by Sophia James
Not yet for them. Not yet.
When the guards hailed from the ramparts and put down the bridge, they crossed quickly and left each other.
In her room Grace looked at her reflection in the mirror and was surprised to see that she had not altered, had not changed, had not become what she could feel inside, where a breathless and burning want singed every fibre of her body.
She smiled and the woman who smiled back looked…almost pretty. Amazement rose and she laid a finger along the line of her cheek as Lachlan had done, careful, arousing, even the memory of it evoking an excitement she could barely fathom.
I love you.
She wanted to say it, wanted to shout it, the bare echo of the words all that she could feel. She wished that her cousins were here, to tell, to ask, to query as to the validity of her discovery and his response, to see through their women’s eyes just exactly what was real.
Perhaps none of it was.
Perhaps lust was all that he felt and she was an easy target with her unconditional giving. Again and again.
A scratching at her door made her stop and turn, though before she had even opened it she knew who it was.
Dexter.
The feel of him against her was comforting and warm, his lolling wet tongue making her laugh out loud.
I love you, I love you, I love you.
Guileless and adoring, no matter what.
Lachlan pulled off his shirt and waded into the lake, the moon as distinct as he had ever seen it. Tonight he did not dive. Tonight he stood there with the blackness lapping around his chest and the infinity of the heavens above him, his eyes scouring the far-off bank and tracing the line of land from water to mountain. Kerr land as far as he could see. His land. Not just his father’s, but his grandfather’s and the grandfather before that one. Good men, honourable men, they were trustees of a past that went beyond time, beyond memory.
One day his own sons would stand here in this very spot and be reminded of the ancestors that lay in this earth of toil and blood, ancestors who would reach with quiet hands down into the moment and reassure, like they were doing now to him.
Malcolm. Hugh.
For this once he did not hate them, and the relief was immense.
Grace was his. His, despite the notes and her admissions of love in his brother’s jewelled box. No one could have lain in that chevron silk and come out unchanged. He lifted his fingers to his mouth, trying to taste the last of her, but she was gone. The water around his manhood played with him just as she had. A little memory.
‘God, help me,’ he found himself saying and this time in the foreverness of the sky above and the water below, he found that he meant it.
‘God, please, please help me.’ There was a shifting in his soul. Belief was still there after all the bleakness of what had been. He smiled at the thought and then smiled again as a shooting star crossed the heavens, its tail of light reflected in the water.
A sign from above?
He made a cross over his heart.
‘Pater noster, qui es in caelis, sanctificetur nomen tuum…’
Our Father, Who art in Heaven, Hallowed be Thy name…
Chapter Ten
Rebecca McInness sought her out the next morning. She had been crying. Grace could see it in the swollen redness of her face. For once she did not look beautiful and she hoped that Lachlan Kerr might have seen her this way, a thought that she recanted when the woman handed her flowers picked from the path by the caves on the western side of Belridden.
Eleanor Kerr, who usually kept to her rooms, lurked behind, her dark eyes flinting when Grace made the mistake of including Lachlan’s grandmother in her smile.
Carefully she looked away and concentrated on what the younger woman was saying.
‘It has come to my notice that I may have hurt ye in my actions and I would like to apologise.’
Rebecca’s carefully concocted sorrow sounded as though it came from nowhere near her heart.
Still, Grace took the flowers and inclined her head. ‘Thank you.’ She could not quite work out what else to say.
‘Eleanor feels it may be best for me to leave Belridden and go to stay with my mother’s people.’
This was said with a great deal of supplication and as if she would wish Grace to say different out here before the dowager of this castle and with all the servants listening.
‘I th-think perhaps that E-Eleanor is right.’
For the first time the older woman’s eyes met hers without criticism even as the tears ran down the alabaster cheeks of Lachlan’s mistress. Grace, however, had no time to ponder her reaction, for voices outside caught their attention.
Her husband stepped through the doorway and Grace could tell that he had been training his soldiers, for straps of leather were still tied about his wrists and two swords lay in scabbards at his belt. Connor and Ian both flanked him and were laughing about something he had said, though their amusement vanished as Rebecca ran to the Laird in a flood of tears. His glance went to Grace, brows raised in question, but he made no move to interfere and the girl, seeing that he meant to just let her go, began crying louder as she made for the stairs.
Dexter broke the awkwardness with his rush at the men, tail wagging furiously and his big lolling tongue licking Lachlan’s shoes.
Grace noticed how her husband’s hand crept to the ears of the dog, scratching and petting, as he accepted a mug of water given to him by one of the servants.
With his laughter and the dog’s love and the sunbeams slanting in through the arched windows of the Great Hall, she thought that he looked…happy, or at least much less bleak than the man she had married or the man who had sat at dinner last night and barely spoken.
Eleanor was also happier this morning as she walked across to sit at a table with her grandson.
‘Perhaps we might have an outing to the river bend tomorrow, Lachlan, the last one of the season with the clan children and their parents? We have need of some good times at Belridden to keep us content for the winter.’
As Lachlan nodded, Grace saw how the servants behind him smiled, and knew too that the word of such an occasion would be around the castle before very long. A simple enjoyment. She found herself looking forward to the day with an unprecedented excitement.
Lachlan finished writing out the day’s accounts and went to find his wife. Her room was empty when he reached it though, and he sent a servant to find her, reasoning that she might still be in the Great Hall planning the morrow’s outing with his grandmother. Hoping that she would come soon, he crossed the room and picked up her brush, the red of her hair entwined in the bristles. When he put it down he saw that the insect caught in amber was placed near it.
Grace kept a careful hold on her treasures and the thought made him wonder if she had been given many. Remembering he still had not shown her the clip he had bought from Edinburgh, he dug it out of his sporran. It seemed fitting that tonight she should be given something to celebrate…what? He did not know and shook his head wryly.
Finally there was a noise of steps down the passage and then there she was. Dexter was right behind her.
‘I am sorry that y-you had to wait. E-Eleanor was very keen to discuss all the details. She kept f-forgetting even after I had told her.’
‘Just as long as ye dinna tell her that she is forgetting things.’
Unexpectedly she laughed and the sound was joyful and true.
‘When you smile you look almost beautiful.’
‘Almost?’ Said teasingly as if she would want more.
‘Verra, then. Verra beautiful.’
‘With an empty bed beside you and an empty night before you, I might c-consider your sentiments questionable.’
Reaching into his pocket, he brought out the clip. ‘Perhaps then a gift might melt your hardened heart?’
‘For me?’ All humour fled as her teeth worried her upper lip in uncertainty.
‘I got it weeks ago. You should have had it before no
w.’
‘But I have nothing to give you in r-return.’
‘Do you not, Grace?’ The thread of lust made his meaning easily decipherable as he walked forwards and laid it in her hands. ‘The merchant said that it was from the holy city of Constantinople.’
Her fingers closed on the present. In the light the embellished figurine of a knight on his horse was easily seen.
‘Did you wear s-such armour?’ she asked as her finger skimmed across breastplate and pauldron.
‘In France I did.’
‘But not here?’
He shook his head. ‘I haven’t taken part in the tournaments.’
‘Because…?’
‘I lost friends in the battles against the English so I could never see the point of countrymen losing their lives to each other under the banner of entertainment. Besides, the rules of entry were always stringent.’
‘The art of chivalry was not your inclination, then?’ She looked down at the clip in her hand and smiled. ‘I could argue differently and my uncle was of the opinion that you would do very well for me.’
‘What sort of a man is your uncle?’
Business again. Grace was almost getting used to the way his focus would shift from one thing to another so quickly.
‘A good man.’
‘One of Edward Balliol’s men?’
‘A very l-long t-time ago.’
‘Like your own father was?’
The world began to spin for Grace, around and around; feeling the bed behind her, she sat down.
Yes. Yes. Yes. The blood on her mother’s dress had exactly matched the colour of her shoes.
‘You h-have been asking questions about m-me?’
‘About your family, Grace. About your parents. About their deaths outside York. Some would say that your father paid dearly for his tinkering in the politics of a country he had little reason to like.’
She could only nod and listen as he continued.
‘The lands of your grandfather had stretched along the Western Marches and were lost when Robert Stewart signed the Treaty of Edinburgh. And so I ask again, Grace, what sort of a man is your uncle?’
‘One who is different from my f-father. One who would not jeopardise his family for the g-gain of gold.’
She saw the muscles along the side of his jaw tighten.
Fire stinging her legs. Mama. Strange and dangerous men calling her name and the earth against her cheeks. Damp. Cold. Dark. Whispers. Her father’s fault. The end of childhood.
‘What did she look like? Your mother?’
‘She w-was beautiful.’
The softness in his eyes kept her silent.
‘I heard it said in Edinburgh that you only began to stutter after the incident and that you were in the woods for a good two days before they found you curled up under the trunk of an oak.’
‘I l-loved her.’
‘And him? Did you love your father, too?
‘Yes.’ The word was forced from her, forced from anger and desolation and regret. Forced from what she had lost and what she was now left with.
Blame juxtaposed against loyalty.
‘Good men can make mistakes as easily as bad ones, Grace,’ he said as one who knew. Her face turned to his.
‘My m-mother had not wanted to go to Y-York. He made us go.’
The hollow ache in her throat was building by the moment, fault and guilt mixed with the memory of sitting on her father’s knee whilst he told her stories. He was not all bad then, his fingers brushing against the red in her hair, the light in his exactly the same shade as her own.
Trembling, she tried in that echo of goodness to find a pathway out of such an all-consuming grief. To survive!
‘My father called to me as he was dying, before the others came. He told me he had not meant to involve us in his politics and that he was sorry. I had forgotten he even said it until now.’ Her fingers slid across the shiny shell of the clip she held still, tracing the outlines of an etched knight. Seeing words set inside, she held it up to the light.
Miserere nobis. ‘“Have mercy.” Did you kn-know this was here?’
He shook his head. ‘Perhaps the Christian Byzantine empire has provided you with an answer for your faith?’
‘In God?’
He shook his head. ‘In yourself.’
Suddenly she did laugh. ‘This from a man who b-believes in nothing?’
‘Did believe in nothing,’ he answered obliquely and pulled her up against his strength and certainty. Her long-trapped anger began to dissolve, change and reform into sorrow, for choices badly made and for the last uttered pleas of forgiveness from a father who had taken a wrong turn and still loved her.
Perhaps Lachlan was right after all.
Perhaps good men could make mistakes as easily as bad ones. She leant into him and he held her as the moon rose in the eastern sky, drawing light across darkness, the passage of minutes measured only by warmth.
She woke at dawn, suddenly, the sound of birds outside and calling. Lachlan lay beside her, but she did not move because she knew how easily he was roused even at the slightest of noises.
Asleep he looked less austere, softer, the length of his dark lashes against his cheeks surprising, like an angel, a battered angel whose beauty made all those who looked on him wonder.
They had held hands last night and talked, not the talk of lovers but that of friends. Talked of childhood memories and favourite places and times in their lives where happiness had lingered. Still their fingers were joined, fallen into the softness of sleep and trust, holding on to the promise of unity that shivered between them.
Beguiling.
Addictive.
Safe.
She smiled and looked up into a pale gaze that did not waver.
‘Good morning.’ He raised up their still-clasped hands. ‘I have nae slept with a woman like this before.’
‘In friendship?’
‘Nay,’ he returned before rolling over on top of her, pinning her against the softness of the bed. ‘In much more than that, aye.’
Chapter Eleven
Grace lay back on the blanket set in a sheltered glade and looked up at the sky.
‘Scotland is so b-beautiful. So much w-wilder than Grantley.’ Lachlan’s grandmother beside her smiled.
‘Oui, that it is and a good thing, too, for the world and its problems to be distant.’
She could not disagree, not today with the warmth unexpected, Dexter at her side and the promise of a cold winter just around the corner. Turning to the river, she saw Donald with a stick in his hand heading for the stream, his mother Mary sitting behind with a group of younger children and a baby at her breast.
Grace’s eyes went to that child, tiny and helpless. She wondered how it must feel to hold such a one, to feed it and love it and care for it. Her menses still had not arrived.
‘When I had Lachlan’s father I was fourteen years old.’
Grace glanced quickly around at Eleanor. She must have seen where she had been looking.
‘Hugh was a twin, you know. His sister died at birth and I often think about her when I see little ones like Mary’s babe.’
‘My husband and his f-father did not seem close…’
‘My son was a selfish boy and then a selfish man, but the light went out of his world when his wife died.’
‘How old was Lachlan w-when that happened?’
‘Almost six. Just before he went with David to France.’ Her expression told Grace that she had not been pleased with the arrangement and she was just about to ask her further about it when a small face peeked out from the woods on the other side of the bank, the plaid he wore different from that of the Kerrs. She watched as Donald lifted his hand and waved and then the stranger was gone, swallowed up by the thick greenery.
The six or so soldiers who had come with them to the river bend did not seem perturbed and so she relaxed, hoping that Lachlan would come to join them soon, for he had been detained by the
man overseeing the rebuilding of the water wheel.
Excited voices caught her attention. Donald now lay against the bough of a tree over the water, catching large flat leaves that floated down in the current. A younger boy watched him, giving instructions as to when the next leaf would leave the clumped mass caught in an eddy. Grace remembered playing such games with her cousins when she had been young, but the crack of a breaking branch banished daydreams, and she watched as Donald simply slid off the tree and into the deep water beneath him.
Mary ran as fast as she did and Dexter was on her heels, but before they had reached the river another body shot out from the bushes on the other side of the embankment and leapt into the water, making straight for Donald.
It was the boy who had watched them from the forest. The soldiers who accompanied them also ran nearer, but they were not near enough. Already Grace could see Donald going under again, getting weaker, white fingers grasping at nothingness.
Undoing the ties on her dress she stepped out of it, the shift beneath at least allowing her movement that the heavier cloth would not. Her boots followed.
‘What are ye doing?’ Eleanor held her back.
‘I can swim. My father taught me to swim,’ she shouted, throwing off her grasp and running, ordering the dog to stay as it, too, tried to enter the water.
The cold hit her as an ache taking away breath, the blackness of a Scottish river much different from the clear streams of her girlhood. But she kept wading towards Donald, ten yards, five now, the boy’s hands grasping her own from beneath the surface, clinging, pulling down.
She had not reckoned on the strength of his desperation or the pull of the current and as her legs were dragged out from underneath, Donald’s thrashing feet landed hard against hers beneath the water. Breath left her and she felt her lungs exploding as she went under, the child’s hair standing up on his head and wild eyes wide through the bubbled greenness.
When they came up again white water enveloped them, the shouts from those still on the bank and Dexter’s barks dulled by the liquid in her ears. The other boy was there too, helping, his small face etched in frowns.