by Nichole Van
Ugh! Men!
She swiped a hand over her cheeks again.
The other papers crinkled in her lap, reminding her that there was more than just his letter.
What else had he included? And why?
She set the letter aside, causing a slip of paper to tumble to the floor.
Bending, she picked it up.
Regardless of what happens between us, I never want ye to lose the girl you once were. Ye were born to shine bright.
Andrew
Jane spread out the rest of the papers, blinking when the print went blurry.
Oh.
The dear, impossible, impetuous man.
He had given her Rosehearth.
32
Andrew missed Jane.
He had missed her five minutes after leaving Hadley Park.
He had missed her through his entire two weeks in London, meeting with the Prince Regent and greeting other members of the House of Lords.
He had missed her on the ten-day journey north to Scotland, every mile breaking his heart a wee bit more.
And now, a week later in Scotland, he missed her to distraction.
Every morning he convinced himself to stay in Scotland a little longer. To not go haring off to Sussex again so soon.
Jane needed time.
He had robbed her of both brothers in a matter of hours. Her tears over Peter . . .
It had all nearly unmanned him.
She needed more than a mere month’s time to grieve, to heal, to learn her own heart.
He had told her he loved her, and what had she done?
I reject your love . . .
He didn’t believe she had meant it. But he knew his own heart could not bear hearing her reject him a second time.
And so, he had taken the coward’s way out and simply left her a note.
But since then . . . he had heard nothing. Not that he expected her to write to him. She was a lady after all, and unmarried ladies did not write unmarried gentlemen.
But . . .
He was like to go mad from the silence.
Finally, he had resorted to letting out his aggression in time-honored Scottish fashion—
Throwing absurdly-heavy things.
Which explained why he was currently in breeches and shirt sleeves on his south lawn, hurling a large block affixed to a thick chain.
He had started by tossing stones from the nearby river, heaving them onto his shoulder and launching them like a shot put.
But that had lacked a deeper element of aggression that his soul craved.
So, he had affixed a metal chain to a heavy stone block and had taken to twirling and throwing the thing, over and over. Two footmen assisted, measuring the distance with each toss and dragging the stone back to him.
Muirford House sat behind them, the enormous house dwarfing the horizon. His grandfather had spared no expense when building it nearly thirty years ago, adopting the newly-fashionable neo-Gothic style. Its turrets and arched windows stretched into the sky, looking like a romantic, medieval fortress but hiding more modern comforts within.
Wiping sweat from his face, Andrew took the chain in his right hand, spun in a circle three times, building momentum with each rotation, before releasing the block to soar across the lawn.
One more day.
He could last one more day without racing back to Jane.
Discipline. He had discipline.
He turned and walked back, intent on throwing the stone again.
A figure emerged from the house, moving toward him.
At first, he scarcely glanced up, assuming it to be a maid bringing some refreshment.
But several things grabbed his attention.
First, the woman wasn’t carrying anything.
Second, she was wearing an earasaid, the female version of a great kilt, though for women, it was more of a cape. No servant of his would wear an earasaid while on duty.
Third, the earasaid was made of Jamie’s plaid.
And fourth, he would know her gait anywhere. The loose-limbed grace with which she walked, the long line of her body, the glint of auburn hair in the weak sunlight.
It was like seeing a mirage.
Andrew was running toward her before another thought could cross his mind.
She had come.
His Jane had come to him.
He had scarce hoped for this outcome; that she would seek him out.
But she was clearly here, wearing Jamie’s tartan.
And if he had any doubts as to why she had come, the light in her eyes as he drew near told him everything he needed to know.
She extended her hands.
He needed no other encouragement.
Andrew swept her up into his arms, both of them laughing.
“Ye’re here.” He pressed his face into her hair, breathing her in deeply. “Ah, fair, sweet lass. Ye’re here at last.”
She hugged him tighter in reply.
Andrew needed no further encouragement. His lips found hers, hungry and eager. Jane returned the kiss with gratifying enthusiasm, before pulling back slightly.
“Ah, Jane. Sweet, sweet Jane,” he murmured. “How I’ve missed ye—”
“About that.” She lifted her head. “I have a bone to pick with you,” she said, voice stern.
He would have been more worried about it, but as she still had a hand threaded into his hair and was pressed against him, he merely smiled.
“Aye,” he nuzzled her cheek.
“I am angry with you.” She pulled on his hair, forcing him to lift his head.
But then she kissed him and it was glorious.
“I think I like ye angry,” Andrew whispered.
“So angry,” she repeated. “Furious, even.”
“What should I apologize for?”
“You left me!”
A beat. Andrew froze.
“I told ye why I left. Ye needed time—”
“Just like a man to assume what I need without asking!”
“Ye were greetin’ yer wee heart out, weeping away. Ye rejected me because I took Peter from ye—”
Jane may have growled a bit. “Well, yes, I was upset but not at you. Your actions with Peter showed me the true depth of your soul. You found a way to grant him mercy—”
“Och, Peter accepted responsibility for his mistakes. It’s much easier to extend clemency tae a repentant man.”
“Yes! And I realized, after I calmed down, that you were acting with the utmost honor. You are right. Mercy and forgiveness do not negate consequences. I was upset and angry, but I forgave you quite quickly.”
More silence.
“You forgave me? Why didn’t ye tell me that?”
“Because you didn’t stay around to hear it, you bloody fool. You left!”
Andrew laughed.
“Now you laugh, you wretched man.” She shook her head, but she kissed him again, taking any sting out of her words.
“I am most sorry then.” He pecked her mouth. “Because I could have been kissing ye all these weeks.”
“Exactly! Now you are understanding.”
Nothing was said for another moment as Andrew thoroughly reacquainted himself with the delight of kissing his Jane, pulling her flush against him, hand delving into the silky softness of her hair.
Eventually, she pulled back, holding his head between her hands.
“But, most importantly, I owe you an apology, Andrew.” Her eyes went shimmery as she spoke.
“An apology?”
“Yes. I said cruel things that I did n-not m-mean—”
“Ah, Jane.”
“—and you need to know that I w-will never reject your heart—”
He silenced her with another kiss, helpless to do anything else. His Jane left no doubt as to her affection in her response.
“I forgive ye, mo chridhe,” he murmured against her mouth. “All is forgiven.”
She hiccupped and sighed and cuddled into his chest. Andrew hugged her closer, deeply content t
o simply hold her.
“And one more thing,” she said, pulling back, wiping her damp cheeks. She tossed a thumb over her shoulder. “How many rooms, exactly, is Muirford House? I knew you were wealthy, but the house behind us is a little ridiculous, your lordship. And I say that as the daughter of a duke.”
Andrew chuckled. “Ye like my home, do ye?”
Jane leaned into him. “I like it verra much,” she said in a decent Scottish accent. “But I think I like it best because you are here.”
“Ah, lass, mo chridhe—”
“I couldn’t stay away.” She snuggled into him again. “You left and took everything I wanted with you. And seeing how a good friend encouraged me to embrace the wild Jane of my youth . . .”
“Ye figured a trip to Scotland would be in order?”
“Precisely.”
Silence hung for a moment.
“I spent a portion of the journey north reading the poems of Robert Burns,” she said.
“Ye did?”
“Aye,” she teased. “He had a way with words, Burns did.”
“Most Scottish men do—”
She kissed him, laughing against his lips. “I have a favorite Burns poem now.”
“Oh aye?”
“Aye.”
Andrew pulled back, looking down at her expectantly.
She pressed a kiss to his jaw and then recited.
“She asked why wedding rings are made of gold;
I ventured this to instruct her;
Why, madam, love and lightning are the same . . .
Love is the soul’s electric flame,
And gold its best conductor.”
He smiled as she finished, the meaning behind the poem coming through loud and clear.
“Are you telling me that you love me, Lady Jane?”
She kissed him in earnest. “I stand here and say, without any doubt—I love you. You. Andrew Henry Mackenzie Langston.”
Andrew couldn’t contain the burst of joy bubbling through his veins. It bounced through his blood and set his head to spinning.
Naturally, several minutes of kissing followed.
Eventually, Jane murmured against his lips, “So . . . I was also hoping I could convince your very Scottish self to consider a more permanent alliance with England—”
“Are ye proposing marriage tae me, lass? A glorious union of our own?”
Jane laughed. “Aye, I am.”
He grinned in return. “I can think of nothing I would like more.”
Epilogue
Eight months later . . .
What do ye make of this, Lady Hadley?” Andrew asked, stretching out his hand, offering a small stone.
Jane smiled at her husband.
Her husband!
She took the stone from his palm, examining it closely. “Is it a small bit of ammonite?”
“I cannot decide. There is opalescence in the stone.”
Indeed, there was.
They continued back and forth, debating different theories.
Even though they had been married for over six months now, she could scarce believe it at times. When she thought of herself a year ago—alone and tightly contained, awaiting Andrew’s arrival at Hadley Park—she wanted to shake that foolish woman and tell her to wake up. To seize her own future and take the life that she wanted for herself.
She and Andrew had not been separated since the day she arrived in Scotland. They had been married from Muirford House on a sunny morning in August, Andrew looking resplendent in a great kilt made of Jamie’s tartan. They had traveled to London for the Little Season and winter Parliament session, allowing Andrew to officially take up his seat in Lords.
While there, they had called upon her mother, who had indeed married Lord Wanleigh, and was now happily enjoying London as the wife of a marquess.
Jane had received several letters from Peter, his latest announcing his safe arrival in Sydney and preparations to leave for the New Hebrides. She desperately missed Peter, but she also saw the good assuming responsibility for his actions had wrought. In time, he would become a remarkable man.
Today Andrew and Jane sat in the library at Rosehearth. She sorted through a stash of minerals Andrew had purchased for her as a surprise, while Andrew caught up on his correspondence. A fire popped in the hearth, cheering up the room despite the incessant February rain drumming against the mullioned windows.
Jane pulled a length of Jamie’s tartan tighter around her shoulders. She had left off carrying Paisley shawls and only wore tartan ones, a more obvious nod to her husband’s ancestry. In return, Andrew had his factory create tartan shawls for her of the softest Kashmiri wool.
“I’ve had a letter from Rafe,” Andrew said, shifting through the pile of correspondence in the writing slope resting on the small table beside him. “He wants to know if we will be holding our annual meeting of the Brotherhood of the Black Tartan next month.”
Jane frowned, looking up from her minerals. “Why would you not hold your reunion?”
“We have met our initial aims.” He shrugged. “We have resolved the issue of Madsen, and Jamie would approve of how we handled the situation with Peter. We have honored Jamie’s memory in that way.”
Her frown deepened. “Surely, the Brotherhood is about more than vengeance—”
“Aye, I suppose that is true. I do enjoy the company of my friends.”
“Well, there you are. Why not alter the Brotherhood meetings from a mere reunion to being more of a house party?”
“At Muirford House?”
“Why not?”
Andrew’s face turned thoughtful. “That’s an excellent idea, Lady Hadley,” he said.
“Of course it’s an excellent idea. I thought of it, after all.”
He grinned.
Jane continued, “Even better, use the meeting this year to discuss and plan future meetings.”
Andrew laughed. “Spoken like a true bureaucrat, Lady Hadley.”
Jane stuck out her tongue at him before turning back to her minerals. Which, of course, simply made her husband laugh harder, the wretch.
“I shall write Rafe immediately,” he said.
Silence descended, a comfortable sort of stillness. Jane sorted through a few more stones. Andrew’s quill scritched as he wrote his letter and then sanded the ink. The fire cracked in the hearth, a log collapsing in a flush of cheery sparks.
“Thank you,” Jane said.
Andrew lifted his head, eyes a question mark. “Thank you? Why do ye thank me, lass? For existing?”
She laughed. “In fact, you are absolutely correct.”
“Och, I am always correct. I’m right glad ye’re finally admitting tae it—”
He yelped as the pillow she threw hit his head.
Giggling, Jane moved closer to him.
Never slow, Andrew sat back, pulling her onto his lap, cradling her in his arms. Jane sighed, sinking against him, soaking in the sheer delight of being held.
“Thank you for seeing me,” she whispered into his neck, tugging Jamie’s tartan over them both as a blanket.
Andrew kissed her forehead. “Ah, mo chridhe, ’twas selfishly done. Ye were too fair a lass. One look at ye, dripping and raging in that stream, and I was a lost man. I had tae make that fiery lass mine forever.”
“But you took the time to draw her out first.”
“Aye, I did. I ken it was the kilt swish that did the trick in the end.”
Jane smiled. He wasn’t wrong.
“The kilt swish is no’ to be underestimated,” he continued.
“Or maybe it was just your overwhelmingly manly charm?”
“Oh, aye.” He nearly preened. “I’m most glad that we have come to such a level of understanding in our marriage. When did ye become so wise, Lady Hadley?”
“The day a handsome eejit handed me the moon.” She lifted her wrist, his bracelet jingling.
Andrew’s booming laughter bounced around the room. “I can kiss tae that.”
/> And so, he did.
Author’s Note
As an author, I find that I bond more with some characters and books than with others. For the record, Suffering the Scot was an absolute joy to write. I loved delving deep into Scottish culture and history.
First of all, a note about Scottish language and pronunciation. It’s always a struggle to know how to write an accent, particularly in a historical novel. Scotland today recognizes three distinct languages: Scottish Gaelic, Scots, and English. Historically, Scottish Gaelic has been spoken in the Highlands. Most Lowland Scots in the early 1800s (i.e. those from Glasgow and Edinburgh) would have spoken a mix of Scots and English, as we see in the writings of Robert Burns. (Sidenote: If you want to read some Scots, Wikipedia actually has an entire dictionary written in Scots—sco.wikipedia.org.)
Of course, I realized fairly quickly that a modern, primarily American, audience would struggle to understand Scots or the language of Burns’ time period.
So, what to do?
After much consideration, I decided to go with a slightly more modern Scottish accent and syntax, simply to aid readability. I write novels, after all, not history texts. I’ve used modern spellings of Scottish pronunciations and, even then, restricted myself to a few key words to give a Scottish flavor to the text. So at times, the accent as written is not perfectly consistent; this was done to help readability. That said, I have continued to use more common Scots words wherever possible—e.g. ken/kens/kent (think, know), eejit (idiot), glaikit (foolish), fou (drunk), etc.
Along those same lines, as editors went through the first couple drafts, I realized that most American readers only have a loose understanding of tensions between Scotland and England. I was endlessly adding more historical background information into each draft, trying to bring my readers up to speed. I acknowledge that, even then, I did not fully capture the nuance of the conflict between Scotland and England, particularly in relation to the Battle of Culloden.
I’ll be honest; I didn’t fully understand the tension myself until moving to Scotland. Even today, Scotland is very much a place apart from England. Nowadays, Scottish/English historical hostilities are usually framed as good-natured rivalry and ribbing, but the undercurrents remain.