself, though. Over the years, she’d had a few visits from this same old physician, and she was well aware of his manner of dealing with disagreeable patients.

  “Keep her on a bld diet. Ye may prop her up in bed, but that should be the extent of her moving about,” the doctor directed Violet. The noise of arriving horses in the courtyard drifted in through the open window. “When is Lady Cavers to arrive?”

  Violet looked at Gwyneth for an answer.

  “My aunt should arrive within the next day or two,” she lied, not wanting the man to think Gwyneth might need more of his attention.

  “Very well.” He started gathering up his equipment, explaining again to Violet the medications he was leaving, and how and when they should be administered. After giving Gwyneth another lecture on the importance of staying in bed, he turned to Violet. “Ye look better, lassie, than when I saw ye last. How are ye feeling?”

  Gwyneth listened intently. She was more
concerned about Violet’s condition. Her own injuries were nothing but a few bruises.

  “I am very well, sir.”

  “Ye are getting plenty of liquid nourishment.”

  “Aye, sir,” she said in a quiet voice.

  Gwyneth considered objecting to the answer, but instead decided to wait and hear what else the young woman was supposed to do but was not.

  “And do not forget what I told ye before about not spending too much time on yer feet during this first month.”

  “I do remember, sir. I am being careful.”

  Gwyneth cleared her throat and sent Violet a warning look when she looked at her direction. She didn’t think walking all the way to the abbey where they’d first met could be considered staying off her feet.

  “I’ll walk you downstairs.” Violet quickly took the man’s arm, guiding him out the door.

  Gwyneth watched them go. She was looking forward to talking to Violet later. Already, the young woman was doing more than they had agreed upon. This morning, while Gwyneth slept late, Violet had been helping with the work downstairs. They matched each other in temperament and stubbornness, which Gwyneth knew was another reason they had gotten along from the moment they met.

  Violet was like so many of the heroines in the stories she wrote. She was down on her luck. She was forced to live beneath her station. In the same way that she weaved justice into her tales, Gwyneth felt responsible to change the young woman’s life and help her find happiness.

  She recalled what Violet had revealed about Walter Truscott’s frequent visits to the cottage on Baronsford’s land. She had not said it, but there was certainly a hint of trust and admiration.

  Truscott came from gentry. Tall and ruggedly handsome in his own way, Walter would be a very good match for the young woman. Their different stations in life could be a problem, but only if Violet made it so. This was another good reason for not establishing her as a servant at the Hall, but rather as a companion to Gwyneth.