A Dark and Brooding Gentleman

by Margaret McPhee

  ‘What can I do to help?’

  ‘Look after the children.’

  Hunter looked at her helplessly.

  ‘Put your arm around them, cuddle them when they cry. Put a blanket over them when they are cold. Tell them that everything will be fine and that they must be good girls for their mother.’ Then, to the young footman who was hovering ashen-faced by the kitchen door as if he would rather be outside, ‘Into the kitchen, Jamie, scrub your hands, then fill another pail of water and set another pot on to boil. Once it has boiled, take it off the heat and let it cool.’

  ‘Yes, miss,’ Jamie mumbled dutifully.

  And then she was gone, bustling towards the kitchen to return with a bowl of hot water and a pile of linen.

  ‘Go,’ she urged Hunter. ‘You can do it.’ Hunter nodded, knowing that he had to help, and walked into the parlour of crying children.

  The hours passed slowly, painfully, and still the baby had not been born. Mrs Beattie was in so much pain she did not know who was in the room with her and who was not. The low dull moan was now constant, and every so often she cried and wept for her husband. Phoebe closed off her emotions so that she could get through this night. She had seen this same scene before, and she knew how it would end. And yet even so, through those hours she mopped Mrs Beattie’s brow and held her hand and willed the woman to keep going. And when the midwife went into her bag and brought out a large pair of metal spoon-shaped tongs, Phoebe understood.

  ‘She’s no’ gonnae manage hersel’, miss. We’ll have to pull the babe out into this world.’

  Phoebe nodded and went to scrub the tongs in hot water.

  It was just like Elspeth, except that when the midwife handed her the baby, still warm from Mrs Beattie’s body, the boy breathed and moved, a cry erupting from his little gummy mouth. Phoebe wiped him clean and swaddled the tiny body in fresh linen as his loud wails filled the air. And it seemed to Phoebe that she had never heard such a glorious noise.

  Mrs Beattie raised her head from the pillow, looking for the baby.

  ‘A boy, ma,’ said Martha. ‘A fine healthy boy.’

  Phoebe rested the tiny bundle into the woman’s outstretched arms.

  Mrs Beattie smiled and tears of joy were streaming down her face. ‘At last,’ she whispered. ‘And Malcolm not here to see it.’

  Hunter stirred as Phoebe entered the parlour. Her eyes scanned the room, taking in the girls sleeping on the rug before the fire with Hunter’s coat laid over them as a blanket. Hunter was on the sofa, a small girl snuggled into him on either side, and baby Rosie sprawled over his chest, his hand gently cradling the child. His hair was dishevelled and the shadow of beard growth darkened his cheeks and chin.

  ‘Phoebe?’ he whispered. ‘I heard the babe’s cries.’

  ‘A boy, alive and well.’

  ‘Beattie will be pleased.’

  Together they carried the children upstairs into the bedroom and snuggled them into their beds, shooshing them with soft words when they stirred.

  Phoebe spoke to Hunter in the little parlour. ‘The midwife is almost finished, but someone needs to stay with Mrs Beattie and the baby. Martha is exhausted. She will be needed here tomorrow so I have sent her to bed and assured her that I will watch over her mother most carefully until the morning. There is nothing more that you can do here, Mr Hunter. You may as well go back to Blackloch and get some sleep.’

  ‘Jamie can take the midwife back to the village. I will stay here—with you.’

  ‘Mr Hunter—’ But the look on his face was resolute and she did not have the energy to argue. Besides, she could not deny that she was glad of his presence. She felt the reassuring squeeze of his fingers against hers before she turned and walked away.

  Malcolm Beattie returned some time in the wee small hours. His horse had thrown a shoe and the man had walked all the way home from Glasgow in the darkness. Hunter clapped Beattie on the back.

  ‘Congratulations, Beattie, you have a fine son.’ ‘A son?’ The tears were streaming down Beattie’s cheeks, rolling unashamed, so incongruous a sight for the man. ‘And Rena?’

  ‘Your wife has had a night of it. She is tired, but the midwife assures us that she will be fine.’ ‘Thank God! Thank God!’ wept Beattie. Yet still Phoebe would not desert her post. She insisted Mr Beattie got a few hours sleep.

  At eight o’clock two women from the village appeared at the cottage door armed with baskets of bread and eggs, cheese and ham and offers of help.

  Only after speaking to them did Phoebe agree to leave.

  Hunter took her arm in his and led her out to the phaeton, climbing up before her and then reaching down to help her up to sit beside him.

  The early morning mist had not yet burned away. The moor seemed very still, a hushed quiet so that even the wind was but a breath upon his face.

  ‘Jeanie and Alice from the village will take the girls to their own homes and care for them for a few days, and there will be others that will come later to help both Mr and Mrs Beattie,’ she said.

  ‘They are good people, all of them.’ ‘Yes.’ Her face was pale, with blue shadows smudged beneath her eyes.

  He twitched the reins and the two horses moved off slowly, the wheels crunching against the gravel and soil as they travelled along the narrow track.

  Neither of them spoke, just sat in a silence that seemed comfortable to Hunter. There was only the song of the blackbird and the sparrows. He slowed the phaeton so that she would not be jarred with the roughness of the track and thought he saw a glimmer of moisture upon her cheeks. ‘Phoebe?’

  She turned her head away so that he would not see her face.

  He stopped the carriage where it was and gently captured her face to bring it round to his. Her tears were wet beneath his fingers. It was the first time he had seen her cry and he felt moved by the sight of it. ‘The night must have been difficult for you.’ She tried to turn away, but he did not release her. ‘A birthing … when you are innocent of the knowledge of such matters.’

  ‘No.’ She gave a small choking sound, half-laughing, half-sobbing. She squeezed her eyes shut, but the tears leaked through to stream down her cheeks. ‘Phoebe …’

  ‘I am just tired, that is all. I will be fine once I have slept.’ She sniffed and rummaged for her handkerchief.

  Hunter was not sure he believed her. He passed her the clean one from his pocket. ‘In settlement of my debt.’

  She gave him a wobbly smile, took the handkerchief, dried her cheeks and blew her nose.

  ‘You did magnificently,’ he said quietly and stroked his thumb against her cheek.

  She looked up at him and there was something in her eyes that mirrored what was in Hunter’s soul: a sadness, a sense of loss that quite smote Hunter’s heart. ‘I did what had to be done,’ she said. ‘I always do what has to be done.’ And he had the feeling that she was talking about so much more than the Beattie baby.

  Tendrils of auburn hair had escaped to curl around her face; the long thick plait was messy as it snaked over her shoulder and down onto her breast. Her dress was stained with blood and other marks and her eyes were red-rimmed and glistening with tears. And Hunter did not know why there was such a tight warm feeling in his chest or why he had such a need to comfort her and take away her pain. He touched his lips to hers in the smallest and gentlest of kisses and when he drew away he knew that something had changed between them, something from which there would be no going back. He wrapped his arm around her waist so that she was snug by his side, and gave a tug at the reins in his other hand. And he took her back to Blackloch.

  Chapter Ten

  ‘What on earth were you thinking of letting her attend a birthing, Sebastian?’ his mother demanded the next day. She was seated on the sofa in the drawing room, staring at him imperiously and ignoring the plate of luncheon sandwiches on the table before her. Phoebe Allardyce, about whom they were talking, was upstairs fast asleep in her bedchamber.

  Hunter was standing b
y the fireplace, leaning an arm against the mantel.

  ‘Not only is she unmarried and a young gentlewoman …’ And such was her agitation that she rose to her feet and came to stand before him that she might deliver the full weight of her displeasure all the better. ‘Lord, Sebastian!’ His mother’s face crumpled. ‘Phoebe’s sister died in childbirth not two years since. Did she make no mention of the matter?’

  He stared at his mother in horror. ‘She spoke not a word of it.’ And he thought of how hard Phoebe had fought to keep from weeping and he understood now that look in her eyes—it was grief, raw and unadulterated. It was as if a hand had reached into his chest and twisted his heart. ‘Forgive me,’ he uttered. ‘I never would have let her go had I known.’ But even as he said it he knew that he could not have stopped Phoebe from going to help Beattie’s wife. The girl was as stubborn as himself. Stubborn, and damned courageous.

  When Phoebe arrived in the drawing room later that day, ready to attend to Mrs Hunter’s plans, she was surprised to find Hunter present. He was standing by the window, staring out over the moor, the usual brooding expression upon his face. Mrs Hunter was working on the tapestry. The room was in silence, but there was not the same chilled tension in the air between them that had been there in those early days of their arrival at Blackloch.

  ‘Ah, Phoebe, my dear.’ Mrs Hunter smiled and patted the sofa next to her. ‘Come and sit by me and tell me how you are feeling.’

  ‘I am well, ma’am, thank you. How was Mrs Montgomery’s rout?’

  ‘It was as we expected, Phoebe.’ Mrs Hunter sniffed in a superior way, but her eyes were kind. ‘I have been hearing of last night’s events.’

  Phoebe glanced over at Hunter, unsure of just how much he had told his mother. His eyes met hers.

  ‘News of Mrs Beattie’s emergency is all round the village. Mrs Fraser, the local busybody, called upon my mother this morning,’ he said.

  ‘She is wife to Sir Hamish Fraser of Newmilns,’ corrected Mrs Hunter in an irritated tone, ‘although I will admit to her being a bothersome woman.’

  Hunter moved from his stance at the window to take the seat furthest from Phoebe and his mother.

  Mrs Hunter frowned at him, but there was nothing of malice in it. Her face softened again as she turned to Phoebe. ‘Now, you are not to worry, Phoebe. I soon set Eliza Fraser straight once Sebastian had explained the whole of it to me.’

  Phoebe stared in amazement. Her gaze shifted from Mrs Hunter to her son and back again. ‘Thank you.’

  ‘I never did like that woman,’ Mrs Hunter confided.

  Hunter stayed for the next hour, and in truth, although Phoebe was glad to see the thaw in relations between him and his mother, she was relieved when he left. She was too aware of last night, and the emotion that still echoed from it. Too aware that Hunter had not left her, but stayed with her until the end at the Beattie cottage, too aware of the tenderness in his eyes at the weakness of her tears. The gentle brush of his lips had meant more than either of their previous passionate exchanges. That one small kiss had somehow shifted what lay between them, deepening it, calling to her all the more. And Phoebe was afraid that she might betray something of her feelings for him before Mrs Hunter.

  The maid had brought Phoebe’s freshly laundered blue dress to her chamber the next morning.

  ‘Most of it came out in the cold-water soak, but there is still some staining, miss,’ the maid’s voice sounded beside Phoebe.

  The two women stared at the bodice as Phoebe held it up to the light. The brownish marks sat like dark islands within a sea of faded blue muslin.

  ‘Some ribbon and lace might hide the marks. I could sew some pieces across,’ Phoebe said.

  The maid chewed at her lip. ‘It’ll need a fair old length of ribbon but, aye, I think you’re right. Do you want me to do it, miss?’

  Phoebe smiled and shook her head. ‘I will manage myself, but thank you for the offer.’

  The maid bobbed a curtsy and turned to leave. ‘Oh, miss.’ She stopped, turned back to Phoebe and produced a letter from within her apron. ‘I checked your pockets before I put your dress through the wash and found this.’

  ‘Thank you, Agnes,’ she said, but the maid had already left.

  It was the letter Hunter had given her the day before yesterday—Emma’s letter about which he had been so angry. The scene in the corridor outside his study seemed a lifetime ago.

  Her fingers broke the sealing wax, unfolding the paper and even before she began to read a shiver of foreboding had rippled down her spine. And the words that Emma had written upon the paper made her sit down hard upon the bed.

  I am much worried by the news that you are to accompany Mrs Hunter on her visit to Blackloch and her son, for there is something that you should know of Mr Sebastian Hunter. An ominous feeling was forming in the pit of Phoebe’s stomach. Her eyes raced on, skimming Emma’s neatly penned words.

  You are already aware of the great folly that Kit perpetrated and thus the current most unfortunate circumstances in which my family finds itself. Kit, Emma’s brother, had bankrupted the family at the gaming tables so that Emma and her family had lost their home, their money and their reputation. Their lives had been ruined.

  Sebastian Hunter was chief amongst the pack of rakes who beguiled Kit into their gang. Kit looked up to Hunter, admired him, as if there was anything about the man to be admired, hung on his every word. It was Hunter who took Kit to that gaming den the night he lost our fortune and Hunter who goaded him to such recklessness. He cares nothing for anyone other than his own selfish pleasure. Indeed, my dear friend, Hunter would ruin you without so much as a second thought. Thus, I implore you, Phoebe, with all my heart, to heed my warning and guard yourself most carefully from Hunter.

  A cold shadow moved over her heart. Phoebe stared at the words that Emma had written, words so similar in vein to the ones her papa had spoken. The same warning issued from the two people that she loved and trusted the most. A warning that so contrasted with all she had seen of Hunter. She thought of the man who had cared enough about his tenants to visit them in person, gifting money and food and linens. The man who had ridden out in the dead of night in the driving rain to help those involved in a carriage accident. He had saved her from the highwaymen, fetched the midwife for Rena Beattie, and she did not think she would ever forget the sight of him in the parlour with the Beattie children snuggled all around. But most of all she thought of the small tender touch of his lips against hers when the memory of Elspeth had threatened to overwhelm her.

  She moved to stand by her bedchamber window, staring out over the moor and the darkness of the loch. The day was cool and grey as if summer had already left. She closed her eyes, not knowing what to believe.

  Hunter had to wait until that morning to follow Phoebe down to the scullery, where she was mixing up a pot of face cream.

  He chased out the maid who was washing dishes and closed the door behind her.

  ‘Sebastian!’ Phoebe whispered in a scandalised tone. ‘You will have the staff gossiping.’

  ‘It is the only way that I may speak to you alone.’

  ‘You should not be down here.’ She turned away and resumed her pounding of the pestle against the mortar.

  ‘You should have told me of your sister, Phoebe.’

  She stilled, the pestle loose within her fingers.

  ‘If I had known …’ The words petered out. ‘The night before must have been a torture for you.’

  She shook her head, but still did not look at him.

  He moved to her, taking the mortar and pestle from her hands and pulling her gently round to face him.

  ‘The birthing itself was not so bad,’ she said. ‘I did not let myself think of anything save Mrs Beattie and the baby.’

  ‘And on the moor afterwards, when all the clamour was over and all of the thoughts were there in your head?’

  ‘That was hard,’ she admitted.

  ‘Why did you not tell me
, Phoebe, when we were alone? I would have understood.’

  ‘I have never spoken of Elspeth or the baby. It distressed my papa so much when she died that he would not hear her name mentioned in the house again. It was … terrible.’ She pressed her hands to her face, covering her eyes. ‘I must not speak of it, I must not even think of it, for I cannot start weeping, not here, not like this.’

  He took her in his arms and held her to him, stroking a hand over her hair.

  ‘I am here if you wish to speak of it. You may come to me, Phoebe, and you may speak of it and think of it and weep about it as much as you will. There is no wrong in that. I understand your pain, Phoebe, I know what it is like to feel such grief.’

  ‘Your father,’ she whispered.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Of whom you do not speak either.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘We are a fine pair.’

  ‘We are, Phoebe Allardyce, a fine pair indeed.’ He traced a finger over the line of her cheek.

  ‘You should go now,’ she said. ‘I promised Mrs Hunter that I would make up this beautifying lotion for her.’ She gestured to the mortar and pestle and the recipe in the opened fashion journal on the table top before it. ‘She is waiting.’

  ‘Let her wait a little longer.’ And he lowered his mouth to hers and he kissed her, tenderly, gently, to salve the hurt that was in her heart.

  Hunter and McEwan began installation of the new drainage system at the lower end of the moorland the next day. It was an important event, for the land was in a sheltered spot close to McInnes’s farmstead and, if the operation proved successful, the land might be used for crops instead of lying as useless bog for most of the year. Phoebe was thankful that Hunter’s attention was engaged elsewhere for it was Tuesday and she feared he would have insisted upon driving her to Glasgow, and she could not face lying to him over her father. But when she had gone to leave for Kingswell, she had discovered that Hunter had left instructions for Jamie to both take her to Glasgow and bring her back again in the gig. She had the young footman let her out at the Royal Infirmary and told him to spend the next hour down at the Green while she pretended to enter the hospital. Then she ran all the way down to the Tolbooth.