Nineteen
TRAQUAIR HOUSE
1993
“Miss Murray,” Kate called through the door. “Mr. Douglas is here to see you.”
I sat up, groggy and disoriented. My eyes burned, and I was conscious of a weariness more profound than anything I’d experienced before. I rubbed my cheek, and my fingers came away wet. The ache in my heart wasn’t imaginary. I felt a deep, soul-consuming loss for Isobel Maxwell. For me, the events leading to her death happened just moments ago, not five hundred years in the past.
Kate’s knock was more persistent.
“Tell Ian I’ll be down in a minute,” I said. There was silence and then the sound of her footsteps as she walked down the hall.
Fortified by a hairbrush and a splash of cold water, I followed her down the stairs. Ian stood when I entered the sitting room. He studied my face, and his eyes narrowed.
I saw no point in postponing the inevitable. “I’m sorry I missed our appointment, but I had some shocking news.”
“At the post office?” he asked dryly.
I blushed. “No. At the doctor’s office.” Taking a deep breath, I walked over to the couch and sat down, motioning for him to sit beside me. “We’re going to have a baby,” I announced bluntly.
Other than a sudden tightening of his jaw, his face didn’t change. “I see,” he replied.
It wasn’t the reaction I’d expected, and suddenly I was as desperately insecure as the day Stephen told me our marriage was over. Looking away from Ian’s handsome tight-jawed face, I realized, miserably, that I’d once again taken too much for granted. It would be better to get this entire conversation over with. I swallowed and mumbled. “Aren’t you going to say anything?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On your plans,” he said, keeping his voice even. “I believe I’ve already declared myself more than once, but I haven’t heard you respond. I noticed that you said we are going to have a baby. Does that mean I’m included?”
I stared at him in surprise. Was it possible that he was as unsure of me as I was of him?
“Well?” he persisted.
“I don’t know,” I whispered. “Do you want to be included?”
“Are you serious?”
I nodded.
Ian sighed and stood up. Balling his fists, he thrust his hands into his pockets and walked over to the mantel. For a long time he stared into the fire. Finally he spoke. “What are you afraid of, Christina?”
“Nothing,” I began.
“Stop it!” He had never used that tone of voice before, and it startled me. “Tell me the truth, for God’s sake. You’ve told me everything else.”
“All right,” I said, carefully. “I will tell you.”
He turned around, his eyes fixed on my face.
“For fifteen years I was married to a man who was cold and selfish and dishonest. The greatest gift he gave me was when he walked out of my life. But for that, I’d still be with him, suffering in silence, believing I was the one with the flawed personality. Is it any wonder that I need it spelled out for me?”
“Do you really believe that has anything to do with me?” Ian spoke slowly, controlling his temper.
“No. But I’m not really a very good judge of character. Before I married Stephen, I thought I knew him as well as I knew myself.” I was crying now, and my nose began to drip. Ian reached into his pocket and without saying anything crossed the room to hand me his handkerchief.
“Thank you,” I mumbled, wiping my nose. “The worst of it is, I would still have been there if he hadn’t left me.”
“Christina.” He knelt at my feet and took my hands in his. “It isn’t that way with us. You must know that.”
“How do I know it? You’ve never really told me.”
He started to smile, then thought better of it. I sniffed and returned his handkerchief. He stuffed it into his pocket. “I won’t press you for an answer now, but I want you to marry me.” He hesitated briefly. “I’d planned to ask you anyway, even before I knew about the child. Do you believe that?”
I nodded, unable to meet his eyes, feeling more miserable than ever and not sure why.
“I know things are different in America, but this is Scotland and Peebles is a small town,” he continued. “If you intend to live here, I ask you to consider our child’s future. Will you do that?”
I stared at him. “Would that be enough for you, a marriage based on the fact that you accidentally fathered a child?”
He dropped my hands and stared at me, dawning realization on his face. “I’m not doing this very well, am I? Surely you know that I love you. And whether you admit it or not, you love me. I can’t think of a better reason to go through life together. Can you?”
“May I come in?”
Ian and I turned at the same time. My mother stood framed in the doorway, a wooden smile on her face. My cheeks burned. How long had she been there?
“Am I interrupting anything?”
Ian took the initiative. Walking toward the door, he held out his hand. “You must be Christina’s mother. Welcome to Scotland, Mrs. Murray. I’m Ian Douglas, a neighbor.”
“Thank you.” She took his hand for the briefest of exchanges.
I had known her long enough to understand what she was up to. In the most subtle and ladylike way, she was expressing her disapproval. Only an idiot would misunderstand her message, and Ian was no idiot. The tiny seed of antagonism that was inevitably present when my mother decided to turn unreasonable sprouted into a desire to defend Ian. I found my voice. “Ian was proposing to me, Mother.”
“Really?” The blond eyebrows lifted. “Proposing what?”
“Marriage.”
“Oh.” She was definitely not happy.
“Why are you looking at me like that and why are you so surprised that someone wants to marry me?”
“I’m not at all surprised,” she said coolly, seating herself on the couch beside me. “You are a lovely, intelligent woman, Christina. What surprises me is that anyone would be foolish enough to consider such a commitment after only a brief period of acquaintance.” She poured herself a cup of tea. “Unless I’m mistaken, the two of you just met, didn’t you?”
“We did,” Ian interjected smoothly. “Was yours a long engagement, Mrs. Murray?”
I stared at Ian. How had he known?
Mother’s voice was strained when she answered. “I knew my husband only two months, Mr. Douglas. But I had not been recently divorced, and I was not at all vulnerable to the first man who showed an interest in me.”
“I don’t believe Christina is all that miserable over her divorce,” replied Ian. “I’m not exactly a fortune hunter, you know, and even if I were, her father acting as her lawyer could assure that I would have no access to her inheritance. I believe it’s called a prenuptial agreement.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that at all,” Mother said so hastily that I knew he’d pinpointed exactly what she’d been thinking. “The mistake would be just as devastating for you if Christina decided she’d made a mistake.”
“I’m willing to take that risk.”
I could see the white caps of her knuckles as her hands clenched the handle of the teacup. She was losing the argument, and there was nothing that made Susan Murray angrier than someone who disagreed with her and won.
“Why not wait?” she asked. “Surely, six months or a year isn’t too long to decide if marriage is in your best interests.”
I looked up and found Ian’s eyes on my face. We stared at each other for a long time. I knew exactly what he was asking. Finally, I sighed and nodded. He smiled, a brilliant, blinding smile of relief that altered my breathing and made everything else in the room dim in comparison. When he spoke, his words were exactly the ones I needed to hear. No one, not even my skeptical, suspicious parent, could doubt that he was sincere.
“I’ve loved your daughter from the very first moment I saw her, Mrs. Murray. If we waited six months or ten years to marry, it would make no difference to me. My feelings won’t change. But the fact is, Christina and I are going to have a child and I very much want my name on his birth certificate.”
Until now, I believed that I’d experienced every reaction possible from my mother’s considerable repertoire of disapproving emotions. I’d expected anger and disgust, even outrage. At best, I’d hoped for coldness and long telephone silences across the Atlantic when I broke the news. Nothing, in all the years of our relationship, prepared me for what happened next.
Her hands shook as she set her cup and saucer on the tea tray. She placed both palms against my cheeks and looked at me. Then she swallowed, looked away, and then looked back again, searching my face with a look of yearning hunger that I couldn’t begin to explain. I watched her color come and go and her eyes fill with tears. She tried to speak and couldn’t and then tried again. “Are you sure, Chris?” she asked haltingly, brokenly, as if afraid to hope.
“Yes.”
“How did it happen?”
For the first time in that entire tension-filled afternoon, I laughed. No one, with the exception of a woman who’d reconciled herself to never becoming a grandmother, would have posed such a leading question. From across the room, Ian grinned at me. I decided to lighten the mood.
“The usual way,” I said. “Ian and I—”
“Never mind,” she interrupted in a voice much closer to her normal tone. “I didn’t mean that.”
“I know.” I covered her hands with mine. “Miracles do happen. Maybe it just wasn’t right before this.”
“And now it is?”
“Yes,” I replied. “Now it is.”
She stood, her emotions once again completely under control. “I don’t think your father should be the last to know. I’ll wake him, and we’ll celebrate. You do have champagne, don’t you, Christina?” she asked, stopping briefly on her way out the door.
I shrugged my shoulders. “Probably. Ask Kate.”
She disappeared into the hall. “Oh, Kate, there you are.” I heard the surprise in Mother’s voice and assumed that Kate had been eavesdropping again. “My daughter and Mr. Douglas have announced their engagement,” she continued. “We need a bottle of champagne immediately.”
“Of course, Mrs. Murray,” I heard Kate reply. “I’ll bring one up right away. May I offer my congratulations?” The woman actually sounded delighted.
“I think Kate approves,” I said to Ian.
He sat down beside me and pulled me into his arms. “Everyone approves, especially me. What made you change your mind?”
“Mother,” I confessed. “Every time she states her opinion, I disagree. Things haven’t changed much since I was a little girl.”
He chuckled, and his lips brushed against my hair. “I have a feeling that she’s bested you this time.”
I pulled away to stare at him. “What do you mean?”
“Your mother is an intelligent woman, Christina. I can’t say for sure, but I believe she heard a great deal before she made her presence known. What I am sure of is that she understands the relationship between the two of you much better than you think. She doesn’t strike me as a woman who would encourage you to raise a child alone when there is a man anxious to marry you.”
He was right. I’d been the victim of reverse psychology, hoaxed by my own mother in the most transparent of ploys. I wasn’t as indignant as I pretended to be. After all, the outcome was something that I really wanted. Mother’s nudge had clarified my feelings. I was actually grateful to her, but I didn’t plan on telling her that. She’d tasted enough victory for one day.
I leaned into Ian’s embrace, content to let the events of the day rest, when I suddenly remembered that he didn’t know about Jeanne Maxwell’s twins. Tilting my head back, I looked up at his face. His forehead was smooth, and the white line that appeared so frequently around his mouth had disappeared altogether. Poor Ian. For the first time I realized I wasn’t the only one experiencing the strain of our predicament. Should I tell him now, or wait? I hesitated. One more day wouldn’t make a difference. I relaxed against his shoulder and felt his arm tighten around me.
“Is it me or is it unusually cold in here?” he asked.
I laughed. “It’s never warm enough for me unless it’s eighty degrees outside. Shall I turn up the thermostat?”
“Don’t bother,” he said. “I’ll add more peat to the fire.”
He was right. It was cold. Uncomfortably so. I felt it as soon as he stood up. Scooting over to his place on the couch, I curled up in the leftover warmth of his body and watched as he rebuilt the fire.
I frowned. Ian’s movements were very strange, like a frame frozen in slow motion. The block of peat he’d tossed into the flames seemed to float on the air and bounce several times before settling on the grate. Slowly, very slowly, he turned around. His eyes, distinctly blue across the length of the room, found mine and widened. Like an old movie reel on a projector operating at the wrong speed, his arm reached out, fingers extended in a desperate appeal.
I tried to stand, to reach out to him, but an enormous pressure held me back. His face contorted, and he cried out. The words he shouted were lost forever in a rush of darkness and roaring wind. Spinning, spinning, over and over, I lost all sense of up and down, dark and light. The walls turned around me, and I felt as dizzy as if I’d already imbibed more than my share of the promised celebratory champagne.
Finally, after a bout of nausea stronger than any I’d ever experienced, the room and my stomach settled themselves. I sighed with relief and turned to look for Ian. He wasn’t there. In his place by the fire, a much larger and brighter one than I remembered, stood a lean, black-haired young man with eyes the color of rain clouds.
I stared at his clothes, at the jewels winking in his scabbard, at the cut of his hair and the shape and cast of his features. A long, silent moment passed before the drumming began in my head. This couldn’t happen. It wasn’t possible. What was I, Christina Murray, a twentieth-century woman, doing in a room with a man who’d been dead nearly five hundred years?
He looked concerned, as if something about me troubled him, and when he spoke, his words froze the blood in my veins.
“Not all the tears in Christendom will bring her back, Jeannie. Andrew needs you, and there is the new bairn to consider.”
A surge of emotion swept through me at the sound of his voice. That lilting accented speech, the way he rolled his r’s, and the barest lift of his voice at the end of a syllable had disappeared from Scottish dialect centuries ago. That, more than anything else, convinced me that the impossible had happened. One of us had transcended the barrier of time.
I looked around at a Traquair I’d only seen in my mind. There were hanging tapestries, high-backed chairs, and embroidered pillows, torches smoking in their sconces on blackened walls, rush-strewn floors and above the mantel, the door-length portrait of Jeanne Maxwell that I’d seen, only this time it wasn’t five centuries old. It looked newly painted, the colors brilliant and vivid, the woman breathtakingly alive against the radiant splendor of a Scottish spring.
“Jeanne.” The timbre of his voice was low and terrifyingly intimate. I shivered. Reality splintered around me like a blast of icy air. It was as if I’d come out of a warm movie theater into the cold rain of a New England November. This man was John Maxwell, earl of Traquair, and he believed, without a doubt, that I was his wife.
I watched in fascinated horror as he pushed away from the mantel and walked toward me. Each controlled, deliberate step brought him closer to the settle where I sat. My mouth tasted like steel wool, and my hands shook with fear. I looked up, sick with the knowledge that any moment I would be exposed as an impostor. He would know the moment he touched me. Jeanne and I might look alike, but that was all.
A man who had lived with a woman, shared her bed, and given her children would know much more than the shape of her features or the color of her hair and eyes. He would know the feel of her lips under his. He would know her laughter and the familiar weight of her body in sleep. He would know every mark and line, every mole and curve, that made her who she was and infinitely unique from every other woman who walked the face of the earth.
Without speaking, he looked down at me for a long time. Then, with no hint or warning, he scooped me up in his arms and strode out the door and down the hall. I held my breath, afraid to speak, fearing the telltale evidence of my accent would damn me immediately, wondering how I could possibly explain the truth. I’m terribly sorry, Lord Maxwell, but I’m not your wife. I just look like her. Actually I’m Christina Murray, one of her descendents, which makes me yours, too. I was born in the year 1956. Of course, that didn’t explain where Jeanne Maxwell was and why I was here, taking her place in the sixteenth century. Somehow I didn’t think this determined young man who managed my weight as easily as if I were a five-pound bag of coffee would believe me.
I recognized the hallway immediately. There were no runners on the wooden floors and it was much darker without modern lighting, but the lovely carved doors inlaid with brass and the wooden floors were unmistakable. John Maxwell was taking me to bed.
He kicked the door open with his boot and closed it behind us the same way. Carrying me to the enormous curtained bed, he dropped me into its middle. Before I had time to react, he lowered his body on top of mine and pressed his mouth against my throat. I tensed, every muscle stiffening against the onslaught of his searching lips.
“Don’t fight me, Jeannie,” he begged, his breathing harsh against my ear. “Holy God! I’m not a monk. Let it go, love. Let it go and come back to me.”
It was too much. Whether he believed me or not, I had to tell him. “I’m not—”
His lips stopped my words, and his hands moved skillfully, possessively over my breasts, evoking sensations that were both new and familiar. I felt free and unusually light and very unlike myself, half of me reveling in the sensuality of the moment, the other half detached and observant, seeking answers to this impossible new development.
Possibilities danced through my consciousness. Was I really here or was this an incredibly realistic dream that I would come out of with some new insight into the mystery of the stone? Why were John Maxwell’s caresses so achingly familiar, and how did he know exactly what to do and where to touch with those lean, brown hands that brought such exquisite and long-forgotten pleasure? Memories danced through my consciousness. Memories of events the woman Christina Murray could never have experienced and yet were undeniably part of that other woman, the wanton one with her head thrown back, her lips parted and breasts arched, the one responding so completely and instinctively to John Maxwell’s lovemaking.
At any moment, I could have gone over the edge. I know it now, just as surely as I didn’t know it then. Christina Murray would cease to exist. It was so close to happening, the assuming of another woman’s identity, the entering into her mind and body, the swallowing of myself into that dark and misty portal of time from which there was no escape. I would have done it, knowing I was doomed to a miserable death, knowing I had no hope of returning to my life as I knew it. For that moment, it was enough to be held and soothed and possessed by a man I’d never dreamed could exist for me. Lured by the spellbinding magic of his touch, call it immoral or depraved, I would have given all I knew of heaven and earth to stay wrapped in his arms for whatever time I had left.
Sometime later, I wasn’t sure if it was moments or hours, he rolled off of me and pulled my head against his shoulder. “I love you, Jeannie,” he murmured. “Don’t ever leave me again.”
My heart plummeted and then righted itself. This man knew nothing of Christina Murray. It was Jeanne Maxwell he loved. I had no place here in this vision I’d created for myself. Jeanne’s life was over no matter what direction mine would take. As much as I longed to change the path of destiny, it was impossible. There was no going back for Jeanne or myself. The realization came suddenly on the wings of that strange rushing darkness and the spinning tunnel of wind.
Somewhere, in the wind and darkness, we passed each other, Jeanne and I. Somehow our thoughts connected, merged. We became of one mind, one consciousness. I, with a greater knowledge of the past and future, wondered what confusion she must have felt as we exchanged lives and she viewed my world as I viewed hers.