‘But that’s what I cannot understand. How did his father persuade him to change his mind? I know it was something to do with his dying wishes, but—’
‘But Sir Findlay told him there was more to it than that. He said that I would tell him the reason for the promise when he returned home. Which I did, after Sir Findlay’s death.’
‘I see. So Fergus knows. Then why has he not told me?’
‘Perhaps because his part in the story does him no credit. Do you want to ask him to come in so that we can share our discussion with him?’
Nicola rose. It was what she had been waiting for.
Fergus returned with her a moment later, damp from the spray, his face shining and his eyes twinkling with amusement at Nicola’s commands. ‘I am ordered about on my own boat by two women,’ he said. ‘Lady mother, what is your will?’
Indulgently, she smiled at him and then at Nicola. ‘Sit ye doon, dearie. Ye’ll get a crick in your neck standing up in here. I’m telling Nicola what I told you after your father died because she needs to know, Fergus. And I cannot for the life of me find an easy way to say it.’ She stared at him as if to gain some strength.
‘I can help you out,’ said Nicola, taking pity on her. ‘My father took a mistress well before my mother died. They had a child, a daughter, and you and Sir Findlay agreed to adopt her as your own. Is that correct?’ She kept hold of Fergus’s hand, but now his arm came round her shoulders.
‘You knew?’ he said. ‘How did you find that out?’
‘You will discover,’ she said. ‘Lady Melrose, you were saying a moment ago that Fergus had a part in the story, other than the promise, I mean.’
‘I think Fergus himself can best explain.’
He shifted on the stool, tightening his hold on Nicola. ‘I was a cocky young stripling when this baby appeared in my father’s arms. He and a nurse had brought it all the way from London. My mother had just lost a girl child, while I was away in Salisbury, and, when I returned home, there were my parents with one of almost exactly the same age. Well…’ he cleared his throat of a sudden obstruction ‘…you can imagine what I believed, can’t you? At sixteen, I thought I knew all there was to know about men and their mistresses, and I was convinced it was my father’s bastard got on some woman or other while my mother was bearing his legitimate child. I was disgusted with him. Not only that he could bring it to my mother, but also because she loved him so much that she could take it. Willingly. I believed he’d made use of her grief to foist this babe on her, knowing that she’d not refuse it. My father assured me it was not his, that it was for a friend whose wife had died, but I didn’t believe him because he couldn’t give me any information about it. Naturally. He was probably not given any information either. Had I known it was your father’s, Nicola my love, I might have been able to accept it. But their kindness depended on secrecy, and they were never told who the mother was, and I went on believing that it must be my father’s. I had set him up on a pedestal, you see, and he came crashing down. I hated him for using my mother so, for foisting this girl upon our close family. I wanted nothing to do with her. That’s when they sent me back down to Salisbury, and my world fell apart. I was being sent off, out of the way. I know it’s usual, but that’s how it felt.’
‘You see,’ said Lady Melrose, ‘Fergus and Muir had become very close by that time. Very competitive they were. It would have been difficult enough for them to show an interest in a natural sister, but one brought so suddenly into the family in that fashion was even more so. Neither Sir Findlay nor I realised what a rift it would cause. Muir was less concerned. He’s more easygoing. But Fergus didn’t respond well to the swing of my affection from him and his brother to this little intruder. She howled a lot, although we had good nurses, and she claimed the attention Fergus and Muir had always had.’
‘In short, Mother, I was as jealous as hell and unbelievably spoilt. I felt until then that the world revolved around me, and that a mewling girl-brat in my mother’s arms, my father’s by-blow, was too much to understand. I came to hate the child. I hated my father. I despised you for what I saw as weakness, and girls in general were to be treated with contempt. I make no excuses. I was intolerable. Perhaps I should have been given a good thrashing.’
‘Your father knew the problem, love, but I suppose he thought that you’d get over it, eventually. Lord Coldyngham’s kindness was the most wonderful, generous gesture at that time.’
‘But you were not pleased, Fergus,’ said Nicola. ‘And that was when you came over to Coldyngham Manor to see what you’d been promised to. And you didn’t want me.’
‘I didn’t want any female, sweetheart. It was nothing to do with you personally. I had to show my father how I was refusing to co-operate with his plan because it was my way of hurting him back, and I didn’t want him telling me who I should marry, even one of the great Coldyngham family. I had to show them I didn’t need the connection, that I was good enough without it. And you, scruffy little tomboy—’ he kissed her forehead and the tip of her nose ‘—were like a shadow I couldn’t shake off, falling into this and that, following us everywhere. And then I saw you at Bishops-gate, and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing, even dressed in lad’s clothes, as you used to be whenever I called. The most outrageously lovely thing I’d ever beheld. I fell in love with you on the spot, Nicola Coldyngham. All my plans ruined in one quick glance.’ He smiled at his mother’s astonishment. ‘Remind me to tell you, love, what a hellish time I’ve had getting her to accept me.’
‘Well, dear, I’m not in the least surprised if you were as nasty to little Nicola as you had been to the rest of us. You were obedient, but only just.’
‘You fell in love?’ said Nicola. ‘No, you didn’t. You were extremely bad-mannered, uncivil, and just as you’d always been.’ She felt the vibrations of his laugh upon the back of her hand as he kissed it. ‘Horrid man.’ The memory of where his kisses had been since those early days made her feel giddy.
Lady Melrose’s hand moved towards her, bringing her back to the subject. ‘You discovered some of this for yourself, Nicola. May I ask how?’
‘By living next door to the priory,’ she said, ‘where my father had stayed so much when he should have been at home with his family. The prioress sent for me.’
Then she told them, in full detail, about what the prioress had asked of her, giving them the dates, and eventually producing the tiny lock of hair that made Fergus’s mother weep with sweet memories of Kitty’s infancy. ‘A copper-haired little mite, she was. A tiny, bonny wee lass.’ She folded the envelope of paper, holding it close to her heart. ‘And now she’s a bonny lassie of thirteen, and you’ll love her, Nicola. She’s heard of you, you know.’
‘Where is she now, my lady?’
‘She’s staying with Muir and his wife to help with the new bairn. She has no idea, of course, that she’s actually a Coldyngham instead of a Melrose. When I told Fergus about the babe, that it was not Sir Findlay’s but Lord Coldyngham’s, it was enough to make him go down to London and to see for himself whether he could pick up the pieces and marry the woman of his father’s choice.’ She turned her head upon the pillow to smile at her handsome son.
‘It was not only for my father’s sake,’ he said, ‘but for yours too, love. You so much wanted daughters, didn’t you? Coldyngham daughters.’
‘No, being a noblewoman has less to do with it than you think, Fergus. I saw Nicola but once when she was a wee babe in her mother’s arms, at her christening, and I knew she’d be a beauty, even then. Beautiful mother, handsome father. How could she not be? And I was not wrong, either. Lovely nature, too. I guess you were only just in time, my lad.’
‘I think my timing was just about perfect, Mother,’ he said.
The two women’s eyes met in mutual amusement, accompanied by the flick of one grey fading eyebrow. She knew her son’s ways as well as anyone. And though Nicola was tempted to tell her how that fateful meeting had come about, she decid
ed that her patient could do without the inevitable shock it would cause. Sons did not, on the whole, set about wounding the women they intended to marry.
But no one, not even Fergus or Ramond, could experience Nicola’s jubilation at the certainty of having a sister after all the years of being a forlorn girl in a family of boys. Transformed with happiness, she glowed with a new and radiant light at the gifts that had suddenly come her way; the husband of her dreams, the longed-for sister, and now a very dear but frail mother. Suddenly, her family had grown in all directions. It was a miracle how everything had fallen into place so perfectly.
The emotion and the sharing of stories had exhausted Lady Melrose and soon, in the small cabin, she gave herself over to sleep and the peace that lay upon her. Lavender and Ramond sat over on the other side, whispering and holding hands, relieved that the last barriers had been lifted. It was time, they said.
In Fergus’s cabin, however, there was a confrontation of sorts that any outsider watching might have misinterpreted as a clear case of the scolding woman. ‘Perfect timing!’ the woman was saying, scathingly. ‘Your timing was quite disgraceful! You walked into my house…uninvited…unannounced, and then… Get off me! No, Fergus! Listen to me.’
She was lifted high into the air, almost thrown on to the bunk-bed and then held down with a hand over her wrists while the other began to undo the set of tiny buttons at the top of her bodice. ‘I’m listening,’ he said. ‘Go on. You were saying?’
‘I was saying, you great brute, that your arrogance is…no…you must not, Fergus. I’ve changed my mind after hearing all that…please!’
‘After all what?’ he said. In one move, he was over her, bending his head to her breasts, taking her mind off the subject. Teasing her with his lips, he gave especial attention to a newly healed wound, stirring her as he had done from the beginning in his various ways, at first unwittingly, then by every means at his disposal. ‘I’d rather you didn’t change your mind now,’ he whispered. ‘If I told you I was in love with you, would it make any difference?’ His mouth continued to taste her skin, sending shivers into her thighs.
‘How can I believe that, Fergus Melrose? Have you reformed?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not much. But I am in love with you.’
‘And your arrogance? Is that going to improve?’
‘No,’ he said, kissing her. When she began to soften, which did not take long, he went into more detail. ‘My lovemaking might improve though, with enough practice. Could you love me a little, if it did?’
Cradling his head in her arms, she nibbled at his earlobe, the one with the gold earring in it. ‘I’m past that stage,’ she whispered. ‘I’m loving you already. Tomorrow it will be more, and then more. I’ve always loved you. You must know that I have and, yes, before you ask, it was fear that put me off. You scared me half to death, Fergus.’
‘Forgive me, sweetheart. I’m sorry, truly I am. I was scared too, of having to share my mother’s love and of losing all respect for my father. I should have known better. Is it true that you’ve always loved me, sweetheart? I don’t deserve it.’
‘Deserving doesn’t have a lot to do with it, beloved. And I wouldn’t call broken ribs nothing, either. I’ve never felt safer than when I’m with you, saving that first dreadful meeting of ours at Bishops-gate.’
His lips were already travelling along the soft peaks and troughs of her neck and shoulders, his hands setting her alight as they helped her out of her kirtle, baring her completely. ‘This is how I saw you then, Nicola Coldyngham. On your bed, helpless under me, waiting for my loving. I could have taken you then, right there, as you were, wounded and angry.’ His eyes were dark with desire as she had seen them on that occasion, searching her, ready to dominate.
‘Then take me now,’ she said, ‘as you wanted to. Come, take me.’
The light closed in upon them and the ship bounded ahead like a powerful horse through the surf, setting the stage yet again where they came together like duellists, both bent on conquest, but one of them knowing that to be vanquished was inevitable. But now there was the music of the water and the distant singing of pilgrims and their own cries of rapture. And the newest sound of all. ‘I love you, Fergus. Beloved. I love you, more than I ever thought possible.’
They had five days of sailing in which to repeat their intimate and housebound loving which, after all, seemed to be the very best way of sharing the secrets of each other’s heart and body. One would have thought that two such proud characters would get on each other’s nerves, after a while, but that did not happen. Not once. There was far too much for them to do, to discover and enjoy. Lady Melrose needed their attention, for one, and although she made good progress, Nicola had to tell Fergus that they must marry quite soon while she was still with them to take part. That was a sobering thought. But the news on their return gave her some joy, for Muir was now the proud father of a son, his wife was well and wanted her mother-in-law to choose a name for him. Bertrand, she had said, after a friend of theirs.
There was a sadness, though, to balance the joys, one being that the two fathers would never see their off-spring united, nor would Nicola be able to tell Prioress Sophie what she had so longed to hear from her lips and no one else’s. To counter this, Nicola and Fergus sent a message to Kitty at Muir’s home in Melrose to say that they were looking forward to seeing them all at the wedding. And what a wedding that would be.
If new relationships were about to be cemented, new partnerships were also forming at an alarming rate. Rosemary and Captain Ben Munro had decided on a life together up in Scotland and, if Sir Fergus would release him, he had a mind to set up as a merchant there, for there was money to be had in the pilgrim trade, and not half so much hard work. A wife would be a boon in that kind of living, with a wee cott on land for the winter months, and a blasphemous parrot to keep them amused until a brood of children should appear.
Ramond and Lavender, as gentle a couple as you could find, wished to stay on as part of Nicola and Fergus’s family in exactly the same capacities, just as Lady Charlotte had predicted. Ramond was indeed in his element and had never been happier, especially when Fergus offered him a house up on Moorgate.
Lotti did not like to say I-told-you-so, but her prediction regarding the miscreant Patrick came remarkably close to the truth and, on his return from Flanders, the difference was unbelievable. ‘I’m hooked,’ he told them, beaming and full of himself. ‘I’m going to stay on the ship.’
‘If Fergus doesn’t mind,’ said Fergus, sternly.
‘Oh, yes, if you don’t mind, Fergus.’
‘What as, may I ask?’
‘As navigator. Your captain says I’m a natural.’
‘What, across to Flanders and back? Who needs a navigator?’
‘No, we’re going to go further afield. The captain says—’
Fergus beckoned and took him aside for a good talking-to, but his face afterwards was unreadable, and Nicola could get no more out of him.
As for the rabbit Melrose, there had been a gap in George’s garden wall through which the white creature in the blue harness had hopped when no one was looking, with the result that the children reported seeing a litter of brown and white baby rabbits in the adjoining orchard. ‘They must have been seeing things, George dear,’ Lotti said.
‘No, they haven’t. I’ve seen them too. Melrose was never a girl’s name. He should never have been given aquamarines to wear, either.’
George’s opinion about Fergus’s other gift to Nicola was perhaps less critical, even a little on the envious side, for on the day of their wedding, Fergus had laid around her throat the most amazing necklace of rubies any of them had ever seen. And, like the first time, there were a few tears, though now he stayed to mop them.
‘I have something for you too,’ she said, laughing a little.
‘Where?’ he said, placing a hand over her beautiful gown of violet brocade, low down. ‘There?’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘
Down there. A brand new Fergus Melrose, I think.’
‘Wonderful woman. Start choosing some genuine girl’s names, my love. You know how men sometimes get these things wrong.’
So they called her Beth, after Lady Melrose, which would have pleased her.
ISBN: 978-1-4592-2975-4
HIS DUTY, HER DESTINY
Copyright © 2006 by Juliet Landon
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Table of Contents
Praise
Title Page
Available from Harlequin® Historical and JULIET LANDON
Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
His Duty, Her Destiny Page 23