A Scottish Love (13 page)

Of all the subjects in the world, the last one she wanted to discuss was Bruce, but she forced a smile to her face and answered him. Perhaps a bit of truth would dissuade him from continuing the subject any further.

“My husband had been ill for some time,” she said, staring down at her plate.

“You’re not a bad-looking woman,” he said, a comment that had her gaze jerking up to meet his. He was regarding her over the top of his glass.

St. Gertrude and all the saints. Was he
interested
in her?

Fergus began to cough, but she didn’t dare look over at him. Her brother was trying not to laugh. And Helen? Helen was looking as shocked as she felt.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Have you no plans to marry again?”

She shook her head, desperately focusing on her glass of wine. If she drank all of it right down, would she become tipsy immediately? She didn’t dislike the feeling, and it might fog the evening substantially so that she could deal with Mr. Loftus.

“Are you married, Mr. Loftus?” Helen asked, smiling brightly as if she didn’t know the question was almost vulgar and, at any other gathering, unpardonably rude.

However, the Americans seemed very direct people and this dinner had been different from the beginning.

Mr. Loftus merely glanced at Helen. “I’ve been a widower for many years, ma’am.”

“Please call me Helen,” she said. Another gaffe, one that the American didn’t seem to note.

Was all propriety to be set aside for the duration of their visit? If so, she might as well stand, throw her napkin down on her chair, and stomp off, intent on her room. Except, of course, that she was desperate to sell Gairloch, which meant she had to remain in place, like the queen on a chessboard.

Thank God for Helen.

At the moment, she was smiling toothily at Mr. Loftus, such a blinding gesture of goodwill that the man put his glass of whiskey down and stared at her in return. The look wasn’t entirely complimentary, more in the lines of someone who’d spotted an oddity in his environment.

“My mother was an absolutely beautiful woman,” Miriam announced, looking directly at Helen.

Even the most charitable person couldn’t label Helen beautiful, but she was kind, and that virtue meant more than looks.

“What was her name?” Shona asked. Another insipid question, one more designed to deflect Miriam’s wrath than any curiosity on her part.

Miriam turned to her and gave her a look of such incredulity that she might as well have been one of the stable cats given the power of speech.

Without answering, Miriam turned back to her father. “Must we speak of dead people?” she asked.

Shona had the most incredible wish to slap the young woman silly.

Fergus took the opportunity to interject a comment, no doubt because he’d seen the look in her eyes.

“Do you find Scotland interesting, Miss Loftus?”

“It’s a very odd place,” Miriam said. “Quite empty. And you all speak strangely.”

Fergus smiled, but the expression was a little thin.

“Were you a nurse in the Crimea?” Shona asked, turning toward Elizabeth.

“I understand you have no boiler at Gairloch,” the nurse replied. “What is the most convenient method to obtain hot water here?”

“Merely use the bellpull,” she said, fervently hoping mice hadn’t eaten through the wires. “Someone will bring you what you need.”

The nurse nodded. “As for the Crimea,” she said, abruptly standing, “I was with Miss Nightingale’s nurses.” For the first time, she looked directly at Fergus. “I don’t remember you,” she added before turning to her employer. “I’ll go and ready your room for the night, sir.”

With that, Elizabeth left.

The entire dinner party had taken on the aspects of a nightmare. Perhaps she was truly asleep, having fallen, exhausted, onto a newly freshened mattress. She closed her eyes, counted to ten, then opened them again to find that nothing had changed.

Fergus was smiling at Miriam, the expression curiously unsettling. She knew the effort her brother was making, just as she’d known the nurse had been lying.

E
lizabeth Jamison escaped upstairs, running as if a monster were chasing her. Of all the places in the world to come but to his home. To have to sit across the table from him and wonder about the signs of pain at the corners of his mouth, to see the blankness of his eyes when he looked at her.

She’d been counseled, too many times, that men form an attachment for a nurse in the field. A nurse takes the place of mother, sister, lover, friend, she’d been told. Much care should be given not to reciprocate affection in any way, so as not to form a bond based on illness and recovery.

He’d been the talk of the ward, the officer in charge, the one who’d kept everyone’s spirits up, even in the worst of times. When another brave soldier had died, he was the one to speak to his men. He was the one who’d refused to allow them to sink into despair, joking with some, listening to others. He’d been there every day he could, their leader, brother, and comrade in arms.

Who wouldn’t love him?

She wasn’t the only nurse to have fallen under his spell and now, here he was, and here she was, at his home.

She opened the door to Mr. Loftus’s room and closed it behind her, leaning her head against the wood. She needed to be calm, to show nothing of what she felt.

Otherwise, she was very much afraid she might begin to cry.

Chapter 10

G
ordon headed toward the Invergaire Works. Instead of the carriage this morning, he’d chosen one of the horses he’d purchased in Inverness and sent on to Rathmhor. The mare was young, restless, and the perfect mount, untrained enough to keep his attention and possessing a gait that made the journey enjoyable.

The clouds skimmed over the sky as if blown by God in a fit of temper. The heather shivered in a cascade of purple against green. The grasses stood proudly, almost in regimental order, saluting the wind as it passed.

Both Gairloch and Rathmhor were nestled in a glen framed by Ben Lymond on the northern side, and Loch Mor on the southern. To the east was Invergaire Village, where clan members too numerous to live in Gairloch proper went to live in times of peace. To the west, the Invergaire Works formed the fourth side of the square.

Invergaire Village had been a cooperative venture. When the time came for a member of the Imrie Clan to turn away from his warlike ways, he was given a small parcel of land by the laird. He could use it to his own benefit by farming it or raising cattle.

A hundred years ago, several of the old ones banded together, each surrendering a portion of his land to create a common area for all of them. Thus was Invergaire Village formed, on the north edge of Loch Mor. The villagers, none of whom was bound by allegiance to the Imries after the Forty-five, nevertheless treated the laird and his family with fondness and respect.

Around the same time, his ancestor Brian MacDermond had uprooted his clan and come to the Highlands. He’d disappeared a few years later, never to be seen again. A feud had begun when his family demanded that the Imries explain Brian’s absence. The discord had lasted for years, until memories faded. Somehow, the fate of Brian MacDermond hadn’t seemed cause enough to continue the feud with the powerful Imrie Clan.

For decades, the Imries and MacDermonds had been friends, the echoes of that long ago dispute being revived only on ceremonial days. The Laird’s Day, for one, when the Laird of Gairloch paid tribute to the elders of Invergaire Village and to the MacDermonds. A way of accepting blame for Brian’s disappearance while never admitting to causing it.

What would Fergus offer this year? Would his tribute have to be larger because he’d missed the ceremony for a number of years? He’d been off fighting for the Empire, giving his talents to the army.

One of a countless number of men ready to die for his country.

As a colonel of the Ninety-third, Gordon’s movements and behavior had been controlled by his orders and his superiors. As a Scot, the MacDermond of Rathmhor, his life was constrained by tradition and expectations.

His father had expected a great many things from him, and for the most part, Gordon had delivered. He’d followed his father’s way for the majority of his life, his path veering from the general’s only in the last months.

Sometimes, he wondered if the old man had died when he had to spite him, a last act of repudiation. Two nights before the general’s death, he’d informed his father of his plans, as well as the fact that he’d surrendered his commission. The resultant attack of temper had been enough to stop anyone’s heart. His father had made his displeasure known as loudly as possible, then proceeded to renounce his son.

Part of the general’s annoyance might have been the fact that Gordon was the legal owner of the Works, the companies he’d inherited from his maternal grandfather when he was still a boy. Or the fact that there wasn’t a damn thing he could do to stop Gordon.

As a child he’d feared the general. As a man, he’d loathed him.

White clouds boiled on the horizon, prefaced by an advancing army of white streaks. A perfect September day in the Highlands, the breeze carrying a hint of chill.

The Invergaire Works, some seventy-five years old now, had once provided employment to the inhabitants of Invergaire Village, those who didn’t have a yen for sheep, farming, or kelp drying and harvesting.

They’d produced gunpowder in the building for decades. But the Works had shut down while he was in India. Too many problems, not enough employees, and poor management had rendered it a liability.

However, the Glasgow factories were still producing black powder, shipping it worldwide. Some of the bullets that had grazed him in the two wars he’d fought might well have come from his own factory.

A bit of irony that he’d shared only with Fergus.

He was damn tired of war. But countless graveyards were filled with men who hated war. If a man wanted to survive, he killed. If he wanted to win, he destroyed. The only thing good about war was its end. The best commanders understood that.

If he could accomplish what he wanted, the Works would be greatly changed in purpose and expanded in people.

The red brick building was three stories tall, with two enormous smokestacks sticking out of the roof. The windows were black with dust and powder, the weeds nearly overgrowing the walk and the steps up to the door.

On the second floor, tall windows allowed natural light to stream into the work floor, since oil or gas lamps would have been too dangerous to use around the gunpowder.

He opened the iron door and stood just inside, the smell curiously that of spices and herbs, not charcoal, sulphur, or potash.

Once, two dozen people had labored here, earning a good living, if a hazardous one. But only one explosion had ever occurred here, and that was a result of an error in mixing the powder’s formula. Thankfully, no one had died, and those who’d been hurt had only minor injuries. But the entire west wall had had to be rebuilt, as well as a portion of the roof.

The manager’s office was located at the east end of the building and equipped with a large window so that he might oversee the work on the floor. Since the position had been vacant for nearly a year, he expected the office to be empty as well.

Instead, Rani Kumar waved his hand at him without looking up. “Providence has delivered you here just when I need supplies.”

He smiled.

Today, Rani was dressed in the European fashion—trousers, shirt, vest, and a jacket hanging on a nearby hook. Although he’d eschewed his more comfortable tunic and pants for European attire, in other ways, Rani hadn’t changed in the months since Gordon had seen him. He was still short and slight, his black hair straight and hanging chin-length. Still given to an unconscious autocracy.

“Do you have eyes on top of your head?” he asked.

“I saw you through the window,” Rani said, finally looking up from his notes. His gaze was a direct and unflinching brown-eyed stare. He finally smiled, moving from his perch on the stool to clasp Gordon on both arms.

“It’s good to see you, my friend.”

“And you, Rani. Was the voyage tolerable?”

Rani moved his head from side to side, a gesture to mean that it was neither horrible nor pleasant but somewhere in between. As a Hindi, Rani had perfected an enduring silence about most things, which meant he was inscrutable to most of the British East India Company with whom he’d worked for years.

A native of Hyderabad, one of the states that hadn’t joined the Sepoy Rebellion, Rani had been instrumental in providing supplies to the company Gordon had commanded in India. He’d long suspected that Rani had been a prince in Hyderabad, or at least closely aligned with one. His education was the equal of—or surpassed—his own, and his mannerisms sometimes indicated a man annoyed by underlings.

Or perhaps that was just Rani’s reaction to the daily prejudice he endured.

“He’s
foreign,
sir.” How often had he heard one of his own sergeants say that?

As a Scot, he’d experienced the prejudice himself. Perhaps that, more than anything else, had made him come to Rani’s defense initially. Doing so had led to a friendship, conversation, and a mutual interest in what might become a joint discovery.

“How long have you been here?” he asked now.

The other man moved back to his stool, waving his hand in the air again. “Two months only.”

“You should have sent word.”

“It is of no account, Gordon. I have been very comfortable.”

He looked around the office. “You haven’t been sleeping here, I hope?”

Rani shook his head, smiling. “I have a very nice room in a house run by a very understanding lady of Scotland.”

Which meant that his landlady had not shown him any overt prejudice. They’d had numerous discussions on each nation’s intolerance. The East Indians he’d met hadn’t been enamored of his country, either.

“I’m a Scot, Rani. In Scotland a man is valued for who he is. The more independent, the better.”

The other man had only smiled when he said that. Another discussion they’d had numerous times.