Thorn in My Heart (30 page)

She tipped her head back to look at him, her expression as smooth as the paper in her writing desk. “My father won't allow Lord Maxwell to host my debut. All else is gossip.”

“Very well.” He eased back onto the chair. “You are free then for me to court you.”

Rose held up a slender forefinger. “Ah, but Leana is also free. Better suited for you, in my opinion. Older, more settled, and with a much greater talent for managing a household.”

“I dont want a housekeeper, lass. I want a wife. To have and to hold.”

He'd hoped his honesty would disarm her. Instead, she seemed to draw away from him, fiddling with her pen and ink. “What does my father say to your suit?”

“He's not opposed to it, though he's asked me, in his words, to ‘proceed slowly with my daughter.’” He lighdy touched her chin and turned it toward him. “Am I going slowly enough to suit you?”

In the candlelight he nearly missed the spark that ignited in her dark eyes until he heard the fiery note in her voice. “You are going the wrong direction entirely, Jamie.” She pushed him away, then folded her hands across her lap desk and straightened her back. If she was trying to appear authoritative, the effect was lost on a cushioned window seat, but he wouldn't risk mentioning it.

Instead he swallowed the smile that threatened to take over his face. “The wrong direction, meaning I should be pursuing Leana?”

“Aye, you should. And with great haste before the woman finds another suitor more worthy of her.”

“Rose, Rose.” He cupped her folded hands with one of his, aware of how rough and callous they felt against her soft skin, more like the hands of a farmer than of a gendeman. “You are too young to be so certain of what others want.”

“What I want at the moment is to write a letter to your poor mother and see it posted in the morn's morn. It will take a week to find its way to that lonesome glen of yours. Longer, if the weather does not hold.” Freeing her hands from his grasp, she held the paper steady as she dipped her quill in ink and blotted the excess. Her hand hovered over the paper, awaiting his dictation. “I'm ready, Cousin.”

He could hold back his smile no longer. Rose resembled her headstrong Aunt Rowena more with every passing minute. “We'll begin in earnest then, as we've litde time before the supper bell rings and we must appear at your fathers table. Write as follows, if you please.”

Rose lifted her pen off the paper. “Aren't you going to mention your boots?”

“I am not.” The other confessions were humbling enough, though he'd neady avoided using the word
stolen.
His mother would think him timid or careless, which would not do at all. “I'll compose the letter, Rose. Your task is to make it legible.”

Her lower lip eased out in a childish pout. “Go on then.”

He paused. “Your birthday, Cousin. When is it?”

“Aren't you the canny fellow, leaving me no choice? I'll include it if I must.”

Jamie watched her hand sweep across the page, pleased with himself for gendy wresting a bit of personal information from her.
The first of August.
“Shall we continue, Rose?”

“Good heavens!” Her cheeks now resembled strawberries rather than cream. “You would write such things to your mother?”

“We understand each other, my mother and I. Make no mistake, she'll want every detail.” He should have thought of writing the letter
days ago. Rose had agreed not only to listen to every word he said but to put it to paper. The perfect way to woo her. Aye, and woo her well.

“Jamie, that is quite enough!” Rose poked him in the chest with the feathery end of her quill. “I'll not have you telling my aunt that I'm… difficult.”

He arched his left brow, knowing the look gave him a satisfactory air of disdain, and frowned with more disapproval than he felt. “You agreed to be my scribe, Miss McBride, which means you must write whatever I say. Did I use the word
difficult?”

“It was bound to follow shortly.”

“If it does, I trust you 11 write it. Now, if you please.”

“Entertaining? Jamie!”

“You know you are, Rose. Now write.”

Her pen stilled. “Leana is the bluestocking of the family, not I. She's read ten books to my one.” Her eyes implored him even more than her words. “Jamie, please say something more about my sister. Your letter speaks too favorably of me and too little of her.”

Jamie rubbed his chin, hiding his irritation. Her obstinate ways could grow tiresome if the lass weren't so charming. “I'll mention Leana if you insist.”

“That is all I intend to say of Leana,” he said firmly. He cared for his cousin and thought her a wise woman of many talents, but Leana did not make his pulse quicken. The serious Leana literally paled in comparison to her lively younger sister. He would keep telling Rose that until she believed him or married him, whichever came first. “Now, lass, let me finish my letter.”

“I've yet to see any evidence of your wooing either one of us,” she said with a petulant sniff.

“Och! Are you deaf as well as blind, Rose? Do you not hear me saying that you are bonny and clever, well schooled and well mannered? That you've captured…” He stood and jabbed his finger at the writing paper. “ ‘Captured my eye and my heart.’ There it is, in pen and ink. If it's written, it must be true, aye?”

“Aye!” Her sudden smile caught him by surprise. Had her defenses begun to crumble?

Before he could press his case further, the muted sound of the supper bell carried up the stair. “We'll speak more of this in the morning, Rose. Kindly close my letter with these words:”

He adjusted his cravat, absently watching her write the final words, which seemed to take longer than necessary.

“Go on, go on.” She waved one hand toward the door and with the other fluttered the paper through the air. “I'll be certain the ink is dry before I seal it for you. Willie or one of the other servants will see it delivered as far as Carlinwark and sent on to the parish kirk at Monni-gaffi Your mother will be sure to find it waiting there by Sabbath next.”

“Now who's the canny one, to ken where to send it?”

“Oh, I'm as clever as they come, Cousin.” She eyed the letter, clearly proud of her work. “Off to supper with you. Tell Father I'll be along in a moment.”

“Thank you for writing the letter, Rose.” He barely touched her cheek, then strode out the door, closing it softly behind him. With his concerns about the Maxwell offer of a debut put to rest, nothing prevented him from courting her properly, awkward as it was while living under the same roof.

He grinned.
Not awkward, Jamie. Convenient.
The anticipation of the chase and her parting smile warmed him all the way down the stair.

That's the nature of women…
not to love when we love them,
and to love when we love them not.

M
IGUEL DE
C
ERVANTES

L
eana stared at the linen shirt in her hands, adjusting her spectacles, then holding the fabric up to the window for a closer inspection. The gray November light revealed neat rows of tiny stitches along the seams, precisely as she'd hoped.

Jamie had promised to wear the new shirt to Dumfries next week for Martinmas, a busy holiday of
feeing
fairs and horse sales, a day when none of the servants worked and the kintra folk flocked to the nearest market town. “You're a dear lass to make another shirt for me, Leana,” he'd said on the Tuesday last. “Won't I look the gentleman again:

She'd blushed beneath his attentive gaze. “Four-and-twenty tailors cannot make a man, Jamie. Nor does a true gentleman need a new sark to prove his worth.”

“You're too generous with your praise, Cousin.” He'd touched her sleeve, so lightly she'd barely felt the warmth of him through the fabric. But felt it she had. “I'm honored that you would fashion me a second one. Mary, the laundress, absconded with the first one you made me, demanding it be washed. Said it smelled like sheep.” When he'd winked at her playfully, Leana wondered if he spoke to Rose with the same ease. “Now I'll look my best for Martinmas. Who knows? Your father may decide to keep me, Leana, rather then let me be fee'd by another farmer in Dumfries.”

Shocked, she'd wrinkled her brow and protested, “Father would never allow his nephew to work anywhere but Auchengray!” then realized too late that Jamie had spoken in jest. Naturally he wouldn't be hired
away like some of the other farm workers. They collected their pay twice yearly, at Whitsun and Martinmas. Some chose to stay, while others sold their services for the next term at the feeing fair. With a handshake and a dram to seal the bargain, the lads and lasses would pack their few belongings in a fei and have the chest delivered to their new home.

No, that would not be Jamie's fate. His days at Auchengray were numbered, but for a very different reason. He'd promised to work for his uncle until Martinmas. Only a week remained before he'd choose his bride and name the wedding day, with an eye to returning to Glentrool with due haste. And with his new wife. Though Rose continued to steer Jamie across Leana's path, he didn't remain there long. Lachlan often spoke of the day Jamie would make his choice, but it seemed he'd already done so.

The faint hope that he might choose her instead hung on a slender thread, thinner than any she might spin on her wheel. But she clung to it nonetheless, knowing that Rose did not love their cousin nor long for marriage.

Leana threaded her needle, then pierced the linen to begin a new seam, sewing by touch more than by sight. Grateful as she was to have Fergus McDougal gone from their doorstep, no other suitors had come to take his place. Nor would they, she feared. More than one neighbor had eyed her askance at kirk the last few Sabbaths. No one openly questioned her virtue, but she dreaded to think what cruel words might be whispered behind cottage doors. Her father had promised to see her wed, but to whom? The man would need to hail from a distant parish, far from the close confines of Newabbey. And he would need to claim her quickly, before time and gossip ruined her altogether.

Jamie fit that description like a hand inside a goatskin glove.

No one in his parish of Monnigaff had ever heard of Leana McBride or how her suitor put her aside to ease his injured pride. Since Jamie's parents wished him to marry one of his cousins, he remained her only hope. No one else could save her.

The truth, Leana.
She loved Jamie McKie.

No,
love was
a strong word;
admire
might better suit. To look upon Jamie—covered with a shepherds muck one moment, then freshly
shaven and dressed for Sabbath die next—and know diat he was respected in both worlds pleased her gready. To find him alone and reading by candlelight, as she often did, or to spy him playing Neiveie-Nick-Nack by the hearth with Neda's visiting grandchildren warmed her heart as thoroughly as his fleeting touch warmed her hand.

Even her father had joined in the rhyme as the children gathered around Jamie, trying to guess which of his closed fists held the prized button while he teased them:

The children adored him, as Jamie did them, mussing their hair and tweaking their noses with gende affection.

If it was not love she felt for Jamie McKie, it was very close.

To win him, she must woo him. To woo him, she would put to use all the skills the Almighty had bestowed upon her. They were naught but the skills of hearth and home but potent in the hands of a determined woman with no time to waste.