Twenty-Three
TRAQUAIR HOUSE
1286
“David.” Mairi’s eyes glowed with pleasure. Quickly, she hid the honey-coated criachan behind her back. “Why have you returned so soon from London?”
“I came to witness the wedding of Alexander and Jolande of Dreux,” he explained. “Edinburgh is so close. I’d not miss an opportunity to see you, lass.” Casually he reached behind her, his hand closing over the sweet clutched in her fist. He removed it from her hand and frowned. “You promised me you wouldn’t do this. Is your word worthless, Mairi?”
“The batch was made fresh this morning, and I’ve only had one. ’Tis my first in a very long time. Truly, David.”
He relented. “I suppose one will do you no harm. But ’tis dangerous to indulge yourself.” The lines around his mouth deepened with worry. He would never forget the first time he’d witnessed one of Mairi’s spells. They were children, and it was the first warm day of spring. Armed with a basket of food from the kitchen, they’d spend the afternoon in the marshes. Generously, David had offered Mairi the additional sweet bun the cook had packed and more than half of the criachan. She’d hesitated only a moment and then greedily consumed it all. Less than an hour later, her skin had paled and around her lips was a frightening blue shadow. He’d carried her halfway to the house before her father found them. Taking one look at his nearly unconscious daughter, the laird had lifted her to the back of his stallion and galloped back to Traquair, leaving David on the moor, a forlorn heap of misery, praying more desperately than he’d ever prayed before in his life. It had never happened again, but the experience had terrified him to such an extent that he’d never forgotten it.
She touched his cheek. “If it upsets you that much, I won’t eat it.”
“Please don’t.”
Looking up at him through her lashes, she tactfully changed the subject. “I’ve heard the women are lovely at the English court.”
David caught his breath. This was a new, flirtatious Mairi. Perhaps she had grown up at last. Hope flooded through him. “There is no one for me but you, Mairi. You should know that by now.”
She laughed with the crystalline purity of a choirboy. “What I know is that you’ve mastered the art of flattery, my friend. Tell me of Jolande of Dreux. Is she as beautiful as they say?”
David looked down at the face he was sure had been sculpted by God Himself and swallowed. “Aye. I’ve heard that she’s lovely enough, but it matters little. Alexander needs an heir of his own body. Jolande is young. There is a chance now.”
“What does the English king think of Alexander taking another bride?”
“Edward is no fool. He knows that ten years is long enough for a man to mourn his wife, especially if that man is a king.”
“Still,” Mairi reflected, “Alexander has an heir.”
“A child hidden away in Norway is hardly an heir,” David protested. “Besides, Scotland has never been ruled by a woman.”
She tilted her head to one side, a pose she adopted whenever her thoughts ran deep. David knew better than to interrupt her. “Until the matter is settled, Edward is overlord of Scotland,” she said at last. “What manner of man is the English king?”
“He is a warrior,” David replied promptly. “No one mistakes Edward for anyone other than he is. I would such a man could be found for Scotland.”
Mairi shook her head. “I didn’t ask if you admired him, David. What is he like?”
David frowned. “I don’t understand.”
“Is he tall and well favored? Are his teeth straight? Does he laugh often?”
“Only a woman would notice those things,” David protested, laughing, “although I’m sure the lassies find him well favored enough. I’ve heard he keeps a mistress in every castle in England and finds time to satisfy his wife as well.”
“’Tis possible his rank keeps him well supplied with women,” Mairi suggested.
David shrugged. “Perhaps.”
Mairi sighed and slipped her arm through David’s. “How long can you stay?”
“Only the night.” He hesitated and pressed her hand. “I’m sorry about your father, lass.”
The winged brows drew together, and her chest constricted. Her father’s death was still very new. “Thank you,” she whispered.
“Will you stay here, at Traquair?”
She nodded. “My father’s holdings belongs to the crown, but Shiels and Traquair belonged to my mother. They are mine.”
David lifted a lock of silken hair and wound it around his finger. “I’ll always think of you as Mairi of Shiels. Do you remember when we first met?”
Mairi smiled her generous, heart-wrenching smile, and David was reminded of the bard who sang of her beauty in the great hall in the Tower of London. King Edward had smiled indulgently, but even he was intrigued. There were beauties to spare in Londontown, but none could rival Mairi of Shiels.
“You’ve changed, David,” she said, looking up at him with solemn eyes.
Her words startled him. He’d forgotten what he asked her. “How so?”
“You aren’t listening to me.”
“I’ll warrant there’s not a man who would.”
She drew herself up to her full height and lifted her chin. “Why not?”
“Faith, Mairi. You are lovely enough to take a man’s breath away. I no longer know what to say to you.”
Her eyes widened. “Why not?”
He grinned. “When a man dallies with a beautiful woman, ’tis not conversation that comes to mind.”
“What does?”
He reddened. “I’ll tell you later.”
“When?”
“Enough,” he exploded. “’Tis not the time.”
Her outraged expression shamed him. One did not shout at Mairi of Shiels. Mutely, he appealed for peace. She ignored his outstretched hand.
He cleared his throat. “I apologize, lass. I did not come to argue with you.”
“Why did you come?”
“To spend the day with my most loyal friend.”
The corners of her mouth turned up. “You can be very disagreeable, you know.”
“I know.”
She forgave him completely. “Well then, what shall we do?”
“Do you still like to fish?”
Her eyes glowed with anticipation. “Above all things.”
He slipped his arm around her waist. “Let us delay no longer.”
Once again, in perfect accord, they made their way to the stables to fashion their poles and dig for bait.
Hours later, they lay on the bank, faces tilted to absorb the last rays of setting sunlight. Their hands were linked, their baskets filled with brown-speckled trout. Mairi broke the silence. “Isolde thinks I should marry.”
David tensed. “Since when do your stepmother’s wishes weigh with you?”
Mairi sat up. “Isolde is my dearest friend, next to you,” she protested.
“Aye,” agreed David, “but she hasn’t the sense of a peahen. When have you ever been ruled by her?”
“Never before,” Mairi admitted. “Still, this time she speaks the truth. Traquair and Shiels cannot be managed by a woman alone. They are too near the borders for safety.” She bit her lip. “I am fifteen, David. At my age, most women are already mothers.”
“Have you decided then?”
She hesitated. “I’ve had several offers.”
“Your dowry is large.”
Her eyes flashed like hammered silver. “How dare you?”
David saw his error immediately. “I spoke without thinking, lass,” he apologized. “Your glass should tell you what every man sees when he looks upon you. What I meant was your lands alone would make you desirable even were you anyone other than you are.”
“I do not wish to be married for my land.”
“Why not?” he demanded reasonably. “If your heart is not involved, ’tis as good a reason as any. You say you wish to marry to protect your land. Why not marry a man who desires it as much as you do?”
She stared down at him, an arrested expression on her face. Coming from his lips, it sounded more reasonable than mercenary. “I had hoped for a man who desires me as much as my property,” she admitted at last.
David crossed his arms behind his head and opened one eye to look at her. “There should be a few of those as well.”
“Aye,” Mairi nodded.
“Well?”
She bit her lip. “I cannot like any of them,” she confessed. “Marriage is so…so—”
“Permanent?” he finished for her.
“Aye,” she sighed with relief. David always understood.
He sat up and took her hands. His heart slammed painfully against his ribs. “Do you care for me, Mairi?”
“Of course,” she said impatiently. “You are my dearest friend. I would rather be with you than anyone.”
“Then why not marry me?”
She sucked in her breath. “You cannot mean it.”
“I do.”
Her eyes widened. “Why? You have no need for land.”
He laughed. “What I need, what I’ve always needed, is you.”
Shyly, she met his eyes. “Truly, David?”
The expression on her face was too much for him. He flushed and spoke more earnestly than ever before in his life. “I’ve loved you since we were children. Do you… Can you care for me, Mairi?”
“Oh, I do,” she hurried to reassure him. “’Tis just that I’ve never thought of you as a husband.”
“Will you now?”
“I don’t know,” she answered truthfully. “You are my dearest friend, but is that enough to be wed?”
David frowned. With every breath in his being, he wanted Mairi for his bride but not without love. Tugging at her hands, he pulled her close to him and kissed her. At first she stiffened, but as his kiss deepened, her lips parted and moved against his. Relieved, he ended the kiss and pulled away. Mairi had responded.
“I love you,” he said, his face flushed and humble. “I’ve always loved you. I can make you love me.”
Mairi pulled her hands away and looked up at the sky. “It would be a relief to know ’tis settled,” she said. “Still, I am in mourning for Father. Will you wait for my answer, David?”
His dark eyes glowed with pleasure. “If I must, I shall wait forever.”
She laughed, and once again, her eyes met his. “I don’t deserve you,” she admitted. “I promise it won’t be that long. Come. The fish will spoil.”
Feeling as if he’d weathered a crisis, David took her hand and led her back to the house.
EDINBURGH
1993
I awoke before dawn. It wasn’t my normal type of awakening, where consciousness is welcomed and immediate, where the very idea of a new day, a new beginning, bursts upon the senses like fireworks on New Year’s Eve. This time my awakening came slowly, miserably, my body reluctantly bracing itself for the memory of the previous night. It was happening all over again, the inevitable bone-weary dawns following my separation from Stephen. The feeling that if I could only hold on to that tenuous time between waking and sleeping when the mind knows that something is wrong but hasn’t yet identified what that something is, if I could only prevent my sated body from waking completely, I could hold at bay the ache of betrayal.
Of course, it never worked. I was no more capable of stopping time than the next person. In the past two years I’d learned that pain can’t be outdistanced. It must be faced head-on like all other seemingly impossible challenges. After the pain comes rage and after rage a kind of balancing as if the entire world shifts a bit and resettles to accommodate a new perspective. Only then, after pain and rage and acceptance, does the healing begin.
I was thirty-seven years old. If Ian Douglas wasn’t the man I thought he was, weeping into a hotel pillow wouldn’t help. Determined to get on with it, I showered, dressed, injected myself with insulin, and ordered breakfast. By eight o’clock I was on my way.
By American standards, the Hall of Records was old. In a city where time is measured in centuries, it is a large, modern building equipped with comfortable furniture, spacious rooms, and state-of-the-art computers. The clerk, a friendly woman seated behind a beautifully carved oak desk an American antique dealer would pay a fortune for, smiled at me.
“I’ve located the files you asked me about, Miss Murray. There are quite a few of them, I’m afraid.”
“Thank you,” I said, gathering the mountain of paperwork she’d collected. The desks were small, semiprivate cubicles with just enough space to stack books on one side. I selected a file from the top of the stack and pushed the others away.
Three hours later, I found what I was looking for. The baptismal records from a small church in Selkirk showed the baptism of a girl, Katherine Douglas, born in the year 1946 to Miss Morag Douglas and the laird of Traquair. The birth certificate from the hospital listed only the child’s birth and the mother’s name but not the father. Morag Douglas had kept the father’s identity a secret from the hospital, but she could not lie to her God. There, in black and white, was the evidence that Kate Douglas Ferguson was the daughter of James Maxwell, laird of Traquair—my grandfather. Kate was my aunt, my mother’s half-sister. She was also, it seemed, related to Ian, but how closely I didn’t know.
Rifling through the newspaper clippings, I almost missed it. If the man hadn’t looked so much like Ian, I would have skipped over it completely. The headline read, “Local Landowner Indicted.” Skimming the page, I read the grim details of the evidence leading to the arrest of Ian’s father, his subsequent suicide, and the return of his son. My eyes moved quickly over the page, discounting most of it, looking for something, anything, that would give me a clue as to why Kate and Ian had allied themselves against me. I almost gave up and moved on when a name in the last paragraph jumped out at me. I stopped, reread it, and moaned. It was worse, much worse, than I thought.
Closing my eyes, I rested my forehead against the wooden divider and cursed. I was a fool, and my judgment was terrible. The last thing in the world I wanted to do was face Ian Douglas, but there was no helping it. I needed answers and only he had them.
Traffic was unusually heavy on the 703, and the drive to Peebles took over an hour. Located at the junction of Innerleithen and the 7062, Ian’s home was a comfortable, stately manor house with straight, lichen-covered walls and a gabled roof. I parked the car in the graveled lot and walked to the door. Taking a deep breath, I lifted the knocker and let it fall. He opened the door immediately, and his face lit up with delight.
“What a pleasant surprise,” he said, pulling me into his house and then into his arms. “I called this morning, but Kate said you were out. Did you forget we were to meet?”
For a moment I was tempted. The feel of his arms around me, the soapy smell of his skin, the rough comfort of his sweater against my cheek, almost broke my resolve. Would it hurt to forget everything I knew, to pretend that yesterday had never happened, that Ian and I were just another happy couple with ordinary differences and once they were solved we would go on just as before? He nuzzled my neck.
I stiffened in his arms.
Surprised, he lifted his head and looked at me. “Is anything wrong?” he asked softly.
I nodded, and he released me.
“Perhaps you’d better tell me what’s happened.”
Rubbing my arms, I followed him into a book-lined room. He closed the door and leaned against it. Folding his arms, he looked directly at me. “What’s troubling you, Christina?”
There was no point in dissembling. “I want you to tell me exactly what your relationship to Kate Douglas is.”
For a long time, he continued to look at me. At last he spoke, and his words condemned him. “How did you find out?”
“It doesn’t matter. Just tell me.”
He frowned and walked to the window. Pulling back the heavy drape, he stared out at the green-gold hills. “Kate is a distant relative. She’s a Douglas, descended on her mother’s side from the line that supposedly died out in the fourteenth century.”
“Go on.”
“Her father was James Maxwell, your grandfather.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He turned around and came toward me. Backing away, I held out my hand to prevent him from coming closer. He stopped several feet from where I stood.
“Believe it or not, I was going to tell you.”
I did believe it, but only because I’d eavesdropped the night before. “Why didn’t you tell me in the beginning?”
His face was pale. “Kate wanted a chance to know you, to convince you that she had earned a part of Maxwell’s legacy.” His face reddened, and he hesitated. “I’m not proud of this, Christina. I was supposed to entertain you, keep you contented while you stayed at Traquair. That’s all, I swear it. I didn’t plan on falling in love with you, and I had no idea Kate was planning anything else until she told me last night.”
“And then what?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“What was supposed to happen after I was entertained?”
He looked bewildered. “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you? Weren’t you planning to end our relationship, hoping I’d go home brokenhearted and more than willing to leave Kate her house?”
“Don’t be absurd. No one would give up an inheritance like Traquair, no matter how brokenhearted.”
“I suppose you think Kate should have received a portion of the estate.”
He nodded. “As a matter of fact, I do, and it isn’t all that outrageous. Your mother and Kate were both Maxwell’s illegitimate daughters. I can understand how Kate feels. Why should one daughter have inherited more than the other?”
“Neither of them inherited,” I reminded him. “I did.”
His hands clenched. “What do you want me to say, Christina? I had no part in Kate’s scheme other than a very innocent one. What can I do to convince you?”
“Why don’t you start with the truth?”
He looked startled. “What do you mean?”
“Isn’t there something else you should be telling me?”
His eyes moved over my face. Finally, he nodded as if he’d come to a decision. “Very well,” he said, his voice low. “I blame James Maxwell for my father’s death. Maxwell spoke at the trial. He was the chief witness. His testimony assured my father’s conviction. The following day, after the jury found him guilty, they found his body.”
“Maybe your father was guilty.”
Ian nodded. “He was, but not of the crime for which they accused him. He was guilty of loving Maxwell’s wife.”
“Ellen?” I barely whispered her name, but Ian heard.
“Yes.” His eyes were haunted. “For years Ellen put up with Maxwell’s womanizing. She’d decided to leave him right around the time that the scandal involving my father and the girl was made public. The details no longer matter, and I won’t go into them. It’s enough to say that Maxwell planned well. His wife stayed with him, and my father killed himself.”
I refused to allow sympathy to interfere with my purpose. “What does any of that have to do with me?”
“I assumed that you wanted to know what I had against James Maxwell,” he answered.
“You’ve explained,” I said, turning to go.
“Christina, wait.” His hand closed around my arm. “I never intended for you to be hurt. I love you. You must believe me.”
“Don’t say anything more. I suppose Kate was going to divide her share with you.” Tears burned the insides of my eyelids.
“I don’t want your money.”
Unbidden, the words of our first conversation came back to me. I hope you appreciate what you’ve been given.
I turned on him, pain thickening my voice. “Don’t you? If I hadn’t overheard the two of you last night, you would’ve had the whole pie for yourself. Kate was no longer necessary.”
“It isn’t like that at all.”
“You never believed any of it, did you?”
“What are you talking about?” He looked confused.
“You pretended to accept everything I told you, about Katrine and Jeanne and Mairi of Shiels. Everything you said was a lie to convince me that you cared.”
“That isn’t true.”
“Isn’t it?” I felt the tears well up and spill down my cheeks. “Just which part of it isn’t true?”
He ran his fingers distractedly through his hair. “I do believe you. At least, I believe that you believe it. Oh, hell.” He gave up. “I don’t know what I believe any more. Kate is drugging you, Christina. These hallucinations you’re having may be a combination of what you’ve read about the Maxwell-Murrays and whatever it is that Kate is giving you. Who knows what effect this has had on you? I swear to you I knew nothing about it until yesterday when Kate told me what she’d done. I believed her when she told me she’d discussed your inheritance with Ellen Maxwell before she died and the two of them had agreed to ask you for her rightful share. I would never have allowed her to put you or the child in danger.”
I could feel my face pale. My baby. The drug may have affected the baby.
“Until yesterday, time travel was nothing more than fiction to me,” he continued. “But then I saw you fade before my eyes, and when you came back, you weren’t yourself. I can’t explain it. Maybe we’re both crazy.”
“I’m not crazy.” I didn’t normally raise my voice, but I was past logic. Ignorance was no excuse. He’d helped to harm my baby. “You’re despicable. I don’t know you at all. The only regret I have is that my child was fathered by someone who doesn’t know the meaning of the word character.”
The tears were flowing freely now. I don’t remember leaving the house or getting into the car. I’ll never know how I found the road or negotiated the twisting turns back to Traquair House. It was late afternoon. No one was in sight. I walked up the stairs. In the comfort of my own room, behind the privacy of locked doors, I looked longingly at the bed. I needed rest, hours of it. Climbing, fully clothed, beneath the feather comforter, I closed my eyes. Pregnancy was exhausting. Later, much later, I would decide what to do with Kate.