A Scottish Love (31 page)

They’d spent hours discussing things, arguing or agreeing. With Gordon, no topic was out of bounds. No question was too absurd to ask.

Perhaps there had been a little spite to her decision to marry Bruce.
I’ll show you, Gordon MacDermond. Someone wants me, and not out of pity. An earl, a man with a title and a fortune. So there!

How did she admit that?

How did she explain the pain she’d felt? Even if she had discounted the general’s words, a part of her would have always wondered if he was right. She hadn’t wanted Gordon’s charity. Nor could she stand between him and his future, or take more from him than she could give back.

Helen frowned. “What did he say when you told him you were going to marry someone else?”

Oh, dear, Helen really did know the most pointed questions to ask, didn’t she?

She stood, placing the journal on the table in front of her. Suddenly, she wanted out of the room, away from Helen’s pointed questions.

“Did you at least tell him how you felt?”

Shona turned and faced her companion.

“What could he have said?”

Helen sat back, wide-eyed. “Did you never speak to him? Never explain your actions?”

She shook her head.

For seven years, she’d kept her own counsel, determined to make the best of her marriage and forget Gordon completely. He’d appeared in her dreams, instead, and in her thoughts when she didn’t guard them well enough.

“You would have been happy,” Helen said, not waiting for her to find the courage to answer. “Happier than you were with my cousin.”

She waved her hand toward Helen, set to respond that she’d loved Bruce, but the other woman didn’t give her the chance.

“Instead, you chose to believe the general,” Helen said, “because it was easier.”

Shona stared at the other woman for a moment, allowing the shock of that remark to penetrate.

“No,” she said. “I believed him because he was right.”

Helen didn’t comment and perhaps it was just as well. The lies Shona had told herself for years were beginning to crumble around her.

“Does it matter?” she asked. “I can’t change the past.”

“You might not be able to change the past, Shona, but are you going to repeat it?”

“I don’t know what you mean.”

Helen shook her head. “You know. He’s there, just over there,” she said, pointing in the direction of Rathmhor. “Have you ever told him how you felt about him? How you feel now?”

Shona looked away, wishing she’d left the room.

“By your silence, I take it that means no,” Helen said. “Don’t let this chance slip by. Because there’ll come a day when you want to undo the past, just like before, only you won’t be able to. Don’t let your pride stand in the way.”

“It isn’t pride,” she said, wishing it were. “If it were something I’d done, I could fix it. It’s him.” She looked over at Helen, the mist of tears making the other woman appear blurry. “He doesn’t want me.”

“And how do you know that?”

“I’m here. He’s there. If he wanted me, he’d come to Gairloch.”

“Do you want him? Do you love him? Perhaps it’s time for you to say it.”

She turned away from Helen, walked to the doorway, and pretended an interest in the carving on the door.

Love wasn’t a word they’d ever exchanged. They simply knew, in a way that transcended words and made a mockery of oaths.

“What if it’s too late?” she asked softly.

“After death, it’s too late,” Helen said. “Until then, you have a chance to make wrong things right.”

Did she? Lust still bound them, and perhaps need. Was it too late for love?

“What have you done?” she asked Helen, wanting to change the subject desperately. “You said you were miserable because of something you’ve done.”

Helen smiled. “It doesn’t matter now,” she said, shaking her head. “I might have been unwise, but I’ve never been as foolish as you.”

The indictment stung but, then, truth often did.

Chapter 26

“D
ear St. Bridget,” Shona said, staring at her reflection.

Helen and Fergus had managed to move her mother’s pier glass into her room when Mr. Loftus was on one of his foraging expeditions. Now, in the light of the oil lamp, she was dumfounded by her own reflection.

“I can’t go anywhere looking like this,” she said.

When she’d first seen it, the dress hadn’t looked at all frumpy. Although it was a strange red color—the shade of old red wine—the garment had looked to be proper enough. She hadn’t counted on her own attributes filling it out so well.

Her shoulders were bare, and it was quite obvious that she was endowed with, well, large breasts, since more than half of them could be seen.

“I think it’s quite shocking,” Helen said from behind her.

“I know,” she said. “Too shocking.”

“Not at all,” Helen said, surprising her.

She glanced over her shoulder at her companion.

“Shona,” Helen said, “this is the last occasion you’ll be entertaining at Gairloch if Mr. Loftus purchases the castle. If Fergus won’t agree to sell, you still can’t afford to have another gathering here.”

That was true. Of all of them, Helen knew the full extent of her finances, or lack of them.

“This is your farewell appearance as an Imrie of Gairloch. Why shouldn’t you leave them with a sight to remember?”

“Shocking?”

“No,” Helen said, regarding her solemnly. “Magnificent. The dress really does suit you. Do you think Miriam knew?”

“If I said no, then that would mean she thought it would be a disaster. I choose to pretend that she was gracious and accept her generosity.”

Helen smiled in approval.

The dress really was beautiful. In addition to being snug at the waist and a bit deep in the bodice, it was adorned with sparkly bits on the straps that fit over her arms, and draped to her elbows. She hadn’t the slightest idea of fashions in America, but she knew Invergaire Glen had never seen a dress like this.

“You’ve been a proper widow all these years, Shona. Perhaps it’s time for you to be a little shocking.”

Had Helen forgotten her confession a few days earlier? Did Helen want her to show up in Gairloch’s Clan Hall half undressed?

From the glint in her eyes, yes.

“You might as well catch a certain Scotsman’s attention,” Helen said.

“Better me than Miriam.” She turned toward Helen. “Isn’t she supposed to be engaged? Why isn’t she pining for her intended?”

Helen looked amused, which was equal parts vexing and embarrassing.

“I don’t think she cares for her intended. It’s a match Mr. Loftus arranged. This trip is a bit of a consolation for her, I think. As is Gairloch. He means it as a wedding present.”

That idea was simply annoying.

“That isn’t to say,” Helen added, “that she couldn’t convince him that another suitor was more suitable.”

“Someone with a title,” she said dully. “First Baronet of Invergaire.”

“Or Laird of Gairloch,” Helen said.

Twice in the space of a few minutes, she’d been struck dumb. Was there no end to Helen’s confounding comments?

“Fergus? Could she be interested in him?” Perhaps Fergus hadn’t been jesting that night in the Clan Hall. She couldn’t imagine ever being related to Miriam Loftus.

Finally, she found her voice. “I really do look different, don’t I?”

“No, you look like Shona, only dressed up for a party.” Helen smiled and touched her arm. “Let me help you with your hair,” she said, leading her to the vanity.

All conversation about Miriam Loftus blessedly ceased.

G
ordon knew his own failings all too well, one of them being feeling a sense of anticipation as he walked toward Gairloch.

Shona had sent him an invitation to the party. If he had any kind of sense, he’d decline. But she’s also written a note on the back:
Thank you, Gordon, for your generosity
. She’d invited Rani to the party as well, a gesture that pleased him, even though Rani had declined. Not a surprise, since his friend wasn’t comfortable in social situations.

Shona had always been a master of the verbal thrust and parry, capable of delivering the perfect quip at the perfect moment. In that one sentence of thanks, however, she’d revealed a vulnerability, and in her invitation a generosity of spirit.

Perhaps he was a fool to come to Gairloch again, especially for an occasion such as this. Was he supposed to celebrate the arrival of the Americans to a place that had proudly belonged to an ancient clan? Were the Imries simply to go off meekly, counting their coins? The idea of either Shona or Fergus doing so was a little difficult to accept.

No, Shona would go shouting and yelling defiance. She’d have that look in her eyes that said her pride was up.

I haven’t any money.

Her eyes had been clear when she’d said those words, her face set in an expression of stoic endurance. What had she suffered in the last seven years?

Perhaps the Imrie pride wasn’t as stiff and unrelenting as he’d thought.

He could always offer marriage to Shona Imrie Donegal, a thought that had him stopping in his tracks. Would she accept his suit? No, he wasn’t going to put himself in that position again. He’d learned, the last time, that it stung to be rejected. No, more than that. She’d wounded him, damn it, and he’d taken years to heal.

He had enough to do rather than appear at Gairloch like some idiotic suitor. He wasn’t. She’d made it all too clear that she didn’t want him except in bed or to act as her banker.

Shona Imrie wasn’t going to call the tune. No one was, a comment he’d made this very afternoon when the three men—bankers, as he’d originally thought—appeared at the Works again.

“We represent a consortium of interested buyers, Sir Gordon,” the spokesman said, “who are very interested in your discovery.”

They didn’t want the Works. They wanted the blasting powder he and Rani had developed. They evidently wanted it badly enough to offer a fortune for it, the amount they’d offered today staggering him, once more, into speechlessness.

He’d be wealthier than he ever dreamed. So would Rani.

“But if we take our invention to the market ourselves,” Rani had argued, “we will be as rich.”

What concerned him most wasn’t the fact that the men they represented wanted to purchase their discovery, but the single-minded intensity with which they pursued the point.

“Is the army involved?” he’d asked. The surprise on their faces was indication of their answer even before their spokesman denied the War Office’s involvement.

“Do you want the blasting powder enough to steal it?” Rani asked.

This time, all three men looked insulted. Rani only shrugged.

Even though Gordon had given them no encouragement—the opposite, in fact—they’d visited the Works three times. Once, when he met with them initially. The second time, when they had badgered Rani, and the third, this afternoon, when they’d arrived unexpectedly, insisting on meeting with both of them.

After their departure, Rani said, “The English see something, my friend, and they do not walk away. They want it. They take it.”

He wondered if Rani was talking about his own country and the Empire’s blunderings there. In that, they had some common ground. He might be a former officer of the Crown, and a baronet for his troubles, but in his heart, he was all Scot.

The line of carriages and wagons circling around to the Lower Courtyard attested to the success of this gathering. Torches lined the road for nearly a mile, ready to be lit when the Highland night finally darkened.

Even in the darkness, Gairloch would lord it over the countryside.

Shona Imrie did the same.

But she’d changed, hadn’t she? Become more reticent, less vocal, her thoughts hidden by a calm and placid expression.

If he only had a bit of magic in his hand, he’d wish for the years to roll back. He’d be simply Gordon, striding across the glen between the houses, visible for all to see. He’d call on her with his pride stuffed in his pocket, and his heart in his eyes, and beg her to be his bride.

Come with me
, he would have said, the accent of their homeland in his voice. And if she’d refused, instead of accepting her rebuff as an answer, he would have spirited her away like his border reiver ancestor.

They’d have made their home in their own place, a spot not far from here that they could build themselves.
This is the house we made
, they might have said to a passerby, or a relative come calling.

Instead, they served the past, both of them, a true son and daughter of Scotland.

A
quarter hour later, Shona’s hair was done, done up with so many pins that Helen had to go and fetch more from her bedroom. Helen had also, surprisingly, insisted on dusting her face with powder, and applying a salve to her lips.

“Just so it reminds you to smile,” Helen admonished. “And no, don’t go chewing it off.”

“I know how to behave in public,” she said, feeling like a child.

Finally, she was ready, and she walked to the other side of the room to look at herself again. The woman in the mirror had color on her cheeks. Was there something in the powder Helen had used? Her hair was pinned above her ears, falling in curls to her shoulders.

She wanted to cry.

“You’ve made me beautiful,” she said, the sound of tears in her voice.

“You’ve always been beautiful,” Helen said. “You’ve just been too miserable to notice it.”

“You’ve made me noticeable, too,” she said.

Helen nodded. “Not one person will fail to recall the exact moment you arrive, Shona Imrie Donegal. You look the proper Countess of Morton.”

“I do, don’t I?”

If she’d had any of the jewelry Bruce had given her, she would have worn it tonight. But those items had served a better purpose than simple decoration by supporting them in the last two years.

Would Gordon think her beautiful? Was she foolish even to wonder?

She turned to Helen. “Now, shall I help you?”

Helen shook her head. “I’m not one for parties,” she said.

She sat on the bed, throwing the shawl and fan to the side. “Then, I’m not going, either.”