Anice pointed her wooden spoon at him. “His treat for bringing me a mouse earlier.”
She’d always made Lydia welcome below, in fact had taught her to cook. A footman walked past carrying a pair of silver candlesticks, and two maids bustled about preparing one thing or another. They’d more work since Jinnah’s dismissal a week ago, but none expressed discontent. Jinnah hadn’t been popular with the other staff.
She hadn’t accepted her discharge with good grace either.
Swearing like a dockside whore, she’d tossed a milk pitcher onto the floor. But, she had confessed—quite gleefully, as a matter of fact—that she had retrieved some of Gordon’s possessions from his chamber, which explained why she’d loitered outside his door so often. And probably meant he hadn’t gone far.
That knowledge had worried Lydia more than a little.
McLeon and McGibbons had waited outside her chamber while Jinnah packed her meager possessions, and then escorted her from the house.
At Lydia’s request, they’d followed her, and she’d led them straight to Gordon.
Under Lydia’s direction, they gave him a choice. Take the purse she’d sent along and leave Scotland for good, or they’d take him into custody and turn him over to the authorities for robbery, attacking Lydia, and she’d insist an investigation be opened into her brothers’ and mother’s deaths.
No surprise, he’d eagerly snatched the purse.
According to McNeal, Uncle Gordon’s glee turned to fury when they deposited him on a ship, appropriately bound for Australia. A little, well-deserved retribution.
After a word with the captain, and a hefty bribe as well, they’d waited until the ship sailed, taking Gordon from Tornbury once and for all. If he returned, he’d be imprisoned.
“Here’s yer tea, Miss Lydia. I already added milk and sugar fer ye.” Anice placed a plain white teacup before Lydia.
Steam spiraled upward, eager to escape the brim’s confines. She added a fork and another plate holding two slices of the pastry-covered fruitcake and other dainties.
“Thank you, Anice.” Lydia took a bite of the black bun, and closed her eyes. “Umm. Absolutely delicious. We normally only get this treat for Hogmanay or birthdays. I feel quite special.”
“Well, yer birthday be but days away, and since it be a favorite of the laird, I hope he’ll eat a bit.”
“I do too.” Though, honestly, she doubted he would.
Anice hesitated, then wiped her hands on her apron and after a slicing the maids a glance, drew near again. “We all be worried, Miss, and we ken how hard this must be fer ye.” She shook her head, a beleaguered expression creasing her full face. “So much death this year. Makes a body want to go to bed and stay there.”
Lydia grasped Anice’s plump hand. “It is hard, but we shall manage it together. Somehow.”
~ ~ ~
Ten days after receiving word of Searón’s arrival at Craiglocky, Alasdair leaned a shoulder against the door frame to her room. Arms folded, he frowned, something he’d done a lot these past few days.
An oil lamp burned low on the nightstand, illuminating his wife’s wasted, skeletal face, and his son’s too-thin countenance as well.
His mouth slightly open, Al snored softly.
Searón and the boy hadn’t heard Alasdair’s light knock or him entering the bedchamber.
Why should they have?
The entry’s long case clock had chimed quarter past five as he’d passed. He’d no business being in their chamber, but he couldn’t put them neatly out of his mind.
He was in, what Lydia would describe as, a colossal pickle.
God, he missed her.
Every waking moment and especially at night, when his mind wouldn’t cease its incessant rambling.
A neighbor had paid Aunt Giselle a visit yesterday, and her rose perfume so reminded him of Lydia, he’d made an excuse to linger just to inhale the air in her wake, like a hound on the hunt.
She’d heard him sniffing once and given him an arch look that suggested he’d gone daft.
Besotted idiot.
And heartily glad of it.
He’d fully intended to have returned to Tornbury by now, but Searón had slept for three days straight when he’d first arrived. She’d been too weak—starvation and the late stages of syphilis, according to Doctor Paterson—to receive visitors until yesterday.
Yesterday, he’d finally written Lydia a short note, explaining he’d been delayed but deliberately hadn’t given a timeline for his homecoming.
He shook his head once, a smile toying with his mouth.
When had Tornbury become home?
Wherever Lydia rested her satiny head was his home.
How fared Farnsworth?
Pray God, he hadn’t worsened. Lydia shouldn’t have to bear that burden alone, and Alasdair rather chafed at the bit to be on his way.
Today, he’d have the why of everything from Searón, and then as kindly as possible, tell her he’d already decided to end the marriage before her untimely arrival.
He’d provide for Al, of course.
There’d been no question of that from the first instant he clapped his eyes on the lad. And in time, when his son grew more trusting and accepted Alasdair as his father, then Alasdair intended to forge a relationship with the boy.
That meant spending time with his son.
A great deal of time, and toward that end, the lad must accompany him to Tornbury.
If Lydia was amenable to the idea. And pray God, she would be.
Softhearted and kind, he expected she’d accept Al with open arms. If not, Alasdair had a conundrum of monumental proportions.
Though he scarcely knew the little chap, he’d not abandon Al, on the heels of his mother’s death. Neither would Alasdair eschew Lydia.
Not again.
Pressing two fingers to the crook of his nose, he rubbed in a circular motion and released a drawn-out sigh.
What if Searón died before the divorce was granted, or she lingered for years? And he’d have to decide what to do with her if she did. And how he’d pay for her care too.
Ewan couldn’t be expected to bear the burden. Perhaps a nearby cottage, and Alasdair could hire a companion to care for Searón. The lad too, though Alasdair would prefer the boy reside with him.
Nevertheless, he’d bet his beloved Errol that Al would pitch a fit worthy of Poseidon if he took the boy from his mother’s side.
After nursing a bottle of whisky for several hours, Alasdair finally mustered the energy to seek his bed. The luminous night sky, even now, faded around the fringes as dawn opened her drowsy eyes and prepared to rise.
Searón and Al slept the sleep of the exhausted; the slumber one allows when one knows they’re safe after having been fearful for a very, very long time.
Al refused to sleep in his appointed room, instead, faithfully lying on the floor beside his mother. He wouldn’t share her bed either, he’d defiantly decreed.
“She deserves a clean, comfortable bed to herself fer once.”
The boy’s words, not Alasdair’s.
After the first night, Alasdair had asked that a pallet be prepared for the lad. He’d lose his mother soon enough, possibly any day now, and no harm could come of indulging the boy.
They held hands, even in their sleep.
Alasdair’s eyes misted.
Fiercely protective of his mother, Al’s need to be near her touched even Alasdair’s hardened heart. She’d been a good mother to the lad then. Such devotion was earned, and how she’d managed to nurture her son while living as a harlot, he couldn’t imagine.
The boy was his, or else his mother had lain with his twin.
He quirked his mouth upward again.
Excep
t for Al’s bright green eyes—Searón’s eyes—he was indeed a replica of Alasdair and Gregor as laddies. Right down to his unruly fair hair.
Thrashing about, the boy muttered something in his sleep before calming, and his breathing fell into a regular rhythm once more.
How hard and cruel life had been to Al.
So help him, Searón would clarify why she’d kept the boy a secret all these years.
Did the lad understand how ill his mother was? That she lay dying? True, she might linger for weeks or even months, but her fate was sealed.
According to Doctor Paterson, untreated syphilis had attacked her eyes, heart, and nervous system. How the boy managed to get her here was a wonder itself. A miracle, or a testament to his grit and perseverance?
“Alasdair? Be that ye?” Searón stirred, turning her face toward the door, her nearly sightless eyes wide, the pupils button-sized.
“Aye.”
“Be it mornin’ then?” Her voice a wispy shadow of the carefree girl she’d once been, she tried to sit up, and her labored movements awoke Al.
“Mum?” Alert and instantly on his bony knees, he rubbed the sleep from his eyes with his fists. His bare feet, callused and brown, poked out from under his blanket. “Do ye need somethin’? Are ye in pain? Sick? Do ye need the slop jar?”
His gaze shifted to the medicines crowding the night table.
She weakly patted his tousled head. “Nae, me love. Yer father be checkin’ on us. That be all.”
Al shot Alasdair a wary glance as he advanced into the chamber.
Silent and keenly observant, Al’s gaze remained on Alasdair while he lit a wall sconce and stirred the fire into a blaze capable of removing the room’s chill.
Alasdair replaced the fire poker before facing his leery son.
“Al, would ye run to the kitchen, and see if Sorcha has coffee ready yet?” Alasdair’s chance for sleep had passed and he’d need a pot or two to keep his wits about him today. “Ask fer a tray to be brought up. And tell her I said to give ye a couple of Scotch eggs and a cup of hot chocolate to hold ye over until we break our fast. Make sure she tops the chocolate with Devonshire cream.”
Al lifted his mother’s frail hand, her blue veins vivid against her translucent skin. “Will ye be all right, Mum? Can I fetch ye anythin’?”
“Tea and toast, me dear.” She smiled and touched his cheek before sliding Alasdair a nervous, sideways glance. “And mayhap . . . a spot of marmalade?”
The hesitancy and wistfulness in her voice roused Alasdair’s pity. “Aye, Sorcha makes the best marmalade.”
Al kissed Searón’s sunken cheek. “I be right back.”
Alasdair touched Al’s shoulder as he passed. “I need to speak with yer mother, privately, so please knock before ye enter.”
“I dinna want ye upsettin’ her.” Mutiny crumpled the boy’s mouth and forehead.
“I shall be fine.” Searón managed a weak, but encouraging smile. “Yer da’s a kind man. He willna hurt me.”
God’s teeth.
Had the poor child seen men hurt his mother?
Not unheard of or uncommon given her chosen profession.
He stiffened, flashing her a surprised look.
Yer da?
She’d told Al, then.
How long had he known, and what did the scamp make of it?
Given the curious, yet wary look he scraped over Alasdair, not too terribly much.
Once Al had departed, Alasdair hauled a chair near the bed, so she could see him a bit easier. Doctor Paterson said she was nearly blind.
Alasdair hooked an ankle over his knee and waited.
Eyes downcast, Searón plucked at the bedcovering. “I suppose ye want to ken why I kept yer son a secret from ye?”
Chapter 26
Alasdair cocked a brow, fresh anger thickening his blood, and stiffening his spine and resolve. “Aye. That I would.”
He’d been denied the first seven years of his son’s life, had grieved the child’s loss eight long years.
Searón had much to answer for.
She flinched at his tone’s icy bitterness, but nodded, her mouth pressed into a tense ribbon. Her once vibrant red hair had thinned to scraggly wisps scarcely covering her scalp, and her hands trembled. Great grayish-purple rings framed her sunken eyes, giving her a haunted, wraith-like appearance.
She must have contracted the grandgore early on to be this far gone already. Doctor Paterson said some contracting the French pox made a full recovery. Others, like Searón, seemed incapable of fighting the disease’s progression and effects.
The syphilis contagion attacked those unfortunate souls with a vengeance, cruelly tormenting the afflicted, and bringing an early death.
“I never rid meself of the wee bairn. I cudna.” She spared him a wary glance through sparse lashes. “I lied to ye,” she whispered.
“Obviously.” Cutting and terse.
She winced, clenching the coverlet.
He clamped his hands on the arms of his chair.
Dinna be an utter arse.
Searón’s lower lip quivered, and she spoke unsteadily, her gaze riveted on the coverlet that she continued to torture with her broken and jagged nail tips.
“I ken ye be angry, Alasdair, and ye’ve a right to be. But I beg ye, dinna make this any harder fer me than it already be. Fer our son’s sake, if’n ye canna find a speck of kindness or forgiveness in yer heart fer me. He be a good laddie. Honest and loyal.”
Oddly, pity vied as strongly as ire at her deception.
“I beg yer pardon, Searón. I ken this be difficult fer ye. Please go on, and I promise to hold my tongue.”
If he had to bite the damnable thing to still its determined, cantankerous flapping.
Scraping a hand across her eyes, she sighed. “Ye ken I wisna an innocent when we wed. What ye didna ken was me da forced me into servicin’ some of his lofty customers since I be fourteen. He pocketed the coin and threatened to throw me and me wee sisters out onto the street if’n I didna comply.”
“He prostituted ye? His own daughter?” Alasdair reared upward, dropping his booted foot to the floor with a resounding thud. If she’d announced she’d entertained the Pope, he’d not have been more stunned.
She gave a weary nod. “Aye, and he be furious when he returned and discovered I’d married ye and intended to leave.”
Neal had been absent when they’d registered, and a foxed-to-the-gills staggering sot most of the rest of the time Alasdair had been at the inn.
Even his father had commented on the oddity of a young lass running the inn with only a cook, a barkeep, and even younger girls waiting tables and acting as maids.
“Da said if I left with ye, he’d let the men have me sisters. Their mum died when Maeve be only months old, and I took care of the both of them. They only be nine and ten when we wed.”
A lone teardrop trickled down Searón’s gaunt cheek, and she sniffed loudly before snatching a crumpled kerchief from the night table. After dabbing her eyes, she let her head fall back into the pillows and stared at the pleated canopy.
His jaw muscles working as he strove not to swear like a sailor, Alasdair pounded his knee. No doubt, she’d heard worse, but not from his mouth. “God rot his despicable soul.”
“I’d just found out I carried yer bairn when ye came back fer me. I planned on tellin’ ye, and beggin’ ye to take me half-sisters too, but Da let two perverted reprobates take me sisters into a chamber. If’n I left with ye, they’d have their way with the wee girls.” Her tears fell swift and hard, great sobs racking her frail shoulders. “I cudna let them, Alasdair. I cudna. I ken what it be like to be violated over and over.”
Crimping his eyes shut, Alasdair swallowed the bile burning his throat.
All these years he’d hated Searón, had spared her nary a kind thought, and she’d only been protecting her sisters. Guilt, bitter and galling, wrenched his innards. If he’d tried harder, he might have found her, spared her and his son some of the misery and hardships they’d endured.
Instead, he’d damned her and their son to a reprehensible existence. This wretched wraith of a woman who’d been wronged by every person in her life, except their gentle son.
How could Alasdair contemplate divorcing her now? Bring even more heartache on her tormented soul? Surely God would send him straight to hell to gnaw scorching coals right beside Lucifer himself.
Wouldn’t Lydia take that to mean he still loved Searón? She’d be so wounded, thinking she’d been thrown over for another woman. Again. But not for love this time. Never for love.
She’d never forgive him.
Moisture burned behind his lids.
God, how could he let Lydia, the other half of his soul, go?
He must. God help him, he must.
Granted, overwhelming compassion and remorse filled him for Searón, but he didn’t love her. Had never loved her the all-consuming way he did Lydia.
His soul had found its mate in her, even if providence had cruelly determined they couldn’t be together.
Tears pricked again, and he angled his head away, blinking rapidly.
Several moments passed before Searón regained her composure, and he marshaled his as well.
He’d chosen the path of honor and duty rather than love and happiness, and a part of him had died in the last few moments.
Perhaps if they hadn’t a son together, or if she’d been a neglectful mother, Alasdair might’ve justified setting her aside. But they did, and she hadn’t been.
He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “If I’d ken, I would’ve helped ye.”
“I ken that now, but I be too afraid. Da threatened to beat me until I lost yer bairn. Al be all I had of ye. He gave me a reason to live. After ye left, I contacted me sisters’ aunt.” A ghost of a smile tipped her lips. “She loathed Da and agreed to take me sisters in.”
Passion and Plunder Page 20