Thorn in My Heart (59 page)

Jamie noticed. “You look well tonight.”

She looked up from her book and smiled, closing it around her finger to mark her place. “A bit of color for Valentines Day,” she said, then appraised his smooth knot of hair, tidy cravat, and polished silver buttons. “You look handsome as well.” They were seated near the hearth, family worship concluded, and the table cleared and set for the Sabbath. Lachlan had retired early, complaining of a headache, so it was just the two of them spending a pleasant hour reading by the fire.
Heaven.

Jamie inclined his head, eyeing the spine of her book. “Still working on
Evelina
, I see.”

He remembered.
“I did not have time to finish it in Dumfries,” she murmured, minding her thoughts so they would not show on her face. “Though I tried my best.”

“Aye,” he said with a hint of a smile. “You did.”

Jamie was smiling at her—
smiling!
Leana returned the favor, grinning like a child being handed a toffee. She wet her lips, trying to think of the most clever comment she could make to keep that look on his bonny face, when the door flew open with a bang and Rose came bounding into the room and landed right between them.

“Och!
Look at you, reading by the fire like two old people.”

When Jamie turned his smile on Rose, it felt like the sun going behind a cloud, so quickly did the air around Leana cool. She swallowed her disappointment and slipped her finger from her book. Her sisters arrival had ended her quiet plans for the evening.

Jamie put his book aside as well, giving Rose his full attention. “I am an ancient man of four-and-twenty years, lass. After a hard days labor, this is the most my weary bones can manage.”

“I don't believe that for a minute.” Rose swatted at him with her scarf, unwrapping it from around her neck. “But you
are
very old, not at all like the young lads who fought to pull my name from the cap in the Dealing.”

His smile faded slighdy. “Did they now?”

“Oo aye! Peter Drummond, the heir of Glensone, was particularly eager to draw my name.”

Leana prayed as she asked, “And did he?”

“Nae. Susannes brother, Neil, picked my name, and I picked his.” Rose made a face, scrunching her nose up like a wee pig. “I don't care what the custom is, I'll not have Neil Elliot as my sweetheart for the next year.”

An odd look of relief crossed Jamie's features. For a man who fancied his feelings well hidden, Jamie McKie was as easy to read as
Evelina.
He tugged Rose's braid. “So this Neil fellow is not for you, is that it?”

“Hoot! The lad has crooked teeth and more hair than one of our collies.”

Leana captured Rose's hand, squeezing it gendy. “Now, Rose, don't speak so cruelly of a neighbor. We cannot help the way we look. God loves us as we are, that we might see one another in a kinder light.”

Rose arched her eyebrows. “My, aren't you the holy one, speaking of Almighty God as though you knew his thoughts.”

“Not his thoughts,” Leana murmured. “Only his words.”

Rose shrugged and pulled her hand free. “Well, I've promised to have lunch in the Elliots’ pew tomorrow. Do you think Neda will mind if I take the last of her mutton pies?” She spun on her heel and took off for the kitchen, the old couple by the fire already forgotten, it seemed.

Jamie glanced at Leana, the easiness between them gone. “Its late,” he said.

Too late.
“Might you walk me up the stair? IVe felt more lightheaded than usual this week.”

“Of course.” He stood and offered his hand, lifting her to her feet with a manly sort of grace and guiding her toward the stair. Aunt Rowena had trained him well in the ways of a gendeman. Rowena had not taught him how to be a husband though. That responsibility, it seemed, fell to her.

They undressed by the light of a single candle, with nary a word between them, then climbed beneath the bedcovers and closed themselves in from the winter's cold. Leana waited until they were both set-ded, then gathered enough courage to gendy press her body against his, her head just below his chin, her arms wrapped around his neck.
Jamie, please.

Leana felt him slowly relax, as though he were thawing. “It was a lovely day,” she said tentatively, seeing if he was listening. “Jessie and Annie came to visit and the Bell children and Nicholas Copland's litde twin brothers and all five of the Taits. We had only one apple left.” She lifted her head to whisper in his ear. “I saved it for you. My valentine.”

“Thank you.” It was an odd acknowledgment, too formal for a husband and wife in their bedclothes. When he spoke again, his voice was lower, with a note of genuine concern. “How are you…feeling?”

He meant the baby. “I feel wonderful,” she promised him. And she did, for the first time in days. “Please do not be afraid.

“Hush, lass. No need to speak of it.”

What she heard in his voice this time was not concern. It was obligation. He turned toward her, pulling her closer. Her skin heated everywhere his body brushed against hers. “Jamie, sweet Jamie,” she said with a lengthy sigh. Could she bring herself to confess the truth? “I've missed you.”

“And I've missed you.” He said it quickly. By rote.

Leana would not listen to his words then, for they broke her heart. She would listen to what was unspoken. “Love me, Jamie,” she whispered, just as she had each of their nights together in Dumfries. He
slowly moved his hands over die hills and plains of her body, but when she did die same, he was cool to her touch. Something was wrong, terribly wrong.

She had to know. “Is this pleasure, Jamie?” she whispered. “Or is it duty?”

His hands stilled. So did the air around them. “Some duties are more pleasurable than others,” he said, but there was no laughter in his voice. He stopped her questions with his mouth, kissing her thoroughly, distracting her, but the question hovered between them, unanswered.

By the time he'd finished with her, she had tears in her eyes. Her prayers had not been answered after all, not the way she'd hoped. Aye, she had Jamie McKies name, and she had his child. But she did not have Jamie.

When he pressed a kiss on her closed eyelids to say good night, he must have tasted her salty tears. “I'm sorry, lass.” She heard the catch in his voice. “I can only give you what I have. It will have to be enough.”

But it was not enough.

Jamie fulfilled all the requirements of a dutiful husband except one: He did not love her. It was too much to ask, she told herself. He did not choose her. Why should he be inclined to love her? That she loved him without reservation did not mean that he would return her feelings. In his gaze, in his words, in his touch, Jamie made very clear what his feelings were and were not.

He tolerated her.

It was worse than no love at all.

No change, no pause, no hope!
Yet I endure.

P
ERCY
B
YSSHE
S
HELLEY

T
he weeks of winter dragged on, Jamie toiling on the farm from dawn until dusk, Leana watching her body swell with child. She and Neda spent days taking apart her few gowns and stitching them to fit more loosely, easing the waistline higher. Leana did not mind the changes she saw and felt, knowing they were necessary, that for God to create a child inside her, he needed room to work. Headaches came and went, and she could never get enough sleep, stealing away to their bedroom many afternoons, grateful to give her swollen ankles a rest.

As her body grew, so did Jamie's attention to her sister. He watched Rose constandy, found reasons to brush his hand against hers, read aloud from her favorite books, purchased ribbons from a visiting packman and fashioned them into bows, which she wrapped round her black hair, tossing her braid at him with a coy smile. Such things were done in secret, not in public. No one outside the family knew, or they pretended not to know. But Leana did not need her spectacles to see that Rose still loved Jamie, and Jamie still loved Rose.

Her sister came knocking on her bedroom door one gray Tuesday in late April, looking as pretty as one of the miniature oil paintings Leana had admired at the Kings Arms Inn. Rose was dressed in her damask gown, the rose-colored one meant for her wedding. It was the first time Leana had seen her wearing it since their fitting with Mr. Armstrong, the tailor, four months past.

Leana could not hide her surprise. “Surely you did not dress in so fine a gown to sit by my bedside?”

“Of course not,” Rose answered, her voice as chilly as the damp spring air. “I have been invited to a small dinner party at Maxwell Park.”

“I'm thrilled for you, dearie,” Leana said, and meant it. Such social gatherings were intended for hothouse blooms like Rose, not wallflowers like herself. “It would seem there are no hurt feelings, then, concerning Fathers refusal of a Hogmanay debut for you?”

Her sister giggled, then bent over and whispered, “Not after I wrote to Lord Maxwell on two occasions and begged his forgiveness.”

“Rose!”
Leana sat up, her headache forgotten. “You wrote the man letters?”

Her nose pointed in the air. “I have a fine hand. You've said so yourself.”

“It's not your handwriting that concerns me, Rose. It's the audacity of a young woman writing to a married gendeman. Such a thing is simply not
done”

“But it
was
done and with the desired result.” Rose paused before the mirror on the dressing table, adjusting her sleeves. “I am back in Lady Maxwell's good graces and dining in their home this evening.”

Leana was not finished fretting. The child had overstepped her bounds and did not seem the least concerned. “Rose, how can you think of going without an escort? The Maxwells’ blood is too rich for Peter Drummond or Neil Elliot, yet you cannot go alone.”

“Oh, I'm not,” she said airily. “I'll be on the arm of a handsome young shepherd.”

Leana nearly fainted. “Not Rab Murray?”

“Goodness, no!” Rose's laugh was a throaty trill, like an actress practicing for a scene. “A much more braw lad than that and a gendeman as well.” She turned and smiled sweedy. “Jamie will escort me.”

Leana felt the heat drain from her head to her toes. “Jamie?”

“Aye. Hugh is seeing to him now. In my room so you wouldn't be disturbed.”

“But how can you…” Leana was so taken aback she could not continue. What was Rose thinking? What was Rose
doing?

“Jamie is my cousin, remember. And as a married member of my family, a perfecdy suitable escort.”

Leana asked faindy, “And he agreed?”
A foolish question.

“Naturally. Lord Maxwell is sending his carriage. You may see us off if you like.” Rose swept from the room as though she were Lady Maxwell herself, her damask gown and silk petticoats rusding in her wake. “Jamie!” she called, knocking on the room next door. “Come, let us have a look at you. The carriage will be here any moment.”

Leana slipped on her shoes and hastened to the hall, just as Jamie emerged from the room with Hugh behind him, a guilty stain on the servants rough cheek. “Jamie,” she breathed, stepping back as though he were someone else, as though he were royalty. Freshly combed and clean-shaven, he was impeccably dressed in a heavy satin coat and embroidered waistcoat, silk breeches and stockings, and buckled shoes polished to a high sheen—the very picture of a great Scottish laird. “I've never seen you like this.”

He shrugged, as though making light of it. “My mother sent them from Glentrool.”

“Did you…ask her to?”

Jamie glanced down at Rose, who had stepped close to his side, as though posing for a portrait. “Your sister did. She was certain Mother would have the proper attire for such an occasion, which it seems she did.”

Leana stared at Rose, a hard knot growing inside her, close to the baby, near to her heart. “So you wrote Jamie's mother?”

“Indeed I did. Nothing inappropriate about
that
, is there?” Rose cast an appreciative glance at her escort. “You can see what a fine suit of clothes she sent. Doesn't our Jamie look handsome?”

Leana could hardly dispute so obvious a fact. “You look…magnificent,” she confessed. “Both of you.” They seemed pleased, but not surprised, smiling at one another, admiring each others feathers like two preening birds.

The sound of horses drew them to the long window at the top of the stair. “Of/What a grand carriage!” Rose pressed her hand to her
chest with dramatic flair. “That's their smaller one, with two horses. When the Maxwells ride to Edinburgh, they prefer their coach-and-four. Gleaming ebony with velvet curtains and brass lanterns. Still, this one is lovely enough, is it not? Shall we be oflf, Jamie?”

He inclined his head toward the stair “Start down without me, Rose. I'll follow in a moment.” Rose floated off, humming to herself, while Jamie turned back and looked, at last, at her. “Leana, perhaps I should have told you.”

Leana tried to contain herself, but her tone gave away her hurt feelings. “Aye, you should have.”

“Would you have objected?” His eyes shone greener than usual in the late afternoon light, and his jaw was tight. “Would you have refused to let Rose attend, refused to let me escort her?”

“Not at all. I simply would like to have known.”

Jamie exhaled, clearly batde weary. “I apologize for not informing you. I thought Rose had done so.”

“Why would she?”

He grimaced. “She does have a habit of doing as she pleases.” Voices floated up the stair—the coachman asking for his passengers. “I must go. Don't wait up for us, Leana, for I fear it will be a late evening, and you need your sleep. For the baby.”

“Aye. For your son.”

Without another word he left her standing in the upstairs hall, wearing her drab gray gown, her hair mussed from napping, and her eyes wet with tears. She watched them from the window, two splendidly dressed people off to dine with his lordship. While she would stay behind and dine on onion soup.

Leana leaned her forehead on the glass.
Why does he hate me so, Lord?
It must be hate, for it was anything but love. He'd said as much, too many times to count. She would not wait up for them, for she could not bear to hear their jubilant report of an evening spent in one another's company.
My sister. My husband.