A Scottish Love (22 page)

She was his first lover, and he didn’t think he’d ever forget anything about her.

When he released her, she didn’t draw back, only laid her forehead against his jacket. The brush of her hair against one of his medals reminded him of the last time he’d seen her.

She’d come to see Fergus off to war and when her eyes had met his, there was a jolt of surprise in them. They’d not spoken, only nodded to each other as cordial as almost-strangers. Her husband had been with her, and he’d been shocked at the age of the man. In that moment, he’d known she’d chosen a title over a mere soldier.

A pity she hadn’t waited a few years; he could have offered her a baronetcy. But he’d never be an earl.

He bent his head to brush a kiss on the top of her head, wondering why he didn’t release her, push her away. He’d kissed her. He wouldn’t have to wonder if she’d changed; she hadn’t.

She still had the power to enthrall him.

Dangerous woman.

His cheek rested against her hair; he wished she would pull away. He wouldn’t be the first. Courage in the face of every battle, even this one.

“Fergus told me about your father,” she softly said. “I didn’t know.”

He should thank her for giving him a reason to drop his arms and step back.

“Most people end that sentence with an expression of sorrow. How dreadful that he’s passed. How very sad that he died. You must be devastated.”

She remained silent.

“But you aren’t sorry he’s dead, are you?”

A moment passed before she shook her head.

“What did he say to you that day? What did he say to make you run off to Inverness and marry your earl?”

The look of surprise on her face might have been amusing. He found, however, that he was devoid of humor at this particular moment.

She stared down at the floor.

“He said that you felt sorry for me,” she said softly. “That if you offered for me, it would be out of pity. Or because Fergus was your best friend and you were aware of our plight.”

“He played to your pride, Shona, and you let him win without a fight.”

Before she could offer up a false defense, he held up his hand to halt her words.

“He bet that your pride was stronger than your love and he was right.”

“That’s not true.”

He smiled. “It is, regrettably. I knew the moment he told me.” At her look of surprise, he continued, “Did you think I didn’t know?” he asked. “That he didn’t use it as a weapon? Brag about your choice?”

She looked stunned at his words.

“He knew exactly what he was doing, Shona. He was brilliant at ferreting out an enemy’s weakness.”

“Was I the enemy?” she asked.

He nodded. “From the moment I fell in love with you.” No doubt he’d smiled all the time. Or found a reason to laugh. He had probably been so filled with good cheer that anyone looking at him would know he was in love.

General MacDermond had wanted three things for his son, and none of them was love. Instead, he was to first acquit himself in battle. Gordon had done that, but more to save his men than to please his father. Second, to achieve a rank commensurate with his heritage. As Colonel of the Regiment, he was well on his way to making general. Third, to acquire an honor that would segregate him from others. He hadn’t won the Victoria Cross, but he’d been made a baronet, an honor that had annoyed his father more than pleased him, since the general had no hope of obtaining it for himself.

Too bad the old bastard died before understanding that whatever accomplishments, whatever successes Gordon achieved from this moment on were his and not his father’s.

“My father believed in the rightness of his cause. He believed he was at war and you were the enemy. If one tactic hadn’t worked, he would have used another.”

She stepped away from him, went to stand in the doorway.

“It would be easier if you weren’t here,” she said, her voice sounding tired.

“Must everything be easier for you?” He welcomed the sudden annoyance he felt.

“Must everything be so difficult?” Before he could answer, she turned to him. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“Because he waited until you left for Inverness to tell me that you’d chosen your pride over me.” He turned, looking through the window as if the view of the forest was captivating. “What was I supposed to do? Beg you to return?”

“You think it was pride that made me leave?”

“What else? I think it’s the core of you. You’re not simply a woman. You’re Shona Imrie, the last female of the Clan Imrie. You have a position to maintain, an image to uphold.”

He faced her. “It wasn’t just your pride at work, Shona, but his. You wouldn’t have liked the military. You would have chafed to return to Gairloch. So the two of you, filled with pride, warred with each other.”

“And you were the one caught in the middle, is that it?”

He only smiled at that thought.

She held herself very still, her hands clasped in front of her. Her lips were still reddened from their kiss.

“You must hate me,” she said.

“I hated you for a very long time,” he heard himself saying. Words that bobbed up from the depths of his heart. A sentiment he wasn’t even conscious of having, let alone expressing.

Surprise replaced the misery in her eyes. “Do you still?”

“It was Fergus who told me you were to be married,” he said. “You lost no time encouraging the earl.”

“I’d met Bruce before,” she said.

“Evidently, he was quite the eager suitor.”

Her face was oddly pale, as if the truth was a deathblow. He wanted, in that moment, to go to her and hold her, an idiotic impulse he didn’t fulfill. He might lust after her, but he didn’t trust her.

“You’ve no pride at all, is that it?”

“I loved you, but what I felt for you was purely love. It wasn’t confused with status or title or pride.” He hesitated a moment. Should he tell her the whole truth? “Loving you,” he said, deciding that all of it must be aired, or none of it, “added to my life. When I decided that I needed to stop loving you, it made my life duller, but it didn’t change me.”

When she didn’t respond, he smiled again. “Love isn’t simple for you, Shona. It’s twisted up in other emotions.”

She turned, but before she could leave, he spoke to her back.

“You can live without love. But it’s like color or flavor or music. It makes life something better, something worth experiencing.”

She glanced back at him. “And that’s what I was? Color or flavor or music?”

He thought of those years, his smile fading. “You were a rainbow,” he said. “A feast. A symphony.”

Then, she was gone, and he was done with confession, and freed of the truth, as well as the pain he’d held inside for years.

Chapter 18

S
hona felt drained, as if she’d indulged in a fit of weeping. She had too many things to do to take time out to feel sorry for herself. Or perhaps she simply didn’t want to think about what Gordon had said.

He’d known.

He’d known what his father had done and had seen it as a test, one she’d failed miserably.

Anger was a better emotion than despair.

She’d been his rainbow.

Had she failed him in some way? Was he right?

What did it matter, now?

Dear one
—how long had it been since she’d heard those words, said in just that tone? Seven years.

Was he right? Had it been her pride? It hadn’t felt like pride at the time. Hurt, that’s what it had been. Pain and shame, that she couldn’t be more than she was. Shona Imrie, once of the proud Imries, now destitute.

At the secret door, she grabbed the lamp, retrieved the box of matches tucked in the drawer in the base, and lit it again. She felt as if she’d aged forty years as she retraced her steps through the passages. In the library, she replaced the lamp on the table and stood staring at the wall, replaying the scene in the cottage.

When she’d asked him if he still hated her, Gordon hadn’t answered.

She wanted to retreat to her bed, but that would be the act of a coward. For all her flaws and failings, she wasn’t a coward. Rash, reckless, perhaps engaging in behavior that wasn’t entirely ladylike—she would confess to all that. But she’d always faced the circumstances full-on and never backed down from a challenge.

Even if the challenge made her skin cold and her stomach lurch.

What she really wanted to do was go have a good cry, but she knew the minute she did, Helen would probably enter the room and want to know what was wrong. Or Helen would see her swollen eyes afterward, and be too curious to remain silent. For all of Helen’s attributes, sometimes she cared too much.

She was supposed to lead Miriam around Gairloch this morning, but she hoped the Americans had forgotten. Instead, she went in search of Fergus. Thankfully, she found him easily, in the conservatory. He was sitting on one of the stone benches watching as Old Ned slept, fully clothed, on an adjacent bench, a half-empty bottle of whiskey cradled in his arms.

“Sometimes, I think he has the right idea,” Fergus said, glancing up at her. “Maybe that’s what I need to do. Remain sotted by day and night, buried in a bottle.”

She sat on the bench and surreptitiously studied Fergus. His face was pale, and there was a white line around his lips. Navigating around Gairloch was difficult for him. He’d proven himself to be courageous to a fault, but sometimes, courage could be wearing.

She hoped he’d be brave enough for the truth.

They couldn’t possibly have a party, a welcoming ball for Miriam and her father. Nor was there any need to do another inventory of the larder and pantry. No matter how often she counted it, the results were the same. The food was going to run out before the Americans left.

Now was the time to address their finances, but she found that she couldn’t do it, not with the look on Fergus’s face. He was three years older, but she felt absurdly maternal toward him right at the moment.

She placed her hand on his upper arm, patting it with a silly little gesture. Nevertheless, he glanced at her and smiled, obviously an effort but one she appreciated.

“We’ll get through this,” she said.

“Will we?”

She nodded.

“Do you think I’m proud, Fergus?” she asked.

Her brother laughed.

She frowned at him.

“What about arrogant?”

“You’re an Imrie, Shona,” he said kindly. “All Imries are proud and arrogant.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. “That hardly makes us easy to deal with, does it?”

Dear God, what if Gordon was right? Could he be right? Had she allowed her pride to dictate their futures?

For now, however, what she felt for Gordon must be pushed to the background.

Old Ned still hadn’t roused, and she watched him now, so utterly peaceful as he snored.

“What do you think he does all night?”

“Drinks,” Fergus said. “Then he sleeps so he can get up and drink some more.”

“I don’t remember him drinking that much when we were younger.”

“Maybe he didn’t. Or maybe we just didn’t notice.”

Perhaps she should take up whiskey as well. Would she sleep better? Surely she wouldn’t worry as much.

She sat back on the bench, looking around her. Once, her mother’s garden had provided cut flowers for all the public rooms at Gairloch. Since her death, however, there hadn’t been the staff to keep it fertile and weeded.

The conservatory, however, seemed to thrive on being abandoned. The plants and small trees that grew there did so in glorious profusion, stretching their emerald arms toward the clear glass walls and domed ceiling.

This was Gairloch’s newest room, a present from her father to her mother. Knowing of his wife’s liking for puttering in the garden, and her equal dislike for cold winter days, he’d commissioned the octagonal addition to be built just beyond the library.

The floor was made of the same stone as the rest of the castle, fitted with cunning drains at the corners and in the center of the room. In the middle was a pool, nearly four feet tall, adorned with a figure of a woman pouring water from a large amphora. Her father always joked that the sculptor had been so taken by her mother that he’d fashioned the statue in her likeness.

She hadn’t had time to clean this room, and perhaps it was suffering a little from neglect. The pool should be drained and scrubbed, because there was an odor emanating from it. The fountain hadn’t worked for years, and perhaps if it had, the water wouldn’t be stagnant. Some of the larger plants had dropped leaves and they lay abandoned on the stone floor.

Would the Americans bring Gairloch back to its former glory?

“I always thought we led an enchanted life,” she said. “That nothing could ever happen to us.”

“It didn’t, until we left Gairloch,” Fergus said. “Maybe Gairloch’s enchanted, and not our lives.”

She turned to look at him. “Did you ever think we’d be here now? You, a decorated soldier, and me, a widow?”

“A countess,” he corrected.

A pauper countess.

“Fergus, about the party—” she began.

“It’s little enough to make up for you behaving like a child, Shona.”

Both the words and his tone silenced her.

She finally stood, then leaned down and kissed his cheek, wishing that the truth wasn’t suddenly a wall between them.

She left the conservatory, mounted the stairs, and caught sight of Elizabeth Jamison. Sometimes, Providence provided exactly what she needed at exactly the right time. In this case, the nurse.

She’d never before interfered in Fergus’s life. But Fergus had never before gone to war or returned badly wounded. Nor had she ever seen him so dejected, so much so that she couldn’t bear it. Something had been bothering him since he returned from India. Something that now had a name and a face.

“I need to speak with you,” she said to Elizabeth.

She headed for the Winter Parlor where her mother used to sit and sew. This room, also, had not been cleaned or readied for visitors, but at the moment, it simply didn’t matter. She glanced back once to see if Elizabeth was following. She was, but with a look on her face that indicated that the other woman didn’t anticipate a conversation between the two of them.