Island of the Swans (87 page)

The staccato rhythm of a hammer striking lumber rang out across Kinrara Glen. Jane wiped her perspiring face in the warm May sun as she surveyed the progress of the carpenters and brick masons and felt a pleasurable glow at seeing how high the mansion’s new walls had climbed. The burnished russet bricks marched up to the level of the second story. The graceful house, so long a part of her imagination, was slowly taking shape before her eyes.

The act of building a house, when so much else in Jane’s life had been torn asunder, became her salvation in the months of anguish following her trip to Struy and the discovery that Thomas had departed for America. London and the gay society that had, in times past, filled the void in her life, was now without the slightest charm. Like an animal that must lick its wounds alone, Jane had spent her first winter in the Highlands in many a year, insulated from all the backstairs intrigues and rivalries that had been so much a part of her earlier life around the Court.

Even the furor caused by the mob storming the Bastille the previous July in Paris failed to ignite Jane’s interest in the world outside Kinrara’s boundaries. She sighed, sitting on a knoll that overlooked a sharp bend in the River Spey, and squinted into the sun. She had lost Thomas for good, but perhaps she had found herself. His note had bequeathed to her his love, and that love had pulled her through the misery of the previous year. She was proud of the house she was helping to build. She was proud of her children whose company she found delightful. She was proud of Thomas’s long struggle to help his people, and she renewed her vow to help her own.

A feeling of satisfaction crept over her as she surveyed the crew of workmen swarming around the house. To promote local employment, she’d hired as many Spey Valley craftsmen as possible, importing from the south only those who had special skills of carving and fashioning masonry. When the house was finished, she would renovate the cottages and bothys that sprinkled the estate. Perhaps she would even try to persuade Alex, when next she saw him, to do the same with the loggers’ cottages and spinning and weaving operations. Gazing toward the river, she caught sight of a dozen or so people tramping through the forest that flanked the Spey.

“Heigh-ho! Food to the rescue!” shouted her twenty-year-old son Lord Huntly, carrying one side of a large picnic hamper up the hill from the old cottages where the children and guests slept, dormitory-style.

Alex’s natural son by Bathia Largue—now a commissioned officer in the Army and no longer called The Duke’s George—held fast to the other wicker handle. The two brothers continued to look remarkably alike, a fact that still gave Jane pause. Even so, she was gratified to see her stepson was quite affectionate toward her, despite the fact she was hardly on speaking terms with his father. However, only one of the lads would eventually inherit his father’s titles, along with the Gordons’ vast lands and influence. An accident of birth… a piece of paper at the church registry… a judge’s dyspepsia or pleasure on a given case.… On such slender strings hung a man’s—or woman’s—fortune.

Little Alexander trudged along beside his elder brothers, proud to be asked to bear a tartan blanket for the festivities. Thirteen-year-old Louisa, her glorious red tresses piled casually atop her head, transported a large jug of ale. Georgina, nearly nine, carried her mother’s fan.

“William?” Susan called to a young man carrying several bottles of spirits, “would you be so kind as to pull on that far corner of the tartan rug?”

William Montague, the Fifth Duke of Manchester, was the nineteen-year-old scion of Kimbolton Castle in the south near St. Neots. He had extraordinary good looks and an athletic body. The young blade was one of several visitors Lord Huntly had brought with him to the Highlands after the conclusion of his term at University. Jane had observed the admiration in Susan’s eyes when the lass watched Montague and Huntly row their sleek barks in a race on Loch-an-Eilean. The young duke’s broad shoulders and muscular arms were a rather stirring sight, even to a woman of Jane’s mature years.

She nearly laughed out loud at herself. She didn’t miss Alex’s dark moods, or jealous rages, but on occasion, when she glimpsed a physique as intriguing as young Montague’s, she realized she wasn’t the dried-up matron of forty she suspected her children might consider her.

Jane appraised her middle daughter contentedly. Susan was young, of course, but Jane had every hope of marrying yet another of her five daughters to someone of note—and this young duke, she wagered, would do very well indeed.

The members of this casual party reclined on the tartan rug, sat on the grass, or perched on tree stumps, partaking of the simple repast. Jane had been delighted by the steady stream of friends and acquaintances hailing from as far away as London who were drawn to Kinrara by its renowned natural beauty and the news that the celebrated Duchess of Gordon was building her dream house.

“When do you expect to start running your sheep?” asked her stepson, his eyes squinting in the warm sunlight bathing their picnic area.

“In the spring, I should hope,” she smiled.

“Shall we buy stock from the Grants, after the lambing?” Louisa asked, full of interest in the proposed project.

“You’re planning to be a shepherdess, are you now?” Lord Huntly joked.

“Mama says she wants all her lasses to learn about sheep farming,” Louisa retorted defensively. “Don’t you, Mama?”

Jane glanced at her son, who exuded such confidence and pride at his place in the world. The future of the Fifth Duke of Gordon was assured, his position secure both in the Highlands and at Court. Did it ever occur to him how different the situation was for his sisters?

“Aye…” Jane said, sipping on a tankard of ale the handsome Duke of Manchester had extended to her. “’Tis good for lasses as well as lads to know a bit of farming and husbandry,” she said, her voice full of meaning. “One never knows when you’ll be called upon to make your own way in the world.”

“Angus teaches us all manner of interesting things,” Louisa continued with enthusiasm. “He’s shown us which fields have the sweetest grass, and how to tell a lamb is sickly and should be culled out, and—”

“All right! All right!” Lord Huntly laughed, good-naturedly interrupting her. “I can see Mama will one day have an able estate factor in the fair Louisa!”

“But what about marriage?” teased the older George. “Do you not intend to wed, miss?”

“Oh… I don’t know,” Louisa said, suddenly subdued. “It seems marriage is not such a welcome state, from what I’ve seen…”

“Louisa!” Susan exclaimed, with a mortified glance in the direction of her hoped-for suitor William Montague, who was busy unpacking the wicker luncheon hamper.

“What I’m sure Louisa means, is that marriage is not the only source of pleasure in one’s life,” Jane said sardonically.

“What are you saying, Mama dear?” Susan replied tartly.

Jane cast a brief glance toward the good-looking young man who had so captured her daughter’s fancy.

“I’m saying my experience has shown me, dearheart, that—whether one is male or female—there are
many
aspects to one’s existence which afford one satisfaction. Marriage… music… good conversation… even
sheep farming.
You might remember that as you go down life’s path…”

“Well, sheep may be interesting, and I love the country life,” Susan said, smiling coquettishly at Montague, “but I do so look forward to the fall season, don’t you, m’lord?”

“Oh, ’twill be capital fun to get back to London,’ the young duke replied, oblivious to the train of conversation. “Will His Grace come to Badenoch soon?”

Everyone but Jane engaged in speculation about whether the Duke of Gordon would appear in Badenoch this spring to indulge in his annual pastime of salmon fishing on the Spey. Alex and Jane had been giving each other a wide berth of late, and Jane was just as happy to keep it that way.

“If it pleases him to do so, I am sure he will,” she answered calmly.

Jane felt very proprietary about Kinrara. Alex was master, of course, of his own estates in the region, but she had made it clear he was to come to this special place by invitation only. To date, she had made no such proposal, and, after their last unpleasant encounter, she doubted she ever would.

“Let’s drink a toast!” Lord Huntly exclaimed, breaking into the conversation and raising his glass. “To Mama… the indomitable Mistress of Kinrara!”

Indomitable?
Jane thought, a trifle irritated at her son’s characterization of her.

“He makes me sound like a monument,” she grumbled with as much good humor as she could muster.

She surveyed the circle of people who raised their glasses in tribute to her, including the numerous members of her brood. Perhaps a monument to survival is what I am, she speculated privately. Or perhaps the monument isn’t me, but this new house, Kinrara.

There was no greater contrast to the climate of the Highlands of Scotland than the low-lying tidelands of Maryland in the month of May, thought Thomas, as he loosened the linen stock tied round his throat. Sweat trickled in rivulets down his back as he relaxed in his saddle, surveying the fields of wheat ripening in the rolling fields under a blistering sun. The air was still, heavy with moisture from the swamps nearby.

Suddenly, the thudding sound of pounding hoofbeats captured his attention. Galloping toward him with unaccustomed speed, his brother-in-law, Beven, whipped his horse mercilessly. His shouts were carried away by the wind. He reined in his horse and it clattered to a halt.

“Come quickly!” he gasped. “’Tis ’Bella… God, ’tis simply
awful, man
—”

“
What
is?” Thomas retorted, instinctively dreading his brother-in-law’s words.

“’Bella started her labor about two hours ago—”

“God’s bones, lad!” Thomas exploded. “Why didn’t you come fetch me?”

“She said to leave you to your work.”

“Christ, man!” Thomas exclaimed, wheeling his horse around.

“She’s bleeding like a broken barrel,” Beven exclaimed, his voice on the edge of hysteria. “Mehitabel said she suddenly started gushing blood—”

Thomas didn’t wait for Beven to finish his description of Arabella’s condition. Yanking his horse cruelly by the bit, he spurred his steed down the trail that ran alongside the fence. Thomas barely was able to collect himself as he urged his mount over a gate, cutting a swath sharp as an arrow through the budding wheat. He prayed this short cut would bring him to the house in time.

A thousand macabre images filled his thoughts. He’d seen poor and destitute women in the Highlands die from such violent hemorrhaging, their life’s blood draining from their bodies in the time it took to saddle a horse and send for the physic. Arabella had suffered dreadfully with this pregnancy the entire nine months—due, the doctor told them, to her forty-one years and her history of miscarriages. Her feet and ankles had ballooned enormously in recent weeks, and her morning sickness never waned, even in her ninth month.

“I want this baby so much,” she whimpered one night the previous week when she had had a particularly bad day. The infant was a good week or two overdue.

Thomas had placed his hand on the mound of her abdomen and chuckled when he felt the baby kick.

“I think you shall get it, sooner than you think,” he’d laughed.

“We must discuss names… ’tis a disgrace we’ve let it go this long,” she frowned. “If ’tis a girl, I’d like to call her Kathleen after my mother… that is, if you—”

“Kathleen Fraser,” Thomas interrupted her, trying the sound of the name aloud. “Irish and Scots… ’tis a perfect blend. Kathleen it will be, if ’tis a lass.”

“And if she’s a
he
?” Arabella had said. “You shall decide.”

“Oh, I don’t know…” he murmured, staring off into space. “I wouldn’t name the poor laddie Thomas… I know what ’tis like to have to live up to your da who’s the same name as you… and I don’t have a brother or any family.”

“What about your godfather, Simon?” she asked, curious that her husband rarely talked about his late guardian.

“No… I wouldn’t want that,” he said shortly. He looked at her and smiled sadly. “I’ve so little family left at home… none, in fact, except Louisa… better that you pick both names, dearheart.’’

“All right,” she said, peering at him with uncharacteristic diffidence. “If ’tis a boy, I’ll name him for a relative of Louisa’s.”

Thomas gave her a startled look.

“Maxwell,” Arabella said firmly. “I would like a son named Maxwell Fraser. I owe you both that much.”

He hadn’t been able to speak because of the lump of emotion closing his throat.

Instead, he had lain down on the bed next to her bloated form and had taken her in his arms.

Pushing all other thoughts aside, Thomas concentrated on the task of forcing his horse to take the last quarter mile at a dead run. He thundered toward the front door of Antrim Hall, leaping from his mount even before it had skittered to a halt. He tossed the reins at a frightened groom and mounted the wide stairs, two at a time.

The sight that greeted him in the bedchamber he had shared with Arabella since their wedding was one that would haunt him for the rest of his days. A plump baby boy squalled in Mehitabel’s arms, coated scarlet with Arabella’s blood. The life force evident in the babe’s piercing wails contrasted poignantly with the deathly silence of the chalk white figure lying on the blood-soaked bed.