Thorn in My Heart (20 page)

Jamie beamed his approval, continuing to eat while Leana, well versed in household ledgers, filled their cousins bonny head with names and numbers: Duncan Hastings, the overseer, and his wife, Neda, the housekeeper; so many acres of oats and so many of hay; this many milk cows and that many sheep. Rose was content to nibble on her burnt cream and watch the two of them warm to one another. Jamie not only listened to Leana, he looked at her intendy with eyes the color of gray alder leaves in spring, plying her with questions, then nodding thoughtfully at her answers.

Her sisters features, plain as whey, grew almost animated when their discussion turned to vegetable crops. “Perhaps when you've had a
chance to rest, you might care to see my gardens,” Leana suggested, then lowered her gaze, as though she'd been too forward.

Jamie quiedy responded, “I would like that very much, Cousin Leana.”

Rose pressed her spoon against her lips, holding back her growing sense of delight. She had no talent for ledgers, but she knew an answer to prayer when she saw one: Jamie McKie was a much better match for her sister than old Fergus the Haggis. Oo aye, he was! They were close in age, both a bit serious minded, and practical to the point of dullness. A perfect couple.

Rose was so caught up in her mental matchmaking, she didn't notice when the conversation dwindled into a comfortable silence and Jamie shifted in his chair to look at her. “Rose, you had much more to say when I watered your sheep.”

Across the table the light in Leana's face dimmed. “She did?”

“She needed my help with a watering trough. Isn't that right, Rose?” Jamie continued to gaze down at her, seated next to him.

“Aye,” she said, blinking. “The flock was most grateful. And so was I.”
Grateful enough to let him kiss you, silly girl.

Now Jamie was studying her as he'd studied Leana, frankly curious, with the unguarded look of a cousin who has no fear of being rebuffed. “Shall we tell Leana what else transpired this afternoon?”

“We shall not,” Rose said firmly, leaning back in her chair to distance herself. She had plans for Jamie McKie, and they did not include his kissing her, not ever again. She glanced at the plates scraped clean by his fork. “Since you've emptied the table of all our provisions, Cousin, why not start with your departure from Glentrool and describe your journey east?”

“Aye, please do.” Leana's features brightened again. “Spare us no details, for my sister and I are eager for news of all you've seen and heard this week.”

“Jamie will have to tell Father again later,” Rose reminded her. “You won't mind telling tales twice, will you, Jamie?”

A shadow crossed his face. “Nae. I can tell my uncle…later.”

“Good.” Rose stood, glad to stretch her legs. “Come, we'll pull our chairs up to the hearth. A man who's lost his boots has more than one story to share.”

The three of them gathered in a half circle facing the warm glow of the peat. Jamie sat in the middle, with a sister seated on each side, their knees almost touching. Servants came and went, clearing the dinner table and trimming the wicks, a pleasant murmur of sound behind them. Jamie rested his elbows on the arms of his chair and sank back. “Shall I begin with the first night, when I slept on a grave older than King David?”

Rose clapped her hands. “Aye, do. What an adventure!”

“Some might call it that.” The corners of his mouth twitched. “ ‘Twas an education far removed from the schooling I had in Edinburgh.” He stared up at the ceiling as though collecting his thoughts from between the beams, then dropped his chin and smiled at them both. “George, the stable lad at House o’ the Hill. Aye, we'll begin with him.”

Leana drank in every word the man said, as though committing each to memory. Rose listened, but she watched, too. Watched her sister's eyes widen with horror at his description of the cairn and heard her gasp with concern when Jamie described the purplish berries.

“Not Jacob's ladder!” Leana touched his arm. “Oh, my dear cousin, you might have died.”

“Aye.” Jamie nodded grimly. “So the Gypsy told me.”

“Gypsy?” Rose couldn't keep the excitement out of her voice. “Never mind the berries, Jamie. Tell us about the tinkler. Did he hold a blade to your throat?”

Jamie chuckled. More stories followed—a missing pouch, a generous shepherd, Raploch Moss in the gloaming, a stolen horse. “When I got to New Galloway, I sent your father a letter, alerting him to my arrival.” Jamie glanced at each sister in turn. “Did either of you read it?”

Rose did not need to look at Leana's face to answer for both of them. They never kept secrets from each other. “Nae, Father didn't show us your letter. Perhaps it has yet to come.”

“Perhaps.” Jamie resumed his journey, introducing diem to a talkative weaver, a man with a cart full of tatties, and a clever Gypsy boy who tipped his boot into the Dee. As he spoke, his attentive gaze moved back and forth, from Leana to Rose and back again. Jamie seemed to be measuring them, first one sister, then the other, as though he were a tailor fitting them for new dresses or Duncan at a horse sale on the White-sands of Dumfries choosing between two broodmares.

A curious sensation, being compared so equally with her sister. Men usually looked at Leana, then at her, and never turned away again.
No matter.
Rose had already measured Jamie McKie against Fergus McDougal and made the obvious choice. It was Jamie who should marry her sister, though Leana might need some convincing, and Father much more so.

A month, Rose decided. She could manage it in a month.

Jamie suddenly yawned and slumped deep into his chair. “My sweet cousins, I must confess I have not slept well in a week. Would you think me terribly rude if I crawled up the stair for a short nap?”

“We are the ones who've been rude,” Leana corrected him, touching his arm again. Rose had counted half a dozen such touches in the last hour, smiling at each one. “Forgive us for insisting you entertain us with your stories when
we were
the ones who were asked to entertain
you”

“Ah
, but you did.” Jamie stood, a bit wobbly on his feet in a pair of boots that looked too small for him. He smiled down at them both. “ ‘Twas a most engaging afternoon, ladies.”

He bowed and was gone, leaving the two sisters to regard each other in the fading light of late afternoon.

“So.” Leana folded her hands and pressed them down into her skirts. “What do you make of our cousin?”

“Make of Jamie?” Rose tried not to smile, but it was useless.
I will make him your husband, dear sister! She
would not tip her hand though. Not for the moment. Leana was too skittish, too uncertain of herself. Rose would simply keep to the wings for once and let Jamie and Leana take center stage.

“Do you find him…” Leana wet her lips. “Ah…that is…”

The poor woman couldn't bring herself to say the word. “Handsome?” Rose offered. “Aye, I do. And so do you, it seems.”

Leanas cheeks grew pink. “He is…fine, isn't he? Intelligent. And well read, I think.”

Rose resisted the urge to roll her eyes.
Well read! As
if such a thing mattered when so much was at stake. He was young, braw, and
not
Fergus the Haggis. No other credentials were needed.

“Rose.” Leana stood, slowly pacing before the dying glow of the peat fire. “You said you might know why Jamie is here. Do you?”

“Aye.” Rose kept her features perfecdy still. “Sheep.”

Leana gasped.
“Sheep?”

“He talked of nothing else all the way home. Ewes and tups. Lambing and shearing.”

“How odd.” Leanas brow knotted. “Perhaps he thought
you
were fond of sheep, Rose.”

“Nae, it was not for my sake.” Rose joined her sister by the hearth, linking arms with her, lowering her voice lest Father or Fergus come barreling into the room without warning and overhear. “I think our cousin is here on family business. Perhaps to purchase some of Auchengray's flocks to breed with those at Glentrool.”

“Did he say as much?”

Rose shrugged. “He did mention breeding.” At least
that was
an honest answer. “Very progressive, our Jamie. Like Father, he favors improvement.”

“Aye.” Leana glanced at the closed door to the spence. “Improvement. How long might he stay, did he say?”

Rose shook her head.
Long enough, please God.

An honest mans the noblest work of God.

A
LEXANDER
P
OPE

J
amie buttered his bannock, then put it aside, anxious to get things / out in the open without further delay. “I must be honest with you, Uncle Lachlan, else I cannot live with myself or with you.”

“Finish your breakfast, lad. Time enough for truth telling when your belly is full.”

Jamie had thought to have this discussion yestreen after supper. By the time he'd discarded his itchy, borrowed clothes and bathed in hot water hauled into one of the bedrooms by a manservant, he'd fallen into bed in a stupor, not waking until the cock's crow startled him from his dreams at dawn.

The morning light cast its bright beams across the dining room table. Jamie watched the two sisters out of the corner of his eye. Seated across from him, side by side, they made a pretty picture: Leana in a light blue gown that matched her eyes, Rose in a printed dress the color of a Galloway sunset in summer, all purples and pinks. He'd awakened to discover he'd claimed one of their rooms, decorated as it was for a lady's taste. But which cousin? Quiet Leana, with her pale skin and graceful gait? Or young Rose, with her dark features and
speeritieways?
Both had a musical lilt to their voices, both came to just below his chin. They were, in every other regard, two entirely different women.

“Did you sleep well, Cousin?” Rose's dark eyes twinkled. “It's a very comfortable mattress, don't you think?”

“Aye.” He'd slept in Rose's bed then. “Forgive me for turning you out of your own room.”

Her laugh was like birdsong. “ ‘Tis not as if I had to sleep in the
byre
, Cousin. I shared a box bed with my sister, who never lows like the catde do and bears a far sweeter scent.”

“Now, Rose.” Leana's tone was demure, not scolding. “Our guest does not need the details of our sleeping arrangements.” She shifted her gaze to Jamie and smiled warmly. “Its only important that he be made welcome and comfortable.”

“Rest assured, I am both.” And he was. All that remained was to decide which McBride he would claim for his wife.

He'd soaked in his evening bath until the chilly water wrinkled his skin, counting on each hand his cousins’ pleasing qualities. Leana had a gende tongue, a keen mind, the necessary skills to manage a large household, a gracious manner, and a pleasant face.

Pleasant
was a generous word. Leana McBride, with her fair hair braided and coiled about her head, was plain. Nigh to invisible, next to her sister. Perhaps alone in a room she would cast a satisfactory glow. Certainly she was old enough to marry and bear him a son. It was unclear what the McDougal fellows claim on Leana might be. If the man was a serious suitor, Jamie could encounter a problem pursuing the older of his two cousins.

Or he could pursue the younger one instead.
Rose.

Jamie glanced at her now over his tea saucer. Yestreen he'd thought Rose bonny when she was covered with dirt and tattered clothing. This morning, scrubbed clean, with her hair freshly dressed and her gown neady pressed, she was a vision. Skin like cream, lips like fresh berries. Jamie smiled in his tea. Never mind marrying the girl; he wanted her for breakfast.

But she was young.
Very young.
Fifteen, she'd told him. A willful child. Unafraid of standing up to her father, she would no doubt give a husband an earful as well. Hadn't he seen the misery his father endured, married to a beautiful, headstrong younger woman? Rose was also clearly enamored of wealth and all it offered. After seeing Maxwell Park, would Glentrool be enough for Rose McBride? Would he?

Last night he'd fallen into an uneasy sleep, hoping he might awaken and find the decision made for him. Another dream, another heavenly visit,
something.
He had no time to spare; marriage and an heir must follow in quick succession. If his mother were there, she would name his
bride without a moments hesitation. But
whom
would she choose? Leana or Rose? The older or the younger? Pale or dark? Intelligent or charming?

Och!
Jamie put down his saucer harder than he meant to, and it clinked on the table, catching Lachlan's sharp gaze.

“Nephew.” Lachlan settled back in his chair. “You've yet to tell us why you've come east.”

Jamie glanced at his cousins, who were suddenly more attentive, then turned toward his uncle. “Sir, that might be best shared in confidence.” When the lasses’ countenances fell, Jamie hastened to add, “I promise, you will know the answer soon enough, dear cousins.”
But not until I do.

Lachlan sent the lasses off to their morning chores, brooking no argument despite their long faces. “We'll move to the spence,” he said, pointing the way. “The servants will be wanting to clean the table properly after our meal.” They were soon settled in the cozy room, a morning dram before each of them. His uncle took a sip, then licked his lips. “Something tells me I'm not going to approve of what you're about to tell me.”

Jamie swallowed more whisky than he intended and felt it burning all the way down to his gut. “Possibly not,” he admitted when he could breathe enough to speak. “But I'd prefer to be honest from the start rather than fear what you might discover later.”

Lachlan raised his eyebrows slighdy. “Prudent.”

Jamie pushed aside the whisky, prepared for a long and difficult morning. “Are you familiar with the counsel my mother received from a midwife before my brother and I were born?”

Lachlan nodded slowly, his jaw working on some remaining bit of grisde. “Aye, she told me in great detail years ago, during your first visit to Auchengray. The older will serve the younger,’ or some such blether.”