Questions for a Highlander

by Angeline Fortin

  She had even been paid a visit by Jack Astor, in the company of his mother, of course. While Mrs. Astor chatted over tea with Maggie, Jack strolled with Kitty arm in arm through the gardens, teasing her over how they were all determined suddenly to see her wed and, if he were yet a bachelor, he would join the queue for her hand.

  Kitty laughed with him, but inside her heart ached for she knew there was only one man who might ever convince her to wed again, and that man was not in New York to join the jockeying for her hand. That infuriating man had left her without a backward glance.

  Why did life have to be so difficult? Everyone she knew who found love had sacrificed for it. Abby waited years to get her Richard, Eve even longer. Was there no couple who merely looked upon another and said ‘This is love. Let us live happily together’? Even Cinderella hadn’t had it so easy. Kitty cast a sorrowful eye upon her mother. “Did you love Da, Mother?”

  Maggie nodded to the seamstress to leave the room, and moved to sit next to Kitty on the low platform. “Why do you ask?”

  “Curiosity, I suppose,” Kitty shrugged. “I’d never thought to ask before. I always thought so, of course, but…”

  A soft smile curved Maggie’s lips as she stared off across the room. “Yes, my darling, I did love him very much. I still do, in fact.”

  “Was it…” Kitty bit back the awkwardness of asking such a thing of one’s mother. “Was it love at first sight?”

  Her mother laughed merrily. “Oh, no! Not at all!” She took her daughter’s hand and smiled up at her, looking in that moment far younger and more radiant than a woman of her years. “You must remember your father was quite a bit older than I. I was just a girl when I first met him. Lelan had come to our house for a dinner party – he was doing some sort of business with Father – and I ran into him in the hallway. He was so tall, quite burly. He was very striking in his looks, with his dark hair. His eyes, so green like your own, were piercing. I believe my first impression of him was that he was a bit terrifying. I thought his accent very low. He was nothing like the fashionable gentleman I imagined I would marry one day.”

  “What made you change your mind?” Kitty asked inquisitively, charmed by the description her mother presented.

  “Lelan came to our house often and I soon found that under that intimidating exterior was a man of intelligence and humor, and very handsome as well, though not a dandy like so many of the gentlemen I knew. I started looking forward to his visits.” A secret smile stole across Maggie’s lips. “He caught me in the gardens right after I turned eighteen, asked me if I was done growing up so he might finally marry me. He felt quite the rogue for pursuing me, I think. He disparaged the difference in our ages and waited through a whole year so I might make sure there was no younger man nearer my age I wanted. But there was never another for me.

  “No, Kitty, I didn’t love him at first sight, but I loved him more with every glance that followed.”

  Her throat tightened and tears burned at Kitty’s eyes with her mother’s touching confession. “I’m so sorry he was taken from you, Mama. I’m sorry that, because of me, you don’t have him anymore.”

  Maggie blinked, a tear escaping her eye and trailing down her cheek. “Oh, my darling! You aren’t still feeling guilty are you? I thought we had put an end to that months ago!” When Kitty could do no more than shake her head, Maggie pulled her daughter into her arms and embraced her fiercely. “If I had known, I would have said something sooner. Katherine, your father was dying anyway. If Mr. Hayes hadn’t done it, his heart would have done the trick soon enough.”

  “What?”

  “Your father was not a young man, you know. He was past his seventieth year,” her mother went on. “He’d had issue with his heart for years and even had an attack last year.”

  “Why did you never say anything? To me? To Eve?” Kitty cried in her arms. “We would have been here with him if we had known!”

  “He didn’t want it that way,” Maggie explained. “You know him. He never wanted to make a fuss. The doctors badgered him for years to give up his work and rest but he never would. He lived his life on his terms.”

  “Da was a stubborn man,” Kitty murmured, and felt her mother’s nod against her head.

  “After thirty years, I knew that well,” Maggie chuckled a bit. “So no more guilt from you, young lady. At least he went without pain or suffering, he might not have been so lucky in the long run.”

  Kitty’s thoughts were roiling with this new information. Months of guilt that Jack’s berating and her mother’s soothing hadn’t been able to set aside were – while not expunged – at least dimmed a bit. Finally, she might be able to move from under the cloud that had hung over her for so many months. “I’m glad to learn you loved each other so. I had always thought you might, but I wasn’t certain. You were very lucky.”

  “I know.” Maggie frowned, taking a deep breath. “And I suppose I owe you…and Evelyn, an apology for not allowing you to make your own decisions about whom you would wed. For not allowing you to find the same love I had. All I can say in my defense is that I was certain at the time that the matches we had made would make you happy in the end. As for your father, he feared dying before you were well settled. I hate that we were so wrong.”

  Kitty hugged her mother. “You needn’t apologize Mother, at least Evie found her love in the end. She and Francis are utterly blissful together.”

  “But what of you?” Maggie asked softly. “What about finding your own bliss?”

  Kitty didn’t pretend to misunderstand. Her mother had been baiting her for answers for months. “He left me, Mother.”

  “You should have gone with him then,” Maggie lectured.

  “But Jack doesn’t love me.”

  “Of course he does. From a completely objective view of things, I believe Haddington is rather terrified of you,” her mother teased.

  Kitty released a very unladylike snort. “I would hardly call you objective when it comes to Lord Haddington, Mother.”

  “Oh, pish-posh, my dear,” Maggie waved off the set-down. “I know what I saw, and I saw a man in love but too afraid to confess it. All men are like that before they realize they are in love. You wait and see. Even Evelyn said so before she left. He will prove his love to you. Love will conquer all.” Kitty stared at her mother, agog at her words. Eve had said that? Eve, who had hated Jack Merrill from their first meeting? She had warned Kitty again and again about him, questioning his motives. Warnings Kitty had ignored, of course. Eve knew Kitty loved Jack with all her heart – she continued to wonder how and why – but hadn’t offered much reassurance that those feelings would ever be returned. Now Kitty had found out Eve was certain Jack loved Kitty as well? “I’m stunned, Mother, simply stunned to hear such a thing ever fell from Evie’s lips.”

  “It did, and since you’ve brought it up, I think you were a fool to let the earl leave,” her mother continued baldy.

  “I know you wanted another earl for a son-in-law, Mother, but Jack simply wasn’t going to marry me,” Kitty rejoined. “It was better just to let him go. You should have seen his face when I told him I love him. Why he looked…”

  “Terrified?” Maggie cut in with a smug smile, pleased to have her suspicions validated.

  “Well, yes, I suppose so,” was her daughter’s grudging admission.

  Maggie wrapped a maternal arm around Kitty’s shoulders and gave her an affectionate squeeze. “While it would be pleasing to have you marry a high title as well, what I really want now is for my daughters to be happy. As you said, Eve has found her happiness but I want you to have yours as well. It is clear you love Haddington and, to me, it is equally clear he loves you in return.”

  “He left me, Mother,” she reminded once more.

  “And, as I said, you should have gone with them and fought for him!”

  “Open pursuit would only make Jack run harder, Mother. He’s just not the marrying sort. Even if he knew he could have all my money…” Kitty
stopped with a sigh and shook her head. “No, I would never tell him. If he were ever to want my hand in marriage, I’d rather he did it without knowing it was a hand that held a fortune.”

  “A Preston would never give in so easily,” Maggie chided. “Your father fought his way up from nothing to become one of the wealthiest men in New York. He fought from the lowest rung of Society to marry a woman most considered out of his reach and, I assure you, it did not go easily for him! Are you, Lelan Preston’s daughter, truly going to sit there and tell me that you have given up?”

  I am a Preston! The words came back to her, much as they had when she had arrived in Scotland a shadow of the woman she was raised to be. When had a Preston ever failed to fight back from certain defeat? It had taken years for her to remember who she was and fight back against Freddie, to fight for her divorce. Was she truly going to let years go by before she fought for Jack?

  A fire lit her eyes and, though she said nothing, Maggie noted the look and smiled with satisfaction. “I have a mind to see my next grandchild born,” she said casually, as if she hadn’t just incited a riot in Kitty’s conscience. “It occurred to me that Evelyn gave birth to my first grandchild without her mother being there for her, and I’ve decided I simply cannot allow another to pass. I’ve heard Scotland is lovely this time of year.”

  Kitty met her mother’s amused gaze with a raised brow. “Where would you have heard that, Mother? I’ve heard it gets damn cold fairly early in Scotland.”

  Maggie waved a dismissive hand. “I guess one must simply discover the truth for oneself then. Evelyn tells me those new Anchor Line steamships are most luxurious as well.”

  “All the comforts of home.”

  “I do so hate to travel alone though.”

  Kitty’s lips twitched sardonically. “Are you actually going to try to get me to travel to Scotland on such a feeble premise, Mrs. Preston?”

  “Is it really going to require more, Mrs. Hayes?” Maggie raised a haughty brow.

  “My name is Preston, Mother.”

  Maggie clasped her daughter to her, whispering in her ear, “I know it is, darling.”

  Chapter 41

  The way to love anything is to realize that it might be lost.

  - G.K. Chesterton

  Carlton Terrace

  Edinburgh, Scotland

  October 1892

  Jack took another long pull on his whiskey as he stared down at the thick paperboard rectangle he held in his hands for what seemed to be the thousandth time since his return to Scotland. If Kitty meant this gift to be a constant reminder of her, she certainly succeeded, for Jack knew he would never look upon another woman with desire when he could look at this instead. This photograph of Kitty.

  It was a pose he had seen of some famous actresses on the cards often included with cigars, but never had he seen a photograph of a lady in so provocative a pose. Kitty laid on her back a chaise longue. She wasn’t looking at the camera but rather up at the ceiling, her unbound hair spread like flowing honey about her and an indefinable expression visible on her face even in profile. Her long neck arched back a bit and she had one arm thrown over her head while the other was wrapped around her waist. From there down, her hips and legs were turned to the side toward the camera, with the lower leg straight and the other bent, accenting the rounded curve of her hip and hiding her most private place.

  This was a good thing, because Kitty was nude in the picture.

  Oh, not technically nude. She was wearing a thin black silken dressing gown that was held closed only by the hand at her waist. At the front, a wide, plunging V exposed the flesh of much of her chest and just a curve of her breasts. Even through the gown, despite the sepia tones of the photograph, he could see the rosy flush of her skin, the upward rise of her breasts, the darker tips and the shadows just beneath. Her top leg broke through the lower portion of the robe and crossed over the other. His thumb absently stroked the bared flesh of her thigh and down to her bare foot, remembering the silky feel of her soft skin. His breath caught in his throat again for Kitty gave every impression of a woman recently spent of passion.

  Just looking at the photograph made Jack long to stoke those fires once more.

  He had been speechless for almost an hour when he first opened it in his stateroom aboard the Germanic, staring down with shock at her bare flesh. Instantaneous arousal followed, and sprang to life with each subsequent viewing. After the shock had worn off, he wondered where she’d had it taken and when…and what she had been thinking when she did it, for Kitty Hayes was a modest woman in public and there was not an ounce of that to be found here. Imagining her lying nude in the presence of another man prompted a rush of jealous frustration.

  It never lasted long, though, for usually he was too taken by the sensual portrait to think of anything but her.

  Pulling the note that accompanied the photograph out of his pocket, he unfolded the worn creases and once again read the words she had written, baring her soul to him:

  I’ve always been a dreamer, Jack. Perhaps I’ve read too much poetry, too many novels, I don’t know.

  But, of late, I dream that you love me, that you want to share a life with me. That you somehow feel for me what I feel for you. I imagine a life for us together.

  Not a perfect, fantasy life, but a life full of substance and meaning that is never dull. Life full of the adventure of discovering one another and a whole new world with each other. A world with its doors wide open to us where there is adventure and excitement around every turn.

  Not a life of complacency. I want a life where there will always be fire and passion. The intrigue of discovering new facets of each other. A new piece to the larger puzzle. I want us to always sense the mystery in each other. To spark each other’s wit, to make each other laugh, to find out what pleases and displeases. To find out what makes us tick.

  To wander through the course of my life wondering what I ever did to deserve the love you gave me in that dream.

  And when the dream is over, I’d like to spend my last sunrise on that bench overlooking the ocean with you, just holding your hand.

  Dreams seldom become reality and I accept that, but please remember I love you, Jack, and that I will miss you always…

  Dreams. Her dreams, his romantic lass. When he first read her note, he had been aghast at the flowery prose for normally such swill turned his stomach. That had been followed by astonishment for her boldness and daring. Good God, but she was fearless! No woman he had ever known would dare to express such sappy, sentimental rubbish to a man like him. And for Kitty to have come so far from the lass who shrank from his touch when he first met her! Between the photograph and her note, she had certainly lost all inhibitions.

  And he liked it very much.

  After that shock had worn off, he began to analyze the words, picturing her as she wrote them, imaging her heartache as she did. He knew he had quite broken her heart despite her assurances that she expected nothing of him. Any woman would expect a response to a heart laid bare. And he had not given it to her. Instead, he had boarded a ship and sailed away. Slinked away like a pup with his tail between his legs.

  Because he didn’t feel the same way. Because he was Haddington. A man who’d seduced his way through Scotland always taking, never giving. He didn’t spout romantic drivel. He didn’t trail after women like he was a hound after a bitch in heat. He maintained control from start to finish.

  Until one fair lassie took all that control from him.

  Until one fair lassie’s written words roused him into feeling every soulful sentence like a fist clenching painfully around his heart.

  As MacKintosh had said, he was a fool. He had been wrong to leave her. He should have at least begged her to come back with him! There was no other woman like Kitty Hayes. Jack knew he should have realized it right from the beginning. Perhaps he had been too taken by her beauty and her bank account to see it straight away. The friendship that had so quickly taken hold should have b
een another clue, an obvious indication that there was something special about her when before women rarely held any lasting interest. If he hadn’t been able to see past any of those things, who could expect him to realize his own feelings had gone even farther?

  Jack groaned, holding his head in his hands.

  “Bugger me, but I miss you, lass,” he thought aloud, breaking the oppressive silence of the drawing room, his words echoing off the bare walls. “What a fool am I, my love? I wanted something from you and I received it.” His dark gold eyes were dry and stinging. “But what I wanted was not what I truly desired. I lost you before I realized what it was, what I truly wanted from you.”

  And what was that, Jack?

  Good God! He was hearing her voice now! Jack shook his head, pushing his glass of whiskey away with a nudge of his finger. He really must stop drinking if he were to maintain his sanity. Even so, he knew now what needed to be done.

  What he needed to do.

  He needed to go back!

  He needed to find her, fall at her feet and beg her forgiveness.

  “Jack?”

  “Bugger me, I must be dreaming or have I gone mad?”

  “‘There is a pleasure sure in being mad which none but madmen know’,” Kitty’s voice sounded again close behind him, and Jack turned in surprise to see her smiling down at him.

  He stared at her in astonishment, realizing she was real and present. His heart pounded frantically against his ribcage as he stood, coming around the chair to stand before her, casually stuffing his hands in his pockets lest he reach out and touch her to make sure she was real. His eyes roamed her hungrily from head to toe as he realized a photograph was no substitution for the real thing. She was so incredibly lovely. Sensual. Alluring. God but he had missed her!

  Chapter 42

  Equal to the gods seems to me