Lessons in Loving a Laird

by Michelle Marcos

  He lifted a small brown bottle from one of the compartments and poured some into the basin of water. Completely unmindful of his elegant shirtsleeves, he dunked a cloth in the mixture and wrung out some of the water. He stood at the end of Shona’s bed and leaned over her foot with the wet towel.

  “Wait!” she exclaimed, surprising him. “What the de’il is that?”

  His hand froze in midair. “It’s perfectly harmless, I assure you. Just some water mixed with Goulard’s extract.”

  Harmless to other people, perhaps, but a wet rag on her painted ankle would be disastrous. “What kind of piss-water is Goulard’s extract?”

  He shook his head. “It’s an astringent. It’ll keep down the swelling.”

  “I don’t have any swelling. You said so yerself.”

  “True, but the tissues in your ankle will soon inflame. And the swelling will worsen the pain.”

  “I don’t want any of that. It’s got a funny smell.”

  “Don’t be such a child. It’ll do you good.”

  “I don’t want it, I tell ye!”

  “All right,” he said. “Would you prefer a wet compress of hot vinegar? It’s not as effective but a good astringent nonetheless.”

  She’d not have a wet anything. “No. Just the bandages. It worked for Dexter. It’ll work for me.”

  “Shona, if you’re going to be difficult, I shall have to tie you to the bed.”

  Panic began to bubble up. “N-no. I’ll take the funny-smelling stuff in yer hand. Just let me apply it. I’m ticklish,” she added with a shrug.

  He handed her the cloth. “Suit yourself. Make sure you get it all over your foot.”

  Gingerly, she applied it onto her ankle, trying as best she could to give the appearance of moistening her foot. If any of her bruises began to erase before he bandaged her leg, it would be catastrophic—not just for her, but for Willow and Mrs. Docherty as well.

  Then Conall took one of the strips of cotton and held it in place above her toes. He wound it around the ball of her foot and continued up her foot.

  “Is this too tight?”

  Shona shrugged. “It isna comfortable.”

  “I mean, do your toes feel numb? I don’t want the bandage to occlude blood flow to the rest of your foot.”

  “No.”

  “Let’s make sure.” Conall brought the candle closer. He pressed his thumb into the flesh beside her toenail. Shona noticed how the skin blanched, but quickly turned pink again.

  “It doesn’t appear too tight, but let me know if your skin begins to tingle.”

  She watched as he wrapped a second strip in a figure eight around her ankle and under her foot, effectively immobilizing it.

  Finally, a third strip went up her calf. She loved the feel of his hands on her bare flesh. She should have considered faking an injury to her hip instead.

  “There,” he said as he tied off the end of the strip. “How does it feel?”

  “Better,” she said. “Thank ye.”

  He smiled. “As it’s you, I’ll waive my usual fee. Now, let’s tend to your other injuries.” He took one of her hands and turned it palm upward. Puzzled, he looked at her other hand. “That’s strange. There are no scrapes on your knees or your hands. How did you stop your fall?”

  “Oh,” she said, her mind racing. “I fell on my arse. Plenty of cushioning there. Didn’t feel a thing.”

  “I see,” he said with a smile. “Well, it’s very important you keep your foot elevated and at rest for the next seven days at the very least. Willow, please fetch some pillows for your sister, and place them under her foot. I’ll check on you in the morning.”

  “Don’t go.” She gripped his hand, then tried to erase the desperation from her expression. “Won’t ye keep me company a wee while longer?”

  He grinned benevolently. “Certainly.” He went to the desk and dragged the chair closer to her bedside.

  “Mrs. Docherty,” began Shona, careful to convey her meaning clearly, “would ye mind terribly bringing me some supper? It’s a bother, I know, so ask Willow to help ye. We’ll look after the sleeping bairn in the meanwhile.”

  Mrs. Docherty nodded knowingly, and closed the nursery room door behind her.

  It was only after they were left alone that Shona seemed to struggle for words. There was so much she wanted to say that she didn’t know where to begin.

  “I canna pretend to be happy that ye’re marrying Lady Violet. But I suppose a man such as yerself must choose a lady of quality for a wife—”

  “Shona…”

  “—and Lady Violet is very beautiful—”

  He pinched the bridge of his nose.

  “—and I’m glad after all that she’s a sweet-natured lass—”

  “She’s in love with Stewart,” he blurted out.

  Shona’s eyes widened. “Ye know?”

  “Of course. She doesn’t want to marry me any more than I want to marry her.”

  Shona was aghast. “But … then why?”

  “Her Grace wants her only daughter to marry a titled man.”

  “But there are lots of titled men in England. Why ye?”

  He heaved a profound sigh, and she could see how much this weighed upon him. “Lady Violet is carrying Stewart’s child. The randy fool deflowered the girl and got her with a belly. Consequently, the duchess can’t bear the sight of Stewart, and I can’t say I blame her. But such is the hatred she feels for him that she’d rather condemn her daughter to perpetual shame and ignominy by letting her give birth to a bastard than allow Stewart to inherit the dukedom of Basinghall.”

  Now she knew why the poor girl’s stomach had been so unsettled. And her mother offered her no comfort! “Och! That woman is a heartless banshee.”

  “Yes, she is. But she’s also a very powerful banshee. One with the ability and disposition to inflict great damage.”

  His words were pregnant with meaning. Suddenly, she could sense the hidden suffering in his heart, just as easily as if it had been a full-throated shout. “The duchess threatened ye in the drawing room, didn’t she? What did she mean when she warned ye against pushing her too far?”

  He placed his elbows on his knees and stared at the floor. Immediately, she became alarmed. She had never seen him so conflicted.

  She put a reassuring hand upon his head. The soft waves curled around her fingers.

  “I wasn’t entirely honest with you when I told you my wife died of childbed fever. The truth is much more salacious. And something I’ve been forced to keep a secret.”

  It was many moments before he spoke. Shona’s breath caught in her throat.

  “My wife … was murdered.”

  The word brought flash upon flash of images on her mind. Her family’s dead bodies strewn on the kitchen floor. The haunting screams—theirs and hers—echoed in her ears. “How?”

  “She was poisoned. By her lover.”

  Shona tried to wrap her mind around what he’d just said. Which was the more terrible—that Conall’s wife was murdered, or that she had betrayed him?

  He looked up then, guilt etched upon his forehead. “I don’t know precisely how long their affair had been going on. I was away a great deal. The practice was thriving. My patients were numerous, and wealthy—very demanding upon my time. Christina … was a young woman, not much older than you are now. I suppose I neglected her needs. I left her alone too often, and … I imagine she determined that she was not going to be lonely all by herself.”

  He rubbed his palms together, as if he were trying to erase some invisible spot on them. “One day, a patient I was treating made a swift recovery, and I came home a few days earlier than expected. I found them … in our bed … asleep in each other’s arms.” He closed his eyes against the visual memory.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, but he shook his head against her offered consolation.

  “It was bad enough that she had cuckolded me,” he continued. “But that blackguard actually refused to give her up. He told
me in no uncertain terms that I was a disappointment as a husband and that I didn’t deserve her. That Christina had sworn her life to him, and he intended to run away with her. I don’t mind telling you it gave me a great deal of pleasure to beat that man to a pulp before he was able to run out of the house. Christina, however … she never apologized for taking a lover. In fact, she seemed relieved that her affair had finally come to light.

  “I should have divorced her. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I did love her. A few weeks later, though, Christina told me she was pregnant. I didn’t know what to think. And she couldn’t make me any assurances about whose baby it was. But she wanted us to be a family, and … I wanted that, too. So she rededicated herself to me and promised to be faithful. For my part, I vowed to make her happier. And we consented to leave our marriage bed untouched while we began to rebuild the trust between us.

  “But that man … he would not let her go. He pestered her whenever I was called away. Sometimes he sent her gifts, and sometimes he wrote angry, vitriolic letters. If she had only told me about it at the time, I would have been able to protect her. But she hid the truth from me.

  “Four days after Eric was born, some teacakes and chocolates were delivered to her. The note was felicitous, but unsigned. She must have assumed it was from one of our friends, or from one of my well-wishing clients. Neither of us imagined it could have been from him. I found her in bed, her tongue—”

  Conall’s face twisted into an expression of heartsickness. The breath backed up in his throat.

  Shona raised herself to her knees and poured her body over Conall’s quaking shoulders. A futile gesture, perhaps, because what pained him came not from without, but within.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be burdening you with this,” he said.

  “Of course ye should.” She would give anything to protect Conall, and never had she felt the instinct to defend so keenly as now. Whatever it took to make his silent suffering go away, by God, she would do it. “We’re friends. Ye must tell me the grief. I’ll understand.”

  “No,” he said, wiping his eye with the heel of his hand. “I feel a complete fool.”

  She took his sodden face in her hands. “Listen to me, Conall MacEwan. The grief … it’s like broken glass. Ye must no’ keep it inside, or it’ll just keep making ye bleed all over again. Ye’ve got to let it out. Preferably to someone who knows what to do with all the pieces.”

  His eyes shone from the tears that still pooled in his reddening eyes. “I tell my son that big boys don’t cry. And look at me now.”

  “Tears are special things, Conall. They’re no’ a sign of weakness. No other creature can cry. Tears are a mark of yer humanity.”

  He nodded a mute thanks, distrusting the emotion in his throat. Guiltily, he laid her back down on the bed, and adjusted a pillow under her bandaged ankle.

  “Whatever happened to him?” she asked. “The man that poisoned yer wife?”

  He resumed his seat on the chair and sighed deeply before answering. “I let him go.”

  Shona’s eyes rounded. “Ye what?”

  “What else could I do? I had no proof it was he who did it. And even if I had, what good would it have done Christina to have him brought to justice? Her infidelity would be brought to light. Her memory would be tarnished—in the eyes of her friends, her family, her child. If I’d brought accusations against her lover, it would have ruined Eric’s future. Even I can’t be certain that Eric is mine. The doubt of his legitimacy would pursue him forever. I couldn’t let him live with that. So yes, the man who killed Christina walks free. She pledged him her life, and when she wouldn’t give it to him, he took it. Losing Christina was enough. I was not about to give him my whole family.”

  Things started to fall into place in Shona’s head. “Is that what the duchess threatened ye with? Exposing yer wife’s unfaithfulness?”

  He nodded slowly. “And my son’s potential illegitimacy.”

  Simultaneously, Shona and Conall turned toward the crib. Eric slept quietly, his full pink lips a perfect O. The long eyelashes curled over his round cheeks, and his breath came in quick bursts.

  “Even if he isn’t mine,” Conall continued, “I couldn’t love that boy any less.”

  Shona was touched deeply. Conall was indeed a special man.

  “How did Her Grace learn about yer wife’s bedmate?”

  Conall made a throaty, frustrated growl. “I don’t know! And she won’t tell me. God knows she has little enough motivation to do so. If she does, she might lose the hold she has over me. At this point, I can only speculate. There was an inquest following Christina’s death, but there was never any suspicion of poison. I was a doctor, and no one questioned my observation that Christina had died of childbed fever. In fact, the coroner was a friend of mine … I did my medical studies with him. But maybe he had ascertained the truth about Christina’s death and covered it up for my sake. Maybe the duchess paid him to learn the truth so that no one would ever give credence to my medical opinion again. Maybe Stewart had become such a thorn in her side that she did everything she could to show her daughter what a loathsome family we are.” He rubbed his forehead. “All I have are maybes. But the only thing I know for certain is that the duchess has extraordinary power to cripple us. If she reveals what she knows, it will not only make Eric a bastard in the eyes of the world, but it would taint his memory of his mother once he’s old enough to understand.”

  He took her hand in his. “So you see, Shona, I’m not marrying Lady Violet for her money. I have to marry her because if I don’t, whatever happiness my son can enjoy will be destroyed. Do you understand?”

  “Aye, I do.” She squeezed his hand. “But what aboot yer happiness? To marry a woman who does no’ love ye … won’t ye just be reliving that which ye had with Christina?”

  “That doesn’t matter. When a man becomes a father, his own well-being falls miles behind that of his child.”

  And, it seems, that of the woman who loves him.

  Conall began to pack up his medical valise. “I’ll talk to Her Grace. We’ll postpone our journey a few days until I’m certain you’re fit enough to be back on your feet.”

  Shona watched him collect the vials and adjust the implements. She had accomplished her purpose—to keep him near her a wee while longer. But in light of all he had confessed to her, it seemed pointless now. To make him love her now would only make his inevitable separation even more painful. And even if Shona could get him to propose to her, their marriage would cost him his child’s future.

  “So ye’ll be marrying the Lady Violet, then.”

  He stood over her. But his proud shoulders were now stooped from the weight of his cares. “Get some rest. I’ll check on you in the morning.”

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  NINETEEN

  Stewart leaned his back against the trunk of the tree, a scowl on his face. He gazed down into the valley where a swollen river laughed along the rocky brae.

  “What’s wrong with me?” he shouted to nobody.

  Charybdis craned her massive head in his direction, giving him a perplexed look before returning her attention to the patch of high grass she was munching on.

  He felt like a complete ass. Why was he allowing that medusa of a woman to rob him of his child? Of his future?

  He knew that the answer to that did not lie with the duchess. It lay within himself. He could not offer Violet a future. He had no money, no prospects, no character—only an insurmountable string of vices. She was better off with Conall. And so was his child.

  His child. For the first time, he understood why Conall had made the decision to acquiesce to the duchess’s demands. Nothing was more important than Eric. He was willing to sacrifice his own happiness to ensure that Eric would never suffer from his mistakes. Now Stewart understood why Conall had agreed to marry Lady Violet. It certainly wasn’t to save Stewart’s hide. Quite frankly, he wasn’t surprised.
His hide wasn’t worth saving.

  Ever since he’d left London, he felt renewed. After wallowing in the underbelly of London’s vices for so long, he’d begun to lose sight of himself. He’d felt drained and hollow, like an empty wine bottle. It seemed as though he didn’t enjoy the pleasures of London so much as the pleasures of London enjoyed him. Putting some distance between himself and his old life had given him a new perspective on things.

  And on people. Upon much reflecting, he realized that only one person in the world would give two farthings to save his miserable hide. Only one person in the world thought the world of him.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  He recognized the voice instantly, but its nearness startled him. He turned around, raising a hand to shield his eyes from the sunlight.

  There, haloed by the rays of the late morning sun, was Violet. She was as lovely as ever, her dark hair pinned up under a pink and green silk bonnet, while her light green dress was flattened against her trim figure by the strong breeze. She looked like a rare flower.

  “Good Lord!” he remarked as he stood up. “I must have just conjured you with my thoughts.”

  Violet grinned. “That gladdens my heart, for you are never far from mine.”

  Stewart felt a quickening in his heart. “Is your mother not with you?”

  “No. She’s abed with one of her debilitating headaches.”

  Probably bitten by one of those snakes growing out of her hair. “Would you care to sit down?” Stewart looked about for something she could sit on to keep her beautiful dress from getting smudged. The only thing he’d brought with him was his sketchbook. “Here, sit upon this.”

  Stewart placed it on the soft grass, but Violet picked it back up again. “What are you reading?”

  “Nothing,” he said, taking it from her hand. “It’s just my sketchbook. I hash in it from time to time.”

  “May I see?”

  His heart started pounding as he gazed into her expectant eyes. It shamed him to let her see those pages. He should have torn them out weeks ago, but he hadn’t the heart. Now, they were about to be opened up to the eyes of the only woman who had any regard for him.