The Heart Queen (2 page)

She’d screamed and Janet had interfered, placing herself between Alasdair and the children. He’d gone red with rage.

“I’ll do as I wish with my children.”

“No,” she said. She’d held her tongue so many other times. She’d realized defiance only spurred his bouts of rage. But she would rather be the focus of his rage than a child who didn’t even know what she’d done wrong.

“No?” he’d replied, his voice friendly. But she knew what lay beneath it.

His hand clenched her arm painfully and he dragged her into his room. They didn’t share the same room, for which she thanked God. She had an adjoining room, and she was more than aware of the women he took to his chamber. She was grateful each time because that meant he wouldn’t enter hers.

She’d made an art of keeping out of his way, and more importantly keeping the children out of his sight. But this time they’d darted out the door, eager for a promised picnic. Janet had not realized Alasdair had returned from a hunting party.

He threw her on the bed. “You will never say no to me again,” he said, as he flicked the crop still in his hand. “You have never learned your place, Jacobite bitch.”

Her blood froze at the words. The last year had been a horror in the highlands. After the Battle of Culloden, every Jacobite family had been hunted and persecuted. Her brother had died fighting for Prince Charlie and her father’s lands and properties had been taken, but not before he’d died trying to protect them.

She’d had no one to protect her then, no one who really loved her. No one but three little girls, ages five, six, and seven.

And a memory. A memory of a lovely sun-kissed day.

She’d hung onto that as he’d torn clothes from her, as the crop fell over her shoulders, then across her breasts, and finally her back. Then he’d taken off his own clothes and dropped down on her, oblivious to the pain of her body. Oblivious and uncaring.

She tried to think of something else as he used her. She thought about leaving him, but where could she go with four children under the age of eight? How could she care for them? Feed them? Clothe them? She could leave on her own, but then what of the children? Alasdair would never let his son go. He’d comb the entire country before relinquishing his heir. The lasses meant nothing to him. They were lasses, worthless. But her son ... he was something to mold into his image.

Over her dead body.

Or his.

And he’d known it. His eyes had narrowed after he’d left the bed.

“You haven’t learned obedience to your lord yet, my dear. How many lessons do you require, stupid wench?”

She’d glared helplessly at him just as a knock came at the door.

Alasdair opened it to MacKnight, his valet. He had a bottle of brandy on a tray. His eyes widened as she frantically tried to cover up her body with torn clothes.

“A little lesson, MacKnight. One you need to remember if you are so foolish as to marry.”

Janet had learned two years earlier not to give Alasdair the satisfaction of tears. But as the door closed, she said, “Someone is going to kill you someday.”

“A threat, my dear?”

“Nay, a promise, if you hurt the children again.”

“I will do as I wish with my children. You will not interfere again. I will expect you at supper this evening. I have some guests.”

He left then, the door closing behind him with deceptive softness.

Janet lay still for a moment, her body aching from his abuse. She refused to cry. That would give him power. Even if he was not there to see it. After several moments, she rose, dressed painfully, then went to see the children.

The lasses were huddled in the corner, and her son was screaming. Fixing a smile on her face, she’d told them they would have a picnic the next day. She soothed her son, feathering his face with kisses. When he’d finally calmed, she put him down in his bed and helped the lasses into their nightclothes. She stayed to tell them a story and sing a lullaby. Finally, their eyes closed.

She sat next to her son, watching him sleep. Less than a year old and he already flinched at the sight of his father. She feared that one day Alasdair would lose his temper and seriously hurt one of the children. She’d seen him do that to a puppy that wandered in his way. She’d nursed it, found it a good home. She’d never allowed the children another pet.

She swallowed hard . .. and thought of Neil Forbes, of how different she’d once believed her life would be. But then she’d been nineteen, and believed love really existed. She’d believed in his gentleness, in his kisses, in his awkward but seemingly honest words, the sweet explosiveness between them. She’d been ready to give up everything for him. The disillusionment had been bitter and long lasting.

He’d had little then. And he had not been willing to settle for what little dowry she would bring. Now he was one of the wealthiest men in Scotland. He’d inherited the title of Marquis of Braemoor after the death of his cousin at the hands of the notorious Black Knave. His lands had expanded through his cousin’s marriage. He was said to have the ear of Butcher Cumberland.

He hadn’t needed her at all.

But he hadn’t married. She knew that. There had been talk of trying to interest him in her husband’s younger sister. Braemoor had rebuffed all overtures. He obviously was hoping for an even more advantageous marriage.

He could have anyone in Scotland now. Not only was he wealthy, but he also cut a fine figure. She remembered his height, his raven hair that had curled around her fingers, the dark eyes that were always cautious until they looked into hers.

She shook her head of the memories. He had not been what she had thought. He was probably no better than her husband.

Then why did he haunt her dreams so?

Loneliness sliced through Neil as sharply as the blade tore through the meat on the table at the wedding party.

He stood in a corner and watched the merriment as one of his tenants danced with his new bride. A fiddler played a lively tune and ale flowed like a river.

He would leave soon. He knew he was not an enlivening influence on the celebration. He knew he was respected though not particularly liked. He’d been alone too long, wary too many years to relax and enjoy the company of others.

It was one of his greatest regrets. Only recently had Neil discovered how deep his cousin’s friendships had run, what great loyalty he’d inspired. Neil had learned that all too late. He wished now he’d looked behind his cousin’s outer facade to the man beneath.

Rory, Neil knew, would have felt right at home here where he—well—felt like an intruder.

He’d felt an intruder all his life, even now that he was Marquis of Braemoor. It was a position that he’d always wanted and even thought should be his. He’d thought he cared more for the land and people than Rory had. In truth, Neil now knew it was he, Neil, who hadn’t had the slightest idea of honor or courage or commitment.

In the months since Rory’s supposed death, Neil had tried to rectify his own life, to make it mean something, but he didn’t know how to make a friend, or keep one. He didn’t know how to relax over a tankard of ale. When he tried, he’d been
discomfited and knew everyone with him was, too.

And so he maintained his distance. He tried to do the right thing by his tenants, keeping them on the land rather than evicting them as so many other landlords were doing. The last vestiges of the clan system had been broken at Culloden Moor. Clearances were common. He had to pay heavy taxes to the crown to keep the land, which meant he had to produce revenue. Like others, he’d turned some land over to grazing, but he’d tried not to turn anyone out.

The tenants knew that. Still, he realized he was never going to be their friend.

He gazed around at the whirling figures. No bagpipes. They’d been outlawed by Cumberland, as had been plaids. Instead, the men wore rawhide brogans and cheap breeches.

The music stopped and the dancers huddled in small groups, none of them near him. He sighed, then forcing his lips into a smile went up to young Hiram Forbes and handed him a small purse. “For you and your bride,” he said.

The girl curtsied and Hiram looked surprised, then pleased. “Thank ye, my lord.”

“I wish you many bairns,” Neil said, even as he felt the emptiness in his own soul, in his life. He would never have bairns, nor a wife looking at him as the young lass looked at her new husband. ‘Twas obviously a love match, and he ached inside that he could never see that look again.

Once. He’d seen it once
. He’d seen himself in eyes shining with love, and he’d felt ten feet tall. He’d never felt that way since.

He turned and walked away, well aware that no one asked him to linger. He mounted his waiting horse, Jack. Back to the tower house?

That was a lonely thought. Since Rory and his wife, Bethia, left, the life seemed drained from the stone structure. On a rare impulse, he headed Jack toward the loch up beyond the hill, the one where he’d met Janet years earlier. Nine years and three months earlier, to be exact. She was married now, to a Campbell. She had a son.

The thought brought a familiar ache to his heart. He’d kept up with the gossip about her. He’d heard that her brother had fallen at Culloden where he’d fought for Prince Charlie. He knew that her father had died shortly afterward and that all his estates had been forfeit. He also knew that Janet’s husband had not received the Leslie estates, probably because he had not joined Cumberland at Culloden. Instead, they’d reverted to the king who had awarded them to an Englishman who
had
fought with him.

He’d remember how much she’d loved her father. Unfamiliar with prayer, he nonetheless had stopped in the small chapel next to the tower house and prayed for her and the man he’d once hoped would be his father-in-law. He doubted whether God had heeded his prayer; he’d not been practiced at such an undertaking. And he had his own doubts about the value of prayer and even the very existence of God. He’d seen too much cruelty, too much inequality, too much killing. If God permitted such injustices, then what use was He?

Still, for Janet’s sake, he’d tried.
Little enough
.

It was very late afternoon when he reached the loch. The sun was setting, spreading streaks of color across a cinnamon sky. The last rays colored the loch with a sprinkling of gold and the surrounding hills were dark with heather.

The quiet serenity of the Highlands usually quenched the ache inside him. Tonight, it sharpened the pain, deepened it until it overtook everything he was. It smothered him. He saw Janet Leslie, her brown hair framing a serious yet delicate face, her eyes banked with quiet fires of passion. He saw the shy smile, thought of the sweetness of her touch, remembered how it had turned sensuous, yet never lost its gentleness.

God, how he longed for her, for someone to touch, to talk to, to share the simple pleasure of a sunset.

“You and me, Jack,” he said to the horse. He’d named the beast as a reminder of Rory. The stallion was as duplicitous as his cousin—calm one moment, all rebellion the next. Wild and longing to be free.

Everything Neil wanted to be but couldn’t. He was grounded in responsibility, in practicality.

Rory’s disguises from his days as the Black Knave were still hidden in a cottage now abandoned. Neil knew he should destroy them, but he’d never quite been able to do so. They represented something to him, a reminder that never again should he judge another human being so heedlessly.

He watched the sunset fade into dusk. A mist rose over the lake, softly eclipsing it.

He turned Jack toward Braemoor and thought again of Rory. Would he ever be as courageous as his cousin? As bold? Even as honorable? Or was he just fated to plod along, waiting for the madness that had overtaken his mother?

He walked Jack down the treacherous path back to rolling land, then mounted. He urged the animal into a trot, then a canter and finally a gallop. He wanted to leave the ghosts behind.

But he knew they would always lurk deep inside.

Alasdair Campbell, the Earl of Lochaene, died in the wee hours of a Friday. He died in agonizing pain.

Janet had been summoned by a servant and hurried to his bedside. His mother and one of his brothers were at his side.

“The physician has been summoned,” Alasdair’s mother, the dowager countess, said.

The earl was no longer handsome. His face was pale and distorted, his hair lank, his body twisted with agony. He screamed with pain.

“Dear God,” Janet whispered. “What happened?”

The dowager countess, Marjorie, looked at her with suspicion in her eyes. “He was well earlier.”

As mistress of Lochaene, Janet had often attended sick and wounded members of the household. She’d done the same back at her own home.

She was alarmed at the white in her husband’s eyes, the obvious pain he felt. For all his faults, Alasdair was not one to moan. If he said he was sick, he was really sick. She recalled her thoughts three days earlier. She’d wanted him dead.

But now faced with just that, she knew she didn’t want it at all. She did not want to be responsible for another’s death, even that of one she despised.

She had no idea, though, what was wrong with him. His servant said he’d been sick since last evening with pain in his stomach, that he’d been vomiting.

Marjorie glared at her. “What did you do to him?”

A chill ran down Janet’s back. “Nothing. I have not seen him today, and he was fine yesterday.”

“Exactly,” the dowager countess said. “Nigel said you were in his room yesterday when he took up a tray.”

Janet nodded. Her husband had been drinking. He’d commanded her presence along with another bottle of brandy after a day of hunting with his brother, Reginald. She’d been forced to stand as he had steadily drunk its contents, as he’d recounted all her failures as mistress, wife and mother. He’d then ordered her to his bed, but thank God he’d passed out before he could do anything. She’d left, retreating to the safety of her own chamber after checking the children. Colin had been awake, staring solemnly up at her from the cradle she’d insisted on keeping in her room. She distrusted Molly, the woman her husband had employed to care for the children. The woman, Janet thought, had been employed more to keep her husband’s bed warm rather than to take care of the children.