As High as the Heavens (36 page)

"Nay, I suppose ye don't." Robert gave a bitter laugh.
"Ye'll regret it, though. Colin won't like learning his older
brother has returned from the dead."

"Where is he, Gordon?"

Robert smiled thinly. "Below stairs in a locked and
well-guarded room."

"Take me to him then."

"As ye wish. One thing, though. He can't learn where
he is or who is holding him. Such knowledge would
endanger us all."

"Not to mention," Duncan added sarcastically, "ye'd
most likely then be forced to kill him."

"More the reason not to tell him aught, wouldn't ye
say?" Robert gestured to the door. "Now, if ye don't mind, I must dress. And I don't need ye gawking at me while
I do so."

When Duncan looked about to trade another insult with
her father, Heather took hold of his arm. "Come. We can
await him just as easily outside as within this room."

Duncan paused to shoot Robert Gordon one parting,
disdainful look, then silently followed Heather from the
bedchamber. Once outside with the door shut behind them,
however, he turned the full force of his rage on her.

"Hie yerself to yer own bedchamber," he said. "I don't
wish or need for ye to accompany me below stairs. What
I have to say to my brother, I prefer to say in private."

"But ye might need me to-"

"I'm not the imbecile ye and yer father seem to imagine I am. But ye risk much if Colin recognizes ye." He
turned Heather around to face her bedchamber door.
"And I tell ye true. I've had about all I can stomach of
ye and yer kind this night."

Heather whirled about, tears of anger flooding her
eyes. "Ye can be as cruel and pigheaded as my father.
Do ye know that, Duncan Mackenzie?"

"Duncan Stewart," he corrected her, his own eyes glittering with frigid wrath. "Now, hie yerself to yer room
and do so quickly."

"When can we speak next then?" Her tear-clogged
voice rasped hoarsely in the silent hallway. "We must
speak, must work this through."

He gave an uncaring shrug. "On the morrow mayhap.
Or, then again, mayhap never. It'll all depend on many
things, the least of which is will I even return alive from
Lochleven."

After a sleepless night that had finally ended in total
exhaustion at dawn, Heather woke early the next afternoon. As soon as the realization of the lateness of the
hour struck her, she sat up in bed, an anguished cry on
her lips.

Duncan!

Was it already three, when he was slated to ride out
for Lochleven? Had she missed her last chance to speak
with him before he left?

As her feet hit the floor a wave of nausea washed over
her, followed swiftly by a pounding headache. Heather
sat there for a moment, breathing deeply, before summoning all her willpower to rise and stagger across the
room. There, in the polished metal mirror hanging on
the wall over the clothes cupboard, she saw her swollen face and eyes, the pale, haggard complexion, the
haunted expression.

Shoving a hank of hair aside, she grimaced, then stuck
her tongue out at her watery reflection. "Och, verra good,"
she muttered in disgust. "Today of all days when it's vital ye appear yer best, ye instead look like ye've just been
dragged from the pit of some dungeon."

Irritation filling her, she glanced around, hoping Beth
would leap from some corner and come to her aid. But
Beth was nowhere to be seen, most likely downstairs
somewhere, thinking she was doing the best by her mistress in letting her sleep.

Briefly, Heather considered going after her maid, then
decided against that. By the time she dressed and found
Beth to come up and help her repair the damages last
night had wrought, Duncan might well be gone-if he
hadn't left already. Besides, in her present condition there
was little Beth could do for her at any rate.

After quickly cleaning up, Heather grabbed a simple,
pale green silk gown. Her glance snagged on the farthingale propped on the floor beside the cupboard. After a
fleeting consideration, she decided against taking the
time to don the whalebone hoop that would extend the
skirts of her gown outward into the currently fashionable
cone shape. Indeed, if the truth were told, she had eschewed that cumbersome piece of equipment after only
a few days at the Mackenzie cottage. And she couldn't
say she had missed it once since then.

A few minutes more and Heather was out the door and
hurrying downstairs. To her relief, she found Duncan in
the parlor, a cloth about his shoulders. Beth stood behind him, scissors in hand. For a long moment Heather
lingered in the doorway, gazing at them as she gave her
rapidly racing heart a chance to ease.

Then, shoulders squared, she marched into the room. "Good day, Duncan, Beth," Heather said, hoping the
slight quaver in her voice wasn't noticeable.

Duncan gave a start and turned in his chair. The glance
he sent her, however, was anything but warm or welcoming.

Beth shot her a quizzical look, her brow quirking as
she scanned Heather's appearance. "Don't say one word,"
Heather warned between gritted teeth as she walked over
and took the scissors from her maid. "Not one word."

"Do ye wish for me to stay and assist ye?" Beth fought to
hide a grin that twitched at the corners of her mouth.

"Aye, pray do," Duncan said.

"Nay, please go," Heather promptly contradicted him.
"And close the door behind ye, if ye will."

The maid looked from a scowling Duncan to her resolute mistress, then shrugged and walked from the parlor,
making a great show of closing the door behind her.
Heather stared after her, then turned back to Duncan.

"Well, do ye plan to finish me off with that"-he eyed
the scissors Heather had clenched in her hand-"or
are ye going to complete the cutting of my hair?" As
if either option were equally acceptable, he turned in
his chair and presented his back to her. "One way or
another, I've but an hour or so left until I must depart
for Lochleven."

"After how ye treated me last night," Heather muttered
as she moved to stand behind him, "mayhap I should
finish ye off."

"And precisely how did ye expect me to react, when
ye finally told me the truth ye'd been keeping from me
all these months?"

She grabbed a handful of his hair and began hacking at it with the scissors. Long, wavy locks of chestnut
brown, like so many leaves tumbling from the trees in
autumn, began to float languidly to the floor.

"Don't play games with me, Duncan Stewart. Ye know
what I'm talking about. Ye were inordinately cruel and
rude, not to mention particularly hard-hearted as well
as heartless."

He gave a disparaging laugh. "Cruel and hard-hearted
and heartless was I? Well, then I'm in good company."

"I know ye're hurt, angry, and even feel betrayed." As
she scissored away at his hair, Heather forced down her
own renewed swell of hurt and anger. "But can't ye see
that I was in an untenable position, having to choose
between ye and my father? As selfish as he is, I still love
him. Yet, in the end, I still chose ye. I went against my
father's wishes. I told ye the truth. Doesn't that count
for aught with ye?"

"Do ye know what my brother said to me last night?"
Duncan chose to reply instead. "Once he'd mastered
himself and overcome the initial shock of meeting a
man who was both brother and twin, he demanded I
prove my loyalty to him and the Stewarts by helping him
escape. When I refused, he called me a baseborn traitor and bastardly rogue, not worthy ever to call myself
a Stewart, much less his brother." He laughed again,
but this time the sound was bleak and bitter. "So, once
again I'm a man without a family or home. I'm also a
man who, in the end, I fear neither side ultimately will
wish to claim."

"Ye can't know that for sure." As she spoke Heather's hands flew, brushing, then cutting his hair until, beneath Duncan's lush mane, a neat, close-cropped, and
well-shaped head began to appear. "It was never Colin's
right to disown ye or deny ye what's legitimately yours.
Ye're the firstborn, after all. And once Mary returns to
power-

"And what if she doesn't?" Savagely, Duncan cut her
off. "What if, even if the rescue plot succeeds, she can't
regain her throne? What will become of me then?"

"If we're discovered, ye'll be an outlaw just like the
rest of us."

"An outlaw." He sighed in exasperation. "A fine choice
indeed-either to be a man without a family or an outlaw. Somehow, whether the queen's freed or not, I fail
to see what I gain."

"Ye'll still have me." Heather set aside the brush and
scissors and stepped back.

Duncan turned. "Will I, lass? I suppose, to yer way of
thinking, that'll make up for everything else I've lost."

His words slammed into Heather like a fist into her
gut. "It might if ye truly believed I didn't willingly betray
ye. It might if ye truly believed I loved ye."

He gave a despairing grunt and shook his head. "Aye,
if I could truly believe that, no matter what happens,
ye'd stand by me. Have ye given it much thought-the
kind of life ye'd have with me, I mean? Stewart though I
may be, I fear I've lost my only brother. Atop that, there's
no guarantee I'll regain title to my ancestral lands. And
that's the verra best that might happen."

Och, Duncan, Duncan, Heather thought, gazing down
at him and feeling as if, bit by bit, he was shredding her heart into tiny pieces. With his shorn hair he looked so
much like Colin now. He'd fool even Lady Douglas. But,
even if he and his brother stood side by side, dressed exactly
alike, I could still pick out Duncan without hesitation. He
is, and always will be, the man of my heart.

"I don't care what life holds for me, just as long as we're
together," Heather, stirred by her thoughts, proclaimed.
"I love ye. I want to be with ye. Isn't that enough?"

"For some, aye, it might be." He stared up at her, his
tormented gaze searing clear through her. "But ye've
been raised to a far different kind of life than I. It's past
time we both faced the reality of our situation. My way
of life, and what I might be able to give ye, most likely
won't improve. And ye need to be sure ye haven't let
yerself fall in love with me because ye imagined I'd one
day become the nobleman ye always knew me to be."

His words, even as they fell from his lips, stabbed
through Heather with the brutal force of a blade most
cruelly used. It took all of her willpower not to slap him
or burst out weeping.

"So, ye think, do ye, that I offered my love to ye fully
aware I might gain a fine name and family?"

He was no better, in the end, than her father or her
sister's husband, she thought, her anger rising apace
now with her pain. He held her in no higher esteem
than they had held their wives, imagining her capable
of guile and coldhearted manipulation. Indeed, she was
no more than some skulking cur to Duncan, ready to
turn at any moment and bite him.

Heather backed away, her horror and disillusionment
growing with each halting step she took. "But then, how could ye think otherwise? Ye were never able to overcome yer disdain for those of the nobility, were ye? And,
because of that, ye never really knew me. Ye never understood what really mattered to me. Indeed, I wonder
now if ye were ever even capable of a true and lasting
love."

Anger flashed in Duncan's eyes. He shoved back his
chair and rose.

"Have a care who ye accuse of what, madam. It wasn't
I who withheld information. It wasn't I who couldn't help
but make all decisions based on prior, secret knowledge."
Duncan gave a bitter laugh. "And yet ye dare accuse me
of not understanding, of not being capable of a true and
lasting love!"

"Ye'll never forgive me for not telling ye sooner, will
ye?"

To Heather's dismay, tears sprang to her eyes. Fiercely,
she blinked them away. Atop everything else, he wasn't
going to make her cry. She'd had her fill and more of
weeping over heartless, self-serving men.

"I was afraid of that," she gritted out past clenched
teeth, "and, in my cowardice and indecision, I hesitated
too long. But ye're just as wrong, in yer unbending, sanctimonious refusal to forgive me. Ye're just as wrong in
failing to see any other motive for my actions, save of
manipulativeness and self-interest."

"But that's the way of the nobility, is it not?" he countered with a snarl. "And are ye not yer father's daughter?
His loyal, obedient daughter?"

"Aye, I'm loyal and obedient." Heather's hands clenched at her side. "But I'm also honorable, and I try to follow
my heart and always do the right thing."

"Do ye now?"

"Aye, I do."

There was no point in continuing this conversation
further, Heather realized. A smothering sense of futility, of defeat, engulfed her. After last night, their emotions ran too high. Duncan's impending departure for
Lochleven only intensified everything they now felt and
said. Better to give him a time to cool his temper, to allow
him to reflect on what had happened, and pray that he
finally came to understand.