by Karen Ranney
While she was probably a terrible person for resenting their easy camaraderie, Jennifer found it difficult to contribute to the conversation. She was being childish, as foolish as when she was five years old and refusing to eat her porridge to punish her mother. Lecturing herself didn’t seem to make any difference. It was quite obvious that Gordon liked Lauren and that her sister-in-law felt the same way about him.
All she had to do was bring Harrison’s name into the conversation and the tenor of it would immediately change. Lauren would look sad, and Gordon would no doubt scowl at her. For that reason, she remained mute, wishing she were a better person. Or that she wasn’t feeling miserable and overjoyed at the same time.
He’d always had that effect on her. A smile from Gordon was enough to make anything tolerable. It was the same with his anger. If he was mad at her, nothing would make the day brighter.
“Are you not feeling well?” Lauren asked. “You’ve hardly eaten anything and the salmon is especially good.”
Her sister-in-law was one of the sweetest people she’d ever met. Plus, she noticed things. Even being heavily with child, she didn’t withdraw into herself. Instead, she wanted to know about her maid’s love affair with one of the footmen. Or how Mrs. Thompson’s arthritic knee was doing. She might have been the daughter of a wealthy man, but she’d never put on airs.
Her question made Jennifer feel even smaller and more petty.
“I find that I’m not very hungry,” she said, smiling at Lauren. She changed the subject immediately, looking at Gordon.
“How did you find your father?” she asked.
“Worse than I anticipated, frankly. Thank you for your care of him, Jennifer. No one could have done more.”
“He’s part of Adaire Hall,” she said. “Besides, he’s come to mean a great deal to me over the years.”
That wasn’t a lie. When she was a girl she was, if not afraid of Sean, then cautious around him. He had a tendency to say exactly what he thought to anyone who was nearby. The only people he seemed to respect were her mother and Harrison. Yet as she grew, and especially after she had taken on the management of Adaire Hall, they had come to a meeting of the minds. He told her exactly what he thought, as usual. She did the same. They felt a grudging respect for each other, supplanted by a growing affection. She’d been as surprised by that as he.
“Sally said the physician has been to see him?”
She nodded. “Mr. McPherson. He treated my mother.”
“Is there anything more that can be done?”
Although the topic was not one normally discussed at dinner, she wasn’t going to dissuade Gordon from asking questions. At least he was talking to her.
“Not according to the doctor.”
The prognosis for Sean was grim. In actuality, he had outlived the doctor’s estimation. No doubt because proving him wrong would give Sean some satisfaction. The man might be ill, but his stubbornness was still firmly intact.
In that regard Gordon was just like his father.
Jennifer was barely looking at him, and the only conversation they’d exchanged had been about Sean. Even Lauren glanced at her from time to time, as if Jennifer’s behavior was unusual. Nor was she eating. She merely pushed the salmon around her plate a few times.
He’d always been able to read her, and if he wasn’t wrong, she was angry.
“Do you think the cook has made any tarts for dessert?” Lauren asked.
“I’ll go see, shall I?” Jennifer smiled, and before the footman could get to her chair, pushed it back and stood. In seconds she was gone from the room, leaving him alone with Lauren.
“I think she’s upset,” Lauren said, staring after her. “I don’t know why.”
“It’s me.” Gordon smiled at her, but the expression of worry remained on Lauren’s face.
Her complexion was the color of cream, her soft brown eyes surrounded by long lashes. Her features were small, especially her rosebud mouth, but she was a pretty girl. No doubt she’d been raised to believe that being pretty was her most important attribute.
She did everything prettily, as if she’d rehearsed the most pleasing aspect of each task. She’d sat at the table, taken up her napkin, and eaten her dinner in the same fashion. Even the way she’d half walked, half swayed to the table had been done in a pretty way.
He’d thoroughly enjoyed Lauren’s company. At the same time, he knew that she would drive him to distraction in a matter of weeks.
She was, regrettably, one of those women who didn’t have a single original idea or thought. She parroted well, plus she’d hung on to his every word for the entire dinner. All in all, the characteristics of a perfect hostess.
If Jennifer had been herself, she would have argued with him by now. She would have challenged his assumptions or his observations. Except that Jennifer was barely talking to him.
She returned in minutes to announce that there was pudding for dessert, but no tarts. Lauren looked disappointed, but her smile was back in minutes.
“I probably shouldn’t have had a tart anyway,” she said, glancing at Gordon then Jennifer.
He stood, excusing himself and explaining that he wanted to get back to the cottage to see Sean. Both women nodded at him.
Jennifer kept her gaze on the floor. Evidently, the patterned carpet held a great deal of interest for her.
He would have asked her what was wrong if she’d been the same person he’d known all his life. It was evident that she’d changed in the past five years. Gone was the girl he’d loved, and in her place was a woman he didn’t recognize.
All these years he’d held out hope that McBain had lied. This homecoming was a great deal harder than he’d anticipated.
He left the room without another glance in Jennifer’s direction.
Chapter Eight
Jennifer had never been a coward. Granted, she lived a safe existence at Adaire Hall. When she was a child, she’d had to be brave to be Gordon’s companion. Grown, however, she faced few challenges.
At dinner tonight she’d been a shadow of herself, when all along what she wanted to do was to ask Gordon why he’d never answered one of her letters. Why hadn’t he returned before now? And, the most important question, why had he simply left without a word to her?
Had her brother and Mr. McBain been right all along? Had he tired of her? Or, had he thought his future was more interesting than she was?
All of those questions needed to be answered, but all she’d done was simply sit there mute, listening to Gordon and Lauren’s conversation.
When she had participated, her comments had been downright drivel.
Where was her courage?
Yes, this Gordon was different, but so was she. In the past five years she’d shouldered a tremendous responsibility. She’d made decisions that were important for the well-being of everyone who lived at Adaire Hall.
Why, then, had she acted the coward around Gordon?
The fact that she was pacing in front of the window was a symptom of her annoyance. So, too, the fact that she hadn’t readied for bed. How could she possibly sleep, being as irritated as she was?
Without thinking, she grabbed her shawl and headed for the door.
Gordon was surprised that nothing he’d seen so far had changed. It was as if time had simply stopped at Adaire Hall. No additional cottages had been built. No more of the land had been set aside for gardens or any other use.
He’d felt a yearning for Scotland over the years, wanting to feel the wind through the strath, see the lights in the sky in the winter, and experience the endless days during summer in the Highlands.
He’d always tamped down that longing, but now it was back in full force.
Outside of the area cleared for the Hall, the land was wilder. The woods took over just beyond the stable, stretching down to the river. On the other side the land rose to the hills.
Gordon preferred the blaeberry in the forest, or the thick growth of ling heather. Even a juniper thi
cket was preferable to those plants that were tortured into growing in one of the Adaire Hall gardens.
Sean never made time for anything other than his work, something that Gordon hadn’t truly understood until he went to London. He’d been accused of the same thing and had tried to tell people that he enjoyed what he did. His goal of amassing a fortune had entertained him. Maybe Sean’s gardens were the same for him.
He ducked his head as he entered the cottage once more. The girl standing at the kitchen sink turned and looked at him.
“You’ll be Gordon, I’m thinking,” she said.
“And you’re Moira.”
“Aye, that I am.”
She jerked her head in the direction of Sean’s bedroom. “Himself has had his dinner. He’s still awake, although it’s time for his pain medicine.”
“The laudanum?”
She nodded. “It’s the only thing that gives him peace, but even so he rarely sleeps the night.”
He’d been involved in his own life in London and hadn’t given much thought to his father. He certainly hadn’t considered that Sean’s descent into death would be an agonizing one.
He nodded, excused himself, and went to Sean’s door, knocking softly on it. He entered to find his father sitting on the edge of the bed, holding a cane in his right hand. He used it to laboriously stand and face Gordon.
“I’m tired of my bed. I’ll be sleeping forever soon enough.”
Gordon didn’t even try to hide his smile at this proof of Sean’s stubbornness. It was so much like the man he knew that he was thrust back into his childhood.
“Do you give your nurses this type of grief?”
“Nurses? Bah! Both those girls are younger than some of my shirts. Silly lasses they are, too. Always laughing and telling stories, leading the footmen and the stable boys on as well. My lads are smarter than that.”
That sounded like Sean, too.
“They seem to care for you, Da. Would it be so hard to be a little grateful?”
“Like you? Aye, I felt your gratitude all these years.”
Now was not the time to fight with his father. Nor was he going to offer excuses for himself. He was no longer the gardener’s boy, but Sean would never see him differently.
Going to his father’s side, Gordon gave him his arm. Sean refused to take it. Instead, he made one shuffling step and then another toward the door. Before he got there, however, he started to sink toward the floor. Gordon picked him up, startled at how frail this strong and vibrant man had become. Gently, he helped him sit on the chair beside the bed.
“So, you’ve made something of yourself, then.”
He glanced at Sean. “Yes, I have.”
Sean didn’t respond, merely looked toward the open door.
“You’ve given up any fool idea of her?”
They both knew who the her was in his question. The same woman who’d been in his thoughts and dreams for decades. The woman who’d barely spoken to him since he arrived.
Sean had said something similar many times, telling him that he was not of Lady Jennifer’s station. He would be more sensible baying at the moon. In other words, he wasn’t good enough. He’d never be good enough for Jennifer.
For the past five years he’d had one goal: to prove Sean wrong. Perhaps to prove them all wrong. Yet, maybe it wasn’t Sean’s approval that mattered. The one person he wanted to impress was Jennifer.
He wanted to offer Jennifer the world and anything she wanted within it.
“I don’t have any fool ideas anymore, Da. Just good ones.”
“Then you’ve gotten some sense about you, finally.”
Sean began to cough, then he grabbed his midsection. As he bent over, the cough turned into a moan. Gordon went to his side, picked him up, and placed his father in the middle of the bed. Once he was settled, Gordon went to the door and called for Moira.
“It’s the excitement,” she said, bustling into the room with a brown bottle in her left hand and a spoon in her right. “Whenever he gets excited the pain is worse.”
She looked up at him. “If you’ll help me sit him up, it will go a little easier.”
He did as she asked, his arm supporting Sean’s back. He could feel his father’s spine through the thin nightshirt. He had the impression that the cancer was eating him from the inside out, feasting on his flesh the way a carnivore would.
After Sean took two spoonfuls of the laudanum, Gordon sat beside his bed and waited for it to take effect. From what he knew of the opium-based tincture, it eased chronic pain for a while, but also delivered hallucinogenic dreams to the patient. He hoped that Sean would be given a few hours of relief before the dreams began.
They managed to talk of innocuous subjects: the change of seasons, and the new servants at Adaire Hall.
His father unbent enough to compliment Jennifer on her running of the estate. “The girl has a good head on her shoulders.” Gordon made a mental note to tell Jennifer that she’d earned one of Sean’s rare bits of praise.
If she would talk to him.
Finally, Sean fell asleep. Gordon sat there for a little while, thinking about the years he’d spent in the cottage. When his father died, he’d be an orphan, but he’d felt like that the majority of his life.
He stood and left his sleeping father, closing the bedroom door softly behind him.
“Is there anything you need?” he asked of Moira. She was sitting on a chair in the living room, Betty’s favorite place.
“I’m just fine. You go along now and come again in the morning. I know he’ll want to see you.”
He wasn’t entirely certain that was true, but Gordon thanked her as he left the cottage.
Jennifer approached the gardener’s cottage slowly, hearing the gravel crunch beneath her shoes. It was late. No doubt too late for this confrontation, but she didn’t care. Not one more night would pass without answers.
She’d already waited too long.
The cottage was located some distance away from the main house, but she knew this way so well that she could navigate it even in the dark.
Tonight the full moon cast the area in blue-gray shadow. An owl called to her as if wanting to know why she was out and about. The cry of a fox reminded her of when she was a girl and used to leave food for them, at least until the ghillie found out and gave her a severe lecture. Even today she was tempted to leave some table scraps. Not because the foxes at Adaire Hall were starving. They weren’t. However, she did admire them because they were beautiful and cunning creatures.
There were lights on in the cottage, and shadows visible in the windows. She hoped that Sean was having an easy night, although those had been few and far between lately.
At least Gordon had come back soon enough to say goodbye to his father.
The relationship between the men had always been difficult. As a girl she thought that Sean went out of his way to taunt his son, or to criticize him for things that were unfair and unwarranted. One day when a shovel was left outside to rust, it was Gordon who was punished. He hadn’t been responsible. Instead, it had been one of Sean’s apprentices. It hadn’t mattered to Sean, however. Nor had he apologized for beating his own son.
“My father doesn’t say he’s sorry,” Gordon said one day. “He thinks an apology is a sign of weakness.”
She hadn’t known what to say. That hadn’t been the first sign of Sean’s intolerance toward his son. Nor had it been the last.
Now she stood near the trunk of an oak, watching the cottage and wondering if Gordon was going to spend the night in his old room. Maybe he preferred it to the suite at the Hall.
She leaned against the trunk, folding her arms in front of her. She’d only worn her shawl and the night was proving to be chilly. Was she an idiot to be standing here like this? Probably. She’d never been that wise when it came to Gordon.
In the past five years she’d gone to Edinburgh often. Ellen had insisted on inviting some eligible men to dinner in a not at all subtle hint
to Jennifer. Yet no one she met ever fascinated like Gordon had. She didn’t want to know what those men thought or their opinions on various things. Not one of them ever made her dream about kissing them or losing herself in an embrace.
Perhaps she might have been considered almost a spinster, but she was an earl’s daughter and an earl’s sister, with a respectable income of her own, thanks to her father’s planning. Plus, she was Ellen’s goddaughter, and Ellen was not only exceedingly wealthy but quite popular in certain social circles.
She couldn’t help but compare everyone she met, from a very nice industrialist to a cousin of a duke, against Gordon. They weren’t tall enough or witty enough or kind enough. Their voice didn’t have a velvet edge to it. They weren’t nearly as handsome or strong. They didn’t make her feel feminine simply by standing near her.
Nor did they make her heart race.
She loved him and she would probably always love him.
In the past five years the longing for him had grown so fierce that she was certain her heart was being torn in two.
Gordon had always been there for her, and suddenly he wasn’t. There was no one to turn to when Harrison was being incorrigible. No one to explain how much she missed her mother. No one to hold her or kiss her or tell her that their futures would be brighter than their pasts had been.
What if he didn’t care? What if he’d fallen in love with someone else? She didn’t think she could bear it. Or maybe she would learn to endure his betrayal until she grew to hate him. Hating Gordon might be easier than loving him for the rest of her life.
After a little while she realized that he might be remaining at the cottage tonight. She should go back to the Hall and see him first thing in the morning.
As she turned to leave, however, the door opened.
Jennifer could hear his voice but not the words. A moment later he ducked his head beneath the frame and closed the door behind him.
Chapter Nine
Jennifer waited until Gordon was nearly upon her before stepping out of the shadows. Without giving him a chance to speak, she stepped up to him and poked his chest with her finger.