by Lauren Smith
Rowena was quiet, except for her shallow, quick breaths. His stomach clenched in sudden worry and he leaned over her, cupping her face to turn it toward his. Tears coated her lashes and her eyes were a little red.
“Rowena, lass, are you all right?” His voice roughened as his anxiety deepened. He’d hurt her? Been too rough? Bloody barbarian, I am…
“I’m fine,” she whispered. “I…well…it was so intense. I didn’t know…” Her cheeks were red as fresh cranberries.
“Aye, it can be intense.” He paused, wondering how to explain what they’d experienced. He’d been married and in love before. He knew from experience that sex with someone you loved was overwhelming, not just physically but emotionally. If Rowena was feeling that way now, she was falling in with love with him. He’d known she would fall for him. She was too open, too young and sweet not to fall for her husband. And what truly worried him was how powerful his feelings for her had been, still were…
“Have I upset you?” She tried to smile, but her lips quivered. It made something deep inside him stir, like a bird in its nest after winter had passed. It was strange…he had not felt…what it was he could not readily identify.
“I’m not upset,” he promised, and against his better judgment he bent his head to hers for a slow, lingering kiss that burned clear through him like shafts of winter sunlight piercing clouds.
“I forgot how young you are.” He smiled. Ten years felt like a lifetime between them in moments like this.
Her face was still dark with uncertainty and yet he didn’t know what to say to put her at ease.
“Why don’t you take a bath before dinner. We’ll eat soon.”
He crawled off the bed and fixed his clothes. He’d need a bath, too, but it would be too tempting to join Rowena.
As soon as he escaped into the hall, he strode back to Rowena’s chambers and tested the bell cord by her bed again. He waited patiently for several minutes and still no servant came. Her valise lay untouched, her clothes still inside. What the devil was wrong here? She should have been immediately taken care of, her clothes unpacked, tea and biscuits brought up, a maid to see to her bath…Anger roiled beneath his skin. Scowling, he left her chamber and stalked down the hall to the stairs leading to the servants’ quarters.
“Morris!” he bellowed.
His butler peered out from his small office.
“My lord?”
Quinn waited, arms crossed as Morris walked toward him.
“Is there a reason my wife’s bedchamber cord is not working? No one has come to light a fire. No one has brought her tea or helped her unpack. She was freezing, Morris. Explain that to me. The mistress of this house treated like she’s invisible?”
All the color drained from Morris’s face and he tugged at his collar, his gaze darting anywhere but at Quinn. As his butler stalled, several maids and footmen gathered in the hall to watch. Someone hissed, “Sassenach.” Quinn met each of the watching servants’ eyes before speaking again.
“I will not tolerate this treatment of my wife. I expect the bell cord to be repaired, and I expect all of you to go out of your way to treat your mistress with care and kindness, or else you will be tossed out on your ear without references. Is that clear?”
He did not like the idea of doing this to anyone on his staff, but in the few minutes he’d spent down here, he realized that his staff did not like Rowena for the simple reason she was English, and that infuriated him.
He left the servants’ quarters, frowning as he went back upstairs to summon his gamekeeper. He planned to go deer stalking in a few days and needed to make arrangements. Hunting would give him time alone to think about his new wife and how she was getting under his skin…and coming perilously close to getting into his heart.
Chapter 10
Rowena had a devil of a time getting dressed for dinner without a lady’s maid. She pulled her dress up and gave the cord in Quinn’s bedchamber another tug. It wasn’t that she wished to cause trouble, but she needed someone to help her. A few minutes later, there was a knock on the door and a young woman, red-faced and a little breathless, appeared in the doorway.
“My lady, I’m so sorry! I’ve only just heard the bell.” The maid brushed some of her blond hair back beneath her lace cap and smoothed her skirts.
“Would you mind?” Rowena offered the maid her back, blushing, even though she knew she had every right to have a servant assist her.
“Of course, my lady.” The girl flashed her a shy smile and started fastening up the hooks on the back of Rowena’s gown.
“What’s your name?” Rowena asked, and tugged up the front of her rose-pink silk dress. Turkish panels of silver gilt embroidery made the gown elegant and imperial but the soft silk showed off her figure by draping over her breasts and hips and gathered with a sash at her waist.
“I’m Gwen, your ladyship.” She held out a pair of long, white elbow-length gloves.
“Thank you, Gwen.” She slipped the gloves on, tugging them tight, and then she studied her appearance in the mirror critically. Her hair was…well, a bit wild. The locks were free and unbound after her bath.
“Shall I arrange your hair?”
“Oh yes, please.” She seated herself at Quinn’s small desk in the corner and handed the maid a comb and a few pins she’d kept from before her bath.
“If it would please you, my lady, I’d be happy to attend to you as your permanent lady’s maid, unless you wish to send for someone else.” Gwen offered this nervously.
Rowena smiled before she replied and remembered all too well how nervous she’d been coming to Forres. It would be nice to have someone to talk to. A lady’s maid would be loyal to her and would be trustworthy.
“Thank you, Gwen. I would like that very much.”
Once she was properly attended to, Rowena smiled at Gwen and made her way to the dining room. Kenna was waiting for her, wearing a lovely plum silk gown accented with black beaded embroidery on the bodice and hem.
“You look lovely!” Rowena embraced her sister-in-law.
“So do you.” Kenna gave her hand a little squeeze. “Quinn is running late. Shouldn’t be—”
“I’m here.” Quinn strode into the dining room. He wore a tailless black dinner jacket and black trousers with a black tie. The coat molded to his frame, displaying that muscled figure she’d glimpsed undressed on only a few occasions.
Tonight I shall be with him again. She fretted with her gloves as he came toward her and Kenna. When he gave them both a gentle, chaste kiss, Rowena swallowed down the flutter of longing and disappointment.
Throughout dinner, Quinn and Kenna talked about friends they shared and old acquaintances, but Rowena didn’t know them and could add little to the conversation. As the courses came and went, Rowena tasted only ash in her mouth. She’d been so excited to look nice for dinner, but after Quinn’s almost brotherly kiss she feared tonight would not work out as she had hoped.
I’m an outsider. She hadn’t wanted to face that realization and she’d been a fool to ignore it. Poking a fork around on her plate, she nudged the roast goose in an attempt to distract herself.
“Rowena?” Quinn’s gentle voice rumbled her name and she glanced up.
She dropped her fork and it clinked sharply on the china. “Yes?”
“Blair was asking after you. If, after dinner, you wished to see her to bed…” The look of longing in his gray eyes startled her.
“I would love to.” Bolstered by the beaming approval in his face, Rowena didn’t mind that she felt so isolated. Blair wanted to see her.
After dessert, Kenna bid them good night and vanished up the stairs toward her chamber. Quinn took Rowena’s arm in his and together they walked toward the hallway where their chambers were. But he stopped in front of a different door, one not far from his own. She looked at him in surprise as she realized he had done as she wished. Hope stirred weakly in her chest; she was afraid to give it more strength lest he destroy it again.
“Aye. It was important to you to have her close.” His face reddened as he glanced down, a little sheepish. The sweet behavior, almost boyish, was charming on such a rugged, handsome man. It softened the hard lines around his mouth and brightened his eyes.
Inside the bedchamber, the nurse was sitting by the fire, knitting what looked to be a rather lovely scarf. Blair was dressed in her nightclothes, tucked in blankets but by the fire and not in her bed.
“Papa!” Blair squealed, and ran to them.
Rowena’s heart swelled at the sight of father and daughter as he embraced her with one large arm.
“Rowena is here to say good night to ye, lass.” He brushed a hand over her curls and glanced at Rowena.
“Rowena,” the little girl said solemnly, and held out a chubby hand.
Clutching Blair’s hand, Rowena followed the child to her bed and then she lifted Blair up and nestled her beneath her covers.
“Are you warm enough?” she asked the little girl as she tucked the blankets up to her chin. Then she placed the back of one hand to Blair’s forehead. The skin was still too hot and Blair’s gray eyes were a little glassy. Rowena wanted to be there when the doctor examined the child and learn what she could about how to help Blair get better.
“Sing a song,” Blair murmured drowsily, her cheeks pink with a smile that would have melted even the coldest hearts.
“A song?” Rowena tapped her chin, pretending to think it over.
“Pu-lease?” Blair whispered. “Mamas always sing songs.”
Rowena’s breath caught for a moment and she couldn’t breathe. Mama. The word held an infinite amount of hope for Rowena. It was part of why she was here. She wanted to be a mother to this child and a wife and lover to Quinn. Could she truly be one step closer to her dreams of true happiness?
“You’re right. Mamas do sing songs,” Rowena agreed after a second. “This is one my mother used to sing to me.” She began to hum the melody of “The Lost Chord” by Sir Arthur Sullivan.
“Seated one day at the organ, I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wander’d idly over the noisy keys;
I know not what I was playing, or what I was dreaming then,
But I struck one chord of music like the sound of a great Amen.
It flooded the crimson twilight like the close of an Angel's Psalm,
And it lay on my fever’d spirit with a touch of infinite calm.
It quieted pain and sorrow like love overcoming strife,
It seem’d the harmonious echo from our discordant life.
It link’d all perplexed meanings into one perfect peace
And trembled away into silence as if it were loth to cease;
I have sought, but I seek it vainly, that one lost chord divine,
Which came from the soul of the organ and enter’d into mine.”
As she finished part of the song, she noticed Blair’s eyes were closed, her lashes a dusting of gold across the tops of her cheeks.
“Good night, sleep well, darling.” She curled the blankets around Blair’s neck more tightly and then she turned around. Quinn wasn’t there.
She glanced at the nurse, whose eyes were bright with tears. She wordlessly pointed at the open door, and Rowena rushed after him. She caught up with Quinn halfway down the corridor. The lamps had been dimmed in the evening and seeing his dark form seeming so remote from her sent shivers of fear through her stomach, making it cramp.
“Quinn? What’s the matter?” Her whisper broke the thick silence of the corridor. She gripped his shoulder and jerked him to a halt.
Her husband fell back against the wall, his chest heaving as he sucked in breaths. When he finally raised his face, tears coursed down his cheeks, and his fists were clenched. He looked…broken. The stark pain and anguish in his features rent her soul in half.
“I lied to myself.” His hoarse whisper broke her apart.
“Lied?” She echoed, her ears ringing. This should not be happening. They were supposed to be happy. They should have been laughing and smiling after tucking the child into bed and heading to their own with other things than sleep upon their minds. They weren’t supposed to be…standing across a chasm in a darkened corridor, both their hearts breaking.
“Aye…I’m not ready. I can’t…” He rubbed at his eyes, dispelling the evidence of his tears. Shaking, Rowena reached out to touch him but he jerked away.
“I’m…sorry. I don’t understand.” She curled her arms around herself, trying to keep her own sobs from escaping.
“I loved her. I loved her with every part of my heart. Yet being with you—for only a few days…I’m replacing her. Blair won’t even remember Maura.” He choked on the words before he could continue. “I can’t help but feel like I’m erasing the memory of her by bringing you here.”
There was no accusation in his tone, but the bleak despair of his words splintered inside Rowena’s chest, making it near impossible to breathe. She never wanted to replace Quinn’s first wife, but she’d wanted to claim this new life for herself with a husband and a child. Blair’s little voice calling her Mama… Am I destroying Maura’s memory? But what about me? Am I not entitled to a happy life? Confusion clouded her thoughts. What was she supposed to do when he was breaking her heart?
“Quinn…” His name stung her lips and she clamped them shut, eyes burning with tears. “Do you…do you want me to leave?” If he said yes, it would break her in a way nothing else ever would.
“Leave?” He whispered the word, his brows drawn together in confusion. “We’re married, Rowena. We’ve consummated our vows in bed.”
“Then what is it you want me to do? I don’t—” She stumbled on her words, hurt and frustrated almost beyond rationality.
“I don’t know,” he muttered, his eyes failing to meet hers. “I shouldn’t have said anything. I just need time is all. I’m sorry, lass.” He turned and strode away, leaving her in the dim hall. The tapestries on either side of her rustled with a faint draft and she couldn’t stop it when her entire body began to shake violently. She walked numbly back to her own empty chambers. The sight of Gwen setting out nightclothes and a warm fire in the hearth was her only relief.
I must not cry.
“Miss, I found this in your coat as I was hanging it up.” Gwen held out the dagger wrapped in velvet. The present she’d planned to give Quinn tonight. That was before everything had changed.
“Thank you, Gwen.”
She held the dagger in her hands, remembering when she’d received it in the village. She’d had such wonderful dreams and hopes then about how she would give it to Quinn.
And he would love me…perhaps just a little more than before.
That hope was now tainted with regret and sorrow. She considered hiding the dagger away or shoving it at him and running back to the safety of her own, empty chambers. But no grand gesture, negative or otherwise, would make her feel better.
I should give it to him and let it be the end.
“I’ll only be a moment, Gwen.” She returned to Quinn’s bedchamber, relieved to find him gone. She dug around in his desk for paper and a pen before leaving him a note. It took her two tries to write it because tears kept blurring her vision, but finally she said what she needed to, sealed the letter, and left it with the dagger on his bed. Then she returned to her chamber. All dreams of being with him tonight or any other night were gone.
I was a fool to believe he would ever love me.
She changed into her nightclothes and crawled into bed, numb and wounded beyond repair. What was she going to do? She couldn’t leave Blair, and she couldn’t leave him, even if he was crushing her hopes of being a happy wife and mother.
“I just need time is all…”
How long would that be? Would she be sitting across from him for silent, awkward dinners for a decade before he decided to give her a chance? Rowena curled her hands into fists as she lay in her bed, sucking in shaky
breaths.
I made a promise to myself and to him that I would heal him, that I would be the woman to bring him through his pain, but how can I do that when he shuts me out?
Her tears soaked through her pillow but she couldn’t stop crying. The ghost of Maura had not left this house, nor had she left Quinn’s heart. Rowena didn’t want to replace Maura; she only ever wanted to share him.
An impossible dream that cost her a broken heart.
Chapter 11
Rowena jerked awake to the sound of someone banging a fist on her bedchamber door.
“My lady!” a muffled cry came through the wood.
Stumbling out of bed, Rowena clutched the dressing gown that hung over a chair by her vanity table and tugged it on as she rushed to the door. When she pulled it open, she saw the ashen face of the old nurse illuminated by dim light from the hallway sconces a few feet away.
“What is it? What’s the matter?” The sleep that had fogged her mind seconds ago was fading under the building panic.
“It’s the bairn! I must have fallen asleep in the chair and I heard her whimpering. Woke me right up.”
“Blair?” Rowena’s throat tightened with fear.
“Aye, she’s worsened. The fever is too strong. I cannae wake her!” The nurse’s face was stained with tears.
“No, oh no,” Rowena murmured in a horrified daze. “Take me to her at once!” The nurse and Rowena rushed down the corridor and into Blair’s room.
Quinn was there at the child’s bed, holding her cradled in his lap as he sat on the edge of the small feather tick mattress. Blair looked impossibly small and frail in his large arms. Sweat-soaked strands of hair clung to the girl’s forehead and neck. Rowena rushed over to them, kneeling in front of Quinn so she could see Blair better.
“Her breathing is too shallow.” His hoarse whisper was choked with pain and Rowena’s eyes stung with tears.
“You need to get Dr. McIntosh. I’ll stay with her,” Rowena promised him, curling her hands around his upper arms.
“I cannae leave her.” His brogue thickened as he gasped out the words.