“That won’t happen.”
“I don’t think you’d be able to stop it if it did,” James pointed out. “I don’t know. They had such a short amount of time together, not more than a few years, but I look at Colin and I can see that happening. Just as it did to Father. I look at him and wonder...”
“Wonder what?”
It was a heartless thought, but James couldn’t stop himself from saying it.
“Maybe it might have been better if he’d never known her at all.”
“Don’t say that.”
James and Francis both turned to see Colin at the door. His usually swarthy face was ashen, his cheeks hollow. But his dark brown eyes were fierce with emotion.
“Don’t ever say that,” he rasped out again. “Ilona was...is my light. I’d suffer this pain a thousand times over without regret for having known her. Hers was...”
Colin paused, choking back tears that clogged James’s throat as well. He ached for his brother.
“Hers was the kindest spirit I’ve ever encountered.”
“You’re right,” James agreed for it was the truth. “Absolutely right. There’s never been another as kindhearted. All of Ilona’s strength was spent on the kindness and love she showed us all. We were the lucky ones. You the luckiest of us all, I guess.”
“Aye, I was.” Colin nodded down at his hands, fiddling with a length of black fabric in them. His chin trembled visibly but he held himself together admirably. “Francis, there’s a stain on this tie I’d thought to wear tomorrow. I was wondering if you had another I might borrow?”
“Of course.” Francis rose and crossed the room quickly. He clapped a hand on Colin’s shoulder. “I’ll help you find something.”
“Nothing black,” James surprised himself and them both by saying. “Pick something Ilona would have liked, not something everyone expects of you. I’ve discovered lately that there’s greater satisfaction in doing what you want rather than what everyone expects of you.”
Colin nodded. “You’re right. She always hated this one anyway.” He balled up the black tie and shoved it into his pocket. “Thank you, Jamie. And for coming as well. It was a long journey for you.”
“I wanted to be here.” For you, he added silently.
His brothers gone, the library falling silent, James was left to his own, introspective thoughts.
Chapter 32
Love is the vital essence that pervades and permeates, from the center to the circumference, the graduating circle of all thought and action. Love is the talisman of human weal and woe—the open sesame to every soul.
~ Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Ladies didn’t generally attend graveside services in polite society. Gentlemen came to pass on the condolences of their wives and mothers, leaving them to mourn at home. One didn’t normally come without an invitation either, but despite the dreary day, the constant drizzle of rain, Ilona’s funeral was chock-full to the brim with men, women, and even children. Family, friends, and acquaintances from all walks of life. Black umbrellas created a tight canopy over those gathered in the small family cemetery at Glen Cairn, and dotted outward with those overflowing the fenced area and sprawling over the hillside with all manner of conveyances waiting beyond.
A sweeter lass had never lived. A kinder one. The crowd assembled proved that.
James didn’t bother with an umbrella. The rain wasn’t heavy and simply put, it provided reasonable explanation for any other droplets of water that might land upon his cheeks.
A slow burn built in the center of his chest. Grief, misery. Loneliness. Just as always, he was a pace away and slightly apart from the whole of the MacKintosh clan. Alone. No hand to cling to, no way to draw strength from another. For the first time in his life, he truly wanted that.
His gaze drifted to the family assembled behind Colin. Francis had his arm around Eve and his other hand resting on the shoulder of the boy standing in front of him.
Laurie Ashley-Cooper was Eve’s son from her first marriage to the Earl of Shaftesbury. A stepson to his brother, but one who couldn’t have been more of a son than Francis’s own.
James reckoned that could be him some day with Ellis. Laurie was about the same age as Ellis. So different from one another, but they might make good friends. Ellis might rub off a little of Laurie’s polish, perhaps take some for himself.
Eve clung to Maggie, who stood between her two daughters, comforting them both. Kitty also had Haddington’s arm tight around her.
His eyes moved on. Tam and Ian, the twins, close as always, subtly leaning toward each other. Then the youngest two lads, Connor’s hand on Dorian’s shoulder. His sister, Fiona, wept silently against Aylesbury’s shoulder. Vin and Moira, Richard and Abby, Sean and Coline—the picture around him was much the same. Consolation. Shared grief.
Each had someone to cling to, someone to lean on. To draw strength from. He’d been missing out on that connection his whole life. Companionship. Friendship. It’s what had always been missing from his life. Someone who needed him.
God knew Prim didn’t need him. She could live without him handily. But looking around at his siblings again, James realized there was something more to being needed than he’d thought.
Across from him, at the center of the family ranks, Colin stood stoically with his bright yellow and white striped tie sticking out in the sea of black. He stood without a hint of outward grief, hollow as if he were but a shell of the man he’d been a few days before.
He looked like James had felt his entire life. Abandoned. Alone. Being needed, he thought, was just as much about giving to those you loved as it was about being invaluable to them.
The preacher finished his toneless rambling and his bible snapped shut with enough force to jolt everyone. They all waited for some movement from Colin, but silence reigned.
It was unbearable. Though he’d spent a lifetime stepping away from his family, James found himself taking a step forward. Then another and another, until he was in front of his brother. Finally, Colin looked up, his eyes haunted. James hugged him tight, wishing he could absorb some of the pain.
He wanted to reassure his brother that it’d be all right, that it’d get better, but he couldn’t guarantee it would so he just willed all the hope and strength he had to Colin.
He knew nothing of suffering, he realized. Nothing of what would make all the pain worth it. His brother knew. If Colin had no regrets in his choice, James wouldn’t have them for him.
In fact, not a few days before, he might have wished never to experience anything that could ravage a man so, but now, he only wished he might love so thoroughly.
“She lived and loved a lifetime with you,” he whispered for only his brother’s ears. “You were right. She wouldn’t have taken the years back any more than you.”
Colin shuddered and stiffened but then wrapped his arms more tightly around James’s back, returning the embrace with enough strength to leave James short of breath.
“I don’t know what to do,” came Colin’s hoarse reply, the words thick with sorrow. “I’m lost without her.”
“You can only do as she would have wanted,” James told him. “And raise your daughter to be just as wonderful as her mother.”
“Thank you, Jamie. I’m so glad you’re here.”
Their embrace lasted a moment more before James let his brother go and stepped back. Colin hardly moved. He just stared down at the hole in the ground, barely nodding as the crowd began to drift away.
* * *
“Jamie?”
“Larena.” He nodded, resisting the urge to dash a hand across his eyes.
He wasn’t sure what he was feeling. Some combination of desperation and urgency, as if there was something he needed to do or somewhere he needed to be. Yet it hardly seemed polite to brush Lady Polwarth aside, given their intimate history.
“I understand congratulations are in order on the birth of your son?”
“Yes.” Her features softened and for a mom
ent, she looked happy. “He’s just lovely, really. More than I might have ever imagined. You might think to try it someday, Jamie. You might find you like not being alone all the time.”
Not a word passed his lips, nor what might have been a change of countenance, but Larena had always been more perceptive than many gave her credit for.
“Ah, you’ve discovered that already, have you? Might I hope it had something to do with me?”
The question was a tad catty for a funeral. Was she hoping for him to express regret over how their affair had ended? Or that he let her get away at all? No, he had no right to have anything less than generous thoughts for Larena. And nothing but pleasant memories of their time together. He hadn’t wanted to marry her, though. And even in hindsight, he’d no regrets over the end of their affair.
“I am pleased you’re so happily settled. I am, but no, any epiphanies had on the subject were not because of any doing on your part,” he said honestly. No, as lonely as he’d ever been in his life, she’d hardly been the one to make him understand that he’d had a gap to fill. Only that she wasn’t the filler. “I’m pleased you’re finding joy in your child, though. I, too, have recently found that I like children a great deal more than I’d ever imagined I might. Perhaps someday I’ll have one or two. A family of my own.”
“You’re thinking of marrying, aren’t you?” She gaped at him. “You?”
“More than thinking of it. I’ve met someone who I believe would suit me. Widow with children. A family to begin with.”
“Suit you? I don’t know if that’s any better than the cold promises of the devil, Jamie. Still, I never thought...I never imagined you’d—Perhaps if I’d only waited a while longer, you might have been ready—”
James raised a hand, halting her before she said anything that might embarrass them both. “Nay, Larena. You’re a fine woman and I’ll admit it made my heart ache a mite to lose you, but it never would have happened for us.”
“Never? Why? If you’re ready to wed—”
“It isn’t just the timing of it all,” he interrupted.
It might have been though. In that vulnerable position of wanting something he didn’t yet know the width and breadth of. Something just beyond his grasp, he might have eventually wed Larena if she’d stood her ground. Perhaps they might even be wed these past two years. Her child might have been his. He might have been content.
But content wasn’t what he’d wanted. It wasn’t what he’d found. What he had.
“It’s only...,” he stumbled over the words, “it’s more that she...”
“Good Lord, you’re in love with her, aren’t you?” Larena gasped, looking more stricken than such news should have brought after so long. “Honestly, I never thought you’d...ever...”
Yes, he was, wasn’t he?
He was in love with Prim Eames.
Yet it wasn’t at all how he’d expected it to be. None of the knocking upside his head and bombardment of his heart he’d anticipated. None of delirium he’d seen in his brothers. Perhaps that’s why he hadn’t recognized it before. It had evolved inside him, growing and blossoming until it was there, without him knowing.
What he’d been so naively looking for in every woman he’d met. That constant comparison to his sisters-in-law he’d held every woman up to. Impossible standards, but he hadn’t done that with Prim. To begin with, she looked nothing like them, nothing like the fantasy woman he’d imagined. But her dark hair and wide-eyed allure made his heart race each time he looked at her. Her trim body neither tall and willow nor petite, was enough to bring him to his knees.
Nor was Prim like any of them in personality. No, she was all of them at the same time, he could tick them off the list. Intelligent like Eve, sassy and spirited as Moira but as sweet as Ilona and as mothering as Abby. Fiercely protective and passionate about the things she cared about, whether it be her children, her protests...or him.
All that passion she’d directed toward him. Not because he was a cause to be reformed, but because together they were transformed into something neither one of them had imagined being.
It wasn’t all flames and heat, fire and desire, but the perfect dance of it all. They complemented one another.
“Jamie?” Larena called him back from his musings. “She must be very beautiful, I suppose.”
She was, but not only in the way Larena meant. “She is. Everything about her.”
But she wasn’t perfect. Maggie had been right about that. Prim wasn’t perfect by any means, but she was perfect for him.
“I-I...” Larena’s voice broke. “Shall I wish you well, then?”
“I’d like that.”
She lifted herself up onto her toes and kissed his cheek. With a sad smile, she turned away and melted into the crowd.
James barely saw her leave, his thoughts back in New York already, considering what he’d left there.
His family’s ancestral estate, Glen Cairn, rose in front of him in its ancient glory. Generations of his family had been raised there. He’d lived there his whole life, but looking at it now, he had only one thought.
I want to go home.
Prim might not need him to thrive in life. She was beyond capable. Independence suited her well, but she was so giving of herself to those around her, she would always be inclined to sacrifice her own good for that of others. What she needed was someone to make sure she stood up for herself.
That, she hadn’t done on her own. He’d given her the push, helped her to realize how strong she truly was. What he needed to do was make her see it, see how together they were both stronger than they were alone.
And he wanted to make sure Prim’s generous nature wasn’t taken advantage of again. By her children and perhaps, especially, the others she loved. Her brothers were overprotective, wanting to coddle her. James couldn’t understand how they didn’t see her brilliance.
James’s mind slowed.
No, they’d have to know. They couldn’t miss it.
Then the truth hit him. They’d been far off the mark.
Son of a bitch.
He needed to get home.
Chapter 33
Why is a woman to be treated differently? Woman suffrage will succeed, despite this miserable guerilla opposition.
~ Victoria Claflin Woodhull
Early January 1896
“Mama?” Luella looked up from the picture book she was reading. “Why hasn’t Mr. MacKintosh been to visit us anymore?”
That was an excellent question. But Prim didn’t have an answer for her daughter, any more than she had one for herself. James hadn’t been to see them since Christmas Eve. Nor had she run into him at any of the post-holiday functions. She’d certainly thought she’d see him at the Vanderbilt’s New Year’s Eve soiree, if nowhere else.
But when the lone pianist had played “Auld Lang Syne,” she’d stood alone at midnight with no one by her side.
She’d heard an idle snippet of gossip here and there, but no one seemed to know where he’d gone. There was even some speculation of wrongdoing that only made her fret more.
It was easier than considering he might have fled after she’d gawked so rudely at his overwhelming proposal and simply didn’t want to see her anymore.
Some part of her still couldn’t believe he’d asked. There’d been no profession of love to accompany it. Nor would she have believed him if there had been.
She might have thought the moment prompted only by her near admission of love if he hadn’t had a ring. Right there, in his coat pocket. As if he’d been carrying it with him all night.
Why? Why propose? She didn’t expect it, despite their intimacy. He must have realized that. By all rights, he shouldn’t even think she’d want marriage, since she’d been vocal against it.
Why then? Because he cared for her as well? Then why not simply say so?
Or was it loneliness that drove him? The look on his face when he paged through his photo album, the longing in his voice when he told her
of his family, spoke volumes.
Prim didn’t understand what had provoked the proposal, all she knew was that she’d utterly bungled it. A few awkward moments later, he’d bundled her up and taken her home without another word.
She hadn’t seen or heard from him since. And the longer he was gone, the more she feared the worst.
“I don’t know, sweetheart,” she told her daughter finally.
“I’m sure he’s got a good reason.”
It was easier to believe that than to think he might not want to see her. Face her.
Shane’s spiteful laughter sounded from behind her. “A good reason? I doubt it. I’ve heard rumor he ran off with Mrs. Preston to Switzerland or something of that nature.”
Prim gaped at him in astonishment. She hadn’t heard anything of the sort, but only just now, it hit her that she hadn’t seen Maggie around town either. No, he wouldn’t do that.
His words resounded in her mind.
“Nonsense. I adore Mrs. Preston,” he said.
“She might be the only thing here you care for.”
No, it couldn’t be. She wouldn’t believe it.
Shane laughed again, this time with pity instead of spite. “You didn’t think he really cared for you, did you, Prim? A man like that? With such a reputation? Face it, he took what he wanted and abandoned you. Just as I knew he would.”
“I don’t believe that for a moment.” Dennis’s protest echoed the cry of denial in Prim’s heart. Her brother came to her side, wrapping an arm around her protectively. “Cease your nonsense, Shane. Why would you try to hurt Prim so? Can’t you see she’s heartbroken?”
“I have no desire to hurt her,” Shane retorted. “But she should be able to see the truth. She should have listened to our good advice from the beginning. She should have seen it coming. MacKintosh did nothing more than toy with her.”
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