Elaine Coffman - [MacKinnon 04] (6 page)

* * * * *

From scraps of information she had obtained from Ross,
Maggie had learned Adrian had brown hair and blue eyes, that he was tall and
slender. But those things didn’t interest her as much as other things, things
like the sound of his voice, the way he held his head, the expression in his
eyes when he looked at the redwoods he described so beautifully, the way his
hands would speak to a woman he loved. Her thoughts turned toward more intimate
things. What was he like as a lover? Was he slow, gentle, and understanding as
Bruce had been, or was he quick and rough? Would he give as much as he took, or
would he be demanding? Only time held such answers.

The one fact about Adrian that kept surfacing—one she didn’t
want to think on—was the feeling that Adrian Mackinnon wasn’t a forgiving man.
Maggie’s stomach twisted in knots at the thought, but she remembered herself.
She had too much staunch Scot in her to be intimidated by an unforgiving man.
No matter what kind of man Adrian Mackinnon was, he was luckier than he knew to
find a woman like herself to marry him, sight unseen, as she was about to do.
She might not be the raving beauty that Annabella was, or even his Katherine,
but the good Lord had seen fit to bless her with an abundance of common sense
and an easygoing nature. It shouldn’t take Adrian Mackinnon long to realize she
married him to accept the challenge, not out of charity. She might be guilty of
taking from him, but she was honest, and she gave as good as she got.

She supposed he could do worse. That night she broke the
news to her father over dinner. The old earl looked at her with cloudy eyes. “I
ken what you’re going to say, and you’re wrong, Father. I would have accepted
Ross Mackinnon’s offer if you had been the richest man in all of Scotland.”

Maggie came to her feet; moving to the sideboard and taking
the crystal decanter in hand, she poured her father another glass of the red
wine the doctor had prescribed for his stomach. “I ken a change of country is
just what the children and I need. There are too many reminders of my life with
Bruce here.”

“I never thought you for a lass to run away from anything.”

“I am no running away. I am simply starting over. From what
I hear about life in California, it will be a wonderful opportunity for the
children and a bright, new challenge for me.”

“You always were a lass looking for a challenge,” he said.
“I ken you’ve decided against taking the children with you when you go.”

“Aye, I’ll be leaving them here, to come later with Maude.
Fletcher and Barrie understand, but I worry most about Ainsley—because she is
so young. We’ve talked about it, and I’m letting her help me pack. I’ve given
her her own trunk, so she can begin packing her things as well. She knows
Fletcher and Barrie will remain here with her and that they’ll come later with
Maude. We’ve already marked how long six months is on the calendar. Ainsley
puts an X over each day when she arises. She knows how long it will be before
they join me. Ross Mackinnon even hired a man in town to make a replica of the
ship their passage is booked on, and Maude and I are reading to them about
America from every bit of information we can get our hands on.”

“Your mind is made up, is it?”

Maggie looked at her father. He had always been so tall, so
strong, but now—now he looked bent and delicate. Old. He didn’t need the added
burden of worrying about her and her children. Much as she hated to leave him,
she knew it would be best. “Aye,” she said, “it is.”

“And the marriage? I ken it will be soon, then?”

“Annabella and Ross will return in a fortnight. Ross has
made arrangements for the wedding to take place then.”

It went exactly as planned, for a fortnight after the day
she talked with her father, Margaret Sinclair Ramsay married Adrian Mackinnon,
with his brother Ross, the Duke of Dunford, standing in as proxy.

After the ceremony, Maggie walked Annabella and Ross out to
their carriage. After Ross handed Annabella into the coach, he hugged Maggie.
“Welcome into the Mackinnon clan,” he said. “You’re going to make my brother a
happy man.”

“I hope your brother feels that way when he sees what you’ve
sent him,” she said, laughing.

The look in Ross’ eyes faded. “He will. I know he will.”
Ross hugged her again. “Trust me, Maggie. Trust what I’ve done. Remember, it’s
better to have the last smile than the first laugh.”

On her wedding night, she stood over the huge trunk in her
room, packing the last of her belongings. When the final garment was tucked
away, she closed the lid and sat down on top of the trunk. She looked around
the room.

How strange it had been to come back home after being
married for almost ten years. How strange to be married and the mother of three
children, only to wake up one morning to find herself a widow, and shortly
after that, to move back into the room she had lived in as a young girl.

The room looked bare now; the clutter she had accumulated
over the past year was gone. For the second time in her life, she was packing
her belongings and leaving this room, this house. Only this time she was
married to a man half a world away. An American. A man she had never laid eyes
upon.

She couldn’t help wondering what it would be like. How would
it feel to have another man’s arms around her? Was he someone she could bear to
have hold her close? Was he handsome? Strong? Clean? Would he give her time to
become acquainted with him before he took her to his bed?

Would he come to love her? Would she come to love him?

She looked down at the gold band on her finger. It was wider
than the band Bruce had given her.
Oh, Bruce, Bruce, why must I think of you
now?
She pushed him from her mind. “Adrian,” she said softly. “I must think
of Adrian. Only Adrian.”

She went downstairs, judging from the fragrant smell of
sultanas, currants, and fruit peel that Jean, the cook, was baking a Dundee
cake.

The kitchen was empty. Jean didn’t make it a habit to linger
in the kitchen when there was work to be done elsewhere. Maggie picked up the
empty mixing bowl and sat on the table, as she had done as a young girl—only
now her legs were too long to swing from the chair—and licked the residue from
the spoon and scraped the bowl. She remembered the day her mother bought this
bowl. They had been in Edinburgh… She quickly pushed the thought away. Her
mother had been dead for years, and thinking about it made her feel old.

She scraped the bowl again, licking the spoon. The taste of
ground almonds and fruit peel reminded her of exotic places. She licked the
spoon clean, then rubbed it in a circular motion over her lips. She wondered
what it would be like to kiss Adrian Mackinnon.

Her heart fluttered and her stomach began to knot. It had
been a long time since she had felt the warm, familiar curl of desire, and it
was strange to feel it, thinking about a man she had never met. She looked at
the ring on her finger. The feeling in her stomach was warm, but the ring she
touched was cold.

She pushed herself off the table and left the bowl on the
counter. She went outside, walking toward the barn. Cullen and Clootie, her
father’s sheepdogs, saw her and trotted to her side. Cullen licked her fingers,
and she laughed, pulling them away.

She walked for a long time, so long that Cullen and Clootie
gave up and turned away. But she didn’t care. This might be the last time she
walked these heathery, fragrant moors or passed by the dark, mysterious loch
with its cold, haunted waters. She walked along the edge of the loch, staring
out across its rippled surface.

Everywhere she looked, it was infinitely gray and infinitely
silent, and most of all, infinitely dear to her. She sat upon a lichen-covered
rock, watching the surface of the lake ruffled by a passing wind, and thought
about her homeland. Scotland, so strong, so stoic, so staunch. Adrian’s words
came to her, words about the redwoods and feeling the hand of God upon his
shoulder. God’s hand might be in California, but surely his heart was here, in
the Highlands.

She stood, her movement quick and so sudden, a grouse flung
itself from the heather. Grouse and heather. They were a part of Scotland she
would miss. Not deer and salmon perhaps, for Adrian’s letters said they were
both abundant in California. But the familiar flight of grouse and the lavender
haze of a heather-covered heath—they would be as lost to her as the sound of
the pipes. As she turned back toward the house, she wondered if she would pine
for her Celtic heritage. Would she soon be as lost as the Gaelic tongue?

* * * * *

One month after her proxy marriage to Adrian Mackinnon,
Maggie set sail for San Francisco.

Her first week at sea, she began a journal, writing in it
each night after she re-read one of the letters Adrian had written to his
brother. It was strange, how much she gleaned from his letters. She looked down
at the list of things she had observed and written in her journal: “He’s a
proud man, and sometimes that pride makes him appear harsh and uncaring. He’s
built himself a powerful empire. He’s one of the richest men in California, but
he’s lonely. He would not admit that, of course, but it’s true just the same.
He prefers to think he’s self-sufficient, that he does not need…anyone.”

Judging from the things Ross had told her about his family,
Maggie knew there had always been a tense thread of competition between Adrian
and his twin, Alex. According to Ross, Alex had always been the outgoing one,
the charmer, the one who always got everything he wanted, leaving Adrian to
feel he was left in second place, always a step or two below. It hadn’t helped
those feelings any when Alex married the woman Adrian had fancied himself in
love with since childhood.

Maggie closed the journal, feeling her heart go out to
Adrian. There hadn’t been much gentleness or softness in his life. She had a
feeling he needed just that. As she leaned over and blew out the lamp, she was
remembering something Ross had said the day of the wedding.

“Adrian isn’t the kind of man to fall in love overnight.
He’s convinced everyone he loves leaves him, and he’ll do everything he can to
dissuade you, to send you running back to Scotland, so he can prove he was
right. I’ve written to him about you. The fact that you’ve been married before
is something that will take him a while to come to grips with. Don’t push him
to talk about it. Let him bring it up if he chooses. Don’t badger him to
discuss it or understand it. It will take time for all this to settle in with
him. Remember, time is on your side.”

It was voices that woke her.

She held her breath and listened, and knew there was no
doubt. It was the soft voices of her daughters, Barrie and Ainsley, that
stirred her consciousness; voices of the sweetest tone—clear, and
high-pitched—that embraced, and surrounded her with comfort; childish voices,
so careless and happy, singing nonsense. Or were they?

“Needles and pins, needles and pins,

When a man marries, his trouble begins.”

Half afraid, half hopeful, Maggie opened her eyes. She
searched the room, seeing everything in the tiny ship’s cabin was just as it
had been the night before. Her children were not here.

The sound of the wind and the sea surrounded her, yet the
voices lingered, bright as a fairy tale, coming to her with the haunting
strains of a nursery rhyme. Memories born of pain and desperation.

Never had she been away from her children more than a few
days, and the wound gaped, as if something vital within had been ripped away.
She missed them, and longed to hold them. This separation, this being away from
them, she knew, would pass, but there would always be the shadow of it upon her
heart.

Maggie went to her trunk and took out the tiny miniature
portraits of her children. Fletcher looked so manly, and Barrie’s expression
was one she had seen so many times. And little Ainsley, with her shy smile. A
tear trickled down her cheek and splashed on Ainsley’s picture. Maggie wiped it
away.
My bairns
, her heart cried.
My bairns
. She regretted her
decision to leave them behind, but how could she have known? How could she
imagine the pain of being apart? She never dreamed it would be this difficult
to be away from them. Never. The words of Dante seemed real to her now.
Nessun
maggior dolore. Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria.
“There is no
greater sorrow than to recall, in misery, the time when we were happy.”

She lay awake for what seemed hours, looking at the moon
through the tiny porthole, consumed with memory and regret, not really aware
when she drifted off to sleep.

It seemed to Maggie that she was no longer in her cabin, or
even aboard ship, for she had the feeling she was lifted up, and transported,
to a land of mist and stone. She stood alone on the moors in the darkness, the
wind whipping her skirts and tearing her hair. Voices were all about her; then,
in the distance and coming closer, the howling of many wolves. She saw her
children and called them to her, but the wolves came between and surrounded
her, snarling, their fangs dripping with foam.

Like a crack of lightning, a great bird swept down from
nowhere, like an eagle made of light, melting the darkness and driving back the
creatures of night, taking her up and away.

She was in a strange place, another land, one quite like
Scotland, and yet it was not. She saw her children, but when she reached out to
touch them, her hand passed through them, and their images faded from her
sight.

She awoke with a violently pounding heart, her body drenched
in sweat. She sat up, clutching the blanket to her breast, thinking she heard,
or remembered hearing:

“When shall we three meet again,

In thunder, lightning or in rain?

When the hurfyburly’s done,

When the battle’s lost and won.”

Macbeth’s witches? Was her sanity slipping? Fear pounded,
frantic as a beating fist, within her. What was happening?

A breath of sweet air stirred in the tiny cabin, and she
felt strangely comforted. She lay back down again.

She had no more dreams that night.

The ship rolled and a shaft of sunlight spread warmly over
Maggie’s face. She rolled over in the bed and put her arm over her eyes. The
memory of her dreams occupied her for a while, but not being the kind to lavish
in self-pity or regrets for what is over and past, Maggie soon put her mind to
the future.

The first task she set for herself was to decide what
clothes to wear, knowing Adrian’s first impression of her was bound to have
some impact upon how things would go from there. She hurried to stand before
the small mirror hanging from her cabin wall—a mirror she had attached with a
lump of sticky black tar, something, she might add, that had taken a wee bit o’
Scots ingenuity and a ton of patience. She posted herself in front of the
mirror and surveyed what she saw with a critical eye, feeling the sticky
residue of tar still upon her fingers.

Tapping her foot with impatience, she turned her head, first
to one side and then the other, lifting her hair away from her face. She had good
clear skin, thick, glossy hair, and straight, even teeth. Her hazel eyes were
large and determined, but a bit too large and wide-set by English standards.
And by those same standards, her mouth was too full, her complexion too
honey-colored, and her hair seemed destined to be lost somewhere between the
shades of flaxen and red-brown. She had neither the pale Nordic coloring of her
mother’s Viking ancestors, nor the inky blackness of her father’s Celtic ones.

There was something about Maggie, something that men
enjoyed, for there was a challenge in having a battle with an educated woman
with a quick mind and an even temper. On the other side of that coin, there was
something within Maggie that put her in touch with her sharpest wits whenever
the prospect of a confrontation with a man—any man—arose.

Before her marriage to Bruce Ramsay, Maggie had been one of
the most sought-after women in Scotland, if not for her beauty, then because
she was, simply put, captivating.

And now, God help her, she knew she was going to need all
the captivating charm she could muster over the next few hours.

Whatever possessed her to marry a complete stranger and then
embark, all alone, to sail halfway around the world to meet him? The calm,
controlled picture she made standing before the mirror was clearly at variance
with her feelings of jittery uncertainty.

A knock at her cabin door pulled her attention away. “Aye?”

“Captain wanted me to tell you that we’d be docking soon,” a
voice said.

“It canna be too soon for me,” she said, thanking the man as
she heard him chuckle and walk away.

After too much contemplation, in which her dresses all began
to look the same, she chose a carriage dress of Pekin with satin stripes in
green and rose. The three flounces on the skirt made her nineteen-inch waist
seem no more than seventeen, the tight-fitting basque setting off to perfection
a well-rounded bosom beneath slim shoulders. She swept her hair back from her
face in a quiet coil before she stood in the center of the room pretending her
cloak, hanging from the oil lamp overhead, was a stand-in for the husband she
had yet to meet.

She held out her hand. “You must be Adrian Mackinnon,” she
said, then shook her head.

Too formal.

She extended her hand again. “Hello, I’m…” She paused.

What should I call myself? Mrs. Mackinnon? Maggie
Mackinnon? Margaret. Your wife?

It was small wonder, then, that she suddenly whirled around
and stomped her foot and said, “This is ridiculous,” then, “Hang the
introduction and all this rehearsing,” and made her way out the door. “Damn the
cannons and pray for wind,” she added, turning down the long, dark passageway,
without even bothering to retrieve her cloak from where it still swung beneath
the oil lamp. A moment later she found herself on deck, bathed in sunlight, and
saying to herself with a hint of relief in her voice, “This is ever so much
better.”

It was the first time she had seen the sun in several days,
and although the clear patch of sky was surrounded by dark clouds, the sun was
a spirit lifter. After spending all morning breathing the stale air below, she
was quick to move to the railing, where the soft breezes caressed her cheek and
the fresh, salty smell of the ocean was heavy in the air. Thankful the fog had
lifted, she watched the
Stonehenge
drop her canvas and make her way
through the maze of ships anchored in San Francisco Bay to slip, silent and
sleek as a Scottish salmon, into her berth at the dock.

Maggie went below to get her cloak and bonnet, noticing
her
trunks had already been taken out of her room. By the time she retied her
bonnet three times to get the bow beneath her chin just right, and made her way
topside, the sun was gone and the first hard drops of rain were beginning to
splatter in dark circles upon the deck.

“Wonderful,” she said, turning her head sideways and casting
an eye toward the sky, seeing the dark rain clouds swirling overhead had
completely obliterated the sun. “At least I dinna have to worry about standing
on the dock like a fool wondering what I’m going to say.”

No, you’ll be hurried into the coach, where you can sit
there wet, and shivering like a fool, wondering what you’re going to say.

Half an hour later, she was still standing on the docks, wet
and shivering, surrounded by her trunks and a few rough-looking strangers who
hung around the harbor, the rain running in fat rivulets down her umbrella to
splatter across her cloak. Looking about her, she saw that most of the ship’s
passengers who had lined the dock with her moments ago were now gone.

Alone and cold, her spirits as sodden as her clothes, Maggie
bit her lip as she clenched her fists with anxiety. The suspicions and fears
that ate at her were too terrible to contemplate. She was being ridiculous to
feel abandoned and unwanted. After all, she had traveled halfway around the
world, and Adrian was coming from northern California to meet her. Precise
punctuality wasn’t something she had a right to expect, and she was being
childish to assume they would have made connections immediately. She would wait
a few more minutes. If Adrian didn’t arrive soon, she would simply find someone
to deliver her trunks to a nice hotel and leave word with the ship’s captain as
to her whereabouts.

Scolding herself for being a bit melodramatic, she drew her
cloak more tightly about her and sat down on her smallest trunk to wait,
resting her folded arms across the wicker basket in her lap.

She refused to listen to the small voice in the back of her
mind that said,
What if he doesna come…ever?

Too practical to panic for long, she occupied her mind with
two ideas: what to do if Adrian didn’t come, and trying to find something
positive about her situation. The positive thing about all of this was, she
would have a home, a new beginning for herself and her children.

Her children.

She missed them. She vowed to never, ever leave them again.
She suddenly realized that it was a blessing the children hadn’t come with her,
since she had no idea if she would ever get off this dock. That, in itself, was
something positive.

Soaked to the skin, Maggie remembered her original decision
and her intention of finding transportation to a hotel. Deciding it was time to
locate some form of equipage to the hotel, she squared her shoulders, lifted
her head, and was just rising to her feet when a shiny black coach pulled up
across the rain-flooded street.

The man inside looked at her for a full minute or two before
she noticed him. It was enough time for him to see as valiant a woman as he had
ever laid eyes upon. He knew he had no right to say such a thing to her, and figured
her to be the kind to give him a frank stare if he had had the audacity to even
mention the word
valiant
. Yet his eyes told him a lot about her, and he
knew she was the type to look life square in the eye and rely upon her instinct
for survival whenever she encountered an obstacle.

So that’s the little Scot
, he thought, and chuckled
to himself. She looked resilient enough to beat back a hurricane. Her kind
would never recognize defeat.

Maggie looked up and saw the door of the coach come flying
open as an enormous man stepped out. When his broad, tanned face broke into a
wide smile, her heart fluttered and her stomach seemed to rise to her throat.
Fighting back the swirling black cloud of faintness that threatened, she had a
sudden vision of Bruce Ramsay’s beloved face. Her mind screamed,
Oh Bruce,
Bruce, my husband, my love, what have I done? How can I be this man’s wife ?
How can I?
Yet even as her mind screamed its agonizing plea, Maggie
breathed deeply and lifted her face into the cold rain, mingling the wet drops
of heaven with the salt of her own.

She felt her disappointment like the thrust of a sword point
as he closed the door and started across the street. He was a huge, lumbering
hulk of a man, and although pleasant-looking, there wasn’t an ounce of breeding
or status in his overall appearance.
Surely this canna be my husband,
she thought, hoping above hope that the acute disappointment she felt did not
manifest itself upon her face.
He’s nothing like Ross. Nothing!

She kept trying to tell herself he could have been worse;
that he could have been like one of the rough sailors who made her so
uncomfortable with their frank, assessing stares—or one of the men who had been
leering at her while she waited on the docks. But try as she might, she couldn’t
prevent the slow, sinking feeling of acute disappointment. He was simply
nothing like the man she had hoped for.

All she could do was try her best to look pleasant and hide
her disappointment. After all, she was married to this man. She would have to
make the most of it. With a labored sigh, she forced the heaviness from the
corners of her mouth, giving her best go at a bright smile as she watched him
make his way through the muck in the street.

He was close enough now that she could see the mud splatter
on his pants and hear the suction of oozing mud with each step he took. Looking
down, she saw that he had feet as big as a Clydesdale. She couldn’t help
carrying that vein of speculation a bit further.
Dear Lord above, dinna let
the rest of him be in draft-horse dimensions.
Her face heated at the
thought.