Here Burns My Candle (2 page)

Greengrocers and fishmongers expected payment upon purchase. But mantua makers gladly extended credit if the Kerr women might display their gowns at the next public ball. Although a nervous town council might demand its citizens remain withindoors, ending their festive Thursday evenings at Assembly Close…

Nae, surely not!

Marjory sank onto the edge of her bed with a soft groan. What a dreary social season lay ahead with the rebel army afoot! No weekly visits to Lady Woodhall’s drawing room to share cups of tea and savory tidbits of gossip. No rainy afternoons spent with Lady Falconer, listening to country airs sung by a daughter of the gentry. No rounds of whist in
the affable company of Lord Dun. Nothing but royalist dragoons patrolling the High Street, bayonets at the ready.

A sharp knock at the adjoining bedchamber door made her jump, nearly spilling the handful of guineas from the bed onto the carpet. “Who is it?” she asked, unhappy with herself for sounding frightened.

“Donald,” came the low reply.

Lightheaded with relief and grateful for his company, Marjory deposited the money on her dressing table and ushered her older son within, then closed the door as quickly as she’d opened it. With no central hallway in their apartments, each room had adjoining doors, one chamber leading to the next. Even among Edinburgh’s wealthiest residents, privacy was rare.

“Forgive the intrusion, Mother.” He looked down at her, candle in hand, his smooth brow gleaming. The cambric loosely tied at his neck could not hide the sharp lines of his collarbones. Ten years of dining on Edinburgh’s finest mutton and beef, and still his frame remained as slender as a youth’s. “’Tis late, I know,” he apologized.

“The hour matters not.” Marjory touched his cheek affectionately, struck afresh by the family resemblance. Donald had the same long nose Lord John once had, the same thin-lipped smile. “Look how the father’s face lives in his issue,” she quoted, testing him. It was a favorite pastime between mother and son.

“Ben Jonson,” he answered, naming the playwright without hesitation.

Few gentlemen in Edinburgh were better read than Lord Donald. She’d made certain of it. Heir to the Kerr title and lands, he’d proven himself an attentive son and a faithful husband. If he was not yet a doting father, that was no fault of his.

“Still in your boots,” Marjory observed. “I thought you’d be off to bed by now.”

The corners of his mouth twitched. “I will be shortly.” He scanned the chamber, his gaze finally landing on the pile of coins glimmering in the candlelight. “Do you think it wise to leave your gold where anyone might find it?”

Donald not only looked like his father; he sounded like him. Marjory
swept the coins into her silk-fringed reticule and pulled the drawstrings taut. “We have far greater worries this night. The rebel army is nearing Linlithgow.”

“Aye
, Gibson told me.” The stoic Neil Gibson, manservant to the household, took pride in keeping Donald and his younger brother well groomed and well informed. “I’ve come to put your mind at ease, Mother.”

“I see.” She chose her next words with care, keeping her tone light. “Does that mean you’ll not be joining the Gentlemen Volunteers?” She watched his blue eyes for a flicker of interest. Hundreds of young men had enlisted in support of the royalist troops, many from Edinburgh’s finest families. Lord willing, her sons would not be numbered among the recruits.

“I’ve no such plans,” Donald confessed, “though I cannot speak for Andrew. You know his penchant for flintlock muskets.”

She did know, much as it grieved her. Lord John had urged their second son to pursue a career in the military, despite her motherly protests. Pistols, swords, and a dozen French muskets decorated Andrew’s bedchamber walls. Even walking past his many weapons unnerved her. Monsieur Picard, their fencing master, had trained the lads well. But he’d done so for sport, not for battle.

That very afternoon Andrew had observed the Volunteers drilling in the College Yards. Marjory had counted the hours until he returned home for supper, then listened with a heavy heart as he regaled the family with stories of grizzled sergeants marching the lads through their paces. “Have no fear,” Andrew had said soothingly at table. “The Lord Provost took no notice of me, Mother.”

She was unconvinced then and even less so now, with his older brother paying a late-night visit. “I have your word?” she prompted Donald. “You’ll not encourage Andrew to take up arms against the Highland rebels?”

He brushed aside her concerns. “Whatever you say.”

Donald began circling her chamber, with its oil paintings and Chinese porcelain, its silk bed hangings and red lacquer commode. Piece by piece she’d had her favorite
plenishings
delivered from Tweedsford, their
estate in the Borderland, until their rented Edinburgh rooms were filled to bursting.

When Donald paused at one of her windows and unfastened the painted shutter, Marjory’s breath caught. Might a Jacobite spy be abroad at this hour? Pale and fair-haired, Donald would be easily spotted from the High Street below.

“No moon in sight,” he observed, resting his forehead lightly on the glass. “No Highlanders either.”

“They’ll arrive soon enough.” Marjory extinguished the candle by her bed, shrouding the room in darkness. “Sleep while you can, Donald. And keep that bonny wife of yours close at hand.”

“Aye.” The smile in his voice was unmistakable. “So I shall.”

He left by way of the drawing room door rather than the one leading to his bedchamber. Bound for the kitchen, no doubt. He’d eaten very little at supper. Mrs. Edgar, their housekeeper, would not let him retire on an empty stomach.

Marjory closed the shutters, then returned to bed, determined to sleep however dire the news. Her beloved sons were safe beneath her roof. Nothing else mattered.

Two

For Donald was the brawest man,
And Donald he was mine.

ROBERT BURNS

L
ady Elisabeth Kerr pushed her sewing needle through the thick wool, straining to hear the conversation next door. She could not fault Donald for visiting his mother’s chamber. Even the Dowager Lady Kerr needed reassuring on so unsettling a night. Alas, little sound traveled through the thick blanket of books that lined their bedchamber walls. Whatever Donald and his mother were discussing was lost to her.

Nor could she hear Andrew and Janet in the other adjoining chamber, for which Elisabeth was exceedingly grateful. The couple, married only six months earlier, was determined to present the dowager with her first grandchild. “You’ve had two years to produce an heir,” Janet had chided Elisabeth on the eve of her March wedding. “Now ’tis our turn.”

What response could Elisabeth offer when her empty womb spoke on her behalf?

Nae
. She pressed her silver thimble more firmly in place, refusing to dwell on the subject. A healthy woman of four-and-twenty had little cause for alarm. Surely a child would come in due season: a wee son to match her
braw
Lowlander with his high forehead and intelligent eyes.

Elisabeth drew the thread taut, pulling the button shank against the fabric. Not for Lord Kerr the new fashion of ending a gentleman’s coat buttons at his waist. Instead, he insisted on an unbroken line of pewter buttons, neck to hem. Reaching for her scissors, she breathed in the night air, moist with the promise of rain. A fire burned low in the grate, barely dispelling the autumn chill. Peg would appear at dawn with fresh coals. Until then, Elisabeth counted on her husband to warm her hands and feet. “And your bonny nose,” Donald often teased, capturing the soft tip between his slender knuckles.

Though she considered her nose overlong, Donald deemed it patrician. “You’ve the finest profile of any lady in Scotland,” he’d told her only that morning. “To prove it, I shall have a cameo engraved in Paris, carved from the largest queen conch shell my guineas can buy.” Her husband enjoyed making extravagant promises. Sometimes he even kept them.

Elisabeth looked up at her new lavender satin gown, pressed and waiting for the Sabbath and hanging from an ornate hook. It was a belated gift from Donald, meant for her May birthday but not delivered until Wednesday last. The sleeves were generously trimmed with two layers of the finest lace, the pleated embellishments on the bodice were made of silk gauze, and the ivory-trimmed stomacher was richly decorated with tiny buttons.

“’Tis a rare beauty,” Donald had commented. “Like you, my love.”

He’d beguiled her from the first, strolling into Angus MacPherson’s tailoring shop one bright September day, seeking a new velvet coat. She was there by chance, delivering a customer’s waistcoat she’d embroidered to earn a bit of silver. In Donald came, with his regal height and polished manners, a long queue of powdered hair curling down his back. Unwittingly, he’d praised her handiwork. “No man embellishes a buttonhole more cleverly than you do, MacPherson.”

Angus had quickly confessed, “’Tis not my
ain
skill with a needle that produced those fine stitches. Rather, Miss Ferguson here is to be commended.”

Elisabeth still remembered Donald’s frank appraisal. Some men found her height daunting. Lord Kerr’s reaction was quite the opposite, his approval evident when his level gaze met hers. “You’ve the bearing of a queen, milady. Did I not see you at the Tron Kirk on the Sabbath last, seated with Mrs. Effie Sinclair of Blackfriars Wynd?” When she inclined her head, his smile broadened. “Ah, just as I thought. You are under her tutelage, then. A more respectable lady cannot be found in all of Edinburgh.”

In a few short months Donald had won her heart. Not with his considerable wealth, his impressive title, or his handsome face. Rather, he
treated her as an equal, discussing books, music, and society as if Elisabeth had grown up in a gentleman’s household and could manage her end of the conversation. Somehow, she did.

That Yuletide Donald had ignored his mother’s wishes and married her, Elisabeth Ferguson, a humble weaver’s daughter. “Not to spite the Dowager Lady Kerr,” he’d insisted, though he’d certainly done so. “I want you by my side, my bonny Highland Bess. To have and to hold, a wife good and true.”

His tender words had burrowed deep inside her, crowding out the murmured warnings, the whispered concerns voiced by others.
Lord Kerr has a mistress. Two, some say. Guard your heart, for he’ll not honor his vows
.

Elisabeth’s hands stilled, the pewter button cold beneath her thumb. Doubt crept in once more, pervasive as the evening fog, clouding her thoughts. Donald had changed since then, had he not? This husband she loved and trusted with all her heart?

Season after season she’d pushed aside her fears, ignoring the faint rumors that ebbed and swelled in the street and on the stair, hinting at red-headed widows and comely maids. She’d had no reason to believe them, not when Donald was so attentive. He’d never come home bearing another woman’s scent or tasting of another woman’s kisses. Nor had she found a lady’s handkerchief tucked in his pocket or a suspicious strand of hair caught in the fibers of his waistcoat.

But on Thursday last at Assembly Close when he’d danced the allemande with the Widow Montgomerie, a ripple had moved through the room. Heads turned. Eyebrows lifted. Voices whispered. Elisabeth had feigned indifference, keeping her smile firmly in place from first note to last and reclaiming her husband when the music ended.

She’d said nothing to him, certain the gossips were wrong. Though dalliances were common among the peerage, Lord Donald was cut from a different cloth. If he admired a woman in passing, Elisabeth praised her too, rather than give envy a toehold. When others fluttered their fans at Donald, she drew him closer, reminding herself that, come day’s end, she alone would have the pleasure of his company.

However improper Donald’s behavior might have been before their wedding, he did his duty by her now, did he not? Her skin warmed at the thought.
Aye, you certainly do, my love
.

While her diminishing candle measured the time, Elisabeth worked at a steady pace and waited for Donald to return. Clearly the dowager needed more attention that evening than Elisabeth had imagined. Or perhaps Donald had wandered off to the kitchen, hungry for a slice of cold mutton.

Finished at last, she draped the damask coat across Donald’s desk chair, hoping he might notice and be pleased. Her bedside candle flickered as the night wind found its way round the shutters. The hour was late indeed. Shivering, Elisabeth slipped beneath the covers and fixed her gaze on the adjoining chamber door, certain Donald would not tarry much longer.

At long last the bedchamber door creaked open. Donald stepped within, the amber light from the hearth gilding his features. Her husband wore his seven-and-twenty years well, with a noble air and a rakish grin.

“Come to bed,” she beckoned him, stretching out her hand as he crossed the room. “The Sabbath dawn is almost upon us.”

“’Tis five hours hence,” he protested, sitting long enough to pull off his boots, then abandoning his clothes on the floor in a heap. He wet his thumb and forefinger and snuffed the candle with a deft touch. “I had in mind how we might spend one of those hours.”

She smiled into the darkness. “Oh?”

In an instant he lay by her side, enveloping her in his warmth. “’Tis all your fault, dear Bess.” His voice was low and as tender as a caress. “I have a weakness for beautiful women.”

“Is that so?” She smoothed her hand across his wheat-colored hair, cropped short to accommodate his wig, and discovered the fine strands were damp and cool, as if he’d been out of doors. Impossible, of course. He’d gone no farther than the kitchen. The familiar scent of him, the welcome sensation of his rough cheek against her skin dismissed any niggling concerns.

“I thought you might never come to bed,” she scolded him lightly. “Did you satisfy her?”

He hesitated. “Beg pardon?”

“Your mother. Did you allay her concerns?”