Flames of Desire

by Vanessa Royall

  “Think of it all as over, sir,” Sean managed. “We will all of us survive, and recoup what’s lost.”

  Selena, pouring hot water into a pewter mug, felt a giddy elation at his words, which meant to her that nothing was changed, that they would go on as her father had planned. America, or wherever—he would get her out of here. There would not be Coldstream, not just now, but…

  Brian entered then, bleak and empty-handed. She watched his face brighten with surprise and relief and knew he was thinking, just as she had, that Sean Bloodwell meant deliverance. But Brian was less reticent than she had been about the difficulties of their circumstances.

  “…an’ we’ve but three gold guineas saved for oiling the wheels in Liverpool, should such be necessary, and as for the rest, only a ha’pence here an’ a ha’pence there to get as food. Just now, at the mead shop, they told me they’d have to see gold, an’ I’ve come back for one o’ the guineas…”

  Sean seemed concerned, but he did not hesitate. “I shall ride over there now. My horse needs stabling for the night, and I expect they’ve a place. They do? Good. I shall return shortly with enough for all of us. Is there…” he glanced around at the hut, “…a room in the town where I might…”

  “You’re welcome to stay here,” Selena said, with an eagerness that lacked conviction.

  “This town has no inn,” Brian explained, giving her a sharp look as he remembered Will Teviot. “No one ever comes here.”

  “We shall decide later,” Sean said. “Let me go now, and…”

  “I’ll accompany you,” Brian offered. “We could stand a measure of Scotland’s best…”

  “No. We need firewood,” Selena told him.

  “Again? Selena, what do you do? Burn it all at once? Just this morning, I…”

  Sean laughed. “Brian, never fear. I shall bring back plenty for all of us.”

  Brian went out with him, and Selena waited impatiently for his return. They had much to discuss. When Brian came back, alone, he said, “What luck! Just when I had begun to think all was lost, we’re saved.”

  But Lord Seamus was worried. “I do not know,” he said slowly. “We must talk more. It is too soon to believe we have found sudden redemption. We are not even safe, and Sean’s presence here means he is not safe either…”

  It came to Selena immediately.

  Either McGrover or his men might have followed Sean Bloodwell here to the northwest coast.

  Or…or, how had Sean himself fled Edinburgh Castle, when everyone knew that he was a favorite of Lord MacPherson, and all but engaged to Selena?

  Brian was too excited to be logical. “This time, sister,” lie ordered her, before going out to find wood for the fireplace, “this time don’t be a silly, romantic little fool. Only saints get a second chance as good as the first, and I don’t know what you are, but you’re certainly no saint. So use your head, and when he asks you to marry…”

  “Brian,” Father said, “none of that.”

  “What shall I do?” Selena asked her father, when they were alone. “It isn’t as Brian believes; it isn’t as simple as that. I do love Sean. I should have loved him all along. But he knows—we all do—what a fool I made of myself over Sir Royce. Perhaps my chance with Sean is lost, and with it all your plans, and our family’s future.”

  The burden was heavy on her, and her father motioned her to sit down next to him. He put his arm around her shoulders.

  “Selena,” he said gently, with a hint of the amused warmth that had always been in his eyes when he comforted her as a child, “Selena, God forbid, but this may be one of the last lessons I am favored to give you in this life—”

  “Father, no! Don’t say—”

  “Hush. Who knows what is true? But here is your lesson: when you are free, truly free to choose your own desire, that will be the time when you discover what it is you are, and what it is you believe. Yes, I made plans for you to marry Sean. I made them for your happiness, but I also had the well-being of our family in mind. However, that future is no more…

  “Yes, it is!” How could he say that? Coldstream would always be!

  “Selena, face the facts. You must. That future which I had planned simply does not exist any longer. But it also means that you are, in a sense, free to choose! Don’t you see? It is rather like a new world, and you do not even have to cross an ocean to possess it…”

  Yes, she was thinking. That is all very well, but if I do not accept Sean this time, we will go on as we are…

  “Do you love Sean Bloodwell now?” he was asking. “You are also free to answer that with your heart. Did you ever love him?”

  The shards of many emotions splintered and scattered there, in the cold hut on the rocky, wild coast the emotions almost as broken as her life. It was not as easy as her father believed. Yet she could say, in absolute truth, I did love Sean.

  “And I do love him now,” she decided, apart from the fact that he had come to help rescue them. Brian’s words came back to her, too, with a special meaning and poignancy: Only saints get a second chance. A second chance. With Sean. With love. To have a future. To do the right thing. After she had failed in her first chance by giving in to her baser instincts, and all but ruining herself with Royce Campbell. Father felt the tension of her body, as she stiffened in his embrace.

  “Is something the matter?”

  “No,” she lied. But something might be. How would Sean himself react when he discovered—as the Coldstream crones had assured her all men inevitably did—that she had been ruined? No, she could not think about that now. It would have to be dealt with at the proper time, in some way. The important thing was that she be honest this time, and responsible this time, and…and mature this time. The important thing was to make her vows to Sean, to be faithful to them and to him, to be worthy of the second chance.

  And where was Royce Campbell now? Somewhere in Scotland, or the world? Where, tonight, would he lie down, and with whom?

  Put that aside. You have had your lesson, the hard one from Royce and the gentle one from Father. You are not too thick to learn them both, and well.

  Sean Bloodwell returned from the village, bringing with him a bottle of whiskey, one freshly caught fish, a loaf of hard bread, and a dozen potatoes, which, although withered, were not rotten. But he also brought back, without meaning to, an air of tension. Lord Seamus said little, and Brian was almost surly, as the two of them shared the whiskey with Sean. Selena cooked the meal as best she could, but gave up trying to cheer them when she realized what was happening. So many unspoken hopes were pinned upon Sean Bloodwell that none of them dared speak, lest all those hopes be dashed.

  And Sean himself was unusually silent, too, as if considering a vast care he did not wish to share with the rest of them. Finally, the eating was finished, and they sat uncomfortably before the fire.

  “Brian,” his father asked, “how is it out tonight?”

  “Cold, Father. Cold and clear. The wind has died.”

  “I think,” he said too brightly, “that I could use a little air. Here, help me up and we’ll go out for a moment.”

  So this was how it would be. She felt Sean’s eyes touch her, then move away, and there was a hint of conspiracy in the room, which obscured her embarrassment.

  “I have something to say to you,” Sean began, when the other men were gone. He was standing, and she got up, too, and stood before him. They were both very serious, and spoke quietly. “And it is not going to be easy.”

  “Do not say it if you find it is too hard.”

  “Nay, I must.”

  “May I ask a question first? It is something I must know.”

  “Of course.”

  “How did you avoid being arrested? How were you allowed to leave Edinburgh Castle and come here to us?”

  “You know that I was not a Rob Roy?”

  “Yes, but you gave them funds, help.”

  “I did that because of your father, whom I respect. And…” he lowered his
eyes “…and because of you. It was reckless of me, one of the few wild things I’ve done. I don’t mean to say you caused me to participate, to give the money. I did that of my own free will, albeit with you in mind. Nevertheless, the fact that I was not of the Rob Roy party spared me arrest and interrogation. But…”

  Once again she respected his ability to maneuver, a skill more subtle but not unlike Royce Campbell’s bolder strokes. Sean had managed to save himself, and he loved her enough to come back for her, in spite of the fact that he had been in danger because of his association with the MacPhersons.

  “…but I must tell you this, Selena, so that you know. I am a child of the Empire. I am loyal to the Crown, and always will be. Do you know how much I have always wanted a title?”

  She knew, and smiled involuntarily.

  “Do not mock me. A title is an easy thing to wear, if you have it. But I want one and I shall have it someday. You see, although my father died a wealthy man, it was not always so. In the beginning, when he was building his fortune, the nobility treated him worse than they would have treated the oldest, mangiest, most flea-bitten hound in their kennels. When, in the beginning, he had to deal with them, to slowly buy from them the land under which our coal mines were later developed, he was made to go on his knees before the lords…”

  Sean’s face was hard now, in a way she had never seen, and beneath his words she heard the gall of shame and resolve.

  “…and other things were done of which I do not care to speak. But you must know, even after what has happened to you and your family, and in large part because of it, since I have learned my lesson as His Majesty’s subject, there will be no hatred of England in my blood.”

  She looked at him. So, she thought, such is his condition. And my condition is that I have been known by another man. We are neither of us pure.

  “I understand,” she told him, and came closer. His eyes were troubled, and in his face there was great tenderness for her, and pain, and high regard. She understood now, even more clearly, what her father had told her: in free choice one must define oneself. Sean had made his decision, and offered it to her. She, in turn, must now accept what he was, what he believed, or reject him. He was waiting. Never had she loved or admired him more.

  “If you will but take me as I am,” she said, “then I am yours.”

  With that, Selena slipped out of the uniform top, and went to him, presenting herself and her nakedness. She had given herself to Royce Campbell, in lust; now she would give Sean the same, in love. In love and wisdom.

  His arms went around her and she felt the leap of his desire, but something was wrong, something was terribly wrong.

  “I can’t,” he said, his voice strained with anguish, his face torn between desire and…something else.

  What could he mean? I can’t? Of course, he could.

  “It’s all right,” she told him. “I’m sorry if I caused you pain before…”

  “Selena, you didn’t…”

  “But I want this now. I want this to be our betrothal and our wedding and our pledge.”

  “Selena!” Gently, but firmly, he moved her away from his body.

  “It can’t be now,” he said, his voice like a plea.

  Then she understood. Not here, in this terrible stone room, with the smell of fried fish hanging in the air like defeat.

  “Then you will take this as a promise,” she said, taking the uniform jacket from the floor and pressing it to her breasts, “a promise that is true and changeless, even if…”

  “Selena, listen to me! It’s not that. I love you. You are all I’ve ever wanted. But not now.”

  “Not now? Why not? I don’t understand…”

  “Because,” he said, with the pain of admission, “there is nothing I can offer you now. I cannot even ask for your hand, much less take you away to safety. I’ve already paid Campbell for that. I cannot even support you.”

  He saw her look of stunned disbelief, and lowered his voice, trying to explain as gently as he could.

  “Everything’s been taken from me, Selena, by act of royal divestiture. I’ve nothing left, except my life. It was a bargain to which I was forced to agree, and one offered me only because I was not a Rob Roy. I came here to tell you that I still love you, but I’ve come to say good-bye. I will be sailing for India in a fortnight, to seek a position in the Colonial Service there. A second chance, you might say. If I succeed, and fashion a new reputation, I may return to Scotland someday. And if I fail, I will have the peace of doing so far from the mocking eyes of Darius McGrover…

  There was no more to say. Brian had already explained it earlier. Only saints got second chances.

  The Will is a Blade

  Sean Bloodwell bought a space on the floor of the mead shop that night, and shared a measure of waning fire at the hearth in return for part of the last of his once-great fortune. In the morning, the MacPhersons joined him there for breakfast, he gave them a few pounds, saddled his horse, and departed. Selena would never see him again, nor he her, and after the conversation in the hut on the previous evening, a certain numbness had overcome the two of them. This life is gone, they said to each other wordlessly, with wounded eyes, this age is done. Ride fast. Ride far. Farewell.

  Then he was gone, whom she loved, into the Highlands, that she loved, and gone, too, riding, into the heart of Scotland, which she loved, soon to be adrift upon the wild earth, as free as she herself was chained to one stone hut. Lethargy and torpor seized her, in the days that followed, and for the first time in her young life, she felt without caring, the flagging of the fire inside her, on which she had always been able to rely. There was no anger now, not exactly, and nothing like sorrow either, exactly, and not even pain. She felt as if she would not shrink from death, should it come, yet neither did she seek it. She did not know the nature of the gift she had been given: time. And time was healing her, working upon her soul and spirit the trackless magic of its lambent touch.

  Three days after Sean Bloodwell’s departure, in the early days of the month of March, a blizzard howled down at them out of the Arctic, and for three days she slept, oblivious to everything. Awakening on the morning of the fourth day, she sensed immediately the silence that the wind had filled. And she sensed, in her own being, that the clouds had lifted and were gone.

  Outside, the sky was shining and the air turned solid and crystal at the touch of her breath, her life. She had it still, and it was marvelous on a morning as fine as this. She cried out suddenly, gloriously, to the wide-eyed wonder of some village women passing, but then these women smiled, too, and understood. If it was not resurrection, it was at least rebirth.

  Selena faced the future, and took stock. First, neither she nor their father nor Brian knew what might happen when they left the shelter of the Highlands. But they would have to leave for Liverpool, so there was no sense worrying about it. What would happen was inevitable anyway, and only prayer or luck could keep them safe. And if they did reach Liverpool, and if the Highlander was there in the harbor, so would Royce Campbell be. That knowledge led to her second conclusion. She could no longer pretend to be a girl anymore. Circumstances, as well as her own passion, had combined to make her a woman. So, in the future, she would behave as one. I’ll be mature, she thought. No more giving in to wild impulse, no impractical dreaming. Behaving as a silly young girl had already cost her the love of a good man, and her chasing after a man without honor had cost her…well, admit it, Selena, it cost you your own honor, did it not? But surviving the future would require something of the past to cling to, something she might carry with her always, wherever she went in the new world. Sean Bloodwell had told her, not so long ago either, to make herself an instrument of her own desires, to steel herself, and in that way attain her goals. And her father’s advice, now that the MacPhersons had nothing, were nothing but their physical beings and their dreams, could not have been more apt: a person truly free to choose what is of value can define himself by that choice.

>   What was of value? What did she love most, that she might cling to? Was there some goal to keep before her, like a grail?

  The peace that came down with the storm, and the need to think, to plan, to fit things together, kept Selena’s mind off the tedious circuit of the days. The time for departure was fast approaching, which also cheered Brian and Lord Seamus—Brian planned to leave for Durness, to obtain horses for their journey—and they left her to her thoughts. Lying alone at night, Royce Campbell would come to her behind the blanket barricade, and stir her body to willing fire, with memory alone, and Selena learned that the memory of pleasure would last as long as pleasure was desired, or longer still. And in her dreams appeared Sean Bloodwell, always looking directly into her eyes, as if waiting for her to speak, waiting for her to decide something of vast importance to their mutual happiness. But she never knew what it was, or never faced his unspoken query, and in the dream she would turn away with a complicated feeling that was a mixture of love and guilt, remorse and loss. Gradually, over the days and nights, only one thing stood out clearly, one place both embraced and surmounted all the rest. Each person of whom she thought, every emotion she felt, every glimmer of a dream or a plan that was hers or had ever been hers revolved somehow on the place dearest of all to her: Coldstream.

  Free now to choose anything at all, she wandered the bitter, rocky coast of Kinlochbervie, and chose her ancestral home to hold against her heart, a memory to take with her anywhere. Her heart ached with sweetness, then with incredible loss, as she bent into the wind, alone with her thoughts in the roar of the surf, and yet at the same time in the garden with her father long ago, or at the window on the bitter day that Brian slew McEdgar and became a man, or on the towers of the battlements in December, with the hunting hawk poised and soaring far above the fields of Scotland.

  Someday, she promised herself, not knowing how or how long, someday it will be ours again, and I will walk the halls and sleep in the fragrant gardens and bar the gates to all but us.

  Nerved by her choice, she stopped on the beach, turning first to the sea, then inland toward the dark smoky mounds of the Highlands, making her vow to Scotland and the world, pledging the troth of her will to the living sea, to all the blood that earth had known.