Fair Is the Rose

by Liz Curtis Higgs

  He took her hand and led her toward the hall bench, pulling her down onto the wooden seat next to him. “Rose …” His voice was as tender as she’d ever heard it. “I saw you with Ian. You were born to be a mother. And someday you will surely be one. But first you must find a husband of your own.”

  “Please, Jamie!” Did he not understand? Did he not see? “You should have been my husband. And Ian my son—”

  “Nae!” He fell back against the wall with a groan. “I beg you, do not say such things, Rose. ’Tis too late for all of that. God in his mercy has forgiven my unfaithful heart, and I will not disappoint him—or Leana—again.”

  Her heart sank. “Instead you will disappoint me.”

  “Aye, it seems I must.” Jamie turned toward her, his face a handbreadth away. “Forgive me, darling Rose. You were my first love; I cannot deny it.”

  His first love. But not his last. She closed her eyes. He was too near.

  “I may never care for Leana as I have for you. But I must try. Don’t you see?”

  “I …” She could hold back her tears no longer. “I only see that you don’t want me.”

  “As my cousin, always. But not as my wife.” His grip tightened. “You must let me go, Rose. For Ian’s sake.”

  She stood, tugging her hands free to wipe her cheeks, looking away lest he see the sorrow in her eyes. “You ask too much of me, Jamie. You ask … too much.” She fled for the front door, stopping long enough to fling her cloak over her shoulders before disappearing into the fog-shrouded night.

  Two

  Of all the joys that lighten suffering earth,

  what joy is welcomed like a newborn child?

  CAROLINE SHERIDAN NORTON

  Leana clutched the babe to her breast and sank deeper into the heather mattress, realizing she’d used the last of her energy making Jamie feel welcome by her bedside. How attentive he’d been, with his gaze fixed on hers and his constant touches, gentle but firm, as though he were at last laying claim to his wife and child. Please God, may it be so! Jamie was gone to Auchengray now, leaving naught behind but his scent on Ian’s linen blanket. She smiled, remembering his response when she’d worried over how she must look after her travail: You look like the mother of my son.

  Mother. It was too much to take in all at once. The blessing and responsibility of her new role drifted down onto her shoulders like an invisible mantle from on high. “Mother,” she whispered.

  Neda’s freckled brow knotted with concern. “Ye miss her, I ken.”

  “Aye.” A shadow fell across Leana’s heart. “Though ’Twas not my mother I was thinking of just now.”

  “ ’Tis yer own duties that fill yer thoughts then. Weel and guid. Ye’ve no need o’ unheartsome notions on this blithe day.” Neda steadied the pitcher as she poured hot water into a shallow porcelain basin, tipping her head away from the rising steam. Her features remained unlined despite her fifty-odd years, but the slump of her shoulders bespoke her age well enough. “ ’Tis a shame yer mither did not live tae see this granbairn o’ hers. Agness McBride would be mair than pleased wi’ her daughter’s labors.” She put aside the pitcher, then soaked a small square of rough linen in the water and wrung it out with hands that stayed chapped and red no matter the season. “Ye did verra well, lass.” Wiping Leana’s forehead, then her cheeks, she added with a chuckle, “Born on a Sabbath nicht in a parish manse, yer son is bound tae be a minister someday.”

  “Aye, perhaps.” Leana tipped her chin as the wet cloth swept round her face, which had grown fuller in the last few months. If only she had Rose’s lithe neck! But Leana resembled their mother, a broad-cheeked, fair-haired Scotswoman, who had died giving birth to Rose sixteen years past. In her stead, Neda had offered a mother’s calming presence and caring touch, seeing to Leana’s every need, serving as maid and midwife from the moment Leana’s labor began during Reverend Gordon’s sermon. To think, the child was born in the man’s own home, in his own spence, in his own bed! The dour minister might never recover from the shocking sight of a bevy of female congregants taking flight from their pews, with Mistress Gordon leading the charge.

  Leana looked down as Ian stirred in her arms. His features were still pink and pinched, his eyes closed tight in the flickering firelight. “Baloo, baloo, my wee, wee thing,” she sang softly, then brushed her lips against his velvety head. The smooth plane of his forehead and fullness of his lower lip were so like his father’s, tears sprang to her eyes. Jamie, my Jamie. Perhaps now she might dare speak the truth of her love abroad after months of pretending not to adore the husband she’d claimed. God had forgiven her for how it had all come about, of that Leana was certain. Rose was less generous with her mercy.

  The damp cloth put aside, Neda slid her hands beneath the wriggling babe. “Will ye let me take him, lass? Gie ye baith a proper bathin’ this time?”

  Leana hesitated, hating to lose the warmth of him, the slight weight of him pressed against her. Holding Ian was like holding Jamie’s heart; she was not willing to let either one move beyond her reach. “Only for a moment,” she said, releasing the lad with some reluctance. “Put him close by the hearth so he won’t become chilled.”

  Neda clucked at her, shaking her head. “Already the dotin’ young mither, oot tae spoil yer son.” Nonetheless, she did what Leana requested, wrapping the child in a thick plaid and tucking him in a basket near the glowing peat. “Just ’til yer mither is scrubbed and dressed in a clean shift,” Neda assured him. Her eyes shone with a grandmother’s pride. Turning her attention to the master bed, she quickly saw to Leana’s comfort, lifting her weak limbs to bathe her, bidding her stand only long enough to slip the shift over her head, then whisking off the bed linens and replacing them with fresh ones. Leana raised no objection when Neda slid the family Bible between the two thin mattresses, knowing the woman meant only to safeguard mother and child while they slept. A harmless old custom meant to keep away the fairies.

  “See how little time yer bath took?” Neda chided her, brushing the last of the tangles from her damp hair. “Rest a moment while I tend tae Ian.”

  Leana watched, enthralled, as Neda bathed the child from crown to toes using her bare hands and the last of the soapy water, slipping her fingers between the soft creases of his flesh, ignoring his whimpers of protest. “Hush, little one,” Leana murmured. The hour was late and the Gordon household long since retired, the reverend and his wife having found refuge in a spare bed up the stair. Neda patted the babe dry while Leana cooed, “She’s almost finished with you, lad.” At last, newly wrapped and smelling sweeter than ever, Ian was delivered to her waiting arms, where he settled into an exhausted sleep.

  “See ye do the same, Leana.” Neda regarded her with a look that brooked no argument. “From time oot o’ mind every mither kens she must sleep whan her babe does or niver sleep at all. ’Tis why I’ll not stay here in the spence this nicht and risk keepin’ ye awake wi’ me snorin’. But ye can be sure I’ll be oot in the hall if ye need me.” She showed Leana how to rest on her side with the babe cradled just so, a rolled blanket pressed against his back to hold him safely in place. “Ye’ll not nap long afore young Ian will need nursin’. Did ye … that is, have ye had a go at that?”

  “Aye, when Jamie was here with me,” Leana admitted, her neck heating. “It went well, I think.”

  Neda said nothing for a moment, eying her. “Will ye be wantin’ me tae find a village woman? Bring her tae Auchengray as yer wet nurse—”

  “Nae,” Leana said decisively. “Perhaps the gentry prefer to let a stranger nurse their children, but I …” She lowered her gaze, at once self-conscious. “I’d rather manage on my own.”

  “Guid.” Neda nodded, looking relieved. “ ‘Nurse yer bairn this year, and do yer work next year,’ goes the sayin’. ’Twas what yer mither did whan ye were born. God rest her soul, she could not do the same for wee Rose. But ye grew like a summer melon from yer mither’s milk.”

&nb
sp; Leana touched her rounded cheek, fretting at the fullness she found there. “It seems I’m growing still.”

  “Och! Ye’ve the face o’ a woman now, ’Tis all. And if I may be sae bold, Mr. McKie seemed quite taken wi’ yer sonsie face this nicht.”

  Leana pressed her lips tight to hold back a smile. Could it be true? “I must confess, my husband does seem … changed.”

  “Mair than ye ken. This mornin’ outside the spence door Duncan prayed the man tae his knees.”

  Leana gasped. “Jamie? On his knees?”

  “If I tell ye mair, I’ll risk me own husband’s ire, but I’ll say this much, Mistress McKie.” Neda smoothed her hand across Leana’s brow, bending over her bed to whisper the rest of it. “Yer Jamie has pledged tae do right by ye and tae honor his marriage vows, whate’er it may cost him.”

  Whate’er it may cost. Leana let the words sink in, past the doubt that had built a hedgerow round her heart, beyond the scars of old wounds. Less than an hour ago, in this very room, Jamie had begged her forgiveness, sincerity written across every feature of his handsome face. He had said—had he not?—that nothing would come between them again. He had pleaded for a chance to start over, to begin anew.

  And she had agreed, not counting the cost.

  “But it will cost him Rose.”

  “ ’Tis not yer concern, Leana,” Neda said with a note of resolve, moving toward the door. “Jamie kens the cost and has called on the Almighty tae gie him strength.” Her chin jutted out, challenging any naysayers. “Wrong has prevailed lang enough at Auchengray. Right will soon reign o’er that household, or yer husband will answer tae mine.” The muffled bang of the door punctuated her charge as Neda disappeared into the hall.

  Leana stared at the fire, almost too exhausted to sleep. Images of her dear sister nagged at her conscience. Rose holding Ian. Rose gazing at Jamie. Rose leaving the room alone. Forgive me, Rose. How often had she said those words? On her wedding day. On the day she knew she was carrying Ian. And a hundred other days besides. If Jamie honored his vows now, as he had promised he would, Leana feared she might say the words forever. Please, Rose. Forgive me.

  Sleep came but soon departed. Awakened by Ian’s cry, Leana shifted her body to accommodate him, guiding his tiny, insistent mouth to her breast. She shivered beneath the heavy plaid, longing for a warming pan to skim across the bedsheets or a hot brick wrapped in cloth to nestle at her feet. No matter. She had Ian in her arms, and he was enough to warm her heart if not her body. The night passed slowly, interrupted by another feeding, then the need for a fresh linen blanket for Ian. Leana drifted in and out of sleep, her legs aching with a dull pain, as though she’d run all three miles to Auchengray and back again. As was customary, Neda had buried the afterbirth the moment it was delivered, then assured Leana that her body would mend in due course. “Next time ’twill be easier,” Neda had declared. Leana cared not how difficult it might be, if God would only provide a brother or sister for Ian someday.

  Night turned to gray morning. She awoke to the sounds of the Gordon household stirring to life and a firm tap at the spence door. “ ’Tis Neda, come tae see aboot the new mither.” The housekeeper bustled into the spence holding a basin of steaming water. A maid bearing a candlelit breakfast tray was close on her heels, followed by another wide-eyed lass with an armload of towels. In short order mother and child were examined, changed, and fed, with their faces scrubbed clean and the bedding set aright.

  “You’re a very efficient nurse,” Leana teased as the woman yanked the curtains aside to let in what little light the day had to offer. “ ’Tis clear why Father never calls for a doctor from Dumfries.”

  “Och!” Neda tied back the thick folds of fabric. “Yer faither is sparin’ his coin, that’s all.” Lachlan McBride’s miserly ways were common knowledge among his fellow bonnet lairds with whom he did business. No one suffered from his tightly drawn purse strings more than his own household. “Speakin’ o’ yer faither,” Neda reminded her, “ye’re tae expect him at nine o’ the clock for a peek at his new granbairn.”

  Leana sat up straighter in bed, making sure she was modestly covered and the babe’s face easily viewed. Any visit with her father, however brief, was a trial from which she seldom emerged unscathed. She would hold her head high this day, however. In January the kirk session had pronounced her a wife, and yestreen the Lord had declared her a mother.

  She was still arranging the folds of her bedding when her father’s voice boomed from the hall. “Daughter, I trust I may enter and see this grandson of mine.”

  “Aye, Father.” She wet her lips, a nervous habit. “Do come in.”

  The door banged open. Neda and the others flew from the room like hens, arms flapping, their voices unnaturally high. Lachlan McBride marched in, his greatcoat dusting the floor behind him. He pulled a chair by the bedside in a single broad sweep and sat with some ceremony, brushing the dust from his trousers. The silver threads stitched through his ebony hair glistened in the candlelight. If he could mint them, Leana knew he would.

  She offered him a slight smile. “As you can see, Ian James McKie has arrived safe and sound.”

  Her father eyed the drowsy babe with mild interest. “So he has.” He touched Ian’s head as though to make certain the boy was real, then drew his hand back. “Tell his father there’ll be no running off to Glentrool with my grandson. Ian must be raised at Auchengray. If the lad is to inherit my land someday, ’Tis only right he think of it as his home.”

  “I’ll tell him,” Leana said, uneasy at the prospect of conveying such a message. Jamie chafed under Lachlan’s tight reins, pulled more taut each day they remained in Newabbey and away from his own beloved parish of Monnigaff. Lachlan, both uncle and father-in-law to Jamie, served no one’s interests but his own.

  Her father then leaned forward to peer at her. “Quite a commotion you caused at the kirk yestermorn.”

  “Forgive me, Father,” she murmured. “A woman cannot choose when and where such things will happen.”

  “When you insisted on going to the Sabbath services in your delicate condition, do you recall how I cautioned you against it?”

  Leana remembered his words exactly—“not prudent”—but merely nodded.

  “Aye, and now you’ve converted Reverend Gordon’s household into a coaching inn for the week. If you’d listened to me, your son would’ve been born at Auchengray, and you’d be comfortably settled in your own box bed at home. Am I right?” he barked, ignoring the babe, who wriggled in her arms. “Tell me, Daughter, am I right?”

  “Aye, Father.” Leana forced herself to meet his gaze. “You always are.”

  Three

  One truth is clear,

  Whatever is, is right.

  ALEXANDER POPE

  What is right, Jamie McKie, and what is fair are not necessarily the same.”

  Jamie watched in silence as Rose stamped about the orchard. It had been a difficult three days since Ian’s birth. One minute the lass was tender and resigned, the next tearful and quarrelsome. “From the moon tae the midden” was how Duncan described her moods. In the twelvemonth Jamie had loved her, ever-changeable Rose had seldom shown him the same disposition twice.

  The afternoon sun cut a wide swath across the gardens and fields of Auchengray, burnishing the October landscape to a golden sheen. He should have been in the sheepfolds with Duncan, preparing the ewes for their fall breeding. Or off visiting Leana and Ian at the manse in Newabbey. Instead Rose had pleaded with him to help her harvest apples, and he’d agreed, determined to bring their sparring to an end.

  You ask too much of me, Jamie.

  And you, Rose, of me.

  “Hold this, will you?” Rose thrust a woven willow basket into his arms and began plucking yellow pippins from the nearest branch, dropping them into the basket, bruising the fruit as she went. Her gingham gown was cinched tight at the waist, displaying her figure to best advantage, and she’d woven h
er silken hair into a thick braid that danced about her waist. Young Rose knew how to capture and keep a man’s attention.

  “As I was saying, Jamie, you may think it right to give your heart to Leana, but I do not think it fair. Have I not forgiven you for what happened on Hogmanay? For marrying my sister instead of me?”

  A common refrain. “Aye, you have, Rose. But you’ve not forgiven Leana.”

  “What sister could overlook such sinful behavior?” She flapped her hand, dismissing any response. “Never mind all that. ’Tis the present that concerns me, Jamie. And the future.”

  Keeping his irritation in check, he put the basket down with a thud. “My present and future both rest with Leana and Ian. As to your own future, what of your plans to attend boarding school in Dumfries? Has your father not arranged things? And paid your tuition in advance?”

  “So what if he has?” Rose threw down the apples in her hands, tossing her long braid like a whip. “I’ll not have my father ruling my life.” Her dark eyes narrowed. “Not like he rules yours.”

  At the cruel reminder Jamie clenched his hands into fists, longing to hit something. Lachlan McBride’s stern features seemed a worthy target. Or the bearded face of Evan McKie, his own twin brother, whose murderous threats had sent Jamie fleeing to Auchengray. Aye, he could plant a fist on either of their stubborn jaws and feel justified.

  Rose, peering intently at him now, clearly sensed she’d spoken amiss. The pointed look in her eyes softened, and her words turned sweeter. “Poor Jamie. ’Twas thoughtless of me to mention how Father has taken advantage of you.” She brushed the dirt from her hands and stepped closer, nudging apples from her path with her toe until there was naught between them but a slight autumn breeze. “Will you forgive me? Please?”

  The lass presented a bonny enough picture at arm’s length. But standing so close, with wisps of her dark hair tickling his chin and the warmth of her body heating his own, Rose was irresistible. Mustering all his strength, Jamie took a step backward and swallowed his regret before she could hear it in his voice. “Of course you are forgiven, Cousin. I fear my conduct of late has confused you.”