Thorn in My Heart (57 page)

He watched her disappear through the back door at the very moment her older sister appeared, walking toward him across the lawn. Like some stage play, with actors stepping onto the boards on cue and he, the director, without a script.

Leana
, His wife. Soon to be the mother of his child.

She glided toward him, her head held high, her eyes dry, her chin firm. How had he ever mistaken her for Rose? Rose was a beautiful child. Leana was a woman. Plain, but graceful. There was a purity about Leana, even after all that had happened between them.

“You've heard.” She'd reached his side and stood before him, her face paler than ever, but her eyes bright.

“Aye,” he said, brushing the grain from his hands. “Rose told me.”

She touched his fingers, so lightly he almost didn't feel the warmth of her. “I'm sorry, Jamie. I wanted to tell you myself, but my sister…”

He nodded, as did she. Both of them knew Rose.

“When?”

Leana's cheeks colored. “The first of October.”

He gritted his teeth, knowing she waited for his reaction. “I'm sorry to hear it, Leana.”

Her head snapped up. “Sorry?” She choked on the word. “Jamie, I'm not sorry in the least. You know that I love you.”

He couldn't stop himself. “And you know that I don't love you.”

“How could I not, when you've told me so many times?” She stepped closer, the toes of her soiled shoes touching his. “I wonder if you're trying to convince me or trying to convince yourself? I believe you when you say it. Do you?”

“Aye,” he said grimly. “With all my heart.”

Her eyes closed, as though shutting out the sight of him. And no wonder. The woman had come to him with the happiest news of her life, only to be reminded that she alone considered it so. He said he was sorry, and he meant it. Sorry he did not love her. Sorry he could not
rejoice at her news. But sorrier still that he'd crushed her sisters hopes. And his own.
Forgive me, Rose.

When Leana opened her eyes again, they were clear as ever, without a trace of tears. “What shall we do then, Jamie? Shall we make a life together, live as husband and wife?”

“A life?” He waved his arms at the frozen barnyard with hens clucking about their feet, pecking at the spilled grain. “This is not the life I imagined for McKie of Glentrool.”

“Nor will this be your life forever, Jamie. Your duties here will end. Not long after, your duties as a father will begin.” She took his hand and pressed it low against her body. “God has blessed my womb and your seed, Jamie.”

The Und you sleep upon, to you will I give it, and to your seed.

He snatched back his hand. Her touch was too familiar, the blessing of God too clear. “I suppose what God has chosen for us, we must accept.”

“As a gift, Jamie. Not a burden.”

But it
was
a burden, and it was not light.

Leana bit her lip, her cheeks turning pink from the cold or from shame. “Shall I have my things moved from the third floor to…your room?” She glanced away, her gaze trained on the noisy doocot. “That is, if you want me. If you'll have me.”

Want. Have.
“Aye.” He could not say no. Because she was his wife. And because there were moments in the wee, dark hours of the night when he did want her, for all the wrong reasons.
Forgive me, Rose.

A pair of magpies landed by their feet, interested in the grain, hopping about with their black tails raised, their pied plumage stark against the colorless ground. Leana smiled faindy at them. “Do you know the old nursery rhyme?” she asked, nodding at the birds as they flew off. “One magpie for sorrow…” Iwo tor joy…

“Aye, for joy,” she whispered, pinching her lips. “Three for a wedding…”

He grew still. Fearing, hoping. “Four for a boy.”

“Would you…welcome a son, Jamie?”

He shrugged as though it hardly mattered. “I have no son yet.”

“But you will. I know it, Jamie, as only a woman can. ‘Tis a son that I carry inside me. Surely that must please you.”

“Now you're insisting I be
pleased
with this news? You ask too much of me, Leana.” He swung away from her, scaring the chickens as he strode about, wanting to shout, wanting to shake something hard until it broke in his hands. “I need time to think. Time to reason things through.”

She touched her fingers to her lips, as though holding back what she wanted to say. At last she spoke, her voice low. “You will have more than enough time. Nearly six more months of work. Then we must haste to Glentrool while I can still travel—”

“Glentrool?”Yie
bit off the word, then spit it out, so bitter was the taste in his mouth. Leana had no right to speak of his home, the home where Rose was meant to live. “Do you think my brother, Evan, will welcome our arrival in the glen after all that happened between us, knowing the birth of this child will seal his fate?”

“It is sealed already, Jamie. God alone knows the time and place.”

“The time and place for
this
child's birth is here, at Auchengray, where he can be safe.”
And where I can be near your sister.
Rose, who made him feel young and carefree, without responsibilities, without risk, without asking him to be a father before he'd learned to be a husband. Or was it worse than that? Had he not yet learned to be a man? He ground his teeth, furious with himself, with Leana, with Rose, with anyone who wanted something from him when he had nothing left to give.

Leana lowered her head and stepped back, preparing to leave. “This is your child. Where he will be born is your decision to make.” She glanced up as she turned, leaving her heart in his hands. “I will always love you, Jamie. It is my calling…” Tears shone in her eyes. “And it is my curse.” She was gone like the magpies, flying across the wintry landscape.

Let Leana be cursed then.

He had said the words.

Then you brought this on yourself, Jamie.

“Nae!” Jamie snatched up what was left of the sack of grain and flung the contents all over the barnyard, swinging the sack in big arcs, shaking the last seeds loose, setting the whole barnyard into frantic motion. “This is
not
my fault, God! Its
your
fault!” He railed at the heavens, throwing the empty sack at the sky. “ ‘I will never leave you,’ aye? Was
that
what you promised me? Then I will leave
you!
Nothing has gone right in my life.
Nothing”

“Ye dont mean that, lad.”

Jamie whirled around, his eyes struggling to focus, and found Duncan standing behind him. “I
do
mean it!” he shouted at the overseer, not caring if the man flinched at the harshness of his words. “Everything I own and everyone I love has been torn out of my arms.
All
of it! My future has been decided for me. By my mother, by my uncle, by my cousins—”

“And by God. Or have ye forgotten that he's chosen to bless ye?”

“Dont I have a choice?”
Jamie screamed the words, loud enough for God and all of Galloway to hear. “I'm sick of it, do you hear me? I'm tired of doing what others expect me to do.” He grabbed a shovel and plunged it into the midden for the sheer pleasure of seeing the muck fly. “I'm weary of having no choices of my own.”

“Jamie, Jamie.” Duncan carefully took the shovel from his hands. “When ye fight Gods choices, ye re bound to be miserable. Mebbe yer arms needed to be emptied so they could be filled with something better.”

Jamie threw up his hands. “Who or what could possibly be better than Rose McBride?”

Duncan chuckled, not unkindly. “Yer first love, lad. And I dinna mean Leana.” He tossed the shovel aside, lowering his voice as he did. “I've watched ye, Jamie. Watched ye put up a meikle fight, tryin to keep God awa from yer door. To keep love away from yer heart.”

“That's not true!” Jamie fumed. “I am more than ready for love.” How could a man as wise as Duncan Hastings not see the obvious? “It's
Roses
love I want. Not God's and not Leana's.”

“Och! D'ye think that wee lass has enough love to right all the wrongs in yer life? No woman does, Jamie. Though if I may say so, ye're
a fool not to see that Leana's love for ye is grand and wide and much mair than ye deserve. ‘Whoso findeth a wife findeth a good thing/ aye? Well, there are few sae good as Leana.”

Jamie looked away in shame, fixing his gaze on the flock of magpies who'd circled around for another peck at the scattered grain. He could hardly argue with the plain truth. Leana loved him completely. He saw it in her eyes, heard it in her words, felt it in her touch.

Her voice, whispering his name, haunted him at night.
Jamie.
The whole of their week in Dumfries, he had given her crumbs, and she'd feasted on them as if they were a banquet.

“I ken ye're deep in thought, lad.” Duncan pressed a hand on his shoulder. “I'm pleased to see it. From what little I overheard, it seems God has seen fit to make ye a faither. Ye've some growin to do first. ‘Tis a day that'll change ye, Jamie. For the better, if ye're like most men. For the worse, if ye're like Lachlan McBride.”

Jamie's hands balled into fists. “I will never treat my son the way Lachlan has treated me.”

“Aye.” Duncan brushed his hands on liis breeches and started toward the house. “Ye might give some thought to how ye treat the babe's mother then. She deserves yer care and attention, Jamie. Now and in the hard months to come. ‘Husbands, love your wives,’ that's what the Buik commands us to do. Find it in yer heart to love her, lad. She's waitin for ye to do that verra thing, but no woman can wait forever.”

Jealousy is always born together with love.

F
RANCOIS,
D
UC DE LA
R
OCHEFOUCAULD

R
ose bowed her head halfway, so she could still keep an eye on the others. Her father pulled the candle closer to the Buik, working his jaw as though with enough effort he might sound like Reverend Gordon. “Hear the word of the Lord: ‘To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.’ ”

She pressed her lips so tighdy together she feared she might bruise them, yet if she opened her mouth, she would scream.
Hoot.!
‘Twas the worst season of her young life, with no purpose to it whatsoever. Family worship had only begun, and already she was in a sour mood. Supper had been dreadful. Neda had served hotchpotch, a soup thick as porridge and even less appetizing, no matter how much her father praised it. The neck of one of her poor lambs drenched in too many vegetables made an ugsome stew, to Roses way of thinking.

Her father's voice ground out the words from Scripture like a flesher grinding beef: “A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.”

Aye, that was the truth of it. Jamie McKie had planted when he should have plucked, and now a babe would be born, but not to
her.
Not at all. To her
sister.
Rose stared at Leana, whose head was bent over her folded hands, her braids gleaming in the candlelight, and felt nothing but hatred toward her. And nothing but love. Her own Leana, dear to her as the mother she'd never known, had stolen the man she adored and carried his child.

Much as she hated to admit it, Rose feared she might be partly to blame. If only she'd set her cap for Jamie to begin with and not pushed him into Leana's arms. If only she'd told Jamie she loved him before she
left for Aunt Megs. If only she'd refused to travel to Twyneholm in unpredictable December weather. If only she'd demanded her father tell the kirk session the truth about her wedding day. And if only this household would treat her like a
woman
instead of like a
child
, her life would be very much nicer indeed!

Rose made up her mind. She would scream. Aye, she
wouldzrA
see what they thought of their charming little Rose then. The idea lost appeal when she considered spending the next day reciting the Shorter Catechism as punishment. Though anything would be better than what she'd endured
this
day, listening to the servants sing and laugh as they worked, relieved with the glad tidings. Now they could hold up their heads on market day, knowing things were settled at Auchengray and that they would no longer be whispered about while they picked over soup bones and fresh fish.

When her father read “A time to weep, and a time to laugh,” Rose nearly did both at once, choking on the emotions that roiled inside her like an angry sea. How dare Leana capture her beloved Jamie! Was it because she was the older one? The most skilled at running a household? It certainly was
not
because she was the bonniest. Rose glanced at her sister again, shaking her head. If anything, the unseen babe washed the last bit of color out of Leana's cheeks. Jamie would soon grow weary of so bland a face.

Rose rested her chin on her folded hands, hoping her father might not notice her poor posture. Some days she wished that Jamie had never come to Auchengray. Life had been much simpler without him, to be sure. But other days it was not Jamie she wished gone, but her sister, even though Rose had loved her for all of her fifteen years. Alas, the choice was not hers; they were both staying. Jamie and Leana would not leave for Glentrool until August, her sister had confided in her before supper. Perhaps not even then, if Leana could not easily travel.

Her father paused in his reading, frowning in her direction as though he could hear her selfish thoughts. She straightened and meekly bowed her head while he continued. “A time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing.” Had he meant that for her then? That she and
Jamie were not to embrace ever again?
Och!
It was so unfair. He loved her, truly he did. If only she might hide his name in the Valentines Dealing at Susanne Elliot s! Come Saturday afternoon Rose would draw out his name on a tiny slip of paper, and they would exchange gifts, and he would be her valentine for all of 1789. Wouldn't that be grand?