by Karen Ranney
He caught sight of himself in the glass door of the cabinet. Strictly speaking, he was no longer attached to the regiment, but for this visit, he’d donned the distinctive scarlet tunic and black trousers he’d worn for the last fourteen years.
The Lowland Scots Fusiliers was a regiment formed fifteen years ago, a year after the abortive rebellion with England. The younger sons of many a distinguished family had served as a Fusilier, no doubt as a way to prove their loyalty to the British crown. He’d entered the regiment because there was nothing else for him to do with his life.
He wondered what Catherine would think when viewing him for the first time. When he shaved, he considered his face, but only from a task standpoint—had he missed any whiskers? Now he surveyed himself closely.
His eyes were blue, but then he’d been told his mother’s were the same shade. Over the last fourteen years, he’d lost the habit of smiling and now practiced at his reflection. A pleasant enough expression. His face was neither excessively long nor square, but average. His nose, however, was patrician-looking, which was an annoyance. His hair was black, tied at the back with a red ribbon. The Lowland Scots Fusiliers had a distinctive headpiece, made of fur, but his was currently tucked under his arm since it would have been rude to enter a home attired in headgear.
His black trousers were tucked into his boots, appropriate garments for riding. The boots themselves were highly polished, a chore he’d done himself this morning. A ducal rank did not preclude him from personal responsibility. He’d startled Peter with that comment, and the recollection brought a smile to his face now.
There, that expression looked natural enough.
A sound made him turn. A woman stood in the open doorway. She was tall, and almost painfully thin. Her brown hair was tangled and hanging past her shoulders. Her complexion was waxen, her lips cracked and dry. A rumpled wrapper slipped from one shoulder even as she attempted to keep it closed with both hands. Someone—a maid?—had thought to try to cover her with a blanket, but as she entered the room it fell to the floor.
She approached him slowly, her bare feet scuffling on the wooden floor. Her brown eyes were bloodshot, fixed on him with a stare that unnerved him. Moncrief didn’t move to close the door behind her, or to assist her to the settee.
Shock rendered him immobile.
“You knew him?” Even her voice was different from what he’d imagined. Lower, stronger, a husky contralto when he’d expected a faint soprano.
“I served with Captain Dunnan, madam.” He bowed slightly. “Regrettably, I was the one who informed you of his death.”
Her face changed and for a horrifying moment he was certain she was going to weep. Dear God.
“I came to offer my condolences,” he added, hoping that conversation would keep her from collapsing into tears.
She looked dazed, as if she didn’t know what to do next. Concerned, he offered her his arm, but she only blinked at him as if not understanding that gesture either. He gently placed her hand on his arm and walked her to the settee. Then, as if she were an elderly lady devoid of most of her senses, he helped her sit.
The wrapper parted, exposing her legs below the knees. He retrieved her blanket from the floor and placed it across her lap. As he moved to sit beside her, he glanced downward to see one bare foot, delicate and shapely, toes curling against the floor.
Any disappointment he felt about this meeting was suddenly pushed aside by a surge of compassion.
Her gaze didn’t leave his, expectant and hopeful in a way that was oddly painful.
“Tell me about him,” she said, so softly that it was barely more than a breath. “Tell me about Harry. Please.”
Her eyes were brimming with unshed tears, her nose was pink, her lips trembled. He didn’t remember ever seeing a creature so devastated by grief. He wanted to call for her slippers, tuck her into her bed, and comfort her with something warm to drink. Only then would he tell her that Harry Dunnan was not worth such agony of spirit. Instead, Moncrief stretched out his hand to her and she placed hers in his, the trust in her touch disarming him.
“Please,” she whispered. She leaned her head against the wooden back of the settee as if the effort to sit upright was suddenly too much.
Moncrief squared his shoulders and searched his memory for good things to say about Captain Dunnan. Since the man gambled extensively, he owed money to nearly every man in the regiment. He was cruel to his horses, and recklessly brave, putting others needlessly in danger. Moncrief suspected that Harry also enjoyed killing. During the siege of Quebec, Dunnan had been a ferocious fighter, all too eager for combat.
No human being, however, was entirely without attributes.
“He was very personable,” Moncrief finally said, relieved to have found something good to say. “And a good soldier as well.”
She nodded, retrieving her hand. Intent on his words, she barely breathed.
“He was an excellent marksman.”
She smiled, a wobbly expression, but a smile nonetheless, making him wonder if his words conjured up a pleasant memory.
Silence stretched between them as he searched his memory for something more to say about Harry. The clock in the hallway chimed the hour, urging him to leave. A movement made him glance in the direction of the window. The wind had picked up, banishing the fog and tossing the leaves from the branches of a nearby tree. The day was no longer eerie, simply one that foretold winter.
A maid came to the door bearing a tray. After looking at her mistress and receiving no acknowledgment of her presence, she entered the room and placed the tray not far from the settee. She glanced once in his direction, her lips curving into a smile. He nodded, grateful for her timely interruption and the fact that it might ease his leave-taking.
When she moved, a ray of sunlight illuminated the maid’s blond hair, reminding him of his previous thoughts of Catherine. This fragile, almost gaunt, wraith beside him could not be the woman with whom he’d corresponded for a year. She wasn’t even lucid.
“I’ve brought refreshments, mistress,” the maid said, bobbing a curtsy. “Some sweet buns and tea.”
“I think I hear his voice sometimes,” Catherine said in response.
Startled, he looked at her. Her eyes were closed, her smile otherworldly.
The maid covered her mouth with her hand as if to hide her smile. She glanced at Catherine again, and this time her eyes were dancing as if she were amused at the sight of her mistress, dazed and confused.
“That will be all,” he said in dismissal. The maid bobbed another curtsy and left the room, closing the door behind her.
From Catherine’s appearance and manner it was clear that no one was caring for her, either ensuring that she ate or was attired correctly. Not one person had come to inquire as to this meeting, or stopped her from appearing before him dressed in such a manner.
He placed his hand over one of hers, feeling her tremble.
She looked up at him, pulled her hand free again, and reached slowly into the pocket of her wrapper, extricating a much-read, much-folded letter. He knew the script well enough, he’d penned the words himself. Immersed in his fascination for Catherine Dunnan, he’d not given any thought to the possibility that she would treasure his words as strongly as he had hers.
“I hear his voice in his letters. Shall I read it to you?”
He shook his head, but she ignored his wishes, unfolded the page, and began to read.
If you could but see the sky here. It seems a cleaner and fresher place, Catherine, yet manages to remind me of home. I half expect to see the gorse, or the eagles or witness the craggy face of Ben Nevis in the distance. There is no heather, and no brave little creeks that flow from the hills. Here, the land is raw and barely born. The men who make their mark upon it do so at their peril. Scotland seems to me to be a willing and complicit partner in survival, as if the land acknowledges that life itself is sometimes a difficult venture. This place, however, is an adversary.
We occasionally meet with some Jesuits. One of our Indian guides told me that a Jesuit priest is the worst of all aberrations. The Indians do not like a beard on a man’s face. Nor do they approve of a bald head. Therefore, a Jesuit is two times a devil in their eyes.
Catherine smiled weakly at him, unaware of Moncrief’s growing discomfort.
As a leader, he’d always cultivated a distance and aloofness from his men. He found it difficult to be friends with those he had to order into battle. His time in North America had been marked by an aloneness that he eased by writing Catherine, by pretending that she was his, that her troubles were his, that the way she began her letters—my dearest—was meant for him.
What an absolute idiot he’d been.
She pressed the letter against her chest with both hands and closed her eyes again. Slowly, she recited the rest of the letter, evidently having memorized its contents. The words were pedestrian, the missive nothing that should be enshrined in anyone’s memory, but they evidently had become a lifeline to Catherine Dunnan, a connection to the husband she had adored.
What in the name of St. Agnes’s Bell had he done?
I would think that the vicar calls upon you overmuch, and is too concerned with your welfare and not that of the rest of his parish. I would encourage him to do good works in other places, Catherine.
As for your maid, I agree with your decision to retire Dorcas and give her a small plot of land. Service of any sort for such a loyal and loving person should be rewarded.
“He was always like that,” she said. “Always thinking of others before himself.”
In actuality, Harry was nothing like that. Harry Dunnan cared little for anyone but Harry Dunnan.
“Does the vicar come by to see you often?” he asked, impatient with her recitation of Harry’s virtues and wishing to change the subject.
The question surprised her enough that she opened her eyes and stared at him.
“Yes, almost every day. Why do you ask?”
“Are you that great a sinner?”
One single tear welled from her left eye and fell in a haphazard course to her chin. He wanted to reach out and brush it away with his thumb, but doing so would have been an intimate gesture. The world, and Catherine, saw them as strangers.
She shook her head, lowering her gaze to a spot on the floor. “It doesn’t matter now,” she said softly, still smoothing her hands across the pages of the letter. How many times had she read it? A hundred? A thousand?
“Have you kept all his letters?” He knew the answer before she gave him a look filled with remonstration, as if he trod over sacred ground with hobnailed boots, or whistled in a church.
“Of course,” she said. “I know each of them as well as this one. They’re all I have left of Harry, you see.”
Uncomfortable, Moncrief stood and walked to the window. “Your husband has been dead for some months, madam.”
“So everyone tells me.”
He glanced back at her as she folded the letter with infinite tenderness and placed it back in her pocket.
“But I still hear him through his letters. They speak to me.”
Bloodshot and teary, her brown eyes conveyed a pathos that rendered him ill at ease. He wanted to tell her that she should guard herself more closely. Loss, despair, loneliness all shone in her eyes so perfectly that she had no need of speech.
Her hand pressed against her pocket as if to reassure herself that Harry’s letter was safe. “His words make him come alive. I read his letters, and I can see him here, as close as you are.”
“I have another,” he heard himself saying with a kind of horror. “I have another letter from Harry.”
Her eyes widened as she sat up straight. “Have you truly?”
He nodded, committed now to the lie. “He wrote it before he died,” Moncrief said. “He was thinking of you and wished to write you.”
The disturbing fact was not that he could come up with a falsehood so quickly, but that he could fill in such detail without much thought. A few more minutes, and he could, no doubt, convince himself that he’d actually seen Dunnan write the blasted thing.
She glanced at his tunic, then at his hands, as if he held the letter there even now.
“Please, would you give it to me?”
“I didn’t bring it,” he said, his newly found powers of prevarication abruptly leaving him. “I’ve left it behind at the inn.”
Catherine wavered as she stood. When he rose to assist her, she shook her head, refusing his assistance. How long had it been since she’d eaten? She shuffled to the other side of the room, and jerked once on a richly embroidered bellpull.
“I will summon one of my staff,” she said, turning and facing him. “We can send him for the letter.”
“There’s no need for that,” he said, coming to her side. “I will bring it tomorrow.”
Her face fell. “Must you wait so long? Could you not return this evening?”
What idiocy had propelled him to tell her he had another letter from her husband? To ease the look in her eyes, no doubt, even though he doubted that one more letter from Harry would truly aid in that task.
“It would be impossible, I’m afraid.”
“Then the morning?”
He bowed once to her, and she nodded again, the smile she gave him fleeting and quite obviously a dismissal.
Moncrief said his farewells and escaped the house with a feeling of reprieve.
Catherine entered her room and slowly closed the door behind her. Her heart was beating too fast, and her breath was too tight. She stretched out one hand to brace herself against the wall, hoping that the nausea would soon pass.
Dear God, grief was making her ill.
Your husband has been dead for some months, madam.
She rested her cheek against the wall, wishing away the words. Why did people think it necessary to remind her of Harry’s death? Did they think she might forget it? Wake in the morning and stretch, greet the sun with a smile, uncaring that she was a widow?
What an arrogant man. His eyes had been too sharp, too watchful, as if he gauged her every movement. Dressed in his Lowland Scots Fusiliers uniform, he’d been an arresting sight, tall like Harry had been tall, but Harry had blond hair while this man’s hair was black. Harry’s eyes had been soft and brown, kind eyes. The colonel’s had been blue and piercing.
She took a deep breath, looked at the distance from the door to the bed, and wondered if she could make it without falling. Her limbs felt weak, as if she’d been walking for days and days, yet all she’d done was climb the staircase. Slowly, with arms outstretched, fingers trailing along the wall, she crossed the room, reaching her bed with a sigh of relief. She lay, drawing up her legs and pulling the blanket over them.
“There you are,” Glynneth said a few minutes later, shattering Catherine’s descent into sleep. “Are you resting again?”
She nodded, keeping her eyes shut, wishing Glynneth away. But the other woman was tenacious in her care of her and refused to be banished.
Glynneth bustled to the side of the bed, and covered her properly with the blanket, plumped up her pillow. “Are you certain that you wish to sleep again so soon after waking?”
“I am so very tired.”
“You should not be,” Glynneth said, her voice sounding concerned. She reached over and smoothed the hair back from Catherine’s temple. Her hand felt so warm, and Catherine was so cold. She clamped her teeth together to keep them from chattering.
“Tell me about your visitor.” Glynneth pulled up a chair and sat beside the bed.
Catherine turned her head and opened her eyes.
Glynneth Rowan was her age, a gentlewoman who was more of a companion than a lady’s maid. Catherine had hired her more than a year ago. At the time, Catherine had envied Glynneth her blond hair the color of gold, her smile revealing even white teeth, the bloom of color on her face, and especially the color of her eyes, a deep gray that reminded her of smoke. Glynneth was e
verything she was not, petite and dainty while Catherine occasionally felt gawky and awkward.
She’d come to rely on Glynneth too much this last year, but the other woman didn’t seem to mind. Instead, she had taken on some of Catherine’s duties and done them with a smile.
“He’s come from Harry’s regiment.”
Glynneth nodded. “I saw him leave. He’s a very impressive man in his uniform.”
“You should have been here to meet him.”
“I was with the vicar, as you well know. I would have changed places with you if I could.”
Catherine sighed. She didn’t have the energy to deal with the vicar. “What does he want now?”
“He is certain that the roof of the church is about to tumble down about his ears. I think that he has it in his mind to solicit more funds from you.”
Catherine closed her eyes again. “He does every month, for one project or another. Give him what he wants.”
Glynneth smoothed the blanket up to Catherine’s chin.
“How do you do it, Glynneth? How do you go on, day after day? You’ve been a widow longer than I, you must know.”
“One simply endures.”
Catherine glanced at the other woman. “I’m tired of simply enduring. Does the pain get better in time?”
Glynneth looked away. “You have no choice but to go on, Catherine. That is all.”
“It sounds so easy,” Catherine said. “But it is so difficult.”
“Were you able to eat any lunch?” Glynneth patted the blanket, smoothing it before tucking the ends beneath the mattress.
“A little,” Catherine said, not confessing that the squirrels had eaten more than she had.
“If I send another tray up, will you try to eat something? Perhaps drink some tea?”
Glynneth stood and looked down at her, so long that Catherine glanced up in puzzlement.
“Don’t look so angry, Glynneth, I’ll try to eat something.”
“Good.” A moment later, she spoke again. “Did he say anything about your husband? Since he was from the same regiment?”
Catherine closed her eyes, unable to fight back the tender beckoning of sleep. “He said Harry was a fine man, Glynneth. He has a letter for me.”