Dawn on a Distant Shore (85 page)

Now in the warm months
the Miseries have left my back, but the Lord's truth is this: the house is
mighty quiet these days, but there's no peace to be found here with you gone.
Hurry home.

  Your loving husband
of these many years

  Galileo Freeman

  Paradise, New-York
State

  writ this sixth day
of May in the Year of

  our Merciful Lord
1794

"I don't know
what I dread more," Curiosity said. "Telling your aunt about Kitty
and Richard, or telling Hannah about Liam running off."

Elizabeth sat down and
spread the letter out on her lap, ran her finger over the finely formed letters.
She said, "What do you think it means, Nathaniel?"

He shrugged, his face
impassive. "I don't know. Maybe Richard is hoping we won't come home at
all, thinking he's still got a chance at getting Hidden Wolf."

They were silent for a
moment, each of them thinking about that and what trouble it would mean.

"Poor Liam,"
said Elizabeth finally. "He lost faith in us, and I cannot say that I blame
him very much. They have been a long time without word."

"Well, I admit it
ain't the best news," said Curiosity, getting up. "But my folks are
alive and well, and so are yours. Up at Carryckcastle they got four new graves,
you'll remember. I'd say the Lord has been generous."

Elizabeth turned to
Nathaniel, who was lost in his own thoughts, and far away--perhaps in Canada, with
the boy he had already claimed as a son before he had ever seen him by
daylight.

"Don't you think
so, Nathaniel?" Curiosity pushed him.

He nodded.
"Generous, indeed."

A soft scratching at
the door, and Aunt Merriweather's waiting-woman came in. Maria had been in
service at Oakmere for twenty years and Elizabeth had rarely seen her flustered,
but now she was very much ill at ease. "Lady Crofton begs your company in
the lower parlor."

"Who has come to
call, Maria?" Elizabeth asked.

"A Miss
Somerville, mum," said Maria, as she might have said
the devil's bride
.

"Lordy,"
said Curiosity, getting up with new energy. "I don't much like the woman,
but I got to give her credit for landing on her feet. And imagine that, Giselle
and Merriweather together in the same room. The feathers must be flying a good mile
high."

Maria gave a tight
little nod. "If you could come straightaway--"

"Where's my
father, do you know?" Nathaniel asked. "She'll want to talk to him,
too."

"Yes, she has
asked for him repeatedly," Maria said. The sound of raised voices came up
the stairwell, and she jumped nervously. "But Mr. Bonner went out with the
viscount, sir. Some time ago. Please--"

"We'll be right
there," Nathaniel said. "You can go tell her that."

"Soon as we prime
the pistols," muttered Curiosity.

Elizabeth said,
"I'm wearing her gown." And heard for herself how odd this sounded:
Giselle Somerville had sought them out--
the mother of Nathaniel's firstborn
son
had sought them out--and all she could think of was the gown she was
wearing. But Nathaniel seemed to dread this meeting as much as she did, and he
slipped an arm around her shoulders.

"We knew she
might be in Edinburgh, looking for some sign of us," he said. "Once
she hears what we have to tell her, she won't care what you've got on your
back. She'll be on a ship to Canada as fast as she can find one."

They heard the
irritated thump of Aunt Merriweather's cane as they came down the stairs, three
sharp taps that did not bode well. Elizabeth was reminded of the day her aunt had
confronted Julian about the real extent of his gambling debt.

Nathaniel looked very
serious, but Curiosity did not seem concerned. Her grin did not leave her until
the moment that the footman opened the door for them.

"Obstinate
woman." Another three taps of the cane. Her aunt's head swiveled around toward
them on its long neck, and Elizabeth saw two things straight off: she was
terribly irritated, and she was actually enjoying herself.

Before her stood
Giselle Somerville, as finely dressed as she had ever been in a round gown of
dark gold Indian ikat muslin. She wore a turban of silk gauze on her head, and
a fiery expression. She took no note of Elizabeth at all, her attention
focusing immediately on Nathaniel.

"This lady
refuses to tell me where to find your father," she said. "My business
is with him, if what she says is true and Rob MacLachlan is dead."

"It's true, all
right," said Curiosity. "God rest his immortal soul."

Aunt Merriweather's
eyes had narrowed. "If what I say is true? If? Let me warn you again, Miss
Somerville, I will not tolerate such impudence, such incivility. How dare you
come here with such scandalous falsehoods?"

"Aunt,"
Elizabeth interrupted gently. "I think it would be best if Miss Somerville
and Nathaniel were to have a word together, alone."

"My business is
with Dan'l Bonner," Giselle said imperiously. "I have nothing to
discuss with his son."

Under Elizabeth's
hand, all the muscles in Nathaniel's arm were tense but his voice came steady. He
said, "I know about the boy."

Aunt Merriweather
turned as red in the face as Giselle was pale, but for once she was silenced by
her surprise.

Giselle went still.
"Very well, your father told you about him. And?"

"He ain't in
France."

Some color came back
into her cheeks. "Is it true, then. He's in Montréal. And my mother?"

"Your mother,
too. We need to talk."

"I will make no
apologies." Giselle was struggling desperately, but her composure had been
taken from her for once and Elizabeth was struck suddenly with a memory of that
moment on the dock at Québec when she realized that her children were gone, and
she could not call them back. It had torn a hole in her. Giselle had been
living with that for eighteen years.

And maybe Nathaniel
saw it, too, because his voice softened. "I don't want any apologies,"
he said. "I'm as much to blame for what happened. But I'll tell you what
you need to know. And something else--there's a place at Carryck for the boy,
and for you, too, if you want it."

"Nathaniel,"
said Aunt Merriweather, regaining her voice and the use of her cane, one thump
for each word: "What does this mean?"

"Aunt,"
Elizabeth said. "Let them discuss this matter in private. I promise, I
will make everything clear to you."

Late in the night,
Elizabeth woke to the whisper of a misting rain. She had dreamed of Margreit
MacKay and of Isabel, too. Women she had known for such a short time while they
lived, and still they seemed determined to accompany her on the voyage home.
Perhaps Robbie would come, too, if she thought of him hard enough. Perhaps all
the dead were that close, and only waited to be summoned.

Nathaniel turned in
his sleep. When he had come to her after his long talk with Giselle, the telling
of what had passed between them had been slow and awkward, more questions
raised than answered. Listening to him, Elizabeth realized that it was not their
son who had forged an uneasy bond between Nathaniel and Giselle, but the
uncertainty they shared. Luke was a stranger to them both, and might never be anything
else.

"I wish I had
spent more time talking to him, that night in Montréal."

It was the last thing
Nathaniel said before he fell into a sleep so deep that he did not stir when
she rose to go to the window to look over the streets of Edinburgh, glistening
damp in the lantern light, and in the distance, someplace, the sea.

She had once made the
trip to Paradise full of dreams and visions of herself as a teacher. Now she
made it again, and some of those same dreams were still with her, and within
her grasp.
The Lord has been generous
, she whispered to herself. A
prayer of acknowledgment and thanksgiving, the only one that would come to her
now in spite of the dangers that lay ahead.

It turned out that
Nathaniel was awake after all, coming up silently behind her to put a hand on her
shoulder. She was shivering, and he slipped his arms around her.

"Goodness,"
she said softly. "Tomorrow you must get us all onto a ship in spite of the
Breadalbanes, and here you stand. You need your rest."

"Ah, Boots. The
bed's no good to me without you in it."

He felt her smile as
she rocked back against him.

"So what are you
looking at?"

"The first light
of dawn," she said, pointing. "I imagine I can see all the way home."

It was a rare gift she
had, this ability to look ahead, through the loss and heartache, beyond the hardship,
to see so clearly the possibilities that waited for them. If they could be
strong, if they could persevere.

"Listen,"
she whispered. "Do you hear the sea? Tomorrow there will be a good strong
wind to take us home."

Miss Hannah Bonner

Lake in the Clouds

Paradise, New-York
State

Dear Squirrel,

Now that your half
brother and his mother have settled in at Carryckcastle, I suppose it's time I
keep my promise and write and tell what there is to say. Truth be tolt, tis no
an easy task. Ye'll want to hear guid tidings, and there's little comfort in
the tale I've got to tell.

He's a slink mannie,
is Luke. Tall and braw and bonnie, and slee as a fox. Cook calls him luvey, and
bakes him tarts wi the last o the pippins. The Earl bought him a mare the likes
o which ye'll no see in all Scotland, as black as the devil and that smart,
too. The lasses come up the brae for no guid reason but to sneiter and bat
their eyelashes at him, and then run awa when Giselle catches sight o them. Even
my mother smiles at Luke for all she looks daggers at me and makes me wear
shoes. And what does it matter that I'm eleven years? I fear it has to do wi marriage,
for it is first since she stood up wi the Earl that she's turned so
unreasonable. My only hope for a peaceful life is Luke's mother, wha seems a
reasonable woman (for all her lace and silk, she doesna mind what others wear
on their feet or heids, either, and she is generous wi her stories o how she
outfoxed the Pirate). They've become great friends, his mother and mine, and
they sit tegither in the evening. If I'm aye chancie, some o Giselle will rub off
and my mother will leave me be.

I must be fair and
report that Luke is a hard worker and there's naught mean-spirited in him, but he's
an awfu tease and worse luck he's guid at it, in Scots and English both. I'll
admit that he's no so donnert as he first seems, for all his quiet ways. It
would suit me much better were he witless, for my father has decided that since
my guid cousin kens French and Latin (taught to him by his grandmother in
Canada, he says, and what grandmother teaches Latin, I want to know?), I must
learn them, too, never mind that I speak Scots and English and some of the old
language, too, having learned it from Mairead the dairymaid. But the Earl would
no listen and so I sit every afternoon wi Luke, no matter how fine the weather.
And just this morn I heard some talk o mathematics and philosophy, to make my
misery complete.

He's aye hard to
please, is Luke, but when he's satisfied wi my progress, he'll talk o Lake in
the Clouds, and then it seems to me that he misses the place, in spite o the fact
that he spent so little time wi ye there. And he tells outrageous stories o
trees as far as a man can see and hidden gold and wolves that guard the
mountain and young Daniel catching a rabbit wi his bare hands, and then I ken
that he's a true Scott o Carryck, for wha else could tell such tales and keep a
straight face all the while? But my revenge is this: I wear a bear's tooth on a
string around my neck, and he has nothing but the scapular my father gave him
when first he came and took the name Scott.

I'm sorry to say that
I canna like your brother near as much as I like you. But tell me this, as
you're as much my cousin as is Luke, do ye no think it's time for me to visit
ye in Paradise? Perhaps the Earl would let me come, if your grandfather were to
ask him.

My mother sends her
greetings, and bids me write that the pear tree she had planted ower Isabel's
grave has borne its first fruit this summer.

  Your cousin and true
friend,

  Jennet Scott of
Carryckcastle

  First day of
September in the Year of

  Our Lord 1795

Carryckcastle,
Carryckton, and Aidan Rig are fictional places, just as the Earl of Carryck and
his family are fictional. Real characters pop up throughout the story, however,
and they include General Major Phillip Schuyler and his wife, Catherine; Sir
Guy Carleton, Lord Dorchester, and his wife, Maria, Lady Dorchester; Anne
Bonney, pirate; Robert Burns, exciseman and poet; Willie Fisher; Flora,
Countess of Loudoun; John Campbell, 4th Earl of Breadalbane, chief of the
Glenorchy line, and Flora's guardian.