A Highland Duchess (33 page)

What would Rebecca say if she told her the truth?
I was a slave to passion, dear Rebecca, and Ian was my master.

He might still be.

“Instead of discussing the past,” Patricia said, coming down the path, “I’m more concerned with the future. Whose idea was it to have your wedding ceremony on the island? Yours or Ian’s? He’s always loved this place ever since he was a boy.”

Rebecca smiled at her future sister-in-law. “It was Ian’s but I confess I really don’t care where the ceremony is held. It’s simply enough that I get to marry Ian.”

“Which is exactly how my wife felt about marrying me,” Fergus said, generating a smile from his wife.

The glance they shared was filled with passion, but there was nothing of licentiousness or lust in their gaze. Instead, this was love, so direct and so forceful that Emma could not help but feel it.

Rebecca no doubt felt the same, because she sighed a little.

“When Ian and I are married,” she said, smiling up at him with artless candor, “we shall be just as much in love.”

Emma excused herself and began to walk ahead.

Rebecca must have said something amusing because both Fergus and Ian laughed.

A charming young woman. No doubt innocent and virtuous, as well. Why did that thought annoy her?

The forest abruptly fell away as they reached the summit. The area was larger than she imagined, the top of the hill flattened as if by a giant’s hand. Pine needles were layered over what looked to be limestone, or perhaps granite, some grayish stone that sparkled in the afternoon sun.

From here she had a view all around the island, as well as the lake stretching to the horizon.

Broderick began to open the baskets, spreading a cloth on the ground. The top of the hill was a lovely place for an outing, and an even more magnificent spot for a wedding ceremony.

Sadness surrounded her, seeped inside her, as if it were a damp and pervasive fog. Emma held herself tight, walking closer to a low wall that looked out of place for this hilltop. The wall stretched only about nine feet in length, of pale red brick that had crumbled in places. She peered over it to find herself looking down to a sheer drop. At the bottom were jagged boulders. Perhaps the Romans had built this as a retaining wall. Or a caution to anyone not to venture too close to the edge.

Were these the ruins Ian meant?

She turned to ask, only to find him with his head bent toward Rebecca, their conversation evidently a personal one.

Envy curled in her stomach. Rebecca would have him with her during all the small, unimportant moments that made up life. She’d be able to smile at him across a table, have him hold her hand, have him touch her face with tenderness in his fingertips and mirrored in his eyes.

Rebecca would be his companion for all those years, for decades of conversations, of mundane questions interspersed with laughter. Rebecca would be the one to bear his children, hear his tales of triumph, and cajole him from despair.

Suddenly, she wanted to be away from all of them. She wanted to be alone, a condition in which she’d found herself in the last eighteen months, one that suited her best. Without people there was no one to criticize her, no one to speculate on her past, no one to whisper tales that may or may not be true. No one to hurt her.

When she was a child, her mother had vanished for long stretches of time, creating niches of silence for herself. Sometimes she’d be found in the upstairs parlor. Sometimes Emma viewed her in the garden, sitting on a bench, staring at the flowers so intently it was as if she were listening to them. For years she wanted to know why her mother was so content in her own company, and now she knew why.

Silence was a friend. The absence of people meant safety. People could hurt you. Or if they didn’t hurt you, they lured you to think that you could be someone you weren’t. Someone who could laugh and be at ease, who could trust and believe in an impossible future.

What she was feeling was not a physical pain. This was a sorrow so vast and so deep that it felt as large as the lake surrounding the island.

Turning, she began to walk back the way she’d come, glancing over her shoulder at the others. No one noticed her departure. Broderick was intent upon laying out luncheon. Fergus and Patricia were immersed in each other. Rebecca had both hands clamped around Ian’s arm as if she were afraid she’d fall without his support.

Emma began to follow the path, descending into the forest again. Without the others, she could hear the sounds of the birds. In that moment she wished she could become a creature of the forest itself. She would let her hair flow free, dress in a simple shift, and converse only with the squirrels, the foxes, and the birds.

When she saw the abandoned castle through the trees, she stepped off the path, holding her skirts up a little higher than was proper, and began to walk toward the original home of the McNairs.

The castle was little more than a moss-covered ruin, three walls leaning toward each other. No roof remained, and only fallen stones marked where the rest of the castle had stood.

The air was thick and heavy, the pattern of light filtering through the trees almost magical. Emma wondered if she’d stumbled onto an enchanted spot. If she remained motionless, would the castle rise up, the ruins reforming into walls and rooms and roofs until the structure was whole again? Then the structure would speak to her in a thickly burred voice, in an accent from an earlier time. A voice with sorrow in it, or even anger that it had come to being this: a blight upon the landscape, when it had once housed warriors.

She walked through the nearly knee-high grass, scrunching up her skirt with both hands.

The McNairs of an earlier day must have had to bring in all their food by boat, along with those items they could not make themselves and for which they’d traded.

From here she could see the promontory of land on which Lochlaven had been built. How long ago had the McNairs left their island fortress? When their fortunes improved? When they longed for more civility, and less barbarity?

She would ask Bryce. Surely he would know of his family’s history.

As to her own history, she could not imagine her uncle a murderer. Perhaps, if the poison was in only one bottle, it had been an accident of some sort.

Emma bowed her head, the silence surrounding her. In this place, peopled only by ghosts, she felt curiously at peace. Not happy or content but resigned.

Perhaps she was not destined to know love, not the way she’d always longed for it. Yet there were other compensations to life, and she would have to find them, list them, review them daily so as to gain hope and wisdom and the courage to live completely and without resentment.

“I cannot blame you,” Patricia said.

Emma whirled to find that Ian’s sister had followed her and was standing only a few feet away. For once she was not accompanied by Fergus.

“You’ve escaped us,” Patricia said. “Quite well, too. If I didn’t know for certain you’ve never been here, I might think you know your way around the island.”

She advanced on Emma, smiling. When she reached her side, Patricia’s voice softened. “Is it Rebecca? She can be cloying, can’t she?”

“I just wished a few moments to myself.”

“I’m always a little concerned about women who are excessively sweet,” Patricia said, as if Emma hadn’t spoken. “I haven’t the temperament. All you need do is ask Fergus—he will verify that only too quickly.” She raised an eyebrow at Emma. “Are you sweet, Emma?”

Emma smiled, amused. “Unfortunately, I’m not. There are times when I would truly like to be. But I haven’t the temperament, either.”

“I think we shall be fast friends, you and I. Now, if we could only convince Rebecca to do something utterly wicked.”

“Wickedness is overrated,” Emma said.

Patricia laughed.

“Have you known Rebecca long?” Emma asked.

Patricia considered the question before answering. “I have. Nearly ten years. Ever since she was a little girl, coming with her father to Ian’s laboratory.”

She leaned closer to Emma. “I think this marriage is a bit of convenience, myself. There she was, of marriageable age, the daughter of someone my brother respects a great deal. And there he was, quite a catch, an earl, wealthy, intelligent, and beyond handsome.” She smiled. “He’s my brother but I’m as good a judge of masculine beauty as anyone. Do you not think him handsome?”

Emma didn’t quite know how to answer that question. If she gave Patricia the truth—that every time she saw him, her heart beat faster—that comment would give her feelings away, would it not? So she settled for a smile that assuaged Patricia well enough.

“I wish he’d find someone to love,” Patricia said, her voice growing pensive. “Someone not convenient at all but to match his temperament. Instead, I think he halfway offered for Rebecca because of money.”

It was quite ill-bred to speak of money, having it or not having it. Still, Emma couldn’t quite tamp down her curiosity.

“What do you mean?”

“Oh, Ian has plenty of it. But she has nothing. Dr. Carrick doesn’t practice as a physician any longer. If it wasn’t for Ian’s money, I don’t doubt they’d be in dire straits.”

She looked a little shamefaced. “There I go. At least I told you I wasn’t sweet. I have a termagant’s temper, my Fergus says. Of course, I fuss at him sometimes, only to apologize in the most appropriate way.” She smiled again and the same look came into her eyes that Emma had seen earlier that day—the look of a completely satisfied woman.

Emma followed Patricia back to the path. A few minutes later she and Patricia reached the summit. Their luncheon had been arranged, and everyone but the two of them was sitting on a large cloth Broderick had spread on the ground.

There were no formal seating arrangements, as there might have been at dinner. Rebecca sat beside Ian, and on Ian’s other side, Broderick. Beside him was Fergus, who Patricia joined. Emma sat on Patricia’s right side, with no one next to her, feeling as out of place now as she had earlier.

Rebecca began to speak of the wedding ceremony, how Ian would be wearing a kilt, and she a sash across her dress.

“There isn’t a McNair tartan, per se,” Rebecca said. “But I found one that I think will do.” She tilted her chin down and looked up at Ian. A coy look that Emma had seen performed more than once by women of Anthony’s acquaintance.

She looked away rather than watch the spectacle.

Perhaps she simply needed to be in Rebecca’s company a little longer. After all, the girl had done nothing to her. Rebecca had gone out of her way to be charming and welcoming.

Her own character, mottled and filled with holes, was to blame for her irritation and no doubt the reason she was getting a spearing pain over her left eye.

Sitting here under a cloud-filled blue Scottish sky, the breeze from the lake blowing gently across her face, it was almost possible to believe that nothing was amiss in her life. The day was bucolic, the company charming, but just below the surface pulsed too many questions for which she had no answers.

Who had poisoned Bryce? Had it been an accident or a deliberate and evil act?

What was she supposed to do about these unwanted and unwelcome feelings for Ian McNair?

Would Bryce be so easily convinced by a few fluttering lashes? She’d have to attempt it. Anything to get him quickly out of his sickbed and into a carriage.

In this lovely setting, with the breeze brushing against her cheek with the tenderness of a lover, Emma made a vow. She would do everything within her power, with no reservations, with patience and determination, to be a good wife to Bryce. If he was unhappy in their marriage, it would not be because of any lack of effort on her part.

Ian glanced at her from time to time. She wanted to tell him that she was fine, thank you, and that he should not express any concern as to her health. He mustn’t be tender, or considerate, and above all he should not talk to her in a low tone, the one that made her feel as if his voice were caressing her.

Patricia suddenly looked up, then spoke to Ian. “Do you see that?” she asked, pointing toward the house.

All of them looked toward Lochlaven. For a moment Emma didn’t know what Patricia meant but then another flash of light came from an upstairs window, as if a mirror had been angled to reflect the light. The flash came again, then a third time.

Ian stood. “Something’s wrong,” he said. He glanced down at Patricia, then the rest of them. “It’s our signal to come home,” he said. “Our parents used it when we stayed too long on the island.”

“Ian,” Patricia said, joining him. “Look.”

Emma stood and walked to where the others were congregating.

A woman with bright blond hair—Glenna?—stood in the garden, waving her arms over her head.

“Something has happened to Bryce,” Emma said.

Everyone was looking at her with various degrees of compassion. Finally, she glanced at Ian.

“I’ll take you back, Emma,” he said.

A look of displeasure slipped over Rebecca’s face. “Nonsense, Ian. Broderick will be more than happy to do so.” She nodded at the young man and he smiled in response.