The bed creaked as he sat down. She felt him reach for her. She sighed. “Henry, please,” she said softly. “Let me sleep. It was a tiring day.”
She felt his arm tense and then he moved it back. “As you wish,” he said softly.
She closed her eyes and rolled onto her side, drawing her knees up to her chest. His voice wept and she wanted to weep for him, hating herself for causing hurt. She just didn't know anymore: didn't know what to think, how to ask him what was in his heart.
She waited until he had been still for quite some time. Then she rolled over. “Henry?”
“Yes?” he said. His voice was stiff, almost as if he expected a reprimand, the way Douglas used to go stiff when she reprimanded him when he was a child. She sighed.
“I wanted to ask you...” She paused, trying to find words. “No, don't fret yourself.” She started to roll over again.
“No,” Henry said. She felt his hand close on her wrist and she tensed. He sighed and let it go again. “Sorry,” he said gently. “I just...Please, Francine. Why are you angry?”
“Why am I angry?” she asked.
It was hard not to sound surprised. How could he not have thought about how hard these two days were? He had gone away at a time when she had never had a single conversation with his father, when she barely knew his sister, even! And he had thought...what had he expected? That it would be easy for a foreigner, someone they regarded with suspicion, to get along with them?
“Yes,” he said. For the first time, his voice sounded harder. “Why are you angry? What have I done?”
Francine sighed. “It doesn't matter, Henry. If you don't know, you wouldn't understand if I told you.”
She rolled over again and he shifted, getting up off the bed. “Henry?” she asked.
“I can't bear this, Francine!” he came and knelt beside her, his face tormented. “I've only been away for a few days, and now everybody hates me! If I've done something to vex you, please....Just Tell me what it is? I want to understand.”
Francine sighed. “Henry,” she began slowly. “I would, I want to, but I don't know how to tell you. It's, well...it's not you. Not really. I can't explain.” How could she start? It was his family's friends, his affiliations, and her difference from them. She turned away, frustrated. She lay on her back. Henry sighed.
“I'm sorry, Francine,” he said. “If I embarrassed you, the way I challenged that fellow. I know it must have been awful. After all, he's one of your kind, and...”
That was it. “My kind?” she asked. She shot up in bed, surprised by the rage that filled her. If he had left, gone into the guest-quarters to sleep, if he had simply stayed here and said nothing, she would not be so enraged. However, of all the things to say, to say that? My kind! My kind...so ineffably different from his.
“What?” he asked, desperately. She saw his blue eyes grow round with disbelief as she rolled off the bed, grabbed her silk night-robe and walked lightly and quickly into the hallway.
My kind. The words went around her head, marking out her otherness, making her ashamed.
He said nothing. She heard him stand and walk to the door, but she was already in the hallway, heading for the east wing, and didn't look back.
She reached the guest-quarters, which Marguerite was, in her irrepressible way, planning to redecorate, and shut the door, leaning against it as if she hoped to stop an invading military. All the anger and sadness of the last three days congealed inside her and she leaned back, her body pressed to the cold wood of the door. This was not one night's anger. It was weeks of it.
In the darkness, she sobbed.
The next morning, Francine rolled over in the gray dusk-light of early morning. She stretched and winced. She was stiff from sleeping on her side in the cold room all night. She exhaled, wishing that she'd had the sense to ask someone to make up a fire. The mornings were chilly here and without warm embers in the grate, it had become truly cold.
She sighed and reached for the night-robe, drawing it tightly around her. She felt herself start to warm up, but it was as if the cold was right inside her, part of her being.
What was she going to do?
Well, for a start, I can find breakfast.
At the party the previous night, she had eaten almost nothing, too tense to eat. She sighed and stood, heading for the door. Out in the hallway, she looked left and right and then headed to her bedchamber.
In the room, the bed had been made, and Henry was nowhere around. She stepped lightly over the threshold and headed toward the doorway that led to her own boudoir.
She was almost there when Henry came out of the wardrobe-room opposite. He walked into the bedchamber and headed to the desk in the corner, collecting a fastening for his cravat, which he'd left there previously.
“Henry?”
He looked up at her. His blue eyes were blank. “What?”
She sighed and leaned back against the door. “Oh, Henry,” she said. “What have I done?”
“Nothing,” he said.
She closed her eyes. “Please, Henry. We are not going to make this better if we don't talk.”
“No,” he said bitterly. “We won't.”
“Well, then?” she asked, scraping a weary hand down her face.
“Well?”
“We need to start talking.” Perdition! Why was she so weary?
“Yes,” Henry said uncomfortably. He looked at her, but didn't really look at her, his gaze hesitant.
“I shouldn't have shouted at you,” Francine said. “I was overwrought.”
“I was too,” Henry said. “I'm sorry.”
“I'm sorry too.”
They looked at each other. Francine could see that Henry felt frustrated – the same frustration she felt. It was as if a gray dust filled the air between them, and neither of them could find the words to make it settle. Francine sighed. “I need to get dressed.”
“I'll go up to breakfast.”
“I'll see you at breakfast, then.”
“Yes.”
Francine sighed again. She felt awful inside, cold and empty. She called Brenna and started to get dressed.
Upstairs at breakfast, Henry was alone at the table. The room was dark, in mood and from the cloudy day, and Francine crossed the floor and drew out the chair, settling herself opposite him. He looked up. His blue eyes were so confused and they stared into hers. She abruptly felt like she wanted to cry.
“We are silly, aren't we?” she said.
“Yes.”
He took her hand and she held his, fingers gripping tightly onto the strong ones in her own. She felt pain for him, for how he was so confused, so unknowing. He would never fully know: He was not a woman who had to marry because of scandal, a Scot in a roomful of Englishmen.
That was something he might understand, since he had been an Englishman alone here before. “Henry?”
He looked into her eyes. “What?”
“You know I think I just felt awkward: you and your family are very English, and I feel, well, isolated,” she struggled, trying to express herself. She sighed and leaned back in the seat.
He looked at her stonily. “Go on?”
“Perdition, Henry!” she said, desperately. “What am I supposed to feel? When your father's circle either act like I'm a curiosity in a collection or as if I don't exist? You must know how terrible that could be?”
“Yes,” Henry said shortly. “I do know.” He still looked at her as if she had broken his heart in front of him. She sighed.
“What, Henry?” she asked gently.
“Nothing,” he said “I just...” He stopped. His throat was tight – she could see the vein pulsing up near his jaw and knew how hard he was trying to hold in some strong emotion.
“What, my dear?”
“Nothing,” he said. He pushed back his chair and she wanted to cry.
Why was he doing this? “Henry,” she said, as he stood. “Please don't do this. Just tell me?”
“I can't,”
Henry said tightly. He turned and she stood, too, following him to the door.
Francine shook her head. “Henry, don't go somewhere without talking to me.”
“I have to, Francine,” he said. He took her hands and when she looked into his eyes he looked almost desperate. “I need to think. I just need time to consider things.”
Francine shut her eyes and nodded. “If you need to, dearest.”
“I'll talk to you when I come back,” Henry said tightly. “When I understand what it is, and what I feel.”
“Of course,” Francine said gently. “Thank you, Henry.”
He took her hand and kissed it. She could see the confusion and hurt in his eyes and it made her own heart ache. He squeezed her fingers in his own and went to the door. Then he turned and left. Francine stared after him long after he had gone.
THINKING HARD THOUGHTS
The house seemed empty and silent. Francine, standing from the breakfast table, headed upstairs to the parlor. She had no idea what to do next.
She had eaten breakfast, alone, in a quiet house. It was lonely and miserable, and did nothing to dispel the ache in her heart, but she felt a little stronger after some fortifying.
Now I need to decide what to do next.
What was it that was plaguing Henry so? What was it that she'd done to upset him so badly?
She sighed and sat down carefully on a wing-back chair, staring out at the progressing morning. Even as she sat there, the sun rose a little further, casting bars of light across the wooden floor.
“Sister?”
Francine felt her stomach tighten with tension. She didn't particularly want to see or speak to anyone right now, least of all her practical, cheery friend. She sighed. “Marguerite. Good morning.”
“Are you feeling poorly?” she asked.
“A little,” Francine said. “I think I am just tired,” she added. “I'm sorry, sister – I'm just poor company today.”
“Well, if I can't cheer you up, then it's me whose poorer company,” Marguerite said firmly. “But if you wish, I'll leave you to peace and quiet.”
“Thank you, Marguerite,” she said. It occurred to her to ask if Henry had gone riding, but she didn't want to raise the topic of Henry. If his sister asked something about him, she might break down. She didn't want to have to discuss this unhappiness with her sister-in-law.
“I'll have to just see if anything happens.”
She sighed, and then leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. She was so weary, so empty. “I think I should go for a ride. It might clear my head, too.”
She stood, but as she reached the hallway, she heard Marguerite coming back down again with the maid, Barra, and stayed where she was, waiting for them to pass.
“Well, I think we can move the old mirror from the parlor, and replace it with that painting. I do love it so...dear Henry, to have brought it all this way for me. Brothers are wonderful.”
“Aye, milady. They are.”
Francine nodded. They were. The thought made her mind wander to her home, and her heart ached. Her sister would have returned North by now, but Douglas was still there, a few hours’ ride away at most. Would it not be lovely, if she could just ride to Duncliffe Manor, and see him! That would make her feel so much better.
Feeling more decided on the matter, she briskly headed up the hallway to her bedchamber. “Brenna?”
“Yes, milady?” the maid asked, pausing in her folding of Francine's night-clothes and under-things.
“Help me dress, please? I wish to go for a ride.”
“Very good, milady.”
Francine waited until she was changed into her riding-clothes, her hairstyle adjusted to go under the tall riding-bonnet. Then she headed out into the garden. “Saddle Damson, please, Wallace – I'm going out.”
“Aye, milady.”
Francine swung up into the saddle and rode away.
It was cool outside, the clouds hanging low over the woodlands. She rode, not minding the cold – barely noticing it. All she could think about was the more pressing problem of what she was going to do about this situation.
“I need to see Douglas.”
Her horse snorted under her and she patted her neck. Even Damson, it seemed, agreed with her. As she rode, she tried not to think about the image of Henry's face – those blue eyes, so sad and bewildered. She couldn't blot it out of her thoughts. It made her heart ache.
It was almost luncheon by the time she reached the gates.
“Milady!” a grounds-man called out as she rode through. “'Tis a surprise tae see ye!”
“Thank you, Donnell,” she said. “It's a surprise visit.”
She heard him chuckle and was pleased that she could still find a lightness somewhere in her heart, even when it was so wounded. She slipped off her horse, leaving her with the stable-hand, who looked just as surprised.
“Morning, milady!” the steward greeted when she knocked at the door, brows raised. “The master's out riding. He'll be back at three of the clock.”
“I'm not here to see the master,” she said lightly. “Is the young master in?”
“Oh, aye,” he nodded. “He's upstairs with his books.”
“Thank you,” she said, grateful to know that Douglas, at least, was home.
Strange, coming home again. After such a short time, the place seemed oddly unfamiliar. The hallway was smaller than she remembered, somehow, and it all looked newer. She saw it with fresh eyes. It was a new place to her.
She heard footsteps in the upper hallway and went up, heart thumping. As she went, the person upstairs came down.
“Sister?”
The look on Douglas' face was worth every second of the bone-wearying ride. His jaw dropped and his eyes lit like a lantern lit at dusk.
“Douglas!” she laughed.
She ran up the stairs and threw her arms around him in a crushing embrace. They just stood there for a long moment. Then he leaned back, laughing gently as he extricated himself from her grip. He looked into her eyes.
“Sister,” he said. “What brings you here? It isn't just to give me a wonderful surprise, I think?”
She laughed. “Oh, Douglas! It's wonderful to see you. I simply had to visit.”
That was all she could bring herself to say here and now. She looked around and Douglas seemed to sense there was something she wished to say in confidence, because he nodded fractionally.
“Well! I will call for some tea. Come, sister! We have so much to say.”
“Yes,” Francine nodded. “We do.”
Seated on the settee opposite Douglas, a cup of steaming tea and a plate of small spice-flavored cakes in front of her, Francine felt her heart settle into a place of stillness. She smiled at Douglas, still feeling a little uneasy with him. “Arabella has already departed?”
“Yes. She left three days ago.”
“A pity. Mirelle must have been a delight.”
“Yes. She was. You should have seen her when Merrick suggested Arabella feed her plums. The babe's face! It was a picture.”
“She didn't like them?” she guessed.
“No! She was enchanted with the idea!”
Francine laughed. “Merrick must have been pleased.”
“Merrick was quietly smug about it – especially since Arabella had told her it was a bad idea.”
Francine smiled. She had not realized how much she missed them all. She could so easily imagine the scene: Arabella's quick-tempered indignation, Merrick's quietly pleased response. The child's happy expression would have been best of all. She felt a pang of wistfulness. Here, she was loved and accepted. She had a place. She felt desperately lost with Henry's family, and hadn't realized it until now.
“I am glad I visited,” she said quietly.
“You seem thoughtful,” Douglas said.
She could see tenderness in his eyes, and knew that he had guessed something upset her. “I...Oh, Douglas! I think I made a mistake.” All the sadness was at the forefron
t suddenly, and she leaned forward, covering her face with her hands. She knew she would cry soon and she didn't want to do it in front of him.
Douglas frowned. “No, sister,” he said slowly. “I doubt that.”
Francine looked up, smiling sadly. “Oh, Douglas. You think that because you don't believe I would have. But I think I did. I should have listened.”
“To what?” Douglas asked. “The best-meant counsel can be wrong – only as good as how well the person knows the situation.”
Francine nodded. “You're right, Henry,” she said. “But in this case, I think the person was well-informed.”
The advice was my own. Henry must have been the wrong choice Merrick warned of.
“Well,” Douglas said, leaning back. “There aren't many things that can't be remedied. The plague, mayhap. Even then, people are cured. As for the rest? There's usually a means of fixing things. You just need to start looking.”
Francine smiled. “Douglas, I missed you.”
He grinned, now a bit crookedly. “Well, I can keep you from drowning in too much tea.” He swigged back a cupful.
Francine chuckled. “Douglas! How many cups have you drunk?”
“Three, I think,” he said lightly. Then he grimaced. “I think my head hurts.”
They both laughed. It felt so good to be laughing. The more she laughed, the more he did, until they were both helpless. She looked up, sniffing as a tear ran down her cheek.
“Oh, Douglas,” she said. “I did miss you.”
“It's wonderful to see you,” Douglas said, reaching across the table to take her fingers in his own. “Stay as long as you wish.”
Francine sighed and leaned back, closing her eyes.
If she just stayed here, leaving Henry's family and the oppressive house, the judgment and the harsh looks, she would be so much happier. Her heart ached as if someone had skewered it at the thought of leaving Henry. However, if she let his family reduce her, turn her to a pale ghost, what would be left within her to love him? No, she had to do something.
“I would like to,” she said. “But first, I need to see Merrick.”
Destiny Of A Highlander: Blood of Duncliffe Series (A Medieval Scottish Romance Story) Page 18