This morning in the village, Cuffe thought he’d won. The captain had never been as angry as he was after dragging him out of the path of the carriage horses.
But he couldn’t play that game anymore. The guest, Lady Josephine, ordered him to talk to the captain. In her hard tone and soft ways, she reminded him of Nanny. Your responsibility, she said.
The captain’s silence made him jumpy inside. It was like the thick feeling of the air before a summer storm burst open. If he were a little boy again, he’d run and hide before the lightning began.
The coins he’d taken from Abram shone dully on the desk beside the guttering candle.
“It’s all there.” He pushed the breath from his lungs and the words rushed after. He motioned toward the coins. “The money Abram paid me. And I didn’t think anyone would be hurt. He said it was a lark to get even with Robbie at the door for some daft prank in the kitchen this morning.”
The silence continued to hang heavy between them, and Cuffe was too afraid to look up. He didn’t know if the captain believed him or not. He pressed his hands against his thighs to keep them from shaking. He didn’t want to cry. He didn’t want to beg to be forgiven.
“I know I did wrong. Nanny always says if you follow a fool, you’re the greater fool,” he said, forcing himself to steal a look at the man at the door. His face was in the shadows. “I was a fool to believe Abram. I deserve whatever punishment you decide on.”
If the captain had struck him with a rod, it wouldn’t have been as painful as this waiting, but Cuffe had no choice except to weather it until his silence ran its course.
“Go back to your room. Tomorrow I’ll talk to you about punishment.”
Cuffe was surprised at the note of exhaustion in the captain’s voice, but he was relieved at being dismissed. At the door, as he tried to hurry past the man, a large hand came down on his shoulder. For a moment he thought, this was it. The beating. He stood and braced himself.
“I need you to promise,” the captain said. “I want your word that you’ll stay in your room until I send for you.”
My word, Cuffe thought. He was trusting in his honor despite what he’d done.
“I’ll stay there, Captain,” he said, meaning it.
Chapter 9
Night’s restless hours crawled ever so slowly over rugged ground toward the dawn, and when the earliest rays of the sun broke across the furrowed fields, Jo was already dressed. She had to get out and walk.
As she hurried past Wynne and Cuffe’s rooms, the inner arguments that kept her pacing for much of the night once again ignited in her.
She’d lied to the father, but shortly afterward convinced the son to reveal the truth. What worried her was how Wynne perceived her interference. She was willing to argue her case if he gave her the chance. But beyond that, she was apprehensive about Cuffe and wondered what had transpired between the two. She’d been trying for hours to convince herself that none of this should matter, that she was here simply to learn more about Mr. Barton and his sketches. She was not staying for Wynne or his son.
Buttoning her spencer jacket and wrapping her shawl around her shoulders, she descended the stairs thinking of the attack last night. Charles Barton had an enemy. She’d overheard Cuffe mention the name Abram. She wondered now if the man had acted for reasons of his own or if he was only a rung of a ladder held by others.
Two attendants sitting by the door to the ward looked half-asleep but stood and doffed their caps to her as she went by. Jo understood there was no point in asking to see Barton. After last night, a visit to the ward would need the approval of the doctor.
Going out through the gardens, Jo followed a path toward the rising sun. Stables and a carriage house lay beyond groves of tall chestnut, and as she passed cottages of farm laborers, the smoke of wood fires rose above the thatched roofs. She exchanged greetings with a woman carrying a bucket of milk who stopped to watch her go by. Open fields lay beyond, and groups of workers were trudging toward their day’s toil.
A few minutes later, Jo paused at the top of a small brae and looked south across the rolling landscape toward the River Don. Mist was rising from lower-lying pastures and along two brooks that snaked across the countryside toward the river. Though she couldn’t see the village, she saw numerous cottages and sheds, as well as the fields used as golfing links by the Squire and his brother, the vicar.
Something about this place touched her with a feeling of familiarity, though she knew she’d never been here before. The Highlands was so different from the Borders, where Baronsford was located, and totally different from Hertfordshire, where she’d spent a great deal of time growing up. But the bracing air, the smell of the gorse, the way the light dispersed in the mist all affected her.
Turning her steps toward the hills rising to the north, she walked along a path that followed one of the brooks and came upon a series of fish ponds formed by small dams. As she stood by a clump of willows, her attention was drawn to an ancient tower house nestled against a forest of spruce. She wondered who lived there so close to the old Abbey.
Her shoes and skirts were wet and stained with mud, but Jo strode on as questions about her mother again blotted out any other thought. Last night, she’d again paged through the portfolio of sketches Dr. McKendry sent her. Her birth mother. A woman she’d never seen, but who’d died bringing Jo into the world. For all the love she’d been blessed with in her life from her adoptive mother and father, holding the drawings in her hand still elicited a deep ache in her chest.
As the night wore on, Jo focused on details in the backgrounds of the drawings. A distinctive shape of a hill, a crumbling stone wall, a mill. Each of them seemed to represent a particular place, perhaps a specific memory in the ailing man’s mind.
She wondered how Graham and Mrs. Barton would react if she paid a visit to Tilmory Castle, and whether she’d find those places in the drawings there. If their response to seeing her yesterday was any indication, she wouldn’t be received at all.
A flock of geese suddenly took wing in a meadow beyond the brook, their pure white bellies a stark contrast against the brown feathers of their backs. The cause of their flight soon became apparent, and Jo immediately wished she too could escape as she recognized the man walking toward her.
Wynne saw her, paused, and then waved. She watched him as he strode across, his long coat open. He was hatless, and buff-colored buckskin breeches hugged muscled thighs above his high boots. All thoughts of escaping fled. For a prolonged moment, time flew backwards. Jo’s skin tingled and she fought the urge to lift the hem of her skirts and run to meet him.
Instead, Jo pulled her shawl tightly around her as she stopped and waited for him to approach.
“You’re an early riser,” he said, after they exchanged greetings.
Not as early as he was, she thought, noting the hint of tiredness in his eyes. His hair bore evidence of fingers raking through it. Despite his obvious weariness, however, she thought he looked magnificent.
“Too many days trapped inside that carriage. I had to take the opportunity this beautiful countryside offered,” she explained, looking in the direction he’d come. “I thought I’d walk that way if you think the people living at that house wouldn’t mind me trespassing on their land.”
Wynne looked back at the tower house. “I’ll walk with you and make certain they don’t.”
Jo’s intention was to go in the opposite direction of where he was traveling. There was no avoiding it. Wynne gave her no chance to object.
Regardless of what reason dictated, her heart directed her actions. They walked for a while in silence, and her recollections about their past continued. The way he walked with one hand tucked behind his back, his strides adjusting to match the length of hers, his distance courteous and yet close enough that she would occasionally feel the brush of his coat. She filled her lungs with dawn air, and made herself think of the present rather than the past.
“I must apologize for last night
,” she said finally. “I should have told you right away I’d seen your son in the stairwell.” Of everything on her mind, this was the least troubling of her thoughts.
“You have no need to apologize, especially to me,” Wynne replied. “I’m the one who should express my remorse over every wrong I’ve done you.”
“Pray don’t,” she broke in, unwilling to dredge up the old memories.
The pained expression revealed his disappointment at being interrupted. Jo knew what she was doing. She was robbing him of a chance to confess, a chance to be absolved of the past. But she wasn’t ready. She couldn’t wash away the consequences of his action after a few words of apology. And she knew she couldn’t trust herself. She could easily crumble before his eyes.
“I have a proposition,” she said. “I should like to pretend we’re two people whose history began yesterday. Could we do that, do you think? Begin again as strangers? Or perhaps as friendly acquaintances?”
“If you wish it, Jo.”
Jo. Hearing her name on his lips was a contradiction to what she’d asked. He was challenging her. He was daring her to remember.
As they walked, she focused on the path, but the weight of his gaze remained on her face. She didn’t want to revisit the day he’d broken off the engagement. That day and his duel with Hugh the following morning and all the days after were too painful. She didn’t want to return to that time when she’d became a shell of a person with a heart wilted and dying inside. It hurt too much to remember.
She forcibly buried the ache once again beneath the sediment of the years, and glanced over at him. “Tell me. Were you able to find the man who instigated the attack?”
“No. We searched the Abbey grounds last night. Abram was working in the kitchens, but he’s definitely fled.”
“Do you have any idea why he’d do such a thing?” Jo was feeling much more at ease when nothing of their own personal entanglement was a part of the conversation.
“It’s difficult to say,” he replied, shaking his head. “Charles Barton was a shipowner, as well as a local landowner. As you heard his mother say, that part of his life has been a mystery to her. It’s possible he has any number of enemies. One of them could have been behind last night’s attack.”
Jo wondered how long Barton had been away from Tilmory Castle. If it was during that time he crossed paths with the woman in his drawings, she might never know more than she knew now. Unless he improved.
The path brought them to a log that crossed the brook. He climbed ahead and his hand reached out to assist her.
“I want to thank you for the talk you had with Cuffe last night. You were quite persuasive. He responded to you.”
She slipped her fingers into his warm hand and climbed onto the log. The feel of their skins blending into one, the strength of his touch . . . it was all so familiar, as if she’d never lost him. History existed between them that refused to remain buried.
“Your son knew he’d done wrong before he saw me. His remorse and whatever apologies he made afterward were his alone. I was only the spark.”
“He spoke to me. That was the first time.”
As they reached the other side, he stepped down and grasped her by the waist and gently placed her on solid ground. It took a moment for the beating of her heart to slow enough to allow her to speak.
“What do you mean, ‘first time’?”
“I mean, last night was the first time he’d spoken to me since he was a very small child.”
Jo stared into his face. “But I heard from Mrs. McKendry that your wife died at childbirth. Didn’t you and Cuffe see each other as he was growing?”
“My orders kept me busy at sea for years,” he retorted, his tone indicating his irritation at having to explain. “Between fighting the French and the Americans, stopping over at Falmouth was very difficult. Of course, I saw him a handful of times that first year. But after that, his grandmother took him to live in the hills. I don’t need to tell you about my parents. It wasn’t as if I could entrust a mulatto son to their care. He was better off in Jamaica.”
His parents. The past that she wanted to forget. The baronet and his wife. Intimidating people who managed to make Jo feel small and deficient from the moment she first met them. She couldn’t blame Wynne for not taking his son to them. Cold and aloof, they could have never done an adequate job of raising Cuffe. Jo knew nothing of Wynne’s wife, but right now warm feelings of empathy for the woman coursed through her.
“I provided for him. I urged Cuffe’s grandmother to bring him to Falmouth or Montego Bay. She could have lived quite comfortably if she chose to do so. But her decision was to stay in a village in the hills among the Maroons. That was where the lad was raised.”
Because of her adoptive family’s lifelong work to abolish the evils of slavery, Jo was very familiar with the Maroons. They were the unconquered fighters waging war from Jamaica’s mountainous and forested interior. A constant threat to the government’s efforts to further the interests of the plantation owners, for a century they’d been inciting periodic conflict, outwitting the military and spreading terror to the doors of the slavers. Never wasting a shot or an opportunity to inspire rebellion in the sugar fields, the Maroon communities of free men and women welcomed escaped slaves willing to fight for their independence. Not an army in Europe was strong enough to quell these warriors. And the Maroons continued to thwart island administrators and force them to negotiate for peace, securing agreements that successive governors would ignore at their peril.
“His name . . . Cuffe. What does it mean?” she asked.
A touch of a smile broke across his face. “Hot-tempered. His full name is Andrew Cuffe Melfort. But he doesn’t respond to anything but Cuffe.”
“A name befitting a warrior.” She returned his smile.
They were getting close to the tower house, and Jo thought of Wynne’s late wife. No doubt she was a warrior. How different she must have been from a timid and pampered adopted daughter of English aristocrats.
The brook they’d been following poured over what remained of a wide but ancient dam, and the broad pond extended past a ruined stable.
Jo had changed in many ways since Wynne courted her, but she was still not a fighter or a warrior.
As they climbed a rise and skirted the edge of an overgrown orchard, she was hesitant to go farther. But Wynne didn’t show any sign of avoiding the house.
“We don’t want to intrude,” she said finally. “Perhaps it would be better if we turned back here.”
“I know they don’t mind,” he said, motioning for her to continue. “I’d like your advice about punishment for Cuffe for what he did last night.”
Jo was touched that he’d ask her opinion on such a sensitive and personal matter. “He was taken advantage of.”
“If you please, don’t make excuses for him.” He picked up a fallen branch and frowned. “I’m not about to beat him. I don’t believe that ever helps except to get a rogue’s attention. Cuffe is no rogue and we already have his attention.”
He was the same compassionate man she once knew. She recalled the conversations they used to have of someday having a child. And how he’d declare that he would be everything his own father failed to be. Empathetic. Fair.
“I want him to learn a lesson from the experience. But extra hours of arithmetic or Latin, or even mucking out a stable, is teaching him very little.”
“Cuffe lives above the ward. Why not involve him with the care of the patients in some way?”
“Dr. McKendry has attempted that very thing, without success. He only wanted to get the lad to escort him as he made his rounds of the hospital, to get to know the patients.” He tossed the stick away. “Cuffe shows no interest. And I don’t believe forcing him would improve his relationship with them.”
Her thoughts turned to her childhood and Melbury Hall, her family’s home in Hertfordshire. Since before she was born, the place had been a refuge for freed men and women from the sugar i
slands. Ohenewaa. The wizened face of the serious old woman pushed into her mind’s eye. Beloved and respected by all. As a healer, she helped the earl recover from injuries that nearly killed him, and as a teacher, she shaped the character of each of the Pennington children.
“Since he arrived at the Abbey, how is he doing with his tutors?” she asked tentatively, trying to decide if Wynne would take offence at what she was about to ask. He’d asked, and she was willing to help, but she didn’t know if he’d listen to her suggestions.
“According to Mr. Cameron, my son doesn’t have a great fondness for book learning.”
“What is he being taught?”
Wynne explained the busy schedule that filled the young boy’s day.
“You’re giving him an English gentleman’s education.”
“He’s my son. He’s learning the things that befit his station.”
“Pray don’t mistake me,” she said, hearing the note of defensiveness creep into his tone. “I congratulate you on all you’re doing. You’re preparing him to function as a gentleman in your world.”
“Exactly.” Wynne stopped and faced her.
“But Cuffe is more than an English gentleman, is he not?” she suggested. “What acknowledgment is being made of his mother and the world he has only recently left behind?”
His piercing blue eyes met hers and she felt as if he were trying to reach into her thoughts and read her mind.
“I take your meaning,” Wynne replied. “He’s rejected the name Andrew.”
“And it appears he’s rejecting the education you’re providing for him, however valuable it will prove to be in his future.”
“I want him to survive. Here. In Scotland and in England. There’s no life for him back where he came from,” he argued. “How do I make him understand?”
It Happened in the Highlands Page 8