Here Burns My Candle (29 page)

Elisabeth looked into his eyes, any trace of amusement gone. “I shall endeavor to, milord.” She lightly rested her hand on his arm rather than curling it round his elbow. “Shall we?”

Her cool demeanor puzzled him. Was Elisabeth not as eager for their hour together as he? She’d written him letters almost daily, expressing her affection in no uncertain terms. Perhaps his impending departure troubled her. “Have you heard the news from Holyroodhouse?” he asked, testing his theory.

“Over supper,” she admitted, drawing closer to his side as they wove through the room, thick with peat smoke. “Gibson informed us the army might be leaving soon.”

“We ride out with the prince on the morrow,” Donald said as gently as he could, “though we’ve not been told the hour.”

Elisabeth looked at him. “You’ll send word? So your mother and I may see you off?”

“Depend upon it.” Just as he’d suspected, Elisabeth was upset because he was leaving, nothing more.

A chorus of ribald comments followed them up the stair. Donald led her to a warren of small rooms, muffled voices behind each door. “I fear our lodgings are no better than last time,” he warned her, a musty smell rolling over them when they entered the room. A mouse skittered along the far edge of the wall, and filmy traces of a cobweb hung from the ceiling. He’d done his best to straighten his belongings. Andrew hadn’t been so diligent, nor had Duncan Belhaven, the Life Guard who shared their room. “At least we have the place to ourselves. Andrew made other arrangements.”

“Good,” she said, unfastening her wool cape, “for I prefer not to share you with anyone.”

Donald heard something in her voice. Not anger or impatience. More like resignation. Little wonder with such squalid accommodations.

As Elisabeth smoothed her hair in place, he studied her regal profile, reminding him again of how much he’d missed her. And how much
he loved her. Had he not told her so on the afternoon of his departure?
I do love you. God help me, I do
. Far from idle words, they were meant as a pledge of faithfulness even though he was not certain such fidelity was possible.

The strumpets loitering about the inn at White Horse Close offered little temptation. Lucy Spence, however, was harder to resist. On two occasions the young widow had appeared at the inn door, her identity well concealed and her intentions abundantly clear. Other than their brief interludes in a hastily borrowed room, he’d been a model husband since enlisting, though he could hardly boast of such things to his dear wife.

He latched the door behind them. “We shall miss our feather bed,” he confided, glancing at the narrow heather mattress tossed on a bare wooden floor. The unpainted walls, low beams, and dearth of windows made the room especially dreary. “I did manage to find candles, such as they are.” He held up two stubs in plain iron holders.

“And I brought you something.” Elisabeth loosened the strings of her reticule. “To keep you warm.” She held up his gloves.

“Well done, Bess. I fear we have a cold winter ahead.” He took the lambskin gloves from her hands. “I last wore these on Candlemas. At Lady Northesk’s ball in Covenant Close.”

Elisabeth nodded, not quite meeting his gaze. “We both wore dark blue that evening.”

“Aye, we did.” He slipped his left hand inside the glove, relishing the softness of the rabbit fur against his skin.

“I thought you might have missed them,” Elisabeth said, watching him closely.

“Indeed I did.” When he tried on the right glove, Donald discovered something sharp edged and stiff inside. “What have we here?” As he pulled out a square of paper, his wife’s complexion turned the color of fresh snow on the Eildon Hills.

She did not speak, only gazed at the paper as he unfolded it.

“Oh, Bess.” He touched the curl of dark hair resting inside. “For remembrance, is it?”

“So the auld wives say.” She turned her head, blinking as if a speck of dust were trapped in her eye.

He refolded the paper and slid it back inside. “To keep it safe,” he told her, then tossed the gloves on a battered corner table, wanting far more of his wife than a lock of hair. “Bess,” he said softly, drawing her closer, kissing her neck. “We’ve not much time. Let me help you.”

After a moment’s hesitation she lifted her arms, giving him access to the laces and ties, the stays and hoops that held her mourning gown in place. His nimble fingers moved with practiced efficiency while he murmured endearments, hoping to put her at ease.

“You look lovely tonight,” he began, lightly touching her cheek in passing. “I believe black suits you after all. Do tell Mrs. Edgar she’s turned into a respectable lady’s maid,” he said, admiring the sweep of Elisabeth’s hair. Though he longed to pull out her many hairpins and run his hands through the thick and fragrant mass, he could never hope to put it all aright when their brief tryst ended.

When only her chemise remained, Donald made short work of his clothing, and they were both left shivering in the unheated room. “Come, milady.” His heather bed was neither warm nor comfortable. It mattered not. He drew his woolen plaid over them and wrapped her in his embrace.

“Donald,” she said on a sigh, “we must—”

“Make haste, aye?” He kissed her thoroughly, reveling in the taste of her. “My bonny Highland Bess,” he whispered, “let me warm you with my hands.” He felt a slight tremor run through her body. “Chilled to the bone, are you? Well, I’ve a remedy for that.”

He tried to be gentle, but he could not be patient. Not this night.

Thirty-Eight

Shame rises in my face,
and interrupts the story of my tongue!

THOMAS OTWAY

T
he tallow candles were almost spent as Donald brushed a last kiss across his wife’s brow. He eased onto his side and rested one hand on her slender waist. “You’ve been quiet this evening.”

Elisabeth turned away from him, pressing her cheek against the threadbare sheet. “I have something to tell you.”

“Oh?” he said, hearing the strain in her voice. Was it some unpleasantness with his mother? The dowager seldom hid her disdain for Elisabeth.

When she looked up, he was dismayed to see tears spilling down her cheeks. “Bess, what is it?” He smoothed them away, only to watch her eyes fill again as she slowly rose to a sitting position and gathered the wool plaid round her. He gave her some room, trying to steal a closer look at her in the waning candlelight. “Will you not tell me what grieves you so?”

She dabbed at her tears with a corner of the linen sheet. “I found a note. Inside one of your winter gloves.”

A note?
“And you read it?”

She nodded, coloring a little. “Forgive me, but ’twas neither folded nor addressed. A small white card with two lines.”

Donald frowned. He did not like the sound of this. “What did the card say?”

Elisabeth’s voice was low but her words sure. “‘May these gloves warm your hands, as your hands warmed me.’ Signed by J. M.”

He knew at once.
Jane Montgomerie
. ’Twas the sort of thing the sentimental creature would do. Never guessing where her note might land. Or whom it might hurt.

Elisabeth looked up at him, her chin trembling but her eyes dry. “Have you nothing to say?”

His mind reeled, searching for some explanation. “My love,” he began haltingly, “that was some time ago—”

“Nae.” Elisabeth tugged the wool blanket closer, covering her bare skin. “Your gloves were new last winter. A gift for our second anniversary.”

Losh
. He’d not remembered that.

“Donald, ’tis plain that you… that you spent time with the Widow Montgomerie long after we married.”

He blanched. “How did you learn the lady’s name?”

“I watched you dance with her. So did the rest of Edinburgh society. We are none of us blind, Donald.”

Her words were bravely spoken, but he saw how she gripped the blanket so tightly her knuckles lost all color. What a simpleton he’d been to think his wife would never discover the truth. He had to say something, anything. “Beloved, you must understand—”

“Stop.” Her eyes were dark as midnight, her brow creased with pain. “Nae more lies, for I cannot bear them.”

A bitter taste rose in his throat. “Ask what you will, then.”

Elisabeth’s very soul shone in her eyes. “Have there been other women since we married?”

Aye. Many women
. His shoulders slumped beneath the weight of his sins. “Elisabeth, I hardly know where to begin.”

“Then begin with the truth.” Her voice broke. “If you love me at all…”

“You know that I do.” He reached for her, but she shrank from his touch.

“Nae.” She shook her head so vehemently that hairpins scattered across the dirty floor. “You love this.” She aimed a pointed gaze at the mattress beneath them. “But you do not love me. Not enough to be faithful.”

Donald could no longer look at her, so great was his shame. He heard his father’s voice:
And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman?
Why indeed when Elisabeth Kerr was everything a man could hope for in a wife?

He loved her, aye, but he’d also deceived her. Over and over, time and again. How could he hope for mercy?

“Bess, I have deeply wronged you,” he finally said, lashing himself with the truth. “You have every right to despise me.”

When she did not respond, he had his answer.

After a long silence he heard her rise and quietly begin dressing, pulling on her stockings, gathering her petticoats, finding her shoes. One of the candles gave out, leaving the room darker still.

He stood behind her, longing to comfort her, knowing he was the last man on earth who could do so. “At least let me help you dress.”

She did not move as he arranged her clothes, her gaze fixed on the remaining candle.

Words rushed to his lips, but he could not speak them.
I do love you, Bess. The others meant nothing to me. You alone have my heart
. She’d heard them all before.
I’ve failed you as a husband
. Aye, she’d heard that too. But his words were not enough.

Anxious to make amends, he gathered as many hairpins as he could and fastened the loose strands of her hair in place, without comb or mirror or any skill whatsoever. “Forgive me,” he said when he finished, stepping back.

“For tonight?”

“Nae, lass.” He swallowed. “For all of it.”

She turned toward him. “Oh, Donald…”

“I am more sorry than I can ever say.” He looked into her eyes, letting the scales fall away, holding nothing back. “I cannot alter the past. But I can change the days to come.”

“Please.” She pressed her fingertips to her mouth as if his words sickened her. “Do not make such a promise.”

“’Tis not a promise,” he protested, “but a fact. When the Rising is over, when the prince’s men return home, a different husband will cross your threshold. A husband who is faithful. A husband who honors his vows.”

She bowed her head. In the still, shadowy room she said in a broken voice, “Donald, how I wish that might be so.”

“It
will
be so.” He reached for her hands, though his own were shaking. “Nae, from this moment on, it
is
so.”

A loud knock at the door startled them both. “Kerr, the hour is
spent.” Duncan Belhaven’s words were slurred, his laughter churlish. “I trust ye’ve finished as weel, milord.”

“We have not.” Donald leaned down, his forehead almost touching hers. “In truth, we have just begun.”

Thirty-Nine

Haste is needful in this desperate case.

WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

E
lisabeth studied the hands clasping hers. Pale skin, long fingers, slender wrists. The hands of a gentleman. The hands of a rake.
Many women
. He’d confessed as much weeks ago. Why had she not listened to the truth behind his words?
I have a weakness…

“’Tis time I took my leave.” Elisabeth eyed the door, her only means of escape. “Mr. Belhaven is waiting, and Gibson is down the stair.”

“Please, dear wife.” Donald drew her closer. “They can tarry a moment longer.”

When he gazed into her eyes, her resolve began to waver. His regret had seemed genuine, had it not? And his vow sincere?

Before she knew it, his arms were encircling her. Donald kissed her so tenderly she could not help responding, telling herself that he meant what he said, that he loved her still, that he—

“Enough,” she pleaded, easing away from him, her body and soul at such odds she could barely put two words together.
Help me
. ’Twas the cry of her heart, though none could hear it.
Help me know the truth
.

Donald touched her cheek before releasing her. “If you insist, milady. But remember my vow. You alone and no other.”

As he began gathering his clothes, she draped her wool cape across her shoulders, then drew the hood over her disheveled hair, her heart aching. Donald’s request prodded at her.
Forgive me. For all of it
. How could she possibly do so? Yet how could she not if she loved him?

Help me
. The words kept darting through her mind like birds in a gilded cage. But she dared not seek advice from Marjory or Janet, and her Highland mother was lost to her, it seemed. Elisabeth glanced at her great-grandmother’s silver ring. The Nameless One was lost as well, a cold and distant moon. She would find no solace there.

Elisabeth shivered, though not from the cold. She’d never felt so
alone. Was there nowhere she could turn for comfort? No one she could trust completely?

Her husband was still dressing when Duncan Belhaven knocked again, demanding the use of their shared lodgings. A woman’s airy laugh slipped through the cracks in the door—a jarring counterpoint to the strained atmosphere within.

The soldier bellowed, “Surely ye’ve finished by now.”

“Aye, aye,” Donald grumbled, yanking on his coat, then jamming his feet into half-buckled shoes. Stock untied, periwig in hand, he flung open the door and scowled at his roommate. “Have you nae patience, man?”