Island of the Swans (4 page)

Without so much as a fare-thee-well to the passengers in the black coach, Thomas raced over to where the swine had wallowed to a halt. Noting that the pig’s quivering tail had, indeed, crossed the finish line, he rendered his judgment.

“Eglantine Maxwell,” he bellowed, “competing for the first time in the Grand Championship Swine Course, is hereby and
officially
declared the true and honest winner!”

He opened his palm flat and presented the youngest Maxwell sister with the few coins wagered by the applauding spectators. Jane’s mount, startled by the cheers from an appreciative crowd, suddenly spun around and dashed over the finish line where the pig promptly tossed Jane into the mud beside Eglantine, who was already basking in the glow of victory.

“Damn, damn, damn!” screeched Jane in a fit of temper, using an expletive her mother abhorred.

Jane closed her eyes and clenched her fists, gritting her teeth in a fit of pique. When she opened them, she glared over at her sister and took stock of Eglantine’s disarray. Eglantine, in turn, stared back at Jane, caked with mud, and both girls began to howl, laughing along with the crowd. Matilda Sinclair volunteered her water bucket to wash off the worst of the muck, and Jane plunged her hands and arms into its coolness, splashing her flushed face and smiling her thanks to the affable young goodwife.

“His Grace, the Duke of Gordon, offers this linen in hopes it will assist you,” said the duke’s footman, extending a frock-coated arm bearing a large embroidered handkerchief, monogrammed with the familiar Gordon stag’s head crest.

Thomas was about to dismiss the duke’s unwelcome emissary, but Jane snatched the linen from the servant and patted her face and arms with it. Thomas watched stonily as she waved the cloth in acknowledgment above her head. She made a mock, unbalanced curtsy in the direction of the black coach without even focusing on the faces in the carriage window.

The dowager duchess frowned, but Alexander, the Fourth Duke of Gordon, glanced back at Jane Maxwell for a long moment. Thomas could swear that their eyes met briefly and then, suddenly, the two young people grinned at each other across the milling throng. Abruptly, the carriage curtains closed, and the aristocratic passengers disappeared from view.

“You certainly paid your public respects to that Anglified fop!” Thomas exclaimed angrily.

“Gadzooks, Thomas, the laddie was merely performing a common kindness! What’s ailing you, for pity sakes?”

When he failed to reply, Jane shrugged and turned to watch the splendid coach move down the High Street. Then she proffered the damp linen to Eglantine to wipe the brackish water dripping from her arms and face.

Thomas struggled to regain his good humor.

“Well, my lovelies, have you had enough sport for one day?” he asked, and ordered two stable boys to lead the sows back to the small yard behind the Maxwell’s townhouse.

“I’ve had my fill of your
judging
, Thomas Fraser!” Jane retorted, turning to chat with Matilda Sinclair, and pointedly ignoring him.

Catherine had remained on the sidelines at the start of the race, cheering both her sisters under her breath in spite of her resolve to show them how much she disapproved of their antics. As Eglantine handed the duke’s linen to Jane, Catherine urged her sisters to hurry back to Hyndford Close.

“We’d best be getting home, and you both changed before Mama sees us,” she pleaded, glancing nervously up the street.

“Go along, hinny,” called Jane, catching sight of a cart rattling downhill toward Grassmarket Square virtually overflowing with juicy red apples. “For such a miserable ending to a fine race, I intend to restore Thomas’s spirits and mine with a reward!”

Before Thomas or Catherine could stop her, Jane was running alongside the lumbering wooden cart, with Eglantine scampering twenty paces behind her. She hooked her right slipper on the base of the platform that supported the mound of shining fruit and hopped a few times on her left foot as her hands felt for the wooden slats on the back of the cart. Hoisting herself up, Jane grabbed an apple with her free hand. She was about to reach for a second when both driver and horse, unaware of the nobly born thief in their midst, responded with a start to the shift in weight. The whoops and cheers from the remaining throng applauding Mistress Jane’s latest antics only added to the confusion, and the cart horse flattened its ears and bolted in fright. As the driver attempted to recover the reins, the horse reared up with an angry whinny and leapt forward with a jerk.

Jane felt her arms nearly pull out of their sockets. Her right hand was riveted by a searing pain as she tried to grab hold of the wooden slats. Apples tumbled to the ground on all sides of her as the cart bolted forward again. Falling backwards, she landed with a heavy thud in the middle of the busy thoroughfare. Eglantine began to wail at the sight of her sister lying motionless in the road, and a crowd began to gather once again. Catherine, hearing screams, turned from the entrance to Hyndford Close.

“Oh, dear God!” Catherine shouted across the road to Thomas. “
Jane!
” she cried, pointing a hundred yards down the road. “She’s hurt!”

They both ran toward the small heap that lay in the road. Jane was moaning in pain, her right hand clamped between her legs, her body curled up in agony. Thomas reached her first, stumbling over the apples, which had scattered in every direction.

Cradling her head in his lap, he crooned, “Jenny, lass… Jenny, I’m here,” and unfastened the duke’s handkerchief from her waistband where she had stuffed it for safekeeping.

Thomas directed Jane’s terror-stricken sisters to run back to the well with the linen to make a compress and to bring him a bucket of fresh water. Then he gently felt Jane’s body for broken bones, continuing to talk to her in a melodic, loving voice.

“Jenny lassie, what hurts the most?” asked Thomas anxiously, cursing himself for failing to prevent such a dangerous misadventure.

“My hand… my hand…” moaned Jane, keeping her legs clamped rigidly together with her right hand pinioned between her thighs.

Catherine and Eglantine dashed up with Matilda Sinclair carrying the heavy bucket of water between them. The Duke of Gordon’s linen handkerchief floated on its surface like a cloud. Thomas directed Matilda to get the cloth as clean as possible and wring it dry.

“Let me see, dearheart,” he said gently, trying to pry her knees apart so he could have a look at her hand. “Let me see what you’ve done to yourself.”

“Oh, Thomas, it hurts so much!” Jane cried pitifully, her eyes shut and her body rigid with the pain.

“Please, pet, let me help you—let me have a look,” he pleaded, gently pulling at her right forearm.

Jane suddenly went limp.

“She’s dead!” wailed Eglantine, clutching at Catherine’s arm.

“She’s swooned, Thomas,” Matilda said with alarm, while noting that Jane was still breathing.

“Well, that’s a blessing,” he replied grimly, motioning for Matilda to take his place cradling her head.

Moving down the side of Jane’s still body, he carefully pulled her hand from between her thighs. There, lying among the folds of Jane’s bloody skirts, was a delicate, freshly washed forefinger held to her right hand by only a thin shred of skin. The bolting of the cart had sheared it right off.

“Don’t look, lasses,” Thomas said roughly. “She’s torn off a finger and we’ve got to stop the bleeding.”

Eglantine gulped aloud and looked as if she were going to be sick. Catherine, too, had to look away, but Matilda bravely cradled Jane’s injured hand as Thomas ripped the duke’s handkerchief in wide strips. He firmly bound the linen around the hand with the severed finger. Saving the last strip, he tied the cloth tightly above her wrist to help staunch the flow of blood.

With some difficulty, Matilda helped Thomas lift Jane’s unconscious body against his own. They were nearly equal in height and Jane’s dead weight meant that carrying her up the High Street was no easy task.

“Here, let me help you, laddie,” Matilda volunteered, knowing, however, that her tardiness would most likely inflame Jock more.

Catherine and Eglantine ran ahead to fetch the physic who lived nearby while Matilda Sinclair and Thomas carried Jane as gently as they could toward her lodgings.

Lady Magdalene Maxwell’s sedan chair was just arriving at Hyndford Close when the rescuers reached the entranceway. Hearing Thomas’s shouts, her ladyship drew open her curtains in alarm, her hand flying to her mouth in horror when she saw the pair carrying her daughter.

“The lass will be all right, your ladyship, but she has hurt herself and should be put to bed immediately. Kitty and Eglantine have gone for Dr. Mclntyre.”

“Oh, dear God! Look at her! There’s blood everywhere—come quickly!”

Lady Maxwell stepped briskly out of her sedan chair, instructing the bearers to call for their wages later in the day, and hurried toward the door. Having heard the commotion through the open second-floor window, Fiona McFarland, the Maxwells’ disheveled housemaid, flung open the door as Thomas and Matilda struggled with their burden up the narrow stone staircase to the family’s private quarters.

“In here,” directed Lady Maxwell urgently, turning into a room with a low, timbered ceiling. “Put her on that bed. Fiona, bring up some hot water right away and have Cook heat another kettle.”

Thomas and Matilda gently lowered Jane’s body on the worn and patched linen counterpane. Lady Maxwell’s fear for her child and anger over this mishap were clearly discernible on her flushed face.

“I’ll be going now, your ladyship,” Matilda said swiftly, bobbing a curtsy. “I’m sure she’ll be all right soon.”

“Thank you, Matilda,” Lady Maxwell said, tight-lipped, as the young woman sped out the door, anxious to return to her husband before
his
anger translated into more than a shove or a slap.

“Would you do me the courtesy, Thomas, of explaining exactly what you’ve gotten Jane into
this
time?” Lady Maxwell demanded, barely keeping her emotions under control. Wringing her hands and shaking her head, she complained bitterly, “How do you and the lass find the Devil’s own trouble? I warned you both to take care after she twisted her ankle when you two jumped from the hay byre in the stable yard last winter! She’s going to damage that pretty
face
of hers one day and
then
where will she be?”

Thomas was fearful of interrupting her tirade in order to tell her how seriously Jane’s hand had been injured.

Jane’s eyes fluttered slightly and she began to whimper. Lady Maxwell’s fervent relief that her child was conscious soon gave way to exasperation.

“What the neighbors must
think
of us,” she muttered.

She studied Thomas’s profile as he gazed worriedly down at Jane who was moaning softly.
’Twas a pity he’d never be called Sir, like his dead da, and hadn’t two farthings of his own to rub together.
She noted how tenderly his gaze lingered on her daughter’s still form. At ten, Jane was still only a madcap child.
But Thomas was nearly fourteen… Thomas would soon…

Jane groaned loudly and tried to raise her hand, bound in a ball of linen stained a reddish hue. Lady Maxwell began to pull absently at Jane’s filthy linen petticoat, when she suddenly realized that Thomas, who had always seemed to her simply like another of her boisterous sons, was gazing at her partially clad daughter. Her eyes narrowed. The pair’s childhood camaraderie must be ended forthwith and Thomas be made aware that her plans for Jane stretched far beyond the hopeless dreams of a landless, titleless orphan who had a penchant for causing mischief such as this current calamity.

Lady Maxwell called to her maid with irritation.

“
Will
you hurry, Fiona! Where’s that water? Thomas,” she added crisply, “I’ve not time to deal with your part in this, but I will instruct you to desist from such folly in future. ’Tis no longer suitable, lad, that you should engage in such pranks with my daughters. They’re proper young ladies now, and I shall not permit them to roam the city like urchins. Especially Jane. Now please go and see what’s become of Fiona and then wait for the physic downstairs,” she finished, dismissing him with a wave of her hand.

Shocked at the harshness of her words, Thomas manfully attempted to mask his hurt. He turned to leave. A faint voice halted his progress to the door.

“Thomas?”

It was Jane, sounding weak with fear. He had almost never seen her cry since she was a toddler and her brother Hamilton would torment her by depriving her of some toy or frippery. But real tears now swelled silently over Jane’s dark eyelashes and rolled down her cheeks.

“Where’s Thomas?” she whispered hoarsely.

“He’s just going to find Fiona,” her mother said impatiently.

“Thomas!” Jane cried out.

Lady Maxwell nodded to the lad, reluctantly granting him permission to return to Jane’s bedside.

“Jenny, lass, you’re safe in your mother’s house now—not to worry, pet,” he said. He suddenly felt painfully self-conscious in Lady Maxwell’s presence.

“My hand… Thomas… my hand hurts so much!”

“I know, Jenny girl… I know. But the physic is coming to help, and you’ll be fine, lassie… I know you will.”

“Hold my good hand,” Jane gulped between uneven breaths.

With that, he gave her unbandaged left hand a soft squeeze, transferring it gently to Lady Maxwell’s waiting grasp and quietly left the room.

“Don’t go,” Jane said in a whisper only her mother could hear. “Please, Thomas, don’t leave me.”

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