White Regency 03 - White Knight (23 page)

Not until the sun was starting to set that
afternoon did Grace finally manage to steal a few moments to herself. It had
been a long and unusually busy day, filled with small chores and unexpected
interruptions.

Another family of crofters had arrived
shortly before midday with naught but the clothes they wore and terrible tales
of the eviction that had driven them from their home. A man, a woman, and four
young children, they had been walking for nearly three days, eating berries and
foraging for earthnut to stave off the pangs of their hunger.

After hearing their tale and seeing their
sooty, forlorn faces, Grace had promptly brought them in, offered them hot
porridge and fresh milk, and arranged for pallets for them to sleep on. She’d
spent the rest of the morning updating the record books, adding to the growing
list she was compiling of who had come to Skynegal and who had gone on.

During a small midday meal of cheese and
bannocks, Grace had done a little refining of her sketches for the castle
refurbishment while she had listened to some of the children at their English
lessons. Later, a disagreement had broken out among two of the workers. When
Grace had happened upon that scene, one of them was readying to strike the other
with a sizeable rock that was to have been used for the curtain wall. He pulled
back in the moment he noticed Grace staring at him in horror, the rock just
inches from the other man’s skull. He himself had sported a bloodied nose and
was obviously retaliating for whatever wrong the other had committed before her
arrival. After separate explanations from each, Grace had been no closer to
understanding the cause of their discord, but she did manage to cool their
tempers well enough to have them shaking hands and retreating to opposite ends
of the curtain wall to resume their work.

Now, having seen that everyone had
received their supper, Grace slipped on her favorite half-boots and pulled the
pins from her hair, letting it billow in the breeze off the loch as she walked
along the brae that ran north from the castle tower.

Before going out for her walk, Grace had
changed into the new woolen gown and stockings that had been presented to her
earlier that day by several of the women. It was made of the Skynegal tartan
and while simple in its cut, the gown offered warmth against the evening chill
and its full skirts would allow her to wear it in comfort throughout most of
her pregnancy.

As Grace walked along through the high
reedy grass, Dubhar ambled alongside her, neither racing ahead nor straying
behind, but keeping right at her leg, occasionally sniffing at a tuft of marram
grass. He wouldn’t leave even for a moment to fetch the stick she tossed for
him. The crofters who yet remained in the fields where they had planted oat,
potato, and barley waved to her, calling out greetings to her in both the
English they were learning and the Gaelic they were teaching her in turn. She
called out in response
to one of them, Hugh Darsie, when he’d asked if she’d had a good day.

“Gle mhath, Hugh. An danns thu
leamsa?”

At his puzzled expression, Grace quickly
thought back on her words and realized she had just asked him if he would dance
with her instead of how he was faring. She quickly corrected herself with a
shrug and he laughed, applauding her for a valiant, if mistaken effort.

A distance away from the castle, there was
a small bluff that overlooked Loch Skynegal’s cobbled shoreline, where Grace
enjoyed watching the oyster catchers as they picked among the rocks for a supper
of limpets and sea urchins. At this time of day, with the sun just setting to
the west, the water looked like a thousand twinkling diamonds in the distance.
A matting of ox-eye daisies and goldenrods waved to her as Grace lowered to sit
against a machair tussock. After a few moments, Dubhar meandered a short
distance away to poke his snout among the marram grass on the shore.

Grace closed her eyes and leaned back upon
her arms, losing herself to the soft wind against her face and the gentle sound
of the water lapping at the shore. As she sat, she thought of how very
different her life had become in the past few months. No more did she spend her
days and nights worrying over the perfect ballgown or the placement of her
curls. Instead she clung to the pleasure of simpler things—heavy woolen
stockings on a cold Scottish night, the smell of Deirdre’s oatcakes baking in
the kitchen, the touch of the Highland breeze on her face.

She wondered what the society ladies who
flitted from shop to shop along Bond Street for their “necessaries”
would think of the Marchioness Knighton, who instead of diamonds and pearls now
wore necklaces made of seashells and colored pebbles made by the many children
of the estate. Would they gasp to know she drank tea brewed from blueberry
leaves? That she forsook her gowns of silk and muslin for the more practical
Highland attire?

How curious, she thought, knowing that at
this very hour, a world away in London, members of the social elite were busy
preening before their looking glasses,
fearful of having a single flounce out of place lest
it should bring shame and ridicule down upon them. From the moment she had been
thrown into that life—even on the outskirts as she had been—Grace had never
felt a proper fit, not the way she did here at Skynegal, where she felt truly
wanted for the first time in her life. Even more, she did not want to see a
babe of her own born into the world of that fickle noble society, growing up
cold and unfeeling just like…

The sound of a sudden harsh howling broke
Grace from her thoughts and she sat upright, searching for Dubhar and whatever
it was that was causing him to create such an unholy din. When she spotted the
dog, he was not making any noise at all, but was instead sitting calmly several
yards away with his head cocked to the side, staring to the true source of the
howling, something hidden in the tall grass.

What in heaven’s name…?

A leg surfaced briefly above the tall
grass.

Goodness, someone was injured.

Grace got to her feet and rushed over to
find a man hunched over himself, holding his bare foot, pierced by the spiked
head of a rather large and very prickly-looking thistle. Grace acted quickly.
She took up a length of her woolen skirts and covering her hand, grasped the
thistle head, careful not to stick herself as she jerked it free. The man let
out another howl and then promptly became silent. Grace walked several feet
away and dislodged the thistle from her skirts, crushing the sharp spikes of it
with her boot, before turning to see if the man required any further
assistance.

“Are you all right? Those can be
terribly sharp and I—”

Grace lost her words as she came
face-to-face with the last person she would have expected to see standing
there.

It was Christian.

He was there, in Scotland.

He was wearing no boots or hose.

And he was doing the oddest thing.

He was smiling.

Grace found herself wondering if he’d
perhaps hit his
head
when he’d fallen to the ground and she almost voiced that thought aloud.

Until she saw that he had started toward
her.

Grace simply froze, at a complete loss for
what she should do.

“H
ello,
Grace.”

Christian came toward her, approaching
slowly as if he thought she might bolt—a ridiculous thought, really. Where on
earth could she possibly go? Grace simply watched him, a small part of her
wondering if he was truly standing there on that windswept bluff with her, or
if Deirdre had brewed something strange into her tea earlier that day.

But of course Christian was there. She had
always known that someday she would see him again. What she hadn’t expected was
to still be so mesmerized by simply the sight of him. The setting sun shone on
his hair, burnishing it a rich sable brown. He wore no coat and the full
sleeves of his shirt billowed in the breeze, pulling at his neckcloth as he
moved. His eyes were fixed directly on her and Grace knew the moment she felt
her heartbeat traitorously quicken that the months they’d spent apart had done
nothing to lessen her feelings for him. If anything, living without him had only
made her regard for him that much stronger.

Dear God, no matter how she might try to
deny it to herself, she still loved him.

Even as Grace admitted this to herself,
she knew she could never allow him to know her feelings. The risk was too
great, the memory of his hurtful words too poignant even now. She could never
reveal how empty she had felt the past weeks without him, how she had longed
for his touch, his look, the sound of his voice. How many times would she have
endured even his chill indifference if only so that she could see him again?

Grace struggled to focus her thoughts on
what had
driven
her to leave London, ignoring her first instinct to go forward to meet him.
Instead, she waited until he stood right in front of her. She lifted her gaze
to meet his and felt her breath catch. He smiled at her again, damn him. She
glanced down at his feet, focusing on his bare toes peeking out through the
tufts of grass, anything to avoid looking into those silver-blue eyes and
getting thoroughly lost once again.

“You’re not wearing any boots,”
she said, absurdly obvious, yes, but at least it was something to divert him
from staring at her so intently.

“Yes, they are back there near where
I stuck my foot. I had taken them off so that I might approach you quietly.”
She heard him smile. “Apparently I was so intent on watching you, I wasn’t
paying any heed to where I was walking—or rather what I was walking on.”

Grace chanced a look at him—a mistake, for
he was still staring at her and his eyes were so warm she hardly noticed the
chill breeze off the loch anymore. She drew a quick breath and looked out at
the rippling waters in the distance, crossing her arms before her.
Oh, dear.

“Deirdre says that there is a legend
of when the Danes had come to invade Scotland centuries ago. Much the same
thing happened. They had come at night and had removed their shoes so to
approach without notice. They stepped on the wild thistles and yowled so
loudly, they woke the sleeping Scots, warning them of their coming and allowing
them to spring to their own defense. It is said this prevented the Danes from a
successful invasion and from then on it was the thistle that had saved
Scotland. Deirdre says it is because of that event in history that the thistle
is so highly regarded among the Scots even now.”

Grace could think of absolutely no reason
for her to have just told him that old folktale other than that she would do or
say just about anything at that moment to avoid the subject of her having left
London, or of his having come now to retrieve her.

Unfortunately Christian was not a man
easily diverted.

“I’ve missed you, Grace.”

His voice wrapped over her like the glow
of spring’s
first
sunshine after months of frigid winter. Grace clung to her fast-fleeting
reserve.

“I suppose I should have told you
where I was going.”

“It is all right.”

Could this truly be Christian? Her
husband, the aloof Marquess Knighton? His understanding was not something Grace
had been prepared for. She had played this scene through her mind so many times
over the past months, knowing it would come. But in her mind’s eye, it had
always been far off in the future, with Christian scowling and angry, railing
against her for her desertion. This acceptance and understanding was not at all
what she’d expected. In fact, she didn’t quite know how to cope with it.

“Yes, well, it is growing late,”
she said, for want of anything better. “I probably should be getting
back.”

She turned and started back toward the
castle, a direction that unfortunately necessitated a path around Christian.
She prayed he would just allow her to leave, giving her some time to gather her
wits.

She was nearly past when Christian reached
out suddenly and took her arm, gently stopping her. Grace’s heart leapt at the
touch of him. She closed her eyes and forced herself not to look at him.

“Grace, truly, if I could, I would
take back the words I said to you that night.”

Damn the tears that were coming even now
to her eyes. She blinked them back. “I asked you for your honesty,
Christian, and you gave it.”

“Do you not think we should at least
talk about this?”

Grace drew in a long breath, releasing it
slowly, knowing he was right. “Yes, Christian, we should talk. We have
much to discuss, but not here. Not now. I need some time. I wasn’t expecting to
see you here. I need to think about what this will mean to the life I have made
here.”

She looked at him. He was staring at her,
silent, troubled.

“Grace, have you…? He hesitated.
“Grace, is there someone else in your life now?”

Grace saw something change in his eyes—was
it fear that she had found someone else? Hope that she had not? If only he
could know how impossible a notion it was. Just the thought of feeling about
another the way she did him was absurd. Grace shook her head. “No,
Christian, there is no one.”

No one but you.

It was a thought Grace kept to herself as
she turned and started walking back toward the castle.

At Skynegal, Grace was met with another
surprise when she found that Robert and Catriona, the Duke and Duchess of
Devonbrook, and their young son James had come with Christian. At first she
thought it odd that they should have traveled so far, until Catriona told her
that their own Scottish estate, Rosmorigh, was located along the coast south of
Skynegal on the Knoydart Peninsula, a day’s sail away. It was with their
assistance that Christian had found his way to Skynegal.

They sat now, the five of them, in the
small antechamber set off from the great hall that Grace had put to use as an
estate office. While they had waited for Grace’s return from the brae, Deirdre
had brewed tea for the guests, which Grace now poured into their crockery
cups—a far cry from the fine porcelain the Devonbrooks were no doubt accustomed
to.

“Please forgive the tea,” Grace
said. “It is a local blend made with blueberry leaves, and while I find it
very tasty, some might think it a bit tart.”

“Blueberry?” Catriona took up
the cup. “We take blueberry tea often at Rosmorigh, isn’t that right, my
dear?”

She looked to her husband, the duke,
Robert, who nodded from where he stood beside Christian. Grace noticed that
Christian no longer smiled as he had earlier when he’d met her on the brae. The
frown she knew so well had once again darkened his eyes, but before Grace could
consider what she’d done to displease him, Catriona went on.

“One day I must show you how I add a
bit of clover to the tea as well.” She leaned a little closer, whispering,
“I quite prefer it to the China teas.”

Grace smiled at her. She had expected such
a celebrated society duchess to show disdain for the simplicity they had
adopted at Skynegal. She was pleased to find that she was mistaken in that
assumption.

“We’ve already eaten supper,”
Grace said, “but if you are hungry, I can ask Deirdre or Flora to see if
they might yet have some of the stew for you in the kitchen—”

Just then, the door opened and Alastair
wandered in. He hadn’t knocked—Grace had made it a point that he shouldn’t feel
the need to, for they were fellows in the management of the estate, not master
and clerk. He started when he noticed the others in the room.

“Och, my lady, I didn’t know you had
visitors.”

He made to bow, stepping back as if to
leave, but Grace waved him into the room. “It is all right, Alastair.
Please, come in and meet our guests.”

Alastair wore his usual attire—tartan trews,
matching waistcoat and jacket, his spectacles pushed low upon his rounded nose
as he always wore them when he was checking figures in the account books.

“Alastair, allow me to introduce to
you the Duke and Duchess of Devonbrook…”

As she would have expected at such a noble
pronouncement, Alastair’s eyes went wide and he bowed his head several times in
deferential greeting.

“…and this is Lord Knighton.”
And then she added, “My husband.”

Alastair looked quickly to Grace before
turning a bow to Christian. “It is an honor to finally make your
acquaintance, my lord. A great honor indeed.” And then to Robert and
Catriona, “And to you as well, Your Graces.”

“This is Mr. Alastair Ogilvy. He is
Skynegal’s steward and a fine one at that. I don’t know what I would have done
without him here these past months.”

Alastair’s face colored nearly as red as
his suit of clothes as he beamed under Grace’s compliment. “Thank you, my
lady. ‘Tis been a pleasure, I assure you.”

With the introductions done, an awkward
silence fell over the room as if no one knew what next to say. Grace endeavored
to put an end to it.

“Did you have something you’d come
here to see me about, Alastair?”

“What? Oh, yes, indeed, my lady.
McFee and McGee have just returned from Ullapool. I’ve a list here of what they
were able to purchase and trade.”

He handed her a sheet of paper and Grace
scanned the list, nodding. “Looks as if they were able to secure a fair
price on the supplies.”

“Aye.” Alastair hesitated a
moment before adding quietly, “My lady, I’m afraid there was a bit of bad
news as well.” His dour expression told Grace something was very wrong.

“What is it?”

” ‘Twas said just before they’d gone
that the ship
Prospect
went down afore she reached the coast of New
Scotland. It is believed everyone aboard her was lost.”

Grace felt her body go instantly numb. She
set the list she had been studying atop the desk and turned from the others to
face the small window overlooking the courtyard. As she watched the children at
play there, she remembered one small smiling face, thumb perpetually stuffed in
the mouth, happy blue eyes laughing beneath a mop of blonde ringlets.

Thomas McAllum had had all the innocence
and energy of a three-year-old bundle of mischief. He had arrived at Skynegal
late one soggy night with his Ma and his Da and several siblings and had
immediately stolen his way into everyone’s hearts. When Grace would come into
the office to work on the castle’s accounts, she would often find him curled up
in the kneehole of her desk, waiting to pop out his head with an exuberant
“Boo!,”
after which he would throw his tiny arms around her neck and squeeze her
tightly as he could. She was “Lady
Gwace”
and he “Knight
Thomas,” her
“pwotector”
against all things “bad and
scawy,”
just like the knight in the stories she would read to him
at night.

When his parents had finally found passage
on a ship bound for New Scotland, Thomas hadn’t wanted to go. Grace would never
forget the way he had clung to her skirts, crying that he wanted to stay there
with her. But she had convinced him that all knights one day had to leave on
crusade to protect other parts of the world from the bad and scary things. She
could still see the image of him, standing on the deck of the sloop, waving to
her as they drifted off onto Loch Skynegal bound for Ullapool and their new
life—she could still hear his last words to her before he’d gone…

“I
wuv
you, Lady
Gwace,
and
when I come back from my
cwusade
I will
mawwy
you.”

When she turned from the window moments
later, she could hardly see Alastair through her tears. “It was
Prospect,
wasn’t it, that Thomas’s family had sailed upon?”

Alastair nodded but she had known what his
answer would be even before posing her question. Still she had asked it, hoping
she would be wrong.

Grace realized that all eyes in the room
were upon her then and dashed away her tears. She looked to Christian, Robert,
and Catriona where they were still sitting before her, Alastair behind. She
suddenly wanted, needed, to be alone.

“Alastair, might I trouble you to
show the duke and duchess to the set of chambers across the hall from mine?
Deirdre and Flora should be finished readying them now and I’m sure our guests
are tired after their journey. And please ask Deirdre to see if she can put
together a bit of supper for our guests. I’d wager young James would love to
try some of Deirdre’s shortbread.”