Fair Is the Rose

by Liz Curtis Higgs

  Carefully smoothing the gown for packing, Leana tucked the last of her regrets inside the folds and managed to fit the dress into Rose’s overflowing trunk. “Hang your gowns out to air ’til a maid can get to them, dearie. They’ve grown musty in the press.”

  Rose posed in front of the looking glass, holding her head in a regal manner, as though an invisible string had come down from heaven and attached itself to the tip of her nose. “Perhaps this spring Father will buy me another gown or two.”

  “ ’Tis the betterment of your mind that prompted Father to invest his silver in your education,” Leana reminded her, consulting the letter once more. “You will be studying Latin and French, arithmetic and bookkeeping, dancing and social etiquette, music and art—”

  “Och!” Rose exclaimed, turning away from the glass. “If you consider gum flowers, net purses, and shell work art.”

  Leana smiled behind the letter. “Geography, then. History. Ah, here’s something that will please Neda: pastry making and preserves.”

  “The only thing I care to preserve is the small circle of my waist.” Rose whirled about the looking glass as if to make her point. “Tell me, will birthing a bairn ruin my figure for good?”

  Leana slowly folded the letter, more aware than ever of the roundness of her breasts and hips and the tightness of her stays. “When a child swells a woman’s body, you can be sure it expands her heart as well.”

  Rose spun to a stop in front of her, all pretense gone from her expression. “Is it worth it, Leana? The months of waiting. And the labor. And the pain. Are you … glad to be a mother?”

  “Glad? Oh, Rose, that’s not the half of it. Loving Ian as I do only makes me love his father more.”

  “I see.” Rose looked down, plucking at the ribbon round her waist.

  “And I think … that is, I hope Jamie has begun to love me. A little.” Leana prayed her next words would not fall among thorns. “Have you … forgiven me yet, dearie? For loving Jamie?”

  Rose lifted her head, a glint of tears in her eyes, a thin edge to her voice. “For stealing him, you mean?”

  At last it had come, her hour of reckoning, prompted by her own foolish question. Leana took a long, steadying breath. “I did not mean to steal him, Rose.” Nonetheless, she’d done so, goaded on by their father. On Hogmanay, the day of the wedding, Lachlan McBride had made Leana’s future abundantly clear: It is Jamie, or it is no one. Leana had chosen Jamie, thinking he loved her. Thinking Rose did not love him. Never in her life had Leana been so mistaken. “I blame only myself. No one else.”

  Rose frowned at her. “Then you admit ’Twas your fault.”

  “Aye, just as I confessed to you the very hour you arrived home from Aunt Meg’s, remember?” Leana’s shoulders sagged. “Though ’twas not my fault you were delayed by the snow. And not my idea to be your proxy for the wedding.”

  Rose moved closer, her eyes filled with anguish. “But it was your idea to be Jamie’s doxy. For the bedding.”

  “Not his doxy, Rose. His … bride.” Leana choked on the word. “Don’t you see? That night in the box bed I thought he knew it was me, Rose. And that he … that he wanted me there.” She bowed her head in confession. “Instead he thought I was you.”

  “It should have been me.” Rose sank to the floor like a discarded dress. “Jamie was the husband I was meant to have. Don’t you see? I tried to love Neil Elliot. I did, Leana. But he isn’t … he isn’t …”

  He isn’t Jamie. “Please forgive me, dearie. This autumn has been very hard on you.” Leana reached out a tentative hand, hoping a gentle touch might console her, but Rose jerked her arm away. “I’d hoped we might part on a sweeter note. Why fret over this now, Rose, when you have a whole new life waiting for you?”

  “Because it’s not fair. Because I am going away, leaving all I love behind. You have Jamie and Ian and Auchengray, and I have nothing.” Rose wiped her tears away as quickly as they formed, her gaze still pointed downward. “I’ve never had a mother. Nor a husband. Who knows if I’ll ever have children?” Her voice fell to a ragged whisper. “All I have is you.”

  Leana reached for her. “But I love you like my own child, Rose.”

  “ ’Tis not my love you want.” Rose avoided her embrace. “ ’Tis Jamie’s.” Her dark eyes narrowed. “Have you ever heard Jamie speak those words to you, as I have?”

  “Nae, I have not,” Leana said faintly. Not yet. Somehow Rose knew that sad truth. Knew, and wielded it like a weapon sharpened by months of resentment.

  Rose stood and shifted her attention to the looking glass, straightening her neckline. “I suppose once I’m gone to Dumfries, you’ll expect Jamie to forget me.”

  Leana came up behind her, resting her hands on Rose’s shoulders, gratified that she did not pull away this time. Though her sister had gravely wounded her, ’Twas naught but justice meted out long after the crime. “Jamie could never forget you, for he does love you, as his cousin. And I love you, as my sister.”

  Rose turned away from her reflection but not before Leana saw a look of deep pain, like that of an abandoned child, move across her sister’s features. “You cannot love me,” Rose said, her voice broken. “Not when I still love Jamie.”

  “You’re wrong, dearie.” Leana squeezed her shoulders tight, fighting a fresh spate of tears. “I cannot stop loving you, Rose, any more than I can stop loving my husband. ’Tis my responsibility to love you both, a task I dare not put aside. For the gifts and calling of God are without repentance, and my heart would ne’er let me do otherwise.” She aimed Rose toward the door. “Come, we’ve kept the man waiting long enough. For ’tis Jamie who’ll deliver you to your new life in Dumfries.” Then, please God, let him come home to me.

  Seventeen

  I do perceive here a divided duty.

  WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

  I’m ready, Cousin!” Rose called out, hastening toward the chaise, her green cloak vivid against the wintry background.

  Jamie watched her approach with misgivings. When she arrived at his side, breathless from hurrying, he noticed that, though her face was pink, he saw shadows there as well, and her eyes had a furtive look about them. Driving Rose to Dumfries was not a duty he’d chosen; rather it had been assigned by Lachlan at breakfast without any opportunity to protest. “How is it that I’m the one to escort you?” Jamie asked her, curious to see how she might answer. “Your father should claim the honor of depositing you at Mistress Carlyle’s doorstep and seeing you settled, Rose.”

  “Aye, he should,” she agreed, pretending to pout. “But this is the Monday he meets with Mr. Craik and the Society for the Encouragement of Agriculture. He wouldn’t miss their gatherings for all the world.” She rested one gloved hand on the chaise. “Shall we climb in then?”

  Jamie had no intention of giving in so easily. “What of Willie? He’s taken you round the parish for many a year. Why not today?”

  “Willie isn’t himself just now.” She leaned closer and confided, “He ate a rather generous portion of Neda’s plum pudding at supper last night, with altogether too much caudle sauce.”

  Jamie could not argue the ill effects of wine mixed with rum, having suffered once as a boy from such overindulgence. “A small serving is good for the stomach, but in large doses …” He left the rest unsaid, catching sight of Duncan and one of the menservants dragging Rose’s cumbersome trunk across the lawn. “Here, let me see to that.”

  Duncan grunted as the three men heaved it into place behind the seat. “Ye’ll need help pryin’ it oot o’ the chaise whan ye get tae Dumfries.”

  “ ’Twill not be the only trunk arriving at Carlyle School today,” Jamie assured him, slapping the man’s back good-naturedly. “I’ll find a younger lad to assist me.”

  “Och!” Duncan flapped a hand at him. “Younger mebbe but nae stronger.” He glanced at the others, then inclined his head toward the steading. “Might I have a wird wi’ ye, Jamie?”

 
; Begging Rose’s pardon, Jamie followed Duncan several paces from the chaise, then stopped with his back toward Rose. “What is it, man?” He kept his voice low. “Something with the ewes?”

  “Aye, a certain ewe wha’s aboot tae put herself in an unchancie situation.” Duncan shot a pointed look at Rose. “ ’Tis not wise for a married man tae be ridin’ alone wi’ a lassie.”

  Jamie shook his head and used Duncan’s own words to assure him. “Dinna fash yerself. ’Tis a cousin’s duty I’m about, not a lover’s.”

  Duncan tipped his head back, eying him from beneath the brim of his wool bonnet. “Have ye told Leana that? Might put her mind at ease.”

  Jamie heeded the man’s sound counsel, trotting toward the mains with a slight wave to Rose. He knew he’d find Leana in the kitchen with Neda, preparing a meal he’d be sorry to miss. Pickled mutton and bannocks, already packed in the chaise, would have to suffice for their dinner. Dumfries was nine long miles away on a January day with a mere handful of daylight hours—dreary, gray light at that—and a biting wind. Though the snow had stopped, the roads were bound to be slippie. He had some errands to do for her father while in Dumfries as well. The sooner away, the sooner home.

  “Leana,” he called down the hall, stamping the snow off his boots at the threshold. When she appeared at the kitchen doorway, her hair caught up in a white cap, her blue eyes wide with concern, he quickly closed the distance between them. “Not to worry, lass. I only meant to say in parting …” Feeling foolish, he grasped her hands, warm from cooking, and held on to them, rubbing his thumbs over her tapered fingers. “Well, I wanted to be verra sure you understood that nothing improper will come of today’s journey.”

  She did not blink an eye. “You mean with Rose.”

  “Aye,” he said, swallowing his relief in a great gulp. “I’ve told her many times what was once between us is nae more, but your sister is not easily persuaded.”

  “How well I ken the truth of that.” Leana drew his hands to her mouth, kissing the rough back of each one. “I love you, Jamie. And I love Rose, though today in particular she may not be convinced of that. I trust you’ll both act in an honorable manner.” She squeezed his hands, this time not so gently. “Be assured, I’ll be praying from the moment you leave.” She lowered her gaze, her pale lashes fanning across her cheeks. “Hurry home to me, Jamie.”

  “Never doubt it.” He pulled her into his arms and kissed her thoroughly, not caring that they stood in full view of the servants, who tittered behind their aprons. Finally lifting his mouth from hers, he murmured, “ ’twill be long past dark when I come riding up to the house. Warm the bed for me, lass.”

  Without another word, Jamie headed for the lawn, eager to have the ordeal with Rose over and done. He’d endured a difficult two months since Hallowmas Eve, much of it spent avoiding Rose’s gaze at meals and keeping his distance whenever they crossed paths.

  She waited a stone’s throw from him now, standing near the chaise, where a handful of loyal servants stood shivering in their threadbare cloaks. “We must arrive by two o’ the clock,” Rose reminded him, holding out her gloved hand. “The lowpin-on stane awaits.” Jamie assisted her without comment, guiding her boot onto the mounting stone that enabled her to step into the carriage. She swept aside her skirts, settled onto the cushioned seat, then patted the space next to her. “Come and keep me warm, Jamie, for the brick at my feet has already lost its heat.”

  “Then I’ll have Neda find you another,” he said evenly, nodding at one of the servants, who flew toward the house, no doubt grateful for any task that would take him withindoors. Jamie climbed onto the chaise with ease, sitting as far to the right as he could, mindful of the very real danger of being bounced out of the carriage, for the springs were ancient and stiff with cold.

  The manservant appeared moments later bearing a hot brick from the kitchen hearth. He placed it beneath Rose’s boots, then carted off the other brick as Rose bade cheerful farewells to those round her. “God be wi’ ye,” they responded, already taking small steps toward the house where Leana and Neda stood at the window waving.

  Jamie faced forward, the reins held loosely. “On with you, Bess.” The auld mare fell into a steady pace, her harness bells jingling a cheery rhythm.

  Rose did not wait long to begin her usual chatter. “If ’twere Willie sitting here—”

  “Which it could still be,” Jamie offered, preparing to tug on the reins.

  “Nae, nae!” Rose argued, waving her hand. “The man is too ill to travel. I made sure of that.”

  Jamie looked at her askance. “You did what?”

  Flustered, she clasped her hands. “I mean, I knocked on his door and made certain he truly was ill.”

  “I see.” Jamie believed her because he wanted to. The thought of Rose, his innocent young cousin, growing into a woman unafraid of swickerie, like her Aunt Rowena, soured his stomach. Rose had merely inquired after Willie’s health; she hadn’t tampered with his plum pudding.

  An uneasy silence stretched between them until Rose began again as if naught had happened. “As I was saying, if Willie were sitting beside me, ’twould feel as though the last year had never passed.”

  Jamie stared straight ahead. If he said nothing, might she change the subject?

  “Willie and I rode side by side like this on a snowy Wednesday in late December, headed for my Aunt Meg’s in Twyneholm.” She looked about the fields and woods. “You remember, Jamie. ’Twas the week before the wedding.”

  “Rose …” He sighed heavily. “I will not spend this journey discussing circumstances that cannot be changed.”

  “Fine,” she said with a dramatic wave of her hands. “Let us speak of Ian then, for he is the sweetest child.”

  Jamie relaxed, pleased to expound on his favorite subject. “Ian can hold up his head now and roll onto his back. And the lad studies his hands by the hour, as though ten fingers were a miracle of creation. Which, of course, they are. And his smile—och, Rose!—’tis an altogether grand thing, that toothless smile of his. Leana insists he saves the best ones for me.”

  Rose nodded as he spoke, encouraging him to continue. Her eyes gleamed in the forenoon light, and her mouth fell open slightly, distracting him. Jamie deliberately looked away, realizing the power she wielded over a man, intentional or not. So comely a lass as Rose could not help being desirable any more than he could change the color of his eyes. But she could be resisted.

  As he signaled Bess to follow the main road to Dumfries, Jamie’s thoughts turned elsewhere. To Leana, pale yet radiant—his wife, whom he’d kissed not an hour ago. Aye, he would think of her and not her sister. There was no hardship in that, for to be loved by Leana was pleasure enough for any man. Warm the bed for me, lass.

  They rode along in silence, stopping to pay the toll, greeting passing travelers heading southwest from the burgh. An icy wind whipped the snow about the carriage wheels as Bess plodded past Craigend Loch. Rose pulled out their dinner, offering him thin slices of pickled mutton, which he plucked from her fingers without touching her. When she broke the bannocks into manageable pieces and popped them into her mouth, he did not let himself watch. ’Twas more prudent to think about chewing and swallowing and little else.

  As they approached the outskirts of Dumfries, he glanced at his pocket watch, relieved to see they were on schedule. “Almost there, with a bittie of time to spare.”

  She nodded but did not speak, her gaze pointed toward the mean cottages of Brigend. Beyond the village lay Devorgilla’s Bridge across the River Nith; on the other side waited Dumfries proper. “Ian will be four months old when I see him next,” Rose said at last, drawing Jamie’s eye to her again. “I’ve been away from home for a single week but not four weeks in a row. However will I manage, Jamie?”

  He heard the thread of concern running through her words, the apprehension in her voice. Suddenly Rose was no longer a temptress or a nuisance but a frightened young woman
facing a new and uncertain life. “Come now, Rose,” he said as gently as he could. “You’ve a whole new world to explore and another household to bend to your bidding.”

  “Is that what I do?” Rose sniffed, touching a handkerchief to her nose. “Then Auchengray will be thankful I’m gone. You especially.”

  Jamie was at a loss to respond. He was thankful. Life would be easier without her, though he would never tell her so. Might he find some way to send her off with a smile? “Rose, you will be missed by all at Auchengray.”

  Her dark eyes sought his. “Are you sure?”

  Slowing the chaise as they approached the bridge, he gave her his full attention long enough to speak the truth. “You stole my heart, Rose, for a year and a day. It belongs to another now, but you will always be my beloved cousin.”

  Despite the shimmer of tears, a smile bloomed on her bonny face. “Oh, Jamie. You always did know just the right thing to say.”

  Eighteen

  Love is the emblem of eternity:

  it confounds all notion of time:

  effaces all memory of a beginning, all fear of an end.

  MADAME DE STAEL

  Warm the bed for me, lass. Leana shivered as the words unfurled inside her, wrapping a bright ribbon round her heart. Warm the bed. The last thing Jamie said before he left. Clever man, to put such a notion into her mind. She’d thought of little else since.

  Later that evening Ian would be three months old to the hour. Jamie might not remember that, but she did, as well as the good and the bad that had followed. For three months she’d been a mother but not fully a wife. Ever mindful of the babe by their hearth and the sister in the next room, Leana had not attended to her womanly duties. Out of sheer exhaustion. And a modicum of fear. Fear that he might no longer find her desirable. Fear that he never had.

  Now it seemed her fears were grounded in falsehood. ’Twas not a warming pan or a heated brick Jamie wanted in his bed that night. ’Twas her, Leana McKie. He’d said so. Warm the bed.

  Hours would pass before he returned home, so she took advantage of the last rays of afternoon light and immersed herself in a new sewing project, hoping it might distract her. She curled up in the window seat of her second-floor sewing room, with Ian napping in the cradle at her feet, and plunged a freshly threaded needle into fine cambric. But since it was a sark for Jamie, it hardly took her mind off the man. She soon imagined his long arms filling the sleeves and his strong shoulders straining the seams, and—