by Mary Daheim
Hamilton watched her for a long time, until he felt his eyes wet with tears. At last, he turned to Flora and Donald, his hands spread in a helpless gesture. “We can pray—I know naught else to do.”
But Flora had already thought of something else. Later that night she wrote a letter to Iain Fraser and sent Donald out into the mist, headed posthaste for Edinburgh.
Glennie was still in her nightrobe when she opened the door to Donald McVurrich. She was both astonished and relieved to see him, not having heard from Dallas since receiving a brief letter about the baby’s birth. But one look at Donald’s stricken face told her he did not have good news.
She ushered him inside and, along with Tarrill and Marthe who had come downstairs into the hallway, listened to his distressing tale. “I went to Fraser’s town house but he wasn’t there and I could rouse no one,” Donald said as the women led him into the kitchen. “Do you know where he is?”
“Oh, I’m so upset, I cannot think!” Glennie exclaimed in distraction. “This is the sixth of March, I believe the court left yesterday for Craigmillar. Iain must have gone with them.”
Donald rubbed his forehead with a weary hand. “Then I must ride there at once,” he said, “though I ought to have a fresh mount to keep up my pace.”
“You must eat something first,” Tarrill insisted. Marthe was already building up the fire, readying ingredients for breakfast. “Master Drummond keeps a horse, mayhap you can borrow it.”
“When you go back to Strathmuir, should one of us come with you?” Glennie asked, her trembling hands smoothing the long plaits of her hair.
Donald considered the suggestion for a few moments. “I’ll save time if I ride straight from Craigmillar with Fraser. If—when Dallas is better, we can send for you.”
Glennie nodded; she was too disturbed to think for herself. Marthe was stirring up the bannock batter and Tarrill rose to get out some eggs and ham. While Donald ate they plied him with questions. Why had Dallas not waited to travel until she was fully recovered from childbearing? What was Hamilton doing in England? Why didn’t they come straight to Edinburgh? Donald answered as best he could, but he knew little more than they. He kept his speculations to himself.
By the time he finished his meal, the light rain had changed into a downpour. Tarrill suggested that he wait, but Donald was determined to leave as soon as he had borrowed Master Drummond’s horse. Yet after he had secured the fresh mount and endured Mistress Drummond’s endless questions about Dallas, the wind had whipped up from the Firth, blowing the storm into a genuine March gale. Reluctantly, he told Tarrill and Glennie that he would have to bide awhile after all.
It was one of those wild late winter storms, which hung over the city for twenty-four hours, sending water flowing through the streets like Highland burns and blowing down several trees in the vicinity. Even after the rain subsided to a drizzle and the wind died away to a whisper, Donald knew it was pointless to leave Edinburgh. It would take at least a day or more before the roads dried out and became something other than impassable troughs of mud. He returned Master Drummond’s horse and settled in to wait.
By the time Donald left Edinburgh, the fears for Dallas’s life had receded at Strathmuir House. She had been conscious, if not entirely lucid, for three days when Dr. Crawford predicted a certain recovery.
“Under my treatment, they either die within the first day or so, or else are totally well in a fairly short time,” he told Hamilton. “If you don’t mind, there’s no need for me to see her again.” He refused Hamilton’s offer of another purse, though this was his third visit to Strathmuir. It was obvious that large fees meant little to him in comparison with the solitude he craved in which to carry on his research.
During the early stages of Dallas’s illness, Hamilton and Flora had taken turns keeping a constant vigil by the settee. Hamilton’s color had drained and Flora had taken on a pinched look as a result of those long, anxious hours, but both were revived in spirit after Dr. Crawford’s final visit.
“Sweetheart,” Hamilton said after the physician had left, “I’m so relieved you’re going to be all right.” He sat in a chair by Dallas’s bed, for the doctor had given permission to move her upstairs to the master bedroom.
“You’ve said that fifty times since I came ’round last night,” Dallas reminded him with a wan smile. “And I won’t listen to you blame yourself for what happened. Even that pickle-faced doctor said such things can occur for no reason.” He’d also said that the jarring trip north had probably caused Dallas to hemorrhage, but she blamed herself as much as Hamilton for the precipitous flight from Chelsea.
But Hamilton’s expression was implacable. “I asked too much of you—in many ways.”
Dallas put a small, limp hand on his arm. “You asked no more than I was willing to give. And you gave me a great deal in return.”
His strong fingers gently stroked the back of her hand. “Mayhap.” Her words buoyed him somewhat, but this was no time to discuss their future. Later, when she was feeling stronger, they could face those decisions together.
By the following day, Dallas was sitting up in bed, fending off Flora’s exotic concoctions designed to restore strength. “Some decent meat and vegetables are all I need,” Dallas declared. “This last potion practically gave me the swoons. Fetch me some beef, rare as can be, and bring me my babe.”
Amid much fuming, Flora did as she was bade. When the child was brought to her, Dallas exclaimed to Hamilton that she was certain he had grown during her illness. “Do you think he missed me? See, he’s trying to hold my finger!”
Hamilton experienced the familiar bittersweet pang of seeing Dallas with her baby. But he smiled and patted the child’s dark head. “He’s cried enough, if that proves anything. Now don’t hold him too long and tire yourself out. Dr. Crawford insisted you rest a great deal.”
“Fie, I feel well enough to dance the galliard at Holyrood,” Dallas laughed. It was an exaggeration, of course, but she was feeling stronger all the time. Flora had washed her hair that morning and it fell in thick masses over her shoulders. She was still very pale, however, and somewhat thinner. To Hamilton, her pallor only made her more desirable and he had almost cursed aloud when Dr. Crawford had insisted that she not make love for at least six weeks. It had been presumptuous of the doctor to make any such allusion, but he was not a totally unworldly man and had felt the caution necessary.
As Dallas cooed to her babe, a serving man tapped on the door, announcing visitors below. Hamilton rose, wondering if Donald had returned with Dallas’s sisters. But as he descended into the entry hall, he saw Donald standing beside Iain Fraser.
Both men were wet, for the rain had started in again that morning. Both looked strained and tired, too, after the hard ride from Craigmillar. But while Donald appeared merely distressed, Fraser looked thunderous.
“Where is my wife, Hamilton?” he demanded before the other man had even reached the bottom of the stairs.
“She’s upstairs and recovering rapidly,” Hamilton replied, trying to hide the shock he felt at seeing Fraser. “She has been very ill, but a local physician has worked wonders.”
Fraser pulled off his cloak and threw it at Donald. “If he hadn’t, you’d be a dead man. You damned near killed my wife!” Fraser was blazing with anger, taking menacing steps towards Hamilton, who was searching desperately for an honorable way to handle this explosive situation.
“You know I would never do anything to harm Dallas,” he asserted with a forced calm. “Even the doctor said that what happened to her was probably without cause.”
“Keep your excuses for yourself! Why in Christ’s name you take it upon yourself to haul my wife and child back to Scotland, I can’t think! By God, man, I ought to skewer you right now!” Fraser’s hand flew to his dirk.
Hamilton’s composure broke. “I brought her to Scotland because you wouldn’t! You left her and the poor bairn alone in London, at the mercy of that vixen Elizabeth! You didn’t care
one whit if she ever came back!”
“I sent my own men to get her. They were waylaid by thieves and barely escaped alive. Now I’m beginning to wonder if those thieves wore the Hamilton badge!” Fraser’s eyes had narrowed, his hand tight on the dirk. “Get your weapon, you son of a swine. I’ll not have it said I killed an unarmed man!”
Donald made a move to restrain Fraser, thought better of it, and backed out of the way. Hamilton called to him. “You have a dirk, McVurrich. Throw it to me.”
Donald did, and Hamilton caught it by the handle. The two men took each other’s measure carefully. Fraser was an inch or so taller, but at least a stone lighter than Hamilton. The entry hall was long enough, though narrow. There would not be much room for maneuvering. From somewhere beyond them, agitated voices could be heard as the servants gathered to watch the excitement.
“I’m telling you now,” Hamilton said low, “I intend to marry Dallas. I want her to get an annulment.”
Fraser lunged at Hamilton, just missing his left shoulder. “That’s for your dung-assed annulment!” The two men stood toe to toe, the eight-inch blades grinding together so hard Donald thought they’d make sparks. “Dallas wouldn’t have your overproud carcass on a silver plate!”
“Hypocritical bastard!” Hamilton exploded. “How well do you know your wife?”
With a lightning move, Fraser brought his arm up under Hamilton’s right wrist, sending the other man reeling backwards. “What are you saying?” Fraser was amazed at the implication; had Dallas succumbed to Hamilton? It seemed utterly impossible, yet Fraser knew that if he had been in Hamilton’s place, he would never have wasted the opportunity to bed her. But Dallas was not like other women; furthermore, she was his wife.
Consumed by rage, he threw himself at his enemy, knocking over a pedestal vase. Both men banged to the floor, grappling in mortal combat. Darkness was setting in and no candles had yet been lighted in the hallway. Donald still stood to one side, his hands clutching Fraser’s cloak until his big knuckles turned white.
Fraser’s dirk lashed out, hitting home between Hamilton’s ribs. The pain blinded him for a moment, but with great effort, he forced Fraser off of him, momentarily pinning him against the wall. Fraser grasped the other man’s right wrist, wringing it harder and harder until the dirk clattered away onto the stonework. Fraser cast it well out of reach, then laid his own blade against Hamilton’s throat.
“Now tell me, John Hamilton,” he said slow and low, “did you bed my wife?”
There was total silence in the hallway, no sound from the cluster of servants gathered in the dining room opposite, and only the wind soughed through the plane trees outside. Hamilton looked up into the cold, furious hazel eyes of Iain Fraser and knew that the truth would doom him and a lie would do the same. Through a mist of agony from the wound in his side, Hamilton heard a voice from the top of the stairs:
“It’s true, I have lain with John. It wasn’t his fault, it was mine.” Dallas spoke, standing shakily with one hand on the newel post, the other clutching her babe. Her dark eyes were huge and she looked as if hell had opened up beneath her feet.
Fraser watched her as if under a spell. Suddenly, he leaped up from Hamilton and mounted the stairs three at a time. He stood two steps below Dallas, so that their eyes met evenly. “Jesu!” he whispered. “I would never have thought you culpable of such wantonness!”
If Dallas had not felt so weak or so frightened she would have lashed out at him, told him how she’d felt abandoned by him, how he’d betrayed her by his infidelity, how she’d spent months in London trying to help him, how she’d borne the child without him by her side. But she just stood there, miserable and defenseless, with the child crying against her shoulder.
He took the babe from her then. “You’ll keep no bairn of mine, you slut,” Fraser spat at her. “That’s assuming he is mine and not Hamilton’s whelp.” The baby was crying lustily now as Fraser held him cradled against his chest with one arm. He still gripped the dirk in his other hand and brought it up to Dallas’s bare throat. “I should kill you, madame, as I hope I’ve killed your paramour. But for the love I’ve borne you, I will not.” He dropped his hand to his side, turned away and walked down the stairs. Pausing to take his cloak from Donald, he went from the house, the babe still crying loudly as the door closed behind them.
Chapter 18
Hamilton did not die. He was unconscious by the time Dallas and Donald reached him, but though the wound was serious, it was not fatal. Dr. Crawford was summoned again, arriving in a testy mood and warning that he would not come to Strathmuir again, no matter what terrible predicaments befell its inhabitants.
“He’s young, strong, healthy,” he told Dallas and Donald. “Lord Hamilton will be up and about in a few days. Just don’t let him overdo for a while.” When Dallas tried to give him a ruby and diamond bracelet as recompense, he all but sneered. “My wife’s been dead these past five years. I’d never bother to sell it so what good is it to me? Keep your baubles, madame.”
That rebuff was the least of Dallas’s worries. She was still numb from Fraser’s repudiation and his usurpation of their babe. For three days, she kept to her bed, trying to figure out what to do next. It occurred to Dallas that the tribulations of the last week or more had stemmed from the betrayal of her marriage vows. While she could not honestly regret bedding with Hamilton, her feelings for him faltered when compared with her need for Fraser and their son.
She calculated that within another week she’d be strong enough to go to Edinburgh by coach. If Fraser and the babe were in the city, she’d do everything in her power to win them back. From that moment on, she’d live one day at a time, until she was reunited with her husband and her son.
On the same day that Dallas got out of bed, Hamilton was also on his feet again. He was a bit weak and heavily bandaged around the ribs, but well on his way to recovery. When he came into Dallas’s room and saw her combing her hair in front of a mirror, he approached her tentatively.
“I suppose it’s pointless to tell you how sorry I am about all that has happened,” he began, pulling up a chair to sit next to her.
She smiled tremulously at him in the mirror. “Don’t blame yourself. The important thing is to go on from here and put the past behind us.”
He gave a little laugh. “Hamiltons always build the future on the past. I would have assumed we could do the same.”
She turned to look at him directly. “Nay, John, we cannot. I must get my babe back. And, if I can, I’ll get Iain back, too.” She saw the protest forming on his lips, and put a hand on his arm. “Now, wait, John—I know what you’re going to say, and even if you’re right, I’ve got to try. You and I sinned, and see what it’s brought us. You might have died, I might have, too, and I’ve certainly lost the child, for now at any rate. So you see why I must leave you as soon as I can travel?”
He rubbed his forehead in a desolate gesture. “Oh, Dallas, I know how you feel. But I think you’re making a mistake. Unless Iain changes his mind, your marriage is ended. If you’d get your annulment and marry me, we could find much happiness together.”
“I still wouldn’t have my child,” she put in, wishing Hamilton would stop looking so forlorn.
“We could have our own, dozens, if you’d like. I could give you everything you’d ever want, but most especially,” he added gently, touching her cheek, “my love.”
She took his hand and kissed the palm. “I know,” she sighed. “And don’t think I take your offer with anything but a grateful heart. Yet I have to do what I think right.”
He was gracious enough not to press her further. Besides, Dallas might change her mind when she had time to realize that Fraser’s rejection of her was final. Hamilton smiled sadly as he stood up. “I made a vow while you were so ill, back along the road to Strathmuir. I swore that if you got well, I would do whatever you asked of me. I just never thought it would be so hard.”
He walked slowly out of the room, the wou
nd in his side hurting far less than the wound in his heart.
Spring had come to Edinburgh, at least by the calendar. But rain fell on the city and a chill wind blew up from the Nor’ Loch as Dallas arrived with Donald at the Cameron house in Nairne’s Close. The last weeks of her stay at Strathmuir had been uneventful, for Hamilton had chosen to keep as far from her as possible. He had not explained, and didn’t need to, for Dallas understood. On the last day of March, when she left with Flora and Donald, he had arranged to be away at Hamilton Castle, visiting his father.
The day’s journey to Edinburgh was made by coach, as Dallas was not yet able to ride. Nan and her babe accompanied them, since the wet nurse was now Dallas’s responsibility. A position at court, perhaps, or in some well-to-do household would be sought for Nan—unless, of course, Dallas got her son back.
Glennie, Tarrill and Marthe were overjoyed when Dallas arrived. They had, however, heard rumors through the ever-vigilant Mistress Drummond. When Dallas confirmed the tale and gave the details, all three women were struck dumb.
“You might as well know the truth from me,” Dallas declared, “since most of Edinburgh must have heard it already.” Fraser himself would never have talked about that awful afternoon but tradesmen, peddlers and other visitors had stopped at Strathmuir since; doubtless they had picked up the story from the servants.
“I don’t know what to say,” Glennie repeated for the third time. “John Hamilton is a fine man, but you should never have—never have ....” she faltered, unable to give Dallas’s behavior a name.
“Well, by heaven, I did,” she retorted defiantly, “though I still can’t make out the difference between my liaison with John and my husband’s escapades with half of Edinburgh!” She stood up and plunged a hot poker into the mulled wine Marthe had prepared for them. In the past few days Dallas had gone beyond guilt to outrage. If Fraser had been in the room, she’d have used the poker on him.