Questions for a Highlander

by Angeline Fortin

  Eve buried her face in his neck and clung to him. Emotions that she had never known assailed her. Dizzying desire, desperation. Duty. She had no idea how to handle it all.

  “Sweet Eden, what is it that troubles you so?”

  Eve savored the closeness of his body for a moment then jerked herself away turning to stare out over the nearby pond. “This is madness,” she whispered more to herself than to him. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”

  “I feel the same,” he whispered behind her. “It’s simply too fantastic to understand.”

  She stared out at the ducks as they paddled around bemoaning her near engagement to a man she did not love. Bemoaning the fact that she couldn’t have met Francis sooner.

  She heard the footsteps behind her but did not turn her body. She tensed with anticipation. His bare hand caressed her upper arm and slid down into her hand. His fingers entwined again with hers as they met. She clenched his hand glorying in the heat, and for the briefest moment leaned back against him with a contented sigh. His head lowered as his warm breath caressed the side of her neck. He inhaled the scent of her.

  “Paradise… ” he moaned against her neck, causing her body to quiver. “Sweet Paradise… ”

  Eve tilted her head to the side to allow his lips greater access to her neck. Her hand clenched his tightly while his tongue, lips and teeth explored and lingered on the throb of her pulse.

  Unable to bear it any longer, Eve turned in his embrace and raised her lips to his in invitation. Framing her face in his hands, Francis bent his head, brushing his lips tenderly across hers back and forth. He caught her lips then in a light kiss before settling more deeply into it. His lips were firm as they moved over hers and Eve was shocked by the electric sensations that passed between them. It might have only been her first kiss but instinctively she knew that this was a rare moment. Heat and passion mixed with tenderness as their lips melded over and over.

  Turning his head, Francis deepened the kiss, sucking lightly on her lips, prompting Eve to play on her earlier fantasy and pull his into her mouth in return. His tongue played gently at her lips, teasing and tickling, but didn’t intrude farther as Eve had heard a man might. Instead, it seemed he matched his kiss to her innocence but it was overwhelming nonetheless. Francis’ hand played up her arm to caress her shoulder, her throat, before sweeping down over her breast and moving on to cup her buttocks pulling her closely to him.

  When he pressed himself against her, blood roared in Eve’s head and for the first time in her life, she thought she might swoon.

  “Evie!”

  Eve jerked back from Francis as Kitty hissed frantically at her. A quick glance found her sister staring at her, wide eyed. Rather than looking shocked, she appeared rather fascinated as she waved insistently at her sister. Eve had to wonder how long she had been standing there. “Mother is searching for you. You had better come in.”

  Eve staggered back from Francis, her hand touched her lips in amazement before reaching out to touch his. He grasped her hand and kissed it. “May I see you again, Eden?”

  “Yes, Francis,” the words fell independently from her lips. She would just have to talk to her mother and explain to her that she had met someone and maybe an earldom was not the most important thing. “Tomorrow?”

  “I cannot come tomorrow,” his regret was obvious. “I have a business meeting in the morning. I will come in the following day… the residence with the slamming door?”

  An enchanted smile broke out over her face. “Yes, the house with the slamming door.”

  “Until then,” he kissed her hand again, nodded to her sister and melted into the darkness of the garden.

  “Oh! Evie!” Kitty whispered in her ear as she practically dragged Eve into the house. Eve followed blindly in a trance-like state still reeling from the intimacy of her first kiss. “I have never seen anything… anything! so romantic in my entire life! What was it like? He is so handsome!”

  Eve covered her still tingling lips with her hand and blinked with a dazed smile at her sister. replaying the wonder again and again in her mind. It had been so perfect! He was so perfect! Francis. Her Francis. Surely everything would change now! “Oh, Kitty! You have no idea! It was better than anything we had ever imagined. I’ve never felt anything so… so anything! Not in my entire life!”

  “I cannot wait to hear it all,” her sister’s excitement was tangible. “I am so envious!”

  “Oh, Kitty,” Eve’s eyes shimmered with innocent tears of awe and wonder, “is it truly possible? Is there love at first sight? I declare I’m in a daze!”

  They entered the brightly lit ballroom arm in arm giggling together just as Margaret Preston approached. Eve’s mother grabbed her hand, separating her from Kitty as she dragged her along and hissed in her ear, “Where have you been?” Not waiting for an answer, Mrs. Preston pushed her into a group of people that included her father and two other familiar looking gentlemen. Eve looked around trying to understand what was going on. Why was she standing up here in front of the entire assembly? The question was never verbalized, but answered nonetheless as the music came to a halt and their hostess, Lady Hyde – Francis’ grandmother! – stepped forward.

  “Ladies and gentleman!” Lady Hyde called to the crowd with a clap of her hands. “Ladies, lords! Your attention please! It gives me great pleasure that this announcement will be made at my little gathering! Lord Shaftesbury has just granted me permission to announce the engagement of his son, Lord William, to Miss Evelyn Preston! Let us all raise our glasses to toast the happy couple! To the future Lord and Lady Hindon!”

  “Hear! Hear!” voices around Eve chorused as Lady Hyde kissed her cheek and gave her over to the younger of the two gentlemen next to her. Eve looked up into features vaguely familiar as the gentleman raised her hand and kissed it so formally.

  “To us, my dear Miss Preston,” he murmured with a bow, as Evelyn stood frozen in shock, uncertain what had just happened to her.

  Chapter 6

  Eve went down to breakfast the next morning still in a shocked daze over the events of the previous night. It had all happened so quickly, but surely, it had not truly happened as she remembered. Surely, she was not betrothed? It was wrong, so wrong! Yet as she entered the dining room, her mother waved the morning edition of the Times with a satisfied smile. “Look, dearest!”

  There it was in print.

  Lord Robert Ashley-Cooper, 11th Earl of Shaftesbury, is pleased to announce the engagement of his son William, Viscount Hindon, to Evelyn Elisabeth Preston, daughter of American shipping magnate Lelan Preston….

  “Are you honestly telling me that I am to marry a man I barely know? Just a couple of days ago it was only a possibility! Now it’s reality? Why didn’t you tell me? Warn me?” Evelyn’s mind was a whirl as she read the words that brought the reality of the situation home. They had obviously planned the events of the previous evening ahead of time – without her knowledge – to have gotten the announcement into the morning’s paper. They had known, but had said nothing. Her eyes burned with betrayal as she turned to her father who was still reading his paper. “Da? Please? This is not how you promised me this would happen.”

  Preston sighed as he laid aside his paper. “Evie, me lass, we’ve been here three months already and ye’ve shown no preference to any of the lads who’ve asked me for your hand. I cannae be gone from New York forever, so I picked one for you. Shaftesbury is a good man; I’ve worked with him for years. Good business sense. I’m sure his son will be no different. Besides, Hindon has taken a strong liking to you and has been persistent in his appeal for your hand since we met him in New York last autumn.”

  “You’ve engaged me to the son of the owner of one of Preston Shipping’s English competitors, because his father has a good business sense?” She was getting her Irish up, she knew, but it was a better feeling than the queasy sickness that had been plaguing her all night. “You don’t care that I barely know him? That perhaps there is someone
else I’d rather marry?”

  “I have done as I promised and given ye to a young, pleasant gentleman. He has all the qualities you require,” Preston insisted. “Besides, you have not shown a preference before.”

  “Well, I’m showing one now!” she retorted her voice rising, quivering. “Besides, he isn’t young!”

  “Who do you prefer then?”

  “Francis…” Eve faltered. Francis what? Had she not gotten his full name? “Lady Hyde’s grandson. I met him last night.”

  “Yet, he did not seek an introduction to us,” her mother tempered the argument with a calm logic.

  “He will. He’s going to call…” she started swallowing deeply as an abyss of desperation opened before her. She couldn’t let this happen! “Da, why can I not marry Francis instead of some man I barely know?”

  “And ye know this lad better?” He shook his head in denial. “I think not, lass, what’s done is done. Besides, a lad approaches you without coming to your mother or me for an introduction? You know he is probably a fortune hunter out to charm you or compromise you into marriage,” Preston argued.

  “He’s not like that! I know he’s not!” She clutched desperately at her father’s sleeve. He wasn’t, was he? Surely he wasn’t just out to compromise her into marriage to win her father’s fortune. He had said he felt the magic as much as she. There was no way to fake that. Was there? Besides, he didn’t even know who she was! Or did he? The confusion was rife.

  “Enough from you, me lass. I have had enough this morning. Tomorrow we will depart for the earl’s Dorset estate to finalize the engagement and settlement, then we will finally return to New York. You will wed Hindon and that is that.” He brushed her hands from his sleeve with a rough pat.

  Eve was stung. Her whole life her Da had pampered her, spoiled her. He had kept her mother from pushing her too hard with rules and high society. Yet in the space of just hours he had gone from her champion to her executioner.

  “Why, Da?” she cried softly, as Kitty reached out to her and clutched her hands in sympathy, supporting.

  “Your mother wants the earl for you and I am not going to live forever. I am an old man already. It is a good match,” he sighed heavily. “What do you know of this lad you met?”

  “He’s…” Eve stumbled to a halt realizing she didn’t know anything about him at all, other than he was in town visiting his grandmother, had a large family and was from Scotland. She knew only what he made her feel. “He’s a good person, Da.”

  “I am making you a countess, Evie. Ye cannot throw that all away on some London city dandy who probably only wanted ye for yer inheritance.”

  “He doesn’t know, Da!” she insisted, though doubt had begun to creep in.

  “Are ye sure, lass? Are you sure he didn’t know who ye are?” he asked craftily, knowing that every man in the city was aware of his daughters and what a marriage to them might bring. “I thought not,” he answered, when her silence prevailed. “We will leave on the morrow.”

  “But, Da!” Eve cast around desperately. She had to be able to stay! She must see Francis again! “Kitty has yet to find a husband!”

  “Kitty will wed Mr. Hayes of Boston. His father has written asking for her again as he had before we traveled here. Your mother and I discussed it this morning. Since she has not settled on a titled gent here and shows no inclination to do so, she will be engaged to her previous suitor,” he informed her. “Since you had no suitors in New York, we had wanted to see you settled with a title.”

  “A title it will be,” Eve cried out feeling as if her world were shattering into a thousand pieces. “A countess, as you wish it. So be it, Da, but you break my heart to do it.” Bursting into tears, Eve ran from the room.

  With a sigh, Lelan Preston rubbed his chest painfully as he watched his eldest daughter flee the room. The intermittent pain had returned. Rich as he might be, Lelan could not control the hand of fate, could not extend life beyond that with which God had blessed him. He was in his sixty-fourth year already with time and infirmity closing in on his heels. His girls might not as yet understand his motivations for seeing their futures settled but surely they would one day.

  “Good morning, Mrs. Preston,” he offered heavily as he rose to leave the room.

  Mind racing in extreme anxiety, Eve dashed out the front door. It was still early! Perhaps Francis had not left yet. If she could catch him maybe he could come to meet her father and convince him that there were other options than wedding her to a near stranger. Absurd! She thought. Francis was a stranger! But, oh! it did not feel that way. She knew she could be happy with him.

  The door on a hansom cab was just being closed and the coachman lifting himself into the seat as Eve raced down the street. “Sir! Please wait! Please!” she cried. Eve pulled at the window. “Francis! Are you in there?”

  Francis stuck his head from the window. “Eden? What is the matter? Could you not wait a while longer?” he teased.

  “Francis, I must speak with you just for a moment!”

  The seriousness of her voice gave him pause. “What is it?”

  “I know this is wrong, we’ve just met after all, but I need you to speak with my father.” Eve faltered not knowing what she expected him to do, only that something must be done. “I want…I know I cannot expect…”

  “You are terrifying me, lass.”

  “My father is making me get married, Francis! I need you to tell him that there might be a chance that maybe someday…that perhaps we might…” Eve bit her lip as Francis frowned and looked away.

  “You want me to tell him that I want to marry you instead?”

  A rush of relief flowed through Eve. He understood! Of course he did! Didn’t he say that he had felt it, too? That there was something between them? “Yes, Francis, of course not right away, but…” she stopped as he held up his hand.

  “Eden, I cannot marry you.” His face flushed with guilt, regrets pounding profoundly in his heart. “Not now or ever.”

  “Why?” she whispered, trembling. A ghost of dread shivered down her spine as he gazed into Francis’ closed expression.

  “Because I am already married,” he whispered in return, and watched her flee back up the street.

  Part 2

  Chapter 7

  What does not destroy me makes me stronger.

  - Friedrich Nietzsche

  Raven’s Craig Castle

  Glenrothes, Scotland

  April 1892

  Evelyn née Preston, now Lady Ashley-Cooper, Countess of Shaftesbury, sat motionless on a bench in the shade of a large gnarled oak overlooking the pebbled beach of the Firth of Forth. From a distance, one might have had the impression of a timeless painting, so still was she. Her posture was stiff, her back straight. One gloved hand held her lacy parasol aloft just so in order to keep the remaining morning sun from touching her face. Her black woolen serge gown was adorned with jet beads and an enameled broach at her throat. The height of fashion… at least for one in mourning. Her other hand held a small book at eye level.

  Though she might have appeared engrossed by the book’s contents, in truth the countess was not paying it the slightest attention. Instead, she was thinking about the significance of the day.

  One year ago that day, on April 13th of 1891, she had sat with her family in a carriage at the port of New York as the steamliner SS Anglia was disembarked not only by its regular passengers but also the 153 survivors of the Anchor Line steamship, the SS Utopia. New York had been the original destination of the Utopia before it had sunk off Gibraltar just four weeks before, killing a reported 574 of the passengers and crew on board.

  Her husband, William, once just Lord Hindon but then Earl of Shaftesbury, returning from a business trip to Italy, had been booked on that ship.

  Her father’s position in the shipping industry had allowed them to pull their coach onto the dock to within just thirty feet of the gangplank from which the liner’s passengers were disembarking. Four weeks with
out a word from William. Four weeks wondering if he was lost as they assumed, or would arrive on the Anglia that day with the others who had survived the Utopia tragedy.

  Evelyn had sat in the carriage hunched and tense as she gripped Kitty’s hands in hers. Surely if William had survived it would have occurred to him to make mention to her via telegram as other survivors had. If not to her, he would have never forgotten his man of business. Surely not. He must have perished!

  I didn’t want him dead, she told herself firmly as she stared at the book before her, denying even now the morbid wishes for her husband’s demise. I never wanted him to die, to actually die, I just wanted to be free, free of him. But not that way.

  She recalled how, as the passengers had continued to disembark, her agitation had sent her nerves over the edge as hope mixed with dread that William would come down the gangplank hale, hearty and whole. Reluctant guilt filled her when she had admitted to herself the hope was not for his survival, but for his demise. In her heart, she prayed that he would not be there, would not be among the survivors.

  “Don’t worry, dearest,” her mother had assured her, leaning across to pat her hand. “I’m sure everything will be fine. I’m sure William is just fine.”

  A sound halfway between a sob and a hysterical laugh had escaped Evelyn’s lips as she glanced at her mother, then to her father who just regarded her with a steady gaze that had done much for Evelyn’s composure. “Worry not, daughter, one way or the other, it will end here.”

  Even now Evelyn recalled that warm wave of affection which had rolled over her at his words. Thank God she had finally gotten the nerve to talk to her father after William had left on his trip. She had taken a chance on her father’s love and support that had failed her years before, finally telling him the truth of her marriage and begging his help to gain a divorce from William. If William had stepped off that ship, her father would have supported her decision to proceed with a divorce despite the protests that her mother would most assuredly voice over the scandal. Either way, she would have her freedom. But still….