by Karen Ranney
He speared one hand through his hair, glanced down at her. “My brothers went to war to keep everything just as it was. None of us knew, at the time, that life would never be the same again.”
He folded his arms, leaning against the other car, his gaze fixed, again, on the distance. She knew, however, he wasn’t looking at the interior of the Inverness Station but at the past.
“I received two letters from Caroline when I was in Washington. She tried to tell me how things were at Gleneagle. I told myself she was used to being sheltered and viewed any deprivation as a hardship. I knew she was grieving for James, and I thought she was craving attention.”
He moved restlessly, finally meeting her eyes.
“She was like that. She lived life fully. She laughed often and cried often. There wasn’t any middle ground for Caroline.”
He looked away again. “I didn’t know she was starving.”
She bit her bottom lip.
“I didn’t want to return to Gleneagle. I didn’t want to go home, and I did so grudgingly, months after I should have. When I did, it was to find Caroline dead. Gleneagle was gone. The house had been razed, put to the cannon, and the fields set on fire. The Army of the Potomac had leveled my home because it was owned by a family who’d fought for the South.”
He unfolded his arms, standing with feet braced apart, his hands at his back. “After that, I didn’t much care what happened to me,” he said. “The Balloon Corps was disbanded, I was assigned to a regiment. When the war was over, I eventually went home to Virginia. That’s when Edmund found me.”
She didn’t know what to say.
“There’s nothing in Virginia but memories, Veronica. Memories of my culpability, my pride, my guilt.”
“Why didn’t you come back when she wrote you?”
“My airships,” he said, his smile self-deprecating. “At first, I was enthusiastic about the idea of being able to use them in war, to show the generals how intelligence could be gathered behind enemy lines without endangering anyone. Then I got caught up in the politics of it. There was talk the Corps was going to be disbanded. I spent weeks arguing with people, writing letters to the generals I’d worked with, trying to convince anyone, attempting to get funds for the Corps. In the end, it didn’t matter.”
Silence stretched between them, but when he would have escorted her back into the car, Veronica shook her head, placed her palm against his jacket, right over his heart.
“How do you know you could have saved her if you’d returned to Gleneagle?”
“What do you mean, how do I know?”
“Every day, for months, I replayed the night my parents died. If I’d insisted on going with my father to save my mother, I might have saved both of them. If I’d awakened, checked the lamps, made sure the stove wasn’t overheated, then perhaps the fire would never have happened. I don’t know, Montgomery. Perhaps we’re only supposed to deal with what we know, what’s already happened, not pretend it might have been different.”
“Life isn’t a choice.”
She smiled. “Yes, it is. What would you choose, Montgomery? To see only bleakness and despair? Why shouldn’t we choose a little joy, a little happiness?”
“That’s not life, Veronica.”
“Oh, Montgomery, it is life, just not the one we’ve known for the last few years.”
He looked startled by her words.
“I wouldn’t take away what’s happened to you, Montgomery. I know that sounds cruel, but it’s made you the man you are, the kind man you are. You treat others with dignity and respect. You planned financially for me so I would never be in the same position as Caroline. I understand that, now. Yet, at the same time, what’s happened to you has made you stand apart from life, to be uninvolved. Your life will happen whether or not you participate in it, Montgomery, I know that only too well.”
She dropped her hand. “Is Caroline a vengeful ghost?”
He smiled. “She’s not really a ghost at all.”
She nodded, expecting him to say that. “Then she doesn’t condemn you for what you did.”
“It wasn’t what I did I regret, Veronica, but what I didn’t do.”
“I didn’t check the lamps. I didn’t ensure the wicks were trimmed.”
He frowned at her.
“Caroline could have told you. She could have come out, and said, come home, Montgomery. We’re starving. We need help.”
“She wasn’t reared to be as direct as you,” he said.
“So you were supposed to guess what she meant? You were supposed to infer all her thoughts and wishes? I have a Gift, Montgomery, but even I could not have done that.”
“You ridicule my past, Veronica.”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “I don’t. I can understand regretting your actions, Montgomery. But how can you regret something that never happened? Besides,” she added, “Caroline wouldn’t have wanted you to.”
“And how do you know?” he asked, the beginning of a smile curving his lips.
“Because you feel her. Because her thoughts are with you. Because you loved her, and she loved you.”
“That’s enough? Love?”
She nodded. “Of course, Montgomery. Of course it is.”
He would have said something, but a passenger abruptly appeared at the base of the steps. Montgomery moved aside, grabbed her elbow, and whispered in her ear. “Come back home.”
“I’ve an errand to perform,” she said, and told him about Elspeth’s grandmother.
“That damnable mirror.”
“Had it not been for the mirror,” she said, “we wouldn’t have met.”
He smiled, the expression deepening his dimples.
“We would have met, Veronica. Something tells me that. Fate would have made certain of it.”
She couldn’t be certain he said what she heard next, because it was such an odd remark for Montgomery to make.
“Or maybe my ghosts sent you to me.”
Chapter 29
The peaks of the Highlands gave way to the hills of Perth, as if this part of Scotland were older, the mountains worn to nubs. Kilmarin, the home of the Tullochs, was located atop the highest of these hills, the only approach up a winding mountain road. The stolid Scots fortress, at least four floors tall, was constructed of deep red stone and didn’t look the least welcoming.
“Granny’s cottage is a ways from Kilmarin proper,” Elspeth said. “Granny never did like people much.” She glanced at Montgomery, embarrassed. “Her cottage gives her a good command of the road. Like Kilmarin,” she added, staring up at the castle. “She’s been known to throw things down on people who get lost and take the upper road.”
“Perhaps it would be best if you go ahead,” Veronica said.
“Oh, she won’t know me,” Elspeth said easily. “Her eyesight is going, too.”
Montgomery glanced at her, a faint smile haunting his mouth. “Your Granny sounds like my aunt Maddie,” he said.
Veronica turned to look at him.
“My mother’s sister,” he said, “who took to wearing her shift outside her clothes.”
She pressed a hand to her lips.
“It’s all right, she would have been pleased to make you laugh. She delighted in being eccentric and shocking my father.” He smiled. “One of my childhood memories is watching my father storm after her when she put a live chicken in his library.” He smiled. “She wanted to annoy him, and she succeeded.”
“What happened to her?” she asked, then immediately wished she hadn’t. The last thing she wanted to do was to make Montgomery sad again.
His smile faded. “When I was thirteen, she took one of the boats out on the river and drowned.”
She lifted his hand and linked her fingers with his. “I’m sorry.”
“I used to go and visit her grave and talk to her. I always had the feeling she could hear me.” His smile was self-deprecating. “One of the reasons I miss Virginia.”
“For the graves?�
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He studied their linked fingers.
“For the memories.”
“Memories are in your heart,” she said softly. “My parents are there. Not in that black spot of earth we saw.”
Both Elspeth and Robbie looked uncomfortable, and she couldn’t blame them. She’d not meant to reveal so much. Nor had Montgomery, from his quick look at her.
The journey from Inverness had taken longer than she’d planned. They’d traveled at night, but halfway to Perth, they’d stopped on the siding and remained there for hours. She’d slept with her head against Montgomery’s shoulder. Consequently, their arrival in the city had been at dawn, and after a hasty breakfast, they’d opted to travel to Elspeth’s grandmother rather than rest in one of the city’s hotels.
The hired carriage made the steep climb with some difficulty and, more than once, she wanted to simply change her mind about this errand and return to Doncaster Hall. The carriage wouldn’t be able to turn around on such a narrow road, however, so she simply sat back, gripped Montgomery’s hand tightly, and focused on what she was feeling from the inhabitants of the carriage.
Both Elspeth and her husband were radiating contentment. The love she felt from each of them for the other was uncomplicated and direct. She had no doubt the happiness Elspeth had seen for herself in the Tulloch Sgàthán would come true. As for Montgomery? As always, she felt a confluence of emotions from him: curiosity, relief, irritation, and a happiness so unexpected that she smiled.
Thankfully, they turned to the west, traveling away from the fortress for a few moments until the carriage stopped.
She stared out at the scenery, unsurprised to see a lone cottage in the middle of what looked to be a plateau. As if the top of the hill had simply been scraped flat and Old Mary’s home placed in the center of it. Not quite a cottage but more than a hut, the structure reminded her of an upside-down cup. The walls curved outward, no doubt because of the volume of thatch on the roof.
As they left the carriage and slowly walked toward the house, she counted three birds’ nests in the middle of the thatch. A red squirrel crossed their path, rose on his hind legs to chitter angrily at them, then disappeared.
“I’ll go ahead, Your Ladyship, if you don’t mind,” Elspeth said. “Warn her she has visitors.”
Veronica nodded. After a whispered conversation, Robbie retreated to the carriage. Montgomery looked as if he would like to do the same, but he resolutely remained at her side.
“You needn’t stay,” she said. She wasn’t sparing him as much as wishing privacy with Old Mary. She’d never mentioned the vision she’d had in the mirror and was a little embarrassed to do so now.
“Are you certain?” he asked.
She nodded.
He didn’t argue the point, evidently grateful to escape a meeting with a wisewoman. What else could Old Mary be? She watched as he retraced his steps. Instead of joining Robbie, however, Montgomery veered left, heading for an adjacent hill.
“Lady Fairfax?”
She turned to see Elspeth peering out the door at her. “Granny is ready for you.”
She took a deep breath and entered the house.
Montgomery strode to the top of the nearest hill, looking over at Kilmarin and its surroundings. He needed not only the exercise but the solitude. At the top, the vista before him was awe-inspiring.
Cool blue skies topped deep green hills, accented by a sliver of river sparkling in the distance. This land, with its beauty and its history, didn’t shine with the promise of a new country or reveal the still-bloody wounds of its growing pains. Scotland endured, as if it were filled with a quiet acceptance of all that had come before and would probably come again.
The strength of the land appealed to him; the stalwart nature of its people impressed him. When disaster occurred, they simply began again, resilient and resigned.
Could he do the same?
He closed his eyes, deliberately summoning his ghosts. James appeared dressed as he’d seen him last, a man intent upon his duty, excitement overlaying the look of worry in his eyes. Alisdair was next, dressed as a prisoner, a role Montgomery had never witnessed but that his imagination furnished only too easily. Alisdair was thin, his beard scraggly, stubbornness gleaming in his sunken eyes. Caroline, darling Caroline, was next, her image that of a girl newly married, desperately in love with James, her laughter trilling up and around the oval staircase of Gleneagle.
Forgive me.
He sent the entreaty to those he’d loved and, for the first time, he felt as if they did forgive him, that they always had. Perhaps only his guilt had fleshed in his ghosts.
What if Veronica were right?
He’d always thought he should have returned to Gleneagle when Caroline had first corresponded with him. He could have read between the lines, understood the dire circumstances, and known they were down to their last resources. He could have left Washington, taken food and supplies. Perhaps his presence would have altered Gleneagle’s fate.
As he stood there, looking at Scotland, Montgomery realized he’d believed in his own omnipotence for years. He could have been captured on the way home. Or killed on the journey. Perhaps he couldn’t have saved Caroline or Gleneagle. Instead, he might have simply been the last Fairfax brother to die.
As it was, he was the only survivor of Gleneagle, the only one of his grandfather’s grandsons, the lone Fairfax brother. He, and he alone, carried the hope of his family.
What had he done with it?
He’d not moved forward, that was certain. He’d played with his navigation system but nothing more. The innovations he’d made could revolutionize the use of airships. He’d not taken responsibility for the Fairfax fortune. He’d not been a good husband. Lust had sent him to his wife, but he’d been too involved in his own misery to discover as much about her as he should have from the beginning.
He’d been a fool. A selfish fool more intent on looking backward than in living his life.
This was an old land. For thousands of years, people had warred over it. Generations had laughed and cried here. Men had gone off to war, and women had stayed behind.
Women like Veronica, with her stubbornness and resilience, with her courage. Veronica, with her impulsive nature, her trust, and her wholehearted passion. Who believed in her Gift regardless of how many time she’d been ridiculed.
What had she said? People mock what they do not know.
How many times had she been mocked? How many people—besides himself—had underestimated her? He’d originally seen her as a foolish girl. The passing days had revealed how wrong he’d been.
He had the most curious thought. Veronica Moira MacLeod Fairfax would never stop being exactly who she was. Another thought, one that startled him in its certainty. Veronica would never abdicate the responsibility for her welfare or that of people who depended on her. She would not give that responsibility to anyone else but would assume it herself.
She would not wait to be rescued.
Two things struck him, then. Somewhere along the way, he’d fallen in love with his wife.
The second thought was he was damned if Edmund Kerr was going to take his future from him.
Old Mary lowered herself to a chair with a series of gasps. “I’m old, child,” she said, when Elspeth hovered at her side. “Not crippled.”
Elspeth exchanged an amused look with Veronica.
“I’ve waited all this time,” Mary said, turning her head toward Veronica. Her pale blue eyes, so light it seemed as if they had no color at all, speared through her. “Wondering if the mirror would come back to me. It’s time for it to return,” she said. “I’m nearly done.”
“Oh, Granny,” Elspeth said, falling to her knees beside the chair. Tears sparkled in her eyes, earning her a caress as the old woman smoothed her withered hand over Elspeth’s hair.
A moment later, Mary reached for the drawstring bag, withdrew the mirror, tracing the line of diamonds with a withered finger.
; “It’s an ugly thing,” she said, “but someone tried to give it beauty.” She smiled, the expression deepening the furrows on her face. Her hair, thick and black, belied her age, revealing not one touch of gray.
“It’s come full circle. I gave it to a woman who’d lost a love, and a woman who’s found a love brought it back to me.”
“Have I?” Veronica asked, startled.
Old Mary smiled. “Have you not looked in the mirror?”
“I have,” she said.
“Is it that you didn’t like what you saw? Or you didn’t believe it?”
She leaned forward, placed her hand on top of Old Mary’s. The elderly woman’s skin was soft, the veins on the back of her hand engorged and blue. The hand she clasped was cold, however, as if Mary’s body had already begun to prepare for the grave.
“Does it tell the future? Or does it just reveal something you want to see?”
The old woman smiled. “All I know is when I looked in the mirror, it was many years ago. I saw myself at this age, far older and wiser than I ever believed I could be. I felt the aches in my knees and my back. I saw Death beckoning me. I also saw a life filled with richness and joy, and all those I love surrounding me.”
She laughed, a surprisingly young laugh. “I’m not a soothsayer, child. The mystery of life is just that. It’s a mystery given to each of us to solve. Who do we love? Who loves us? What is our destiny? The mirror doesn’t give any answers. Nor do I. Even if I had the answers you seek, child, I’d not give them to you and thereby spoil your journey. It’s enough the mirror gives you a sight of what might be if you wish it, if you’re willing to do what’s necessary.”
Veronica studied their two hands, noting the stark differences of a few decades.
“I’ve looked in the mirror several times lately,” she said. “I didn’t see anything.”
Old Mary offered her the mirror. “Go ahead, child. Look. See the future that lies before you.”
Veronica stared at the mirror, realizing that it would either reveal something she wanted to see, or it wouldn’t. She and Montgomery, together, should be responsible for the future they shared, not the Tulloch Sgàthán.