by Mary Daheim
All but a few stragglers had cleared out of Gosford’s End by noon of the following day. As Sorcha had guessed, Iain Fraser had waited until morning to pass on the word about George Gordon and the letter of Fire and Sword. Even then, he had confided only in Moray and Johnny Grant. There was no use in weighing down the others with such alarming news until after they had completed the cold, icy journey to their various far-flung destinations.
Sorcha had spent the morning visiting with Magnus before his departure for his home at Ord, and then playing with Rosmairi and little Adam in the nursery. The old nurse, Marthe, her joints now so stiff and painful that she had to be conveyed in a chair, joined them for the better part of an hour, elated, as always, that she had lived to see yet another generation of Fraser and Camron offspring. Adam had just upset his bowl of porridge on Rosmairi’s pink lawn skirts when Cummings summoned Sorcha to join her parents in the study. With a sense of apprehension, Sorcha made her way downstairs, while Rosmairi scolded wee Adam, and Marthe soothed them both in her ancient cracked, wheezing voice.
Opening the door to the study, Sorcha took a deep breath before stepping over the threshold. Drifted snow piled up outside the windows, and in the grate, a trio of logs glowed but refused to burn. While her mother’s perfume lingered and her father’s newly acquired clay pipe sat on the desk, neither parent was in the room. Instead, the Earl of Moray sat in one of the armchairs, his booted legs crossed in an attempt to appear at ease.
“Please, Sorcha, don’t look so upset,” he urged, the blue eyes warm and candid. “Close the door and sit, I pray you. Your parents thought it best if we spoke privately.”
“God’s teeth,” Sorcha murmured, then saw the wounded look on Moray’s face and was repentant. She shut the door, careful not to let it slam lest Moray mistake such a gesture for anger. “Well?” she asked, vainly trying to keep her voice light. She sat down opposite Moray in the matching armchair and deliberately turned away from her father’s vacant place, as if somehow he could still observe her.
Moray leaned forward, his hands draped across his knees. “I wish I lived up to my own legend as the ‘braw gallant,’ ” he declared, the blue eyes quite still. “Rather, I feel like a clumsy country lout, possessed of few words and no wit at all.” He made a wry face, moved one hand as if to reach for hers, apparently thought better of it, and ran his fingers through his wavy auburn hair. “I’m here to ask formally for you in marriage. I greatly fear you’re going to refuse me, but be forewarned, I intend to persist.”
Sorcha went rigid in the chair, her green eyes wide. She should have guessed, of course. Somehow, she had assumed that Moray had ridden out earlier with the others. Yet here he was, not two feet away, looking abject yet vaguely hopeful. Sorcha used both hands to brush back the stray hair that had escaped from her heart-shaped linen cap. “It’s impossible. You must know I love another,” she asserted, her green eyes fixed on his face. “There is no way I can become your bride. My parents must have misled you.”
This time Moray took the risk of touching her knee. Gentle, undemanding, comforting—no doubt, thought Sorcha, the same gesture he’d use with an ailing mare. “I assure you, they have neither misled nor deceived me. This morning, they explained your plight, that you carry the child of a man who cannot marry you. I’ve waited five years, Sorcha. I don’t intend to wait any longer.”
From any other man, the words would have sounded not merely precipitate but callous. The Countess of Moray had been dead for less than three months. She had borne him five children, graced his name with her quiet goodness, dignified his title with her gentle beauty. Yet here he was, admitting to his long-standing desire for another woman. Yet it was Moray’s frankness of heart, his lack of hypocrisy, that prevented Sorcha from being shocked by his proposal.
Behind her hand, Sorcha murmured a foul oath and hoped Moray hadn’t heard. If he had, he gave no indication, the handsome face still serious and searching. If he were impatient for some sign of favor, he gave no sign of that, either; his features were as controlled as his emotions.
“I don’t know what to say,” Sorcha admitted at last, settling her chin in the palm of her hand. “Sweet Virgin, has any woman ever suffered from such a dilemma? Why couldn’t Gavin and I—or even you and I—have met, fallen in love, and gotten married? Like Rosmairi and Armand, like Magnus and Jeannie, like a thousand other people in this sad, sorry world? See here, My Lord,” she went on, the words coming rapidly, “if I married you, I’d forever long for Gavin. You’d be forced to bring up a bastard who has no claim to either your name or your property. People would laugh at you behind their hands; they’d call you cuckold. Besides,” Sorcha added with her usual practicality, “while you might have once wanted me as your mistress, what makes you believe you’d be equally delighted to take me to wife? They are two quite different things.”
Moray had listened to this lengthy, impassioned speech with rapt attention, his eyes never leaving Sorcha’s face. “I’m told the King wishes us to wed. You must take on the raising of five bairns you’ve scarcely even seen. As for my possessions, I trust we’ll have children of our own, and while my earldom may be a grand one, in truth, I’m not a man of great means.” He spread his hands in an appealing, self-deprecating manner. “More to the point, I can offer you only myself—and as your husband, not your leman. I love you, Sorcha. I have always loved you, from that first night at Doune.”
Sorcha sighed deeply, contemplating the sincerity of Moray’s words. It would be cruel to dismiss his love out of hand. Love was too rare, too fragile, to throw away. Reality told her that if one Pope had refused an annulment, another might do the same. Her child would be born in June, just five short months away. If she married Moray, her babe would have a name and she would have her honor, albeit tarnished. She knew what kind of pressure her parents—at least her mother—would bring to bear upon her to accept Moray’s suit. What she didn’t know was how Gavin Napier would react. With his commitment to virtue, might he not be as determined as Dallas that their child be born in holy wedlock? Would it not be in character for him to persuade her to save her name and her honor by sacrificing him so that she could marry Moray?
Sorcha sighed again and briefly closed her eyes. “Give me a day or two. My Lord. I must think—and pray—upon this momentous matter.” The green eyes were wide open as she gazed at Moray. He lifted her hand and put it to his lips; then he started to speak, apparently considered that further words might do more harm than good, and got to his feet to bow his way out of the study.
To Sorcha’s immense surprise, Gavin Napier received the news of her pregnancy with a minimal expression of shock. Over the twenty-four hour period following his return to Gosford’s End and his unsettling reunion with Sorcha, he’d taken time to reflect in solitude, as well as to confide in Father Adam. While neither brother had guessed that Sorcha was with child, both had concluded that she was deeply disturbed over something of such magnitude that it even impinged upon her limitless love for Gavin Napier.
So, when Sorcha revealed the truth to Napier that evening in the small parlor, her brief, forthright explanation brought enlightenment rather than astonishment. Sorcha was seated on the settle in front of the hearth, while Napier stood with his back to one of the two bookcases that flanked the stone fireplace. He was silent at first, his face darkening as he clenched and unclenched one hand. While Sorcha sat with her fingers clasped together in her lap and her head held high, Napier went to one knee in front of her.
“I am filled with joy that you will bear my babe,” he declared, his features softening. He placed his hands on her thighs, though it was the touch of affection rather than desire. “I have never loved you more than I do now.” He paused, the white teeth capturing his lower lip as he pondered his next words. “I am about to lose you, am I not?” He spoke barely above a whisper, and there was a catch on the final syllable.
Sorcha could scarcely look at him. Her heart felt heavy and dull in her breast, and her own voic
e quavered when she answered him. “I don’t know yet.” With a trembling hand, she touched his hair. “My lord of Moray has asked me to be his wife.” The green eyes were questioning, helpless. “What shall I tell him?”
Napier’s face twisted as if it were following the convoluted pattern of his thoughts. For several moments, he gazed beyond Sorcha, seeking an answer in the far shadows of the little room. Then, with an agonized smile, his eyes fixed on her pale face. “Does he … know?” Napier watched Sorcha as she nodded once. “Then,” he said, in that same low voice, “you must consent.”
It was what Sorcha had expected him to say, but now, after the words had been given life, she cried out in protest, “Nay! I will not!” Sorcha took Napier’s head in her hands, all but shaking it back and forth. “The annulment! You said we could submit the case again! I’ll go away, I’ll bear the babe somewhere else, I’ll wait forever, if need be! Please, Gavin—you don’t really want me to marry Moray!”
Grasping her firmly by the wrist, he took her hands away from his temples. ‘‘Of course I don’t want you to marry him. But you must marry, and while I’d do anything—anything at all—to make it so that I could marry you, I fear our chances are virtually nonexistent.” Sadly, he shook his head. “I once told you that Marie-Louise might as well have cast a spell on me. For a time, I thought you’d broken it. But,” he went on, his voice rising, yet hollow, “I’ve come to believe that I shall live out the rest of my life in thrall to her.”
“Don’t believe it,” Sorcha enjoined him. She was leaning so far forward in the chair that their foreheads almost touched. “The reckless life she leads, the trail of death and destruction she leaves behind her—no one can go on forever living on the precipice as she does.”
Outside, the wind howled, heralding a new storm. Though the drapes were drawn, Sorcha could feel a draft blowing across the room. It had started to snow again just before supper, and no doubt by now the drifts were piling up outside the manor house. Winter, like her suffering, seemed to go on forever.
Napier kissed the palms of her hands and uttered a sharp little laugh. “What you say may be true, my love. But what you mean is that we should wait for Marie-Louise’s death.” The hunter’s gaze fixed her squarely. “That is the reality, is it not? I can’t live like that, waiting for someone else to die. I don’t think you can, either.”
The intensity of his stare forced Sorcha to look away. “You’re right,” she murmured, “I cannot.”
They were quiet for a few minutes while the fire hissed in the grate and the wild cry of the wind swept over the moors and through the glen. I should weep, Sorcha thought, yet I have no tears. I feel drained, empty, aimless.
Still on his knees, Gavin Napier had shifted his weight. Tenderly, he put his hands on her curving abdomen. “My bairn,” he said, and gave Sorcha a smile that held the warmth of summer and the pride of mankind. Desperately, she tried to summon an answering smile, but before her lips could do more than tremble, Gavin Napier laid his head in her lap, and the broad shoulders shuddered with emotion. At last, Sorcha felt the tears fill her eyes and roll down her cheeks, like snow melting in a sudden thaw. She wrapped her fingers in Napier’s dark hair, and when he finally lifted his face to look at her, his own eyes brimmed with tears. Startled by his unabashed feelings, Sorcha wiped one cheek with the back of her hand, then pressed Napier’s face, mingling her love as well as her grief with his.
“I will not say good-bye,” Napier said in that low, rumbling voice Sorcha knew so well, though now it was touched by a faint tremor. “I will only ask that God hold you—and the bairn—in His hands.”
“Where are you going?” Sorcha’s question was a choked, rasping jumble of words.
Napier had gotten to his feet, looming tall and broad, blocking out the persistent draft, though the wind still shrilled outside the windows. “I don’t know yet. But I’ll be gone by morning.” He was under control again, speaking tersely, his long face arranging itself into the mask he would show the world beyond the little parlor’s door.
For more long moments, they gazed at each other, as if trying to commit every detail to memory. For one searing second, Sorcha considered flinging herself into Napier’s arms for a last embrace. But she willed herself to remain seated; she knew that once in each other’s arms, they might never again be pried apart. And, for the sake of their babe, that could not happen.
Finally, he tore his eyes from her, though he made no move to leave. Motionless, he stood staring at a small Italian marble statue of the Madonna and Child that rested on a slender teak pedestal across the room. Sorcha didn’t have to turn her head to discover the object of Napier’s unblinking attention. Silently, she offered her own prayers to the Virgin and her Divine Son.
Gavin Napier didn’t speak again, nor did he look at Sorcha. He wheeled about with a swift, sure movement and crossed the little room in four long strides. Sorcha continued to sit very still, her hands folded against the curve where their child grew. Even after Napier had closed the door behind him, she remained as she was, while the fire in the grate flickered out and the wind howled its mournful song far into the night.
Chapter 30
Ironically, the mid-January blizzard had presaged an early spring in the Highlands. In less than a week, a mild, if relentless rain had washed away all but the most secret, hidden patches of snow. Eager yellow primroses appeared in the forests around Loch Ness, the black grouse fanned its tail in anticipation of the mating ritual, and the wildcat crept back up into the hills.
While most Highlanders rejoiced at cruel winter’s end, for Sorcha it meant that her wedding day would come much sooner than she’d expected. The last week of January was spent in a frenzy of preparation, with seamstresses brought in from Inverness, arrangements worked out by Iain Fraser for Sorcha’s dowry, trunks being packed, and a rapid, if chaotic exchange of letters between Gosford’s End and Moray’s house at Donibristle. The latter caused the most consternation within the Fraser household. While Moray made no demands concerning the dowry, he was insistent upon being married in a Protestant ceremony. Father Adam, who had once more retreated to Beauly Priory, this time in Gavin Napier’s company, was consulted. The only comfort he could give was to suggest that perhaps once the ceremony had taken place, Moray might be persuaded to convert to Catholicism so that he and Sorcha could be remarried in the Church of Rome. After much soul-searching, Lord and Lady Fraser agreed that such was their best—and only—hope. Sorcha was frank to admit that she didn’t much care. If she could not be married to Gavin Napier, then the rites under which she wed with another were of no importance.
The family was scheduled to leave Gosford’s End on the third day of February, but late in the afternoon of the preceding day, a messenger arrived saying that Magnus’s Jeannie had gone into premature labor. Magnus begged his mother to come to the Muir of Ord. Torn between her children’s needs, Dallas raced about the manor house in a flurry of indecision and fell down the main staircase, spraining her ankle. Gritting her teeth against the pain, she insisted on traveling to Magnus and Jeannie’s home by litter, but Iain Fraser refused to let her go unless he went with her. Her parents were visibly distressed at abandoning Sorcha and parted from her with unusual tenderness. But Sorcha sensed a hint of relief in them both, as if neither parent truly wanted to be a witness to an occasion of which, deep down, they didn’t approve.
Yet Sorcha wasn’t terribly upset by Lord and Lady Fraser’s defection. Indeed, the days that had followed Gavin Napier’s departure from Gosford’s End were a blur. Nothing seemed quite real. It was as if Sorcha were watching some other young woman prepare for her wedding while she observed from a distance, indifferent, detached, with only a perfunctory acknowledgement of the events that surged around her.
Rosmairi and Armand, however, would accompany her, along with the indispensable Ailis and a half dozen Fraser retainers. Little Adam would remain in the care of his nurse and Marthe at Gosford’s End. So it was that on a cool but sun
ny February morning, Sorcha set out for Donibristle House in the ancient kingdom of Fife, where she would become the Countess of Moray and try to put her past behind her.
Yet, even as they rode out of Fraser country toward the shimmering lochs and high, rugged peaks of her mother’s Cameron clan, Sorcha knew that she carried the past within her. At that moment, she felt a fluttering in her abdomen and let out a little gasp of astonished awe, then gently touched the place where the babe had moved. No, thought Sorcha, the past lives and will be with me always, and I rejoice in the gift of life Gavin Napier has given me.
Sorcha crossed herself devoutly and let the swaying of the litter lull her to sleep.
It took almost five days to reach Donibristle House, high above the Firth of Forth, where the waters narrowed before sweeping inland toward Edinburgh. This close to the sea, winter still had its grip on the countryside, with ice floating on the little pond in the courtyard and a brisk wind blowing down from the east.
Sorcha and her companions had been greeted by an oddly distracted Earl of Moray. While he seemed delighted to welcome his bride to Donibristle, there was an unwonted tenseness in his manner, an unexplained air of expectancy. At supper in the manor house’s handsome dining hall, Sorcha attempted to draw out her future husband, but he turned aside each question with a merry jest. Finally, she gave up, concentrating instead on the roasted boar and haunch of beef that constituted the main courses.