Fair Is the Rose

by Liz Curtis Higgs

  His gaze was even, and so was his voice. Unnervingly so. “Aye, ’Tis the matter of a certain correspondence. Addressed to me, not to you. But which, apparently, you have read.”

  Leana’s letter. She froze, her foot on the last step, picturing the letter discarded beside the bedroom chair. Forgotten until now.

  Jamie held it up, waving it before her. “Am I correct? You found this in the clothes press and read it?”

  “Aye,” she said meekly. There was no use pretending otherwise. “I must confess, Jamie, when I spied it among your clothes, curiosity got the better of me, and I … I read it.” She ducked her head. “Most of it, that is.”

  “Well, by all means come read the rest.” He pulled her into their room, more gently than she expected, and aimed her toward the reading chair.

  She stood rather than sat, wanting to be near him. “Jamie, I’m truly sorry. I had no business—”

  “None whatsoever.” He shook his head, clearly irritated with her but doing an admirable job of controlling it. “Do you nae ken what the Buik says, Rose? ‘the heart of her husband doth safely trust in her’? How am I to trust a woman who would do such a thing?”

  “I am … so sorry.” She splayed her hands, at a loss for what else she might say to appease him. “Please, Jamie. Can a wife not be forgiven for wanting to read a letter from her own sister?”

  “Forgiven?” His features softened a bit. “Aye. Of course you are forgiven.”

  He meant it. She could see that he did. When had he changed so? The Jamie who first came to Auchengray would have scolded her for an hour.

  “The last line is the one you most need to hear.” He held out the stiff paper. “Leana wrote, ‘I do release you, Jamie. To love my sister.’ ”

  Oh, Leana. “Do you think she … meant it?”

  “You ken she did, Rose. When did your sister speak anything but the truth?” He folded the letter and slipped it inside his waistcoat, training his gaze on her all the while. “Because of my love for Leana, I am trying hard to love you, Rose. For all our sakes. But you … you make that very difficult sometimes.”

  “I do not doubt it.” Grateful for his honesty and surprised at her own, she stepped closer. “I pray you will do as my sister asks and love me, Jamie. Love me, as I love you.” When he did not flinch, she grew bolder still and rested her hand on his sleeve. “Please fill up the hollow place inside me,” she whispered. “I die a little each day it remains empty.”

  His eyes searched hers. “Do you mean your heart?”

  She bowed her head, ashamed to speak the truth. “I mean my womb.”

  Jamie started to say something, then turned away from her instead.

  “Tell me what you’re thinking, Jamie, for I cannot guess.” A note of pleading threaded her words. “Is it wrong to want a child? To want someone who truly needs me?”

  Jamie’s voice was gentle. “Nae, it is not wrong, Rose.”

  Not wrong. But selfish. The word had dogged her all morning.

  When Jamie turned back to her, the compassion on his face was unmistakable. “You are hollow inside, Rose, but ’Tis not your womb that is empty. ’Tis your heart. Only the Almighty can fill that. Not me and not a bairn.” His hands lightly grasped her shoulders. “Do you understand? Do you hear what I’m saying?”

  She wilted beneath his touch. “You are saying you do not love me. And that no child of yours will e’er be mine.”

  “Nae, lass! You’re not listening …”

  Rose fled from the room, having listened to enough.

  Sixty-Seven

  God tempers the wind to the new shorn lamb.

  SCOTTISH PROVERB

  Love my sister.

  “She is your sister,” Jamie grumbled to himself. “You love her.” He heaved his water bucket into the trough too abruptly, making the nearby ewes jump. “Sorry, lassies.” He soothed the skittish animals with familiar words and the calming sound of his voice. “Naught to worry. ’Tis only fresh water from Lochend.”

  The forenoon sun bathed the pastures in a warm yellow as he made his rounds alone. There were too many ewes and not enough shepherds, so the men had divided their duties. Jamie preferred to work alone, for then he could imagine Leana walking the braes with him. Not an hour went by when he did not hear her voice in the snippet of a ballad sung by a passing shepherd or sense her touch in the caress of a soft April breeze ruffling his hair.

  To look at Ian was to catch a glimpse of the woman who had given birth to him. Leana had always declared that Ian was a smaller version of him. But Jamie knew ’Twas not altogether true. Ian had his mother’s eyes. A clear gray blue. Unblinking. Trusting.

  Jamie saw her every time his son looked at him.

  Oh, Leana. Will you not come home to me?

  ’Twas a question already answered.

  Love my sister.

  “I’m trying, Leana.” But only because you’ve asked me to. And only because I love you.

  Jamie climbed over the dry stane dyke and moved to the next pasture, steering clear of the muddy spots. He’d been up since before dawn, seeing to the ewes, helping them deliver the last lambs of the season. All twins, all healthy. Jamie shook his head, still astounded by it. “It seems I’m a better shepherd than I am a husband,” he confessed to the lambs tottering round his knees.

  “I’d have tae agree with ye there, lad.” Duncan strolled toward him, a wry grin stretched across his weathered features. “Did I not once tell ye that Rose was a stubborn ewe and ye should handle her meikle the same?”

  Jamie grunted. “Meaning what? See that she has a pair of wee bairns to care for?”

  “Aye, ’twould keep her busy,” Duncan agreed. “But ye ken verra weel ’Tis not what the lass needs most.”

  “Is that so?” Jamie felt the skin beneath his collar heating. “Rose is my wife. I ken what the girl needs.”

  Duncan wagged his head, bending to pour more feed in the trough. “I’m not sure ye do, lad. Ye’re thinkin’ she needs yer kisses and sae forth. All weel and guid. But what Rose needs mair than a’ that is what ye have, Jamie: the assurance o’ God’s luve and forgiveness for a’ she’s done wrong.”

  “Wheesht!” Jamie kicked the trough hard. “Let her get it from the Almighty then.”

  Duncan straightened, putting aside his bucket to fold his arms across his chest. “Was that how ’twas wi’ ye, Jamie?” Though his voice was soft, Duncan’s words jabbed like a stick. “Did ye seek after God’s mercy a’ by yerself and find it on yer ain? Seems to me Leana’s luve for ye paved the way.”

  Jamie jammed his toe into the dirt, staring down at his boot as he did. Anything was better than looking Duncan in the eye. Or admitting the man was right.

  “All right, Jamie. Ye dinna have tae confess it, for we baith ken the truth.” Duncan lowered himself onto the dry stane dyke, crossing his ankles as if settling in for a bit. “D’ye see a strange irony at work here, young James?”

  “Aye,” he growled. That much he could confess. “I must do for Rose what Leana did for me.”

  “Guid.” Duncan nodded in approval. “And what did the lass do, Jamie? Say it plain for ye ain benefit.”

  Infuriated, Jamie ground out the words. “Leana loved me when I did not deserve it, when I could not—och, when I would not return it.”

  “Ye were richt on the first, Jamie. Ye couldna luve Leana in those days, for a man canna gie what he doesna have.” Duncan stood once more, clamping his hand on Jamie’s shoulder. “Whaur d’ye suppose Leana found the strength tae luve ye, tae forgive ye whan ye were busy chasin’ after her sister? Ye ken the answer now, aye?”

  He that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God. Jamie groaned in resignation. “Aye, I ken the answer. But how can I love a woman who betrayed her own sister and me as well? Had Rose held her tongue when she was questioned by the kirk session, none of this would have happened.”

  Duncan studied him from beneath the brim of his bonnet. �
�Did it ne’er occur tae ye that this turnabout might be the will o’ the Almighty?”

  Jamie’s chest tightened. A blessing instead of a curse. Was it possible?

  “Forgive the lass, Jamie. Show yer new wife what it means tae be luved. And I dinna mean what happens in yer box bed whan the candles are snuffed. A’ the other hours o’ the day matter as weel.”

  Och! Jamie shook off Duncan’s grip on his shoulder and stamped about the pasture, pretending to be getting the dirt off his boots. Now the man was telling him to love Rose round the clock! He spun on his heel and marched toward him. “Six months ago you told me to love Leana.” He stopped inches away from the man and leaned forward. “Well, Duncan, I did! And I do. Can you not see ’tis Leana’s love that matters to me, not Rose’s?”

  Duncan did not back away nor change his tune. “But ye already have Leana’s luve, Jamie. And ye always will. ’Tis the way the lass was made by her Creator. The question is, what will ye do wi’ that fine luve o’ hers?” He waved at the boulders scattered about the pasture. “Bask in it all yer days, like an adder curled up on a sunny rock? Or will you do as Leana would have you do and care for Rose, who needs luve sae sairlie?”

  Love my sister. “So.” Jamie narrowed his eyes. “When did you read my letter?”

  Duncan chuckled. “I ken naught aboot a letter. I’ve merely watched ye tryin’ tae be kind round the girl, pullin’ back on yer impatience, bitin’ yer tongue. Things a man does if he’s bent on doin’ richt by his wife. Guid things, mind ye. But ye’re holdin’ back the rest o’ ye.”

  Jamie flinched, as if Duncan had brandished a knife, so close to the bone did the man’s words cut him.

  “Let her climb inside a corner of yer heart, lad.” Duncan thumped soundly on Jamie’s chest. “ ’Tis big enough now.”

  Jamie turned away, hiding his grief. But he could not keep it out of his voice. “You ask too much.”

  “I’m not the one wha’s askin’, Jamie.”

  Duncan’s words trailed after him for days, then a week, then two, nipping at his heels like one of the collies. Show yer new wife what it means tae be luved. It was plain Rose was showering him with affection. His favorite ginger jam waited by his breakfast plate. A stack of neatly hemmed handkerchiefs appeared in the clothes press. She wore her hair down the way he liked it, with the braid curling about her shoulder. And—the most telling of all—she kept her sharp tongue well sheathed and her soft arms wrapped round his shoulders at night.

  More than once of late he’d caught a glimpse of the Rose he’d kissed on the day he’d arrived at Auchengray. The charming Rose who’d stolen his breath and then his heart. Sweet. Innocent.

  A sad irony, compared to how he felt. Bitter. And guilty.

  Bitter over having his future decided for him yet again. And guilty for kissing Leana in the bothy, longing for more. ’Twas a temptation. Aye, it was that. Knowing Leana as he did, he should have realized she would not simply rise the next morning as if nothing had happened. Nae, not his Leana. She had run to the kirk; then she had run to Twyneholm. She ran to get away from you, Jamie.

  And left him to face the woman he’d wronged. The same woman he couldn’t bring himself to forgive. Rose.

  Love my sister. Aye, he was trying. Except it did not feel like love; it felt like betrayal. Even though he’d loved Rose before. Even though he cared for her now. Even though the kirk said they were rightfully wed. Husbands, love your wives. Could he do as the Buik commanded? Could he forgive Rose and love her again?

  Sixty-Eight

  A woman’s love

  Is mighty, but a mother’s heart is weak,

  And by its weakness overcomes.

  JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

  Nae! Not again.

  Rose washed the stain from her nightgown, drenching the fabric with her tears. Why, why, why? No matter how hard she scrubbed it with soap, the faint red outline remained. Reminding her. Taunting her. You will never be a mother.

  Another four weeks had come and gone, taking her hopes with them. Still no bairn grew in her womb. Leana was so fertile she had conceived Ian on her wedding night. But not you, Rose. She threw the nightgown into a basket and quit the laundry room, blowing out the candle as she went. Following the dim passageway toward the main part of the house, Rose felt her spirits lift the smallest notch at the sound of a certain shepherd laughing in the kitchen: Jamie, preparing to head out for the morning.

  With the lambing finished, the fruit of Jamie’s labors gamboled o’er the pastures of Auchengray, twin lambs beside every woolly ewe. In mere weeks the flocks had more than doubled in size. ’Twas so remarkable a feat of shepherding even Reverend Gordon had given the Almighty praise for the bountiful provision during services: “Whereof every one beareth twins, and there is not one barren among them.” Her father had beamed, as if ’twere his doing. After having his older daughter climb the repentance stool and then flee the parish, the bonnet laird of Auchengray needed a reason to hold up his head again at kirk.

  Rose needed a reason too; she needed a child. Proof that she and Jamie had truly married and were living as husband and wife. Otherwise, the gossips would begin to blether that, while Mr. McKie’s ewes were fertile, his wife was barren.

  She emerged into the kitchen—the brightest and warmest room in any season—and found a flock of maidservants gathered round Jamie like so many ewes. But he was not looking at them. He was looking at her. Not with desire perhaps. But warm regard was a welcome improvement. After a long and chilly month together, Jamie was beginning to thaw. To look at her without evading her gaze. To listen to her without clenching his jaw. And, aye, to embrace her on occasion without seeming to hold her at arm’s length.

  The Jamie she had once known and loved was no more. This man was different. Older. Kinder. And wiser in ways she did not fully understand. Jamie did not love her as he loved Leana. But he no longer resented her, and for that she was grateful. Theirs was a marriage of compromise: She had stopped expecting so much, and Jamie, it seemed, had stopped expecting so little. He was hers alone, and in that she took what solace she could.

  Jamie extended his arm to her, a gentleman in shepherd’s garb. “Will you take a walk with me in the garden, Rose?”

  She couldn’t refuse so gallant an offer. They headed for the back door together, leaving the maidservants in their wake, and stepped into the fresh air of a late April morning. After a month of showers everything was growing in thick, green abundance. She couldn’t begin to name the flowers, but the vegetables were easily recognized. Salad onions and fist-sized heads of cabbage, planted last autumn, would be carted off to the kitchen soon enough and a few stray leeks from last season picked before new seeds were sown.

  “Now all the garden needs is Leana,” Rose said lightly, testing the waters. Perhaps the more they spoke of her sister, the less Jamie would mourn her absence. Leana was not coming back; Jamie had assured her of that. Rose was chagrined to discover that nothing relieved—and saddened—her more.

  “Your sister has a gift for gardening,” Jamie agreed. His voice, pleasant but even, gave away nothing. “I’m glad Eliza has taken to poking in the soil in her stead.” He gazed up at the sky. “It’s been a fine April. Wet, as usual, but mild enough.”

  “Aye, mild.” She could not seem to brighten her voice to match the weather.

  They walked past Leana’s physic garden. Rose pretended not to see the valerian, taller than it had been a month ago. If she stared at the soil long enough, she could almost see two faint indentations where Leana had knelt, pressing the plant back into the earth. Forgive me, Leana. She’d been unforgivably cruel to her sister that day. Are you asking me how to please my husband? Leana had fled to Twyneholm to get away from her selfish younger sister; that was the only possible explanation, for Leana would ne’er have left Jamie and Ian otherwise.

  “What’s wrong, Rose? You’re entirely too quiet this morning.”

  When had Jamie become so p
erceptive? ’Twas a bothersome state of affairs when a lass could not keep her feelings hidden from a man. “I discovered … that is, I am not …” ’Twas too shameful a thing to mention. Rose aimed her gaze at a row of cabbages. “I’m not … expecting a child.”

  “Ah. I see.”

  Was he glad? Disappointed? Would he tell her if she asked? Och! She was married to Jamie and yet did not truly know him. Would he ever trust her with his whole heart?

  “Perhaps ’Tis best you’re not with child just yet, Rose.” He patted her arm like a sympathetic cousin. Not like a devastated husband. “I have some … some news I hope to share with you in the next day or so.”

  News? She swallowed a small knot of apprehension. “Will you not give me a hint, Jamie?”

  “I’ve a few details to attend to first. But soon.” He turned to her then, his eyes the color of the nettle leaves at their feet. “Are you well enough for a journey, Rose?”

  He means Twyneholm.

  ’Twas all painfully clear. Jamie could not bear to be apart from Leana another hour. Or her sister had written Jamie, begging him to bring Ian to see her. Or Leana was coming home, and they would meet her carriage in Dumfries.

  Rose tried to sound nonchalant. “A … journey? Of course, Jamie. Whatever you say.”

  Say it isn’t Twyneholm. Please, please!

  “Fine then. We’ll talk more later, Le- … uh, Rose.”

  She gasped. He had never called her Leana. Not once, not ever.

  “Och, lass!” The look on his face was one of horror. He grasped both her hands, pulling her round where she could not turn away. “I am sorry, Rose. Truly, I am.”

  He was so polite, so genuinely upset, her disappointment soon faded. “I ken you did not mean to confuse us. We are sisters, but in few ways are we alike.”

  A flicker in his eyes, no more. “Very few,” he agreed.

  Too few, she heard behind the words.

  “Rose!” Lachlan’s loud voice startled them both. He strode across the garden, dressed in his riding clothes, his boots gleaming with fresh polish. “ ’Tis good I’ve found you both, for I’ve news that cannot wait.”