Taking him up the spiral of steps to the next level, where Lady MacInnes’s chambers lay, Joanna couldn’t stop herself from asking the question that had been plaguing her mind for this past year. “I hope you do not mind my asking, but how long has it been since you last met my grandmother?”
The tall man’s piercing gray eyes narrowed, focusing on her. His voice was cold, emotionless. “We’ve never met. I mean, not...not that I remember.”
Joanna nodded as she continued the ascent. “I’m glad! Then you won’t be too disappointed, for lately her health has taken a turn for the worse. But I...I try to make visitors aware, beforehand.”
They reached the second level and moved quietly to a closed oak door. A flickering wick lamp hung on the stone wall. Turning and facing the Highlander, Joanna fought back the sudden wave of protectiveness that made her want to bar the door against this man. The coldness in his voice just now--the look of careless disdain on his face--all of this made her extremely suspicious, extremely cautious. More than anything else now, she wanted to ask him who he was and why was it so crucial for her grandmother to see him.
He spoke first. “Who is she and why is it so urgent for her to see me?”
Joanna blinked once at Adam’s question. “I was about to ask the same of you!”
“What there is to know about me...that I am willing to share with you...is what you heard from my brother. Why she has asked for me, I can only guess, m’lady.”
“I take no issue with your wish for privacy.” She felt the edginess creep into her own voice. “But there is justification for my question. Certainly you can understand my concern over the possibility of any unpleasantness being directed at her right now.”
“She called for me, Lady Joanna. But why should you think I would be anything other than civil to her?”
Joanna shrugged her shoulders. “I do not know! But I see no reason why I should risk it, either. If keeping you away from her means not granting her dying wish, I am prepared to do so, if I think she’ll suffer more in meeting you.”
She watched his jaw tense. His gaze drifted toward the door and then back to her face. Something around his eyes softened. “I can see she is well cared for.”
“Aside from my husband and my children, I am the only family she has left.”
“What happened to the rest?”
“They are all dead!” She didn’t even pause in her answer. He wanted the truth; she gave it. And she was willing to keep giving it as long as he continued to become more human through their conversation.
“Your parents--both dead?”
She nodded. “Both parents, my two uncles, my grandfather. Aside from me, my grandmother has seen them all die. Hers has been a life filled with horrors...some real and some imagined.”
She saw the passing wave of sorrow that flickered across his features. His gaze had once again turned to the door. Joanna softened her own voice as she reached over and placed a gentle hand on his arm.
“It has only been since my marriage to Gavin Kerr that she has had a chance to live again. She moved to the Highlands to stay with us, to have her grandchildren around her, and to try to forget the memories of all those deaths.”
“May I ask you something about her past?”
He sounded almost gentle, and she nodded. “I’ll tell you what I can, but I want you to know I’m still confused about her interest in you and your interest in her!”
“That’s why I’m here.” He let out a long, weary breath. For the first time, he was letting down his guard. “I am searching for answers. For the answers to questions I have been carrying about all my life.”
She now caught a glimpse of an unexpected vulnerability, a mix of emotions hidden just beneath the surface. And there was pain, as well, reflected in the depths of his eyes.
Leading him to a window seat across the wide corridor, Joanna told him all she knew. She told him about her grandmother’s marriage to Duncan, a man who abused his wife and other women horribly. She told him about the curse of Ironcross Castle, and how it was thought to have been the cause of her grandfather’s death, her two uncles’ deaths...and even the deaths of her own father and mother.
Seeing the questions in his eyes, Joanna told him about her own parents death in the fire in this wing, and how she and Gavin finally found the secret that unlocked the ‘curse.’
“My grandmother believed in the power of that curse. She had seen it destroy her family. ‘Twas only after Gavin and I married that she was finally able to believe that those days were finished.”
“So you think she has made peace with the past?”
Joanna thought about his question for a moment and then shook her head. “I thought she had. But I was wrong. From hearing her it appears that only meeting you will let her...let her die in peace.”
His face darkened as he looked at the closed door.
“Is she truly ill?”
Joanna nodded. “I’ve been trying to fool myself by not facing the truth. But I believe now she really is dying.”
Joanna paused as she stared at his profile. Adam Stewart’s features were strong and weathered. His long hair, auburn and wild, was loosely tied in back. His eyes were gray and piercing. He was a Stewart--there could be no doubt of that. But there was something else in his look. Something in the shape of the mouth, in the line of his jaw that reminded her of someone else.
And then she knew. There was something of her own father there in this man’s face.
“Will you allow me to see her?”
There was no hesitation this time, and she nodded her consent. She had done the right thing in telling him the truth. And in his manner, now surprisingly gentle, she could see that there was a compassionate heart beneath the rough and defensive exterior.
Seeing Adam Stewart was a dying woman’s wish. And whatever sin Lady MacInnes thought herself guilty of, Joanna now knew that this was a man with the power to forgive.
*****
Adam stood with his back to the door and studied the old woman, propped up on pillows but asleep in the huge oak bed.
Joanna Kerr had not only given her consent to his meeting with her grandmother, but she also had motioned for Lady MacInnes’s attending women to leave the chamber and wait outside, should they be needed.
Now alone with her, Adam hesitated before taking a step toward the bed. The elaborate, French damask bed curtains had been drawn back, and he could see the bony white fingers scratching fitfully at the fine lace bedclothes. The small, white-haired woman was dreaming, but it was clear her dreams were restless and troubled. Even across the room, he could hear each breath she labored to take.
By ‘is Blood, he prayed fervently, let me die with a sword in my hand and an enemy before me!
Lady MacInnes’s eyes opened with a start and tried to focus on her surroundings. In a moment, she looked around and, seeing none of her usual attendants, noticed him by the door.
“Gavin! Is that you?”
Adam stepped closer. She appeared so frail--her voice nothing more than a painful whisper. “Nay, m’lady. ‘Tis not Gavin.”
“John! John Stewart!” She lifted a fragile hand and waved it weakly in his direction. “Joanna...she told me you’d come. She said you’ve taken a bride. What good news!”
Adam moved closer and almost reached for the outstretched hand, but then decided against it, instead clasping his hands behind his back.
“Nay, m’lady. ‘Tis not John, either.” He hesitated, cursing himself for his cowardice. “‘Tis I...Adam...his brother!”
The old woman stared at him, her breathing no longer audible. Adam held his own breath and watched with growing concern. Finally, she took another breath. A look of pain etched itself in Lady MacInnes’s features, and as he gazed at her, he could feel that pain carving itself upon his own heart. A tear formed in the corner of each of her tired eyes and ran silently down her cheeks. Adam fought back his own.
“You!” Her voice was no more than a ragged breath of a
ir. “Adam!”
He stood still as her eyes studied his face.
“My...Adam!”
He had to look away and close his eyes to stop the tears from spilling down his face. He had to clench his jaw to tame the emotions which were wreaking havoc on his heart. How long he had waited to hear those words! How many long years!
“Adam!”
Her quiet whisper drew his gaze back to her. He stared through a curtain of tears at the woman who had brought him into this world. He watched the feeble, trembling hands attempting to wipe away the tears, the quivering of a chin lined with age. This time he didn’t hesitate to reach out and take her frail hand in his own huge hands.
“I am here!”
“My...own...son. My Adam!” She pulled his hands to her face, kissing them, pressing them to her wrinkled cheeks. They must have felt warm against the cold of her own skin. “I never...I never thought God would forgive me for...what I’ve done. I never thought...you would come.”
He sat down on the edge of the bed. The knot in his throat was the size of his fist, and he could not utter a word. He just listened to the prayers of thanks pour out of her, prayers that hung in the air for a moment--almost palpable in their presence--before floating heavenward.
Whatever bitterness he might have harbored in the past about his mother--whatever ill thoughts he might have born about her motives--all these things meant nothing now.
Lady Agnes MacInnes, his own mother, was a woman broken by time and life’s hardships. She was a woman at the end of a life that had brought her little joy and much pain. She was a woman, as Joanna had explained, who had suffered enough.
“I have so much to tell you,” she whispered.
Adam had no intention of asking her any questions. As far as he was concerned, just to have her want to see him--just to have a chance to meet her, to see her, to touch her hands, her face--that was far more than he’d ever hoped for. Infinitely more.
But the older woman was determined to have her own way--to make her peace in the only way that she knew. By telling the truth. As she spoke, she paused often for breath, to wipe away her tears, to kiss his hands.
“‘Twas I who went after John Stewart, the third earl of Athol. I was a widow then. My husband Duncan was a filthy brute who had more regard for his horse than for his wife. No one missed him when he died--certainly not I. But our three sons were already old enough to see to their own lives, and I had nothing. So I let the devil sway me. I tried to rob a decent man of his honor.
“Your father was a handsome man. A good man. He was a devoted husband to Anne. He was a loving father to his son John. But never having had a husband who valued me or ever praised me for anything, I coveted that man. Aye, Adam, I cheated my own friend Anne and set my traps to charm another woman’s husband.
“He resisted me at first. He tried to believe that he was mistaken about my encouragement. But I pursued him. I became more open in my advances. Never would I miss an opportunity to remind him, when our families would gather, of his foolishness in passing up the satisfaction I had to offer him. I promised him that Anne would never know. I reminded him with a whisper, a touch, a look, that I was there for him.
“He continued to resist, but I knew that I had him. As old as we were, I knew he found me desirable. I had never before used wiles in bringing a man to my bed. But with John Stewart, desire became a madness. I had a thirst to feel a real man lying with me.
“My chance came when one summer Anne took young John and sailed for France. The lad was to be schooled there. Knowing that John was left alone--understanding that this was probably the best opportunity I would ever have--I went after him.
“Even a saint could not have resisted such temptation! He surrendered to me, and I spent those first days and nights in total bliss, for he was the man I knew he would be. But as the days passed, a thought kept tormenting me. ‘Twas the thought of how empty my life had been before him. Of how empty it would be when he was gone.
“I was tempted to forget that I had promised not to ruin his life with Anne. I considered it very carefully. But then, we had made a bargain--a pact that I would let him go when the time came. That when our allotted time together was finished, I would leave him alone forever and ever.
“We went our separate ways, and I held to my part of the bargain. I stayed away. But all along, I dreamed of him missing me--of wanting to taste once again what we’d shared. I dreamed of him coming after me.
“But he never did. He was once again true to the woman with whom he’d shared most of his life. His only true love was Anne.
“Oh, I had been persistent. I had played the wench and stolen my best friend’s husband--for a time. But the reality of all I’d done--of the sin that I had committed--didn’t really come home to me until my oldest son Alexander drowned in the loch you can see out that window. My Alexander died only a few weeks after my affair with Athol had ended.
“I was distraught. I recalled the curse that a simple woman named Mater had cast on me and my family years earlier. I held her responsible for deaths of both Duncan and Alexander. Then, to further confirm my fears, Thomas, my second son, nearly died. People tried to tell me ‘twas an accident. I knew the truth. I knew Mater was responsible.
“And then, my life fell apart. I discovered that I was with child. That in my advanced age, I had conceived a bairn. That I was carrying the fruit of John’s and my passion. I was carrying you.
“I was so distracted by grief and shock that the shame of being a widow with child did not even occur to me. Now, I thought, Mater would have another victim for her curse. So I kept my secret to myself. I went to the Western Isles, to a priory I know there. I remained there the entire winter. I gave birth to you there.
“I held my little babe in my arms. I named you Adam, and all I could think of were the horrible things that would be awaiting you in your life. Thomas and John, my other surviving sons, did not even know that you existed. But I was blinded with fear of this monster I had conjured up in Mater.
“‘Twas not shame of revealing the truth to my sons or the world that made me send for Athol, your father. I simply knew of no one else who could protect you from Mater.
“He came as I knew he would. And he acted as honorably, for Athol was a man of principle. He took you away as I asked him to. To a place where no one would know or ever guess your kinship with me. To a place where you would be safe.
“Years passed, Adam. ‘Twas not long before Thomas died, black in the face from poison. His death reaffirmed my decision to send you away. I could not stay in the Highlands any longer; I fled to Stirling. I assumed that your father had placed you with someone in the Highlands, and I feared being too close. I feared discovering where you were and...wanting you back!
“When Athol died, and your brother became earl, I knew you were nearly sixteen years old. I forced myself to stop fretting over your future. Knowing your father, I was certain that you had been educated well. I prayed that you were making your way in the world.
“Then, a few short years later, John--my youngest by Duncan--and his wife died in a horrible fire in this same wing. For a few months, I even thought Joanna dead, as well. The curse was unending, it seemed. But secretly, I thought that perhaps I had been able to save one of my children’s lives.
“About six months after that fire, Gavin Kerr was given Ironcross Castle. Somehow, he found Joanna hiding, waiting for the chance to avenge her parents’ deaths. Between them, they were able to unearth the secrets of Ironcross Castle, and put an end to the curse.
“I have been so wrong about so many things in my life, Adam. But still thinking that you were safe and now assuredly well on in your own life, I chose not to doubt my original decision. For the days and the years that followed, I enjoyed the love of a granddaughter who wanted to include me in her life. Gavin’s and Joanna’s love for one another, their abundant affection for all, and their lovely children showed me--for the first time in my life--a glimpse of what happines
s could be.”
Lady MacInnes closed her eyes and continued.
“But ‘twas all a sham. Two years ago I learned of the Treaty of Bruges from Ambrose Macpherson, who was visiting Ironcross with his wife Elizabeth. Everything changed then.
“Again, I became like a madwoman,” she whispered, gazing at his grim face. “I used my connections at court to find out who had been sent to London so many years earlier. And what poor souls were still there. My own child had been languishing in a miserable English prison for so long, while I was growing old with laughing bairns around my knees.
“I sent for Ambrose Macpherson. Of all the diplomats in Scotland, I knew he was the only one who had a chance to negotiate anything with the English king.
“For once, God smiled on me, for Ambrose succeeded. He sent me word that you were free.”
Adam kissed his mother’s hand. “Did he know of our kinship?”
“In my haste, in my madness and worry, I do not know what I told him of that. But he knew...I am certain of it. Ambrose Macpherson, though, is not one to divulge a confidence. I knew he would not tell even you.” Lady MacInnes closed her eyes for a moment and let out a weary breath. “That was why it was so urgent for me to see you--to tell you the odious truth of your mother.”
“I see nothing, in all you have done, that deserves anything less than my love and gratitude.” Adam wrapped both of his hands around hers and held them, warming them. “I have already stopped mourning the past. ‘Tis time to think of the future...mother.”
A weak smile broke over her lined face. “You are your father’s son. He never blamed me for what I did.” She slowly brought his hands to her lips and placed a gentle kiss on his fingers. “You are as honorable as he, Adam...and as true!”
CHAPTER 25
Lady Agnes MacInnes died a fortnight after Adam’s first visit with her.
Dreamer (Highland Treasure Trilogy) Page 28