by Imani King
She then dissolved into sobs and buried her face in my neck and I gave up on questioning her further about her mother, knowing it was probably just going to make things worse. It wasn't up to me whether or not she went to London and it appeared to be some kind of arranged agreement so there was no canceling. I just held her tightly until her breathing started to slow down again and asked the question that would, unbeknownst to me, lead to my seeing a side of her father I had yet to experience:
"What do you want to do with Daddy when he comes back?"
Cameron thought about it for a little while and then replied, in a voice still thick with tears. The combination of her upset and her accent made it difficult to understand exactly what she said.
"I want to go shooting."
I, being American and not aristocratic, completely misunderstood what Cameron was saying.
"Cameron, why would you talk about shooting? You don't shoot people with your Daddy!"
She'd looked up at me, confused, and she was just about to say something that probably would have clarified everything when the Laird strode into the courtyard with a face like thunder. Neither me nor Cameron had time to say anything before he snatched her off my lap and turned his anger towards me:
"You were hired to make sure she's safe and fed. You weren't hired to fill my daughter's head with wishy-washy American bullshit!"
It took a few seconds to even process what was happening - I had no idea what the Laird was so angry about. Surely he wasn't taking issue with my telling Cameron that shooting people with her father wasn't the best way to spend her time? He was fuming, though. I could see it in his narrowed eyes and, frighteningly, the fact that he seemed to be shaking slightly.
"What? I - Darach, I'm not sure what-"
"Pack your things!" He bellowed, cutting me off before I could finish and so loud it was enough to have tears of dismay starting immediately in my own eyes. What had I done? I stood there in front of him, staring dumbly for a few moments as Cameron started to cry again, and then I got angry. Whatever he was yelling about it must have been a misunderstanding. I hadn't done or said anything that warranted that kind of reaction. I was his employee, yes, but that didn't mean he had a right to speak to me like that, to yell at me with that tone in his voice.
Without saying anything I turned and walked away, back into the castle and up the spiraling stone steps to my bedroom. Cameron's howls were loud enough for me to hear even from my room. When I looked out the window I saw Mrs. Clyde rushing over to the Laird and remonstrating with him, waving her arms around and speaking loudly, although I was too far away to make out what she was saying.
In a daze, I started to pack my things, blinking back tears of confusion and disbelief the entire time, refusing to let them come. As I packed I got angrier. Not only was he firing me for something so small I didn't even know what it was, he was taking me away from his daughter, who was already obviously attached to me - both Mrs. Clyde and her husband had remarked upon it, with Mrs. Clyde seeming especially happy that the child had found someone to confide in.
I stayed in my room until it got dark, checking airfares on my phone and eventually booking one for the next day and using my own credit card to pay for it even though part of my employment contract had included travel costs. There was no way I was taking another cent from Laird McLanald. There was also no reason to stay the night, I just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible, so I called a taxi from the nearest town I could locate on Google maps and headed downstairs to wait outside for it to arrive.
I wasn't waiting for more than two minutes before Mrs. Clyde opened the front door and walked up to me, her expression tense and sad.
"Jennifer, I can't ask you to stay after that."
No, she couldn't ask me to stay. Even if I had wanted to, it wasn't Mrs. Clyde's decision anyway.
"The Laird has been having such a rough time lately, and so has wee Cameron. I know it's only been a short while but I can see how much she likes you."
The mention of Cameron instantly had tears rising again but I swallowed them back down, looking out at the road and concentrating on waiting for the taxi. Mrs. Clyde continued, wringing her hands as she spoke:
"Jennifer, he doesn't want you to leave. He can see how happy Cameron is with you."
"He just fired me, Mrs. Clyde." I fought to keep my voice calm and steady, but even I could hear the wobble in it.
Mr. Clyde emerged from the castle and walked down the stairs to join his wife, and the sight of the two of them, clearly distraught at the situation, just made fighting my emotions that much harder.
"Jennifer," Mr. Clyde started, meeting my eyes and then looking down at the ground almost apologetically, "the Laird has such a temper when it comes to those he loves. He had to fly to Edinburgh but he would have told you him-"
A car turned into the driveway before Mr. Clyde could finish, its headlights illuminating the pale gravel as it made its way up to where I was standing. It was the taxi. I knew I was going to cry if I said too much and I just wanted this awfulness to be over, so I only spoke briefly to the Clydes before getting into the cab:
"I understand you're trying to help. You didn't hear the way he yelled at me, and as I said I don't even know what I did. I don't want to leave, but I can't stay."
What I wanted to say was "I don't want to leave Cameron" but I knew that would have the words catching in my throat so it went unsaid. Neither of the Clydes could think of anything else to try and prevent me from leaving so instead they just stood watching sadly as the taxi pulled away. I managed to wait until the driver had turned onto the road before putting my face in my hands and bawling.
Chapter 5
The train station was deserted when I arrived and there didn't appear to be any staff anywhere so I settled onto a cold concrete bench and steeled myself for a chilly night waiting for the first train the next morning. No part of me was looking forward to explaining to my friends what had gone wrong with my summer job, which wasn't helped by the fact that I myself didn't really know what had caused the Laird to blow up like he did. I let my shoulders slump forward - there was no one around to try and look strong for so why bother? - and went over the conversation I'd been having with Cameron before Darach lost it. He'd obviously been listening in. Maybe it wasn't the comments about shooting, maybe it had been the conversation with her about her mother?
The loneliness that had been with me every waking second since my grandmother passed came back with a vengeance that night in the empty train station with its bright, irritating fluorescent lights. I made a feeble attempt at warding off a bout of self-pity but in the end just decided that if I couldn't feel sorry for myself shivering with cold in the middle of a foreign country and with no one around who knew me, where could I feel sorry for myself? When the tears finally seemed to stop coming I used one of my bags as a pillow and lay down, tightly curled up against the cold, on the bench to try and get some sleep.
"Jennifer!"
I woke up disoriented, my body aching from shivering and not entirely sure where I was.
"Jennifer, listen to me."
I looked up as it slowly dawned on me who was speaking. The Laird. He was alone, standing at the foot of the bench I was sleeping on and looking straight at me. I turned away from him as soon as I had the wherewithal to do so.
"Come back, Jennifer. Why are you out here in the cold?"
Why was I out there in the cold? Because that jerk fired me in the most humiliating way possible, that's why. I ignored him but he didn't go away. When I sat up, he used the space I'd vacated to sit down beside me.
"I can see that you're angry and you have every right to be. Will you just listen to me?"
"Listen to you? What, the way you listened to me when I tried to ask you what I did wrong?" I shot back angrily, still not looking at him.
"Please, Jennifer. I'm trying to apologize to you right now. I know that was an ugly scene and I know it was my fault."
There was so
mething in Darach's voice, a certain weary tone that I recognized from some of my own thoughts and conversations over the past couple of years. He sounded tired and not a little desperate.
"What exactly did I say that was so bad?" I asked, finally looking at him.
"Nothing. You didn't say anything. I used the shooting comments as an excuse - I was angry at myself and what's happened to Cameron since her mother left and I took it out on you."
"But what's so fucking bad about telling a four year old that shooting people is a bad idea?!" I blurted, my voice rising with irritation. Even if he had used the comments as an excuse, I still didn't realize what he could possibly have thought was so misguided about them.
The Laird shrugged his heavy shoulders and shook his head slightly in a gesture that i could tell was aimed at himself, not me.
"I take Cameron shooting with me on the estate - or, I have taken her, twice now. She enjoys it and it's something that needs to be done if the wildlife is to be properly managed."
What? Wildlife? I paused before replying:
"Was she talking about...hunting?"
"Yes. And I understand if that's not something that's part of your life or that you disagree with but-"
"I thought she was talking about wanting to shoot PEOPLE!" I said as the exact cause of the misunderstanding sank in. "I had no idea she was talking about hunting!"
I didn't love the idea of hunting, either, but Cameron's earlier discussion suddenly made a lot more sense. She'd just been talking about spending time with her father doing things that were normal for her.
"You thought...?"
Darach's couldn't finish his sentence because he'd started shaking. For one awful instant I thought he was sobbing but when I looked closer I could see that, actually, he was laughing. He was trying to contain it but he was failing badly. Eventually he just leaned his head back and let it out, guffawing and slapping one hand on his leg.
Within seconds the idea of a small Scottish girl proposing to go on a murder spree with her father also struck me as absurdly hilarious.
"What did you think?!" Darach's eyes were leaking tears of mirth now, "did you think we just go out on jolly little murdering parties with our children in Scotland?"
I was offended by that remark because I hadn't been the only one to make a minor semantic mistake but I couldn't say anything due to laughing so hard I could hardly breathe.
We sat like that, snickering and wiping tears and then, just when it felt like it was over, finding ourselves struck anew by the absurdity of the mistake and falling back into helpless laughter over and over. When it finally was finished we wiped our eyes and caught our breath and I felt like I'd just laughed a year's worth of tension out of my body.
I couldn't stop myself:
"You made a mistake too, you know. You thought I was telling her hunting was wrong and that wasn't what I meant."
"I know, I know Jennifer. None of it was your fault - as I said, it wasn't even those comments that made me fly off the handle, they were just the excuse. None of that was your fault, it wasn't about you at all. I'm so sorry. I didn't even think you were going to leave - I just got back from Edinburgh and Mrs. Clyde told me where you were."
I looked up at the sky and noticed that dawn was just starting to break. It must have been about five in the morning.
"Well..." I started, a little hesitant and still, despite the shared laughter, a little resentful about how I'd been treated, "why were you so angry?"
Our eyes met and the Laird reached up and ran one of his big hands through his sandy hair, sighing heavily.
"Do you really want to know? It would take hours - days, actually - to tell you the whole story but I could give you the short version."
I did want to know. It was an odd sensation sitting next to man of such size and such seeming self-assurance and seeing a certain vulnerability in his body language - in the way he held his head in his hands.
"Yes." I said, simply.
So Darach told me what the blow-up in the courtyard was about. It was about his daughter - and his wife. He told me that he'd married his wife - Diane - shortly after meeting her and getting her pregnant just under five years ago. It had been volatile from the start. When Cameron was born Diane moved from her home in London into Castle McLanald and for a short time it had seemed like maybe they could make it work. But she'd been unhappy there from the beginning and within weeks of Cameron's birth Diane was disappearing for days at a time, coming home hungover and spending thousands of pounds - hundreds of thousands, according to Darach - shopping online for clothing and antique furniture. When she seduced the head gardener, a man whose family had worked for the McLanald's for generations, Darach and his family had recognized it as the final straw it was and told her to leave, without Cameron.
Weeks later a lawyer from London had arrived with divorce papers demanding full custody and fully half of the McLanald fortune. Darach was fighting it but his lawyers had insisted that Diane be given weekend custody in order for the Laird not to be seen as punishing his wife or putting her relationship with Cameron at risk.
I'd heard stories like it before. The very wealthy, male or female, are no better armored against the charms of the beautiful and the manipulative than any of us. Diane was an ex-model with some small amount of fame and she'd even threatened to go to the tabloids with tales of drug use and sexual perversion that had been entirely cooked up in her own head.
I could tell, though, that even as the Laird gave me the story he was still leaving something important out.
"So," I started gently when he paused, "you were upset about Cameron? Why doesn't Cameron want to see her mother?"
Darach suddenly put his head in his hands and took a single deep, shaky breath - the kind you take when you're trying to control your emotions. He coughed, hard, before saying anything more and refused to look at me so I wouldn't see the pain on his face.
"Jennifer, please understand. It's very difficult for me to talk about this. I can barely even talk to my lawyer about it."
I nodded and, without thinking, reached out and put my hand on his back. The fabric of his shirt was cold but almost instantly I could feel the heat of his body - of the muscled curve of his shoulder - underneath. I'd intended the gesture to be comforting but as soon as it happened, as soon as I felt him, it changed into something else. I snatched my hand away just as quickly as I'd reached out, suddenly self-conscious.
"It's OK. I can see how much you love her," I told him, using words instead of touch this time, trying to get across to him that I understood how much he felt for Cameron.
"Diane is awful to her," Darach started, his voice low and controlled, "she takes her anger at me out on Cameron and..." he trailed off, unable to finish.
"Can't the lawyers do something about that? Isn't that abuse?"
Darach shook his head. "Diane is too smart for that. She'd never do anything to Cameron that would make her look bad. All I know is that my daughter is absolutely terrified to go to London and that every weekend I have to wrestle her out of my arms and hand her over to her thoroughly cold-hearted mother and it's killing me, it's driving me mad."
I'd seen Cameron's fear for myself, I'd felt the sobs wracking her tiny body as she begged me not to let her go back to her mother that upcoming weekend. I'd even experienced the anger I was seeing now in Darach, knowing someone was causing Cameron's terror but not knowing, at the time, who it was.
We sat on the train station bench in silence for a little while as the pink light of dawn slowly spread across the sky. Eventually, the Laird spoke:
"Will you come back, Jennifer? Please come back. I haven't seen Cameron this happy for a long time and I promise you I won't lose it like that again - not at you, anyway."
I'd already decided to go back to Castle McLanald, but not just because Darach was sorry. I was going back for Cameron, too - asleep in her bed, possibly tormented by a cruel mother she couldn't escape and pretty much completely defenseless. Of cou
rse I was also going back because Darach wanted me to go back and it was already becoming very hard to say no to him. He shouldn't have acted the way he did but I could see his apology was heartfelt. I could also still clearly remember the electricity that had been there when I put my hand on his shoulder, just for that one second. He was so attractive, so dedicated to his daughter and so stupidly sexy. Just give it the summer. Even if nothing happens with the Laird, you can help Cameron come out of her shell. That's what I told myself, anyway. It wasn't a lie but the truth was a little more complicated. I wanted something to happen with Darach - much more than I was willing to admit at the time.
Chapter 6
Mrs. Clyde seemed almost slightly embarrassed at breakfast, as if she was worried she'd overstepped her bounds somehow. When she put my bowl of oatmeal and my mug of tea in front of me she allowed herself the following:
"I'm very glad to see you back here, Jennifer. You're good for the bairn."
The bairn. I'd worked out that this was the Scottish word for "child" soon after my arrival. It made me smile every time I heard it.
"Thank-you Mrs. Clyde. I'm glad we worked it out - the Laird and me, I mean."
Mrs. Clyde didn't say anything else, she just gave me a quick wink and went back to washing dishes.
I was just about ready to go back to my room for a shower and a nap after the dramatic night at the train station when Darach walked in with Cameron in his arms. Her head was nestled into his shoulder and she was obviously half-asleep, still dressed in her pink pajamas and with her blonde curls sticking out in all directions.
"Look who's here," the Laird whispered to his daughter and I felt something in my heart move at the tenderness in his voice. Cameron slowly lifted her head and turned to see who was there. When she saw me a slow, sweet smile broke across her face and she leaned out of her father's arms, reaching for me.
"Good morning, sleepyhead." I stood up and took Cameron from the Laird, sitting back down at the table with her on my lap.