Island of the Swans (78 page)

The tension within Jane grew unbearable. “Then tell me, Alex… say that
nothing
shall come between us ever again!
Tell me that
!” she demanded with a sob.

He stared down at her, a stricken look invading his eyes.

“Can’t you say it?” she cried out. “Is it that you don’t love me anymore? ’Tis that the way of it?”

Before she comprehended what was happening, Alex cried out as if struck in the back by one of his own arrows. With a single motion, he lay her legs flat against the bed clothes, pinioning them beneath his, his entire body stretched the length of hers.

“I love you,” he cried brokenly. “I’ve always loved you, Jane, but now—”

A terrible sadness for him filled her heart. She flung her arms around his back and pulled him down to her.

“’Tis all right,” she soothed, “I’m here, Alex. Come, darling. Let me have your love…”

A warm explosion bathed her, more sweet in its way than all the wild nights of passion they had shared over the years. Alex’s breathing remained ragged. At length, she realized that the man in her arms who had caused her so much pain was crying quietly—wrenching, soft sobs that shuddered through his body.

“Sh… sh…” she whispered, pressing her lips against his brow slick with sweat. “’Tis all right. We’ll sort it all out on the morrow, Alex. Sleep, now, darling… sh…”

Alex’s breath seemed to catch, and then his shoulders trembled as another wave of emotion overtook him. Jane remained silent, holding his tousled head next to her breast and rocking him gently in her arms. Sheer physical and emotional exhaustion soon overwhelmed her, and, within minutes, she fell into a dreamless sleep.

Jane woke with a start, calculating that it must be around five. She raised her head off the pillow, roused by a high-pitched sound that cut through the chill, dark morning. She lay there, spoon fashion, in Alex’s arms, listening intently.

There! She heard the same sound once again! Could it be the mewing of a kitten, or a rusty hinge on an open window down the hall? She slid across the bed without waking Alex and quickly slipped from the high four-poster onto the floor. The Turkish carpet felt cold and clammy under her bare feet. Rummaging as quietly as she could in Alex’s armoire to find something to clothe her nakedness, she froze and listened again. The mewing had grown louder and more fretful. She donned Alex’s silk dressing gown and opened the chamber door.

A strange dread clutched at her as she sped down the passageway that was illuminated only by the dim light filtering through the window at the end of the long hallway. She paused at the open door of the old nursery, catching a glimpse of the empty brass beds Alex and his children had slept in during their youth. She wondered vaguely why little Alexander was not asleep in his normal place. She prayed that her youngest son had not been banished to a bedchamber where no one could hear his cries if he woke at night. It pained Jane to remember how Alex had refused to allow the child to stay with her in London during the duke’s recent trip to France with Lord Huntly, leaving the wee lad in the care of Mrs. Christie and the austere William Marshall in this draft-plagued castle.

Jane pushed the door to the nursery open wider and stared like a sleepwalker at the small fire glowing in the grate. Sitting in the chair in which she, herself, had nursed her own children was Jean Christie, her blond hair untidily fanned about her shoulders. A tiny, mewling babe suckled at the girl’s pendulous breasts. She wore one of Jane’s own dressing gowns. Jane’s favorite woolen plaid hung loosely around her shoulders to ward off the chill. The network of blue veins etched on each bosom reminded Jane in some macabre way of the spidery lines she had seen for the first time around Alex’s eyes when he lay sleeping.

“What are you doing…” Jane’s voice trailed off. Her heart was pounding.

The servant girl stared at Jane, slack-jawed.

“M-master’ll be angry at you if you harm—” she said defiantly as Jane advanced toward the rocking chair.

“You
viper
!” Jane heard herself screaming at the lass she had housed under her roof for eighteen years. “You
bloodsucker
! You don’t belong in this nursery! Get out!
Get out
!”

“’Tis
you
who’s not wanted here!” the voluptuous young woman said truculently. “M’lord sleeps with
me
now… this is our bairn. He gives me fine clothes to wear, like I was his duchess, sure and proper!” she concluded triumphantly.

Jane sagged against the wall nearest the fireplace. The life she had envisioned, just before dropping off to sleep in Alex’s arms, dissolved around her. Jean Christie stared at her insolently, although her look turned to alarm as she saw the thunderous expression taking possession of her adversary. The babe in Jean Christie’s arms pulled away from her teat with a startled jerk and began to wail in the high-pitched, ragged squalls of a newborn.

“Get out! Get out!” Jane continued to shout, her voice rising in a near hysterical crescendo. “
Get out of my house, you filthy wretch
!”

She heard footsteps pounding down the hallway. Behind her, Alex stormed into the room and grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her roughly.

“Stop it, Jane!” he cried loudly. Anguish and horror, guilt and anger swept across his features. “Stop it, I say! The lass’s just risen from childbed! The bairn is two days
old
!”

“I
don’t care
!” Jane wailed, whirling to face her husband. “Jesu! Do you have no decency a’tall? You bed me like I was your strumpet with this harlot down the hall!”

“Jane… please,” Alex interrupted her in a gentler tone of voice. “I know ’tis a shock—”

Jane pointed a shaking finger at the bawling infant.

“I raised one of your bastards for twenty years and the devil take me, I will not raise another!”

“And I raised one of
yours
!” he shouted back at her.

Jane stared at her husband, speechless with rage. How could she sort out the glaring differences in the conception of these two children at a time like this? How could she remind him of his brutal treatment of her at Culloden House and the love and kindness and
history
she had shared with Thomas Fraser since she was a child?

“Bedding this trollop and begetting a
child
was merely an act of revenge!” she cried.

Ignoring Alex, she ran across the room where she towered over Jean who sat cringing in her rocking chair. “Get out, you damnable doxy!
Get out of my sight!
”

Jean’s newborn wailed all the louder.

“That’s
enough
, Jane!” Alex growled, striding to her side.

“Be still, you son-of-a-whore!” she shrieked at him, totally losing control of herself. She slapped Jean Christie soundly across the face and grabbed the tartan shawl from around her shoulders, slashing the girl’s head with it like a leather whip. “
Don’t you dare to wear my clothes or sleep in my bed! Get out of my house, you thieving slut! Get out or I’ll kill you!
”

Alex looked as if he would strike Jane, but, instead, he grabbed his wife’s arm and yanked her screaming toward the door. He half-dragged, half-carried her down the hall that led to their bedchamber. Charlotte and Louisa suddenly appeared at the end of the passageway.

“Mama! What is it?” cried the elder girl, huddled in her nightdress on the landing, her arms around her trembling sister.

“Go to your rooms!” their father shouted menacingly. “Be gone with you, damn it!”

Alex hauled Jane through the doorway, slammed shut the bedchamber door, and locked it. Jane broke away from his grasp and threw herself on the rumpled bed linen of their four-poster. A kaleidoscope of feelings stormed through her brain until she thought she would go mad. She could hear her own heaving sobs as if it were someone else crying in this frigid prison of a room. A cold resolve was forming in the pit of her stomach, independent of the raw emotions raging inside her. Finally, her sobs were spent and she felt totally empty, devoid of all emotion, including grief for what was irretrievably lost.

“I know full well I’ve dealt you a terrible blow—” Alex began tentatively. He had drawn the chair Jane had sat on last night closer to the bed and addressed her back.

“You even gave her my clothes to wear…” Jane moaned, fresh tears cascading down her cheeks.

“What—” Alex said.

“You gave her my dressing gown…”

“I didn’t give her anything,” he said wearily. “I never even noticed what the chit wears…”

“No,” Jane replied bitterly. “I expect you didn’t.” She took a corner of the monogrammed bed linen and wiped her eyes. “You should have told me about the child last night,” Jane added dully over her shoulder. “You should have told me before we—”

“I know,” he answered, his voice raw. “But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. I wanted you so…”

“You merely wanted what you thought you couldn’t have,” she replied tiredly, rolling over on the bed to stare at him with dead eyes. “I’ve been yours for the asking for years now… but instead, you’ve smothered me with silence and mistrust. And now, ’tis too late.”

“Why, Jane?” he asked earnestly. “Why can’t we sort this out, as you said last night?”

“Because we can’t!” she snapped. “Because neither of us can change enough to make it work. Because there’s a newborn bairn brought forth in my marriage bed!”

“She wasn’t born in here,” Alex said in a low voice, looking at the floor.

“But she was
conceived
in here,” Jane retorted angrily. “Probably the night I found you two together!” Jane sat up in bed pulling Alex’s dressing gown tightly to her breasts. She stared at him with the same coldness she felt encrusting the core of her being. “After all this time, don’t you understand
anything
at all about me, Alex?” She asked, her voice quivering. “No matter how much I loved Thomas or longed for the touch of an understanding man, I would
never
have betrayed you like this… in the house we’d lived in together! With one of our
servants.
As soon as Thomas left for Struy, I saw ’twould never be possible for me to be with him. Yet, when I chose to be with you, you were quick to think the worst of me with Rabbie Burns. When I came to you and found Jean Christie in my bed… I
still
thought to m’self, ’twas only some aberration typical of a man of middle years. I thought you’d see that we had too much we’d built together… too much that bound us. But now, you’ve cut those ties… just like you’ve severed the last thread of decency between us and extinguished the feelings of love I held for you.”

“Jane,
please
, I—” Alex interrupted.

“I know… I know…” Jane silenced him, “your tears last night… for a moment, you let a tiny chink in the wall you’ve built around yourself since you were a boy come tumbling down, but ’tis not in your nature to lay yourself bare to me—or anyone else. ’Tis not in your bones to trust in my good will. And if I can’t have
that
in my life, I’d rather live alone.”

“What are you saying?” he asked, his voice laced with misery.

“I am saying that I will yield to you the duties I owe you as your duchess. I will support your estate and honor you in public. But for giving you that, you will grant me an
independent
life and the
means
to live it!”

She took a deep breath, for she knew that if he didn’t agree to her next request, there was no hope whatsoever she and Alex could heal their breach.

“But, as long as that
bloodsucker
and her bastard lives under this roof, I’ll not remain in Gordon Castle.”

“I will not abandon my child,” Alex said stubbornly.

“Then I shall leave today.”

“But why?” he cried. “You tolerated Bathia’s son. You’re quite fond of him, in fact. And what about Louisa…”

“You’re too stupid for words,” she snapped, feeling hot tears filling her eyes once again. “You can’t have forgotten how you behaved toward me at Culloden House and know perfectly well the chain of events that led to the siring of Louisa. And Bathia’s George came from a woman you
loved
long before you knew me. He wasn’t my
punishment
, as this babe is!”

“’Tis only an
innocent child
!” Alex pleaded.

“The child is innocent, sure enough, but
you
are not,” Jane replied. “Louisa was innocent too, and look how you’ve treated her all her life! No, Alex… most likely you have some genuine feelings for the mother, now that she’s had your child, but you took her to bed for
spite
, to
hurt
me, and for that, I cannot forgive you.”

“But the child lives and needs its mother and I will not forsake her,” Alex said, gazing at her warily.

“So ’tis a lass… what’ve you named her?”

“Katherine…”

For a moment, Jane was confused. Why would he name his bastard for her sister?

“In my mother’s memory,” he added, as if reading her thoughts. “’Twas Jean’s wish.”

“Suits the saucebox, I’m sure,” Jane replied bitterly, the hurt she thought she had subdued doubling over on itself. “The Christies and the Marshalls have always licked boots in this house!” A silence ensued. At length, Jane broke it. “I will not stay under the same roof with Jean Christie,” she announced dully.