Let Me Be Your Hero (13 page)

Isobel’s delft-blue eyes grew cold and her voice crystal clear with icy warning. “I tried to caution ye before ye married him. If you had listened to me, none of this would have happened.”

“No, I have a feeling I would be blissfully married to Giles, who doesn’t seem to have any more feeling for me than he does for ye.”

Isobel’s nostrils flared and Claire knew what it took for her to hold herself in check. “Ye have no inkling as to Giles’s true feelings for me. As for others, Giles is discriminating. He does not lie down with dogs. He knows he will get up with fleas. Ye would do well to consider marriage with him.”

“I would sooner sup with the Devil.” Claire shuddered to think of his lips on hers, but she knew she had already said too much, as the fiery burning on her cheek reminded her. Isobel was the kind who remembered every little wrong, every cross word, each
slighting look, and then she would wait until the opportunity arose to seek her revenge. She would extract it piece by piece, for she was one to adhere to the law of “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.”

“Giles has similar feelings about ye, but I have told him that oft it is those who are the most antagonistic toward each other who have the most passionate marriages.”

Claire almost laughed outright. If Giles was passionate about anything, it was his fancy clothes. But she did not miss the way the veins stood out on Isobel’s neck, or how the pale blue of her gown, accenting her eyes, gave her a glacial quality; all cold, unforgiving, and deadly.

As was her way of signaling that she was through with talking, Isobel turned around and, without another word, left.

Claire followed her with a steady eye, for she wouldn’t be surprised if Isobel vanished before her eyes and suddenly reappeared someplace else, for she was beginning to realize what a wicked witch of a person Isobel really was. She wondered, why did I not see this before?

She immediately felt a stab of remorse for the way she had lashed out at Fraser each time he had tried to tell her about Isobel and Walter. He warned her when he left that things would grow worse for her, and said he regretted he would not be here to stand between her and all that she would be forced to endure.

She found it despicable that she actually laughed in his face, but she was not laughing now. Fraser had been the strong arm that held Walter and Isobel at bay, and if she had not fought him each step of the way, he
might have been able to do more. She thought of darling Kendrew, and the horrible way he wasted away. Had she listened to Fraser, would Kendrew still be alive?

Claire felt the moisture seep from her eyes and she wiped them with the back of her hand. There was no way to know the answer to that, and it would do no good to torture herself with it. With a shudder, she turned away to realize the chill she felt in the room earlier was gone. It made her shiver to think Isobel had sucked that drafty chill out of the room when she departed.

Claire put her hand to her head. “I must tell my sisters that we will have no more telling of ghost stories. We have ghosts enough clinging to our coattails without fabricating more.”

Her mind was still on Fraser as she climbed the stairs. If he were here now, he would protect her and her sisters from such abuse.
Oh, God, ye gave me a true man and I drove him away, and now I realize my folly. I need a hero…in the worst way…. A man with a strong arm and a guid heart…a man like the man I pushed away….

No cord nor cable can so forcibly draw, or hold so fast, as love can do with a twined thread.

Robert Burton (1577-1640), English scholar and churchman.

The Anatomy of Melancholy
(1621)

Utrecht, Netherlands, 1745

T
he day of their departure, Fraser put the last of his belongings inside the trunk and closed the lid, then locked it. It was time to say goodbye to Utrecht, and he wondered if he would ever come this way again.

He smiled, remembering how Bran had been seduced by the city and its charm, and declared he truly envied Fraser’s life in Utrecht. His reverie ended when, on the street below, he heard the rattle of carriage wheels on the cobblestones, and he moved to the window and parted the curtain to look out.

Their driver had arrived.

He was about to turn away when his gaze encountered
the beauty of the sunrise, and the sky tinted with brilliant streaks of red.
Claire of the fiery red tresses…

Mesmerized, he found it to be the same color of Pompeian red he always thought so aptly described Claire’s hair. As he watched, the clouds seemed to take on the shape and form of a woman’s long hair, as if some slight breeze had tugged the silken skeins from beneath her bonnet.

He closed his eyes and pressed his forehead against the cold glass just long enough to envision her face, turned to him, with her perfect coloring and the hazel eyes, the lips so full and red. There was an almost fragile quality about her, and yet he had never known a stronger, more determined, more stubborn human being in his life.

A smile creased the corners of his mouth at the remembrance.

He opened his eyes and felt a stab of disappointment, for the sunrise now looked quite commonplace and ordinary. He contemplated that for a moment. Why had his thoughts turned to her now? Was it simply because he was returning to Scotland for the first time since he had left there that summer two years ago?

Mayhap it was nothing more than a visit from Queen Mab last night that turned his dreams to love. No matter, he thought, and pushed thoughts of Claire aside. He gave the two rooms a last going-over and went below stairs. He met Bran returning from his walk.

“I was coming up to tell ye the driver was here.”

“I saw him from the window,” Fraser said, then instructed the driver to take the trunk and baggage from his room.

“And the destination?” the driver asked.

“Deliver it to the boat waiting in the canal—the one leaving for Amsterdam at eleven o’clock. See that it is properly loaded,” he said, and gave the driver a generous tip. “We will meet you there in ample time.”

“Very good, sir, and thank you, sir.”

Fraser left his home for the last time, then he and Bran walked over the familiar cobblestone streets and across the Domplein—or Domsquare, as it was more commonly known.

Soon, he found himself in front of the old cathedral, the Dom. “Come on,” he said. “You can’t come to Utrecht and not see the city from the top.”

They climbed to the top of one of the three towers of the great church that housed the “throne made from unicorn horns.” The tower was tall and thin, and the stairs were narrow and steep, going straight up for 384 feet. They were both winded by the time they reached the top.

“It better be a spectacular view after a climb like that,” Bran said.

“It is,” Fraser said, then stepped through the door and looked out over the old Roman city, surrounded by a standing crown of water.

From their vantage point, they could see the coiling paths of the fourteenth-century sunken canal; the Oude Gracht—Old Canal—crowded with boats and barges and winding through the center of the city; the Nieuwe Gracht—New Canal—lined with the colorful little houses with pointed roofs that were built more than three hundred years ago for rich merchants.

Because it was a clear day, he could even point out Amsterdam, lying silent in the distance.

After the long journey back down the narrow, steep stairs, they stopped by a café along the canal for coffee. He told Bran to ignore the boys pestering him to buy their
libelles
—the pamphlets with the latest gossip. “We will buy a newspaper instead.”

“Won’t do me any good, unless it’s in English,” Bran said.

“They have them sometimes, although they aren’t the latest edition. If they do not have one, ye can look at the political cartoons.”

They were fortunate to buy the last English paper. They found an empty bench in the park, and Fraser handed part of the paper to Bran. After a few minutes of trying to read, Fraser’s concentration began to wander and he sifted through the memories of the past three years.

He recalled the many times he had come to a place near here, while taking a break from his studies, to lie in the arms of lovely Lisanne. This time of year was always his favorite, when after lovemaking, they would lie with their bodies entwined, listening to the sounds that drifted through the open window: the singing of the birds in the trees and the chorus of frogs coming from the canal.

Lovely Lisanne, with the pale skin and pink-tipped breasts that seemed to float beneath his hands like lotus buds. Even now, the delft-blue eyes haunted him, filled with tears that fell in silence. She loved him, deeply, he knew, and it grieved him to tell her he could not love her in return.

Her last words to him came creeping back into his consciousness, and he could see her once more, standing at the door, her beautiful features subdued, her voice soft and laced with pain.

“I never knew love could hurt. To leave you now is much against my heart. It takes such strength of will.”

“Lisanne…”

“No, please do not say anything more. I know you wanted to love me, just as I know you honestly tried. It grieves my soul that the heart does not always follow the dictates of the will, and no amount of desire can make it so. I wish I had the words, but I feel too much the emptiness of love. I cannot say farewell, nor can I kiss you goodbye. In time, I will love again, and perhaps I shall marry. Yet, even when I am old, I shall never lament these three years with you, nor shall I repent my love for you. You have bid me goodbye, and you will soon go. I know that time will erase for you the memory of Lisanne. How strange it is to realize that not even that has crushed all the love I carry for you in my heart. I leave you now, with all the will I can muster, although it is at the expense of my heart.”

He stood and started toward her, but she held out her hand to stay him. She opened the door and turned back toward him one last time. “If ever you did hold me in your heart ever so briefly, grant me one wish. Speak not, so that I might leave with the only thing I have left…my dignity.”

Then she was gone.

But oh, the memory of it would haunt him, for it did him ill to think he had so deeply wounded one whose heart was so pure. Why could he not love Lisanne, as she deserved to be loved? Would he spend his life alone, grieving for the one person he would always be denied? Would his heart always point like a compass toward Claire as the only woman for him?

How, he wondered, could he cure his heart of this love for her? How could he blot her memory from his mind?

Somewhere, a church bell chimed the half hour and Fraser took out his father’s watch. He flipped open the gold lid and saw it was half past ten, just as the church bells said. The time had come to tuck the memories of Utrecht and Lisanne away, and turn his thoughts to Scotland and the future that awaited him there.

He came to his feet and rattled the paper Bran was reading. “Time to go,” he said. “Ye will have to finish that on the boat, unless ye prefer to take in the sights along the canal.”

Bran folded the paper and the two of them made their way back to the canal where the driver waited. For Fraser, the moment was bittersweet. He had been happy in this place, and his time here had given him a new life. His quest for knowledge was over, and the pull of his homeland was strong in his blood. He longed for his native heath and to see the Highlands rise up out of the North Sea, shrouded in mist, cragged and steep.

His heart was in the Highlands. Scotland was home; the land of his sires and the place to which his heart was bound.

Some time later he stood with his brother at the boat’s railing, watching the spires of the Dom fade out of sight. Utrecht and that part of his life were closed. He was bound for Monleigh Castle, with a law degree from one of Europe’s most prestigious universities, unparalleled for the study of Roman law.

“What are yer plans once we reach Scotland? Everyone is expecting ye to come to Monleigh.”

“I plan to spend some time there, of course. I am most anxious to see them.”

“I know ye won’t stay indefinitely.”

“No, I ken I will spend a month or so at Monleigh. I need to see the family again. Then I will move to Edinburgh to open my law practice.”

He had a marriage and his education behind him. Ahead, lay his quest for life’s fulfillment and the easing of the pain of losing Claire.

Memories are hunting horns whose sound dies

on the wind.

Guillaume Apollinaire (1880-1918),

Italian-born French poet of Polish descent.

“Cors de Chasse” (1912)

C
laire and her sisters returned from their walk, which was always the brightest point of their day. Out of doors and away from Isobel and Lord Walter’s piercing eyes and domineering ways, they could laugh and sing, and be young again.

All that changed, though, the moment they set a foot inside the door of Lennox Castle. Today, when they closed the door, Briana slipped her hand in Claire’s. “I dinna like living here with
them,
” she whispered. Her tone dropped even lower when she said, “I especially dinna like Lord Walter. If I think about him, I cannot go to sleep at night. Do ye think he is an evil spirit?”

Claire kissed her forehead and whispered, “No, I think he is a very unhappy person.”

“And he passes it on to all of us whenever he has the opportunity,” Kenna said.

“It’s no’ fair that others have a mither and a faither and we have neither,” Briana said. “Is our family cursed?”

Claire was both saddened and surprised to hear that. “Cursed, why no, of course not. Whatever gave ye that idea? All families ha’misfortune from time to time, and I think we almost have ours behind us.” Claire stroked the bright face turned up to hers. “We must all pray our birthdays come faster,” she said. “Or at least mine, so I can reach my majority and we can send them on their way.”

Claire saw Greer’s eyes dart toward the top of the stairs. She did not need to look to know that either Isobel or Walter was there or, worse, that they both were.

“Ye are late,” Isobel said. “We have been forced to hold up dinner because of yer tardiness. Save yer idle chatter for later…into the great hall with ye.”

They walked in quick silence into the hall, greeted by the sight of Lord Walter, which could chill even the warmest of hearts. He seemed irritated, out of sorts—which was his usual demeanor—while he waited for them to take their customary seats, which were assigned to the girls with the understanding there were no changes to be made.

Claire looked at the plates being placed in front of them and wondered if her sisters took much notice of the unappetizing presentation of soggy cabbage and cold beef. Isobel, her face stiff and unsmiling, did not eat anything, and for a moment Claire had a terrible fear that the food served her sisters and herself had been poisoned, until Lord Walter picked up his fork and began to eat.

The girls followed his lead, each picking up her
fork. No one said a word, which somehow went with the unappetizing meal. Claire could tell her sisters were as repulsed with the offering as she, for they spent a great deal of time moving their food around on their plates, eating little. It was a miracle to her how the four of them endured such repugnance without giving in to the feeling of nausea. Claire tried to hide the disgust she felt, and was grateful the meal lasted no longer than it did.

The girls excused themselves and left, and Claire followed close behind. She had one foot on the bottom stair, when the sound of Lord Walter’s steps coming rapidly behind her gave her pause.

Walter stopped a few feet from her. “I want a word with ye. In the study.”

“I will see to my sisters…”

“I wish to speak to ye now, if you please.” He started to turn, then looked back at her sisters still standing there. “When I give an order I expect it to be obeyed. Now, go to yer rooms.”

Claire watched them scamper out of sight.

“In the study, I believe I said.” He headed in that direction.

Claire followed him down the hall and stepped through the door behind him. He took a seat at her father’s desk.

Claire remained standing.

“The Earl of Wick has extended us an invitation to a dance. It will not be held at Wickdon Castle, but at his home in Edinburgh, since he thought that site more hospitable to travel to than his home in Caithness. The Earl’s wife, Laura Maria Cavallaro, is the daughter of a Venetian Count. After two years in
Scotland, she is quite homesick for the costume balls held during the Carnival. The Earl is giving this dance for his countess, and wants to surprise her by asking the guests wear a costume. I have replied that Isobel and I will attend, with ye and Giles, who will be yer escort.”

“I do not wish to go.”

“Ye have no choice in the matter. Ye are going, and ye will be with Giles.”

“If I go, it will not be with him. I refuse to go with Giles.”

Walter stood up and leaned across the desk, with his hands splayed in front of him. He spoke with each cold, cruel word emphasized carefully. “Ye will go. Ye will go with Isobel, Giles and myself. Ye will wear the costume I have ordered for ye from Edinburgh. Ye will laugh and dance, and convince the world that ye are happy and in love with Giles.”

“Ye canna make me go.”

“Oh, but ye are wrong there. Ye will go gladly, because if ye dinna, I will lock Briana in her room and she will be denied food and water for as long as it takes for ye to change yer mind. Are we clear on that point?”

Claire glared at him. “Aye.”

“Good. And should ye get any ideas about telling anyone about this, I will lock all three of your sisters in their rooms, and if ye persist still…then ye will join them there.”

Claire turned and started from the room, but Walter moved so swiftly around the corner of the desk that he caught her by the arm before she took two steps. He gripped her arm painfully as he jerked her around and slammed her against the paneled wall. His right
hand came up to squeeze her jaw until tears gathered in her eyes from the pain.

“Do not ever turn yer back and walk out of the room until I say ye may go. Shall I give ye a sample of what will happen to ye if ye disobey me again?” He squeezed her face again until her lips were pursed, then he kissed her and thrust his tongue in her mouth.

And if that wasn’t enough, he gave her breast a painful pinch.

He wrenched her arm when he yanked her away from the wall and shoved her toward the door. “That was a sample. Next time it will be worse. Ye may go now. We will leave for Edinburgh day after tomorrow, since ye and Isobel will have to have fittings done for yer costumes. Ye will have yer things packed and be ready to leave.”

“What about my sisters?”

“I haven’t decided about them yet. Suffice it to say, they will either accompany us, or they will remain here.”

Claire did not mention anything to her sisters about what happened with Walter, or her arm and jaw, or the humiliating way he had touched her. All she said was “I will be going to Edinburgh to a ball at the home of the Earl and Countess of Wick.”

“Are we coming, too?” Briana asked.

“No,” Greer said. “We are too young to go to balls. Besides, I would rather stay here than go with them.”

“That is good news,” Briana said. “I do not want to go anywhere with him or Isobel.”

Claire spent a few more minutes with her sisters, and then retired to her room. Her jaw, arm and breast were truly aching in earnest now, and she was getting
a headache. She dressed for bed, washed her face, chewed on a piece of willow bark, then rinsed her mouth and went straight to bed.

Her headache was stronger now, and she attributed that to the thoughts of Isobel and Lord Walter. She knew Isobel was up to something and it did not sit well with Claire to think she had to go on about her daily life, waiting, as it were, to find her head in a noose. Her uneasiness concerning Isobel brought back old memories; only they were not seen through the eyes of the young, inexperienced girl she was when her father died.

She had trusted Isobel once, and was led to believe the worst of Fraser. It shamed her now to realize how agreeable she had been to the duplicity. The worst part of it was she not only accused him and judged him guilty, but that she refused to listen to the words he offered her in defense.

After her humiliating put-down, he never tried again. That day, that very moment and his departing words had haunted her and would continue to do so. It was not what she would have chosen, but she had been taught that in order to learn life’s lessons, some things must be relived.

There is always a right way and a wrong way to resolve something, and when one makes the wrong choice, she is destined to undergo the experience repeatedly in her mind. She could not change what had happened, but she did pray that she would one day be able to expunge it from her memory.

Until that day arrived, Claire had to live with the knowledge that she had dealt most unfairly with Fraser, and because of it, the memory of the last time
she saw him was a wound that never healed. The raw sound of his voice that day, the pain in his eyes…it haunted her…and probably would continue to do so until the end of her days…

“I have come against a mountain I cannot climb. I still love ye, and probably I always will. Poor Claire, ye are incapable of understanding because ye love with yer head and not yer heart. Even now, after all that has transpired between us…the deception, the false accusations…the betrayal…the words filled with venom, ye are still too dear to me, for ye reside in the very core o’ my being.”

Outside, a bolt of thunder rattled the shutters. She could smell the fresh scent of rain blowing across the loch, heralding the storm that was imminent. She moved to the window and saw the fast-moving clouds of a storm blowing in over the loch, thrashing and roiling, angry as the waves of frustration that pounded within her. She reached to close the shutters, and paused a moment to watch the wind whip over the loch. The waves, white-capped now, came in quick succession, slamming against the shore—ebb and flow—crashing and now receding, just as thoughts of Fraser had haunted her; thoughts of him coming and going these past years.

She watched the waves erase all the footprints along the shore, just as the images of making love with Fraser already had begun to fade, and would be gone completely in time.

The clouds darkened and rolled until they formed the likeness of his face—the hair of raven and eyes of silver-blue. The image was so sharp and clear that she could make out the straight line of his nose, the full lips she remembered so well.

Where are ye now, Fraser? Who lies beneath yer slim hips and receives the power of yer loins? Who knows the satin smoothness of yer skin, the granite hardness beneath?

I ache for ye, Fraser… I ache for ye and suffer knowing ye will never forgive me…

She could not help wondering, as she had many times previous, if she ever crossed Fraser Graham’s mind, except in a bad, negative way.

She went to the big trunk at the foot of her bed and she removed a key that hung from a chain around her neck and unlocked the trunk.

Inside was an assortment of items that belonged to Fraser. She removed a long black coat and wrapped herself in it, then went to lie down on her bed. Something about his coat gave her comfort, as if she had a protector, for although Claire put up the image of a strong and forceful leader, there were times when she was terribly afraid.

Claire was strong, and she took the earldom and her responsibility as laird seriously, but it was lonesome without someone to share it with.

She grew increasingly anxious for Isobel and Lord Walter to be gone from Lennox Castle and Inchmurrin Island. There were times she thought she would reject the title, the lairdship, and board a ship for America. Then she would think of her sisters, and her father and brothers’ deaths, and the clansmen who looked to her. The clans were close-knit. They took care of one another. The pride in their clan and their country was the thread that held them together. She could not turn her back on them or the blood that flowed in her veins.

It was the chief of the clan who owned the lands of the clan, and the primary responsibility of the chief was to protect the clan from enemy attack; to guide and handle disputes; to lead his people in battle. As head of the clan, the chief possessed absolute authority over the clan. Many, but not all of the clan members were related to Claire by blood, but her duty as their leader meant she treated the blood relatives and the clan outsiders the same. She had learned from her father that the clan, and loyalty to the chief, were the backbone of the clan system.

To this day, she had not forgotten, for the memory of that day, shortly before her father died, was forever burned into her mind. She had often wondered since if he’d had some premonition that in spite of having three sons, his eldest daughter might one day inherit not only the earldom, but the mantle of Chief of Clan Lennox, as well. Or was it simply a way a loving father could spend some time with the daughter everyone knew he favored.

She recalled that meeting in vivid detail, down to the clothes her father wore that day and the exact time on the beautiful Renaissance Italian clock: twenty-two past eleven in the morning. She remembered her surprise when the butler announced her father wanted to see her in his study, for she knew it was his habit to take lunch in his study at half past eleven.

It was the first time she joined her father for lunch in his almost sacred retreat.

After a lengthy discussion on the role of an Earl and Chief of Clan Lennox, he leaned back and looked her directly in the eyes as he said, “If you should fail in your responsibilities to the clan, or lose their loyalty, the entire system breaks down.”

After a deep breath and a weary sigh, she rolled onto her side. She closed her eyes and whispered a prayer for guidance and the strength to face the future, whatever it held.