Borrowed Dreams (Scottish Dream Trilogy) (43 page)

The groom touched her arm. “His
lordship is here, m’lady.”

Millicent looked up from the bank
of the river and saw Lyon’s carriage stopped behind the one that had carried
her down here. Lifting the edges of her muddy cloak, she trudged up the
mud-slick ground toward her husband.

As she drew nearer, Peter Howitt
immediately stepped out of the carriage and hurried down to assist Millicent up
the muddy slope. 

“Is there anything I can do for you
here, m’lady?” the young man asked eagerly.

“I would be grateful if you would
arrange for these empty baskets to be taken back to the kitchens. They need to
be filled and brought back--with more blankets as well.”

“I shall see to it immediately.”

Stepping up to the carriage door,
Millicent took one look at Lyon’s outstretched hand before her tears began to
fall. He pulled her inside and into his arms. The door of the carriage closed
behind them, and she sobbed against his cloak, lost to her heartache over the
misery outside.

“Certainly not the beautiful Scotland that you hear about, is it, my love?”

“It is so sad, Lyon.” She wept.
“These people have been stripped of everything. What is waiting at the end of
the road looks to be nothing either. They’ve been torn away from their kin,
their land, their homes. And still, they are so proud.”

Lyon gathered her tightly against
his chest, placing kisses against her hair. “These are a strong people, my
love. They come from folk who survived the rough wooing of King Henry and his
English raiders. They’ve fought off reivers and marauding armies and treachery
of all kinds. Now these folk have been pushed out by the very people who have
grown fat on their labors. But they are strong and proud, as you say. And with a little help from compassionate ones like you, they’ll survive this, too.”

He drew her face up and brushed
away the tears. “But you cannot let yourself fall apart like this anytime you
come down here. These people need you to be strong, too. I need you.”

Millicent kissed him, knowing at
that moment that she had never loved anyone or anything as she loved this man.

The carriage rolled gently toward
the house. When he broke off the kiss, she still could not stop the tears from
falling.

“There was something else.”

She nodded and closed her eyes to
block out the image of the young girl beneath the cart. But it wouldn’t go
away.

“There is a young woman out there
with no husband, no kin. She is about to have a baby.”

“You could have brought her back to
Baronsford.”

Millicent shook her head. “I tried.
She’ll not come. But it is so sad. Why must it be like this? These people—these
landowners—pushing their people out. These are their own countrymen. Their own
clan folk, they tell me. How can we inflict this kind of injustice on another
human being?”

Lyon lifted her chin and touched
her face. His eyes glistened.

“That party is only three days
away. That is our best chance to reach these landowners. We cannot change the
minds of every one of them, the same way that we cannot save every poor vagrant
out there. But we shall try. You and I together will do our best to make a
difference.”

“It was bad enough that every
member of this household was walking upon eggshells for the past few days, but
now you assign a personal protector to watch over me as if I do not know to
behave appropriately, or to dress properly, or to be at the right place at the
right time.” Millicent shifted her glare from Lyon to his secretary, who was
standing right outside the closed carriage door, waiting for her to come out.

“I have no such concern. You are
misinterpreting this entirely.” Lyon took hold of her chin and drew her gaze
back to him. “And the only reason why I am sending Howitt along is to get him
off my back. He is more nervous about me not behaving properly tonight than
Truscott and Campbell and Mrs. MacAlister, together.”

“Well, if you were an agreeable,
good-natured, polite, and soft-spoken gentleman, none of these people would be
so concerned, now, would they?”

He smiled at her. “Let the bloody
wretches take their chances. You love me as I am, and that is enough.”

Millicent looped her arms around
her husband’s neck, drawing her face near his. “This is a very dangerous
relationship we have,” she whispered. “You only say a few words, and you can
have your way with me.”

“You come back sooner from your
visit of the vagrants along the river, and you and I might be able to retire to
the library, or to our bedroom for an afternoon rest. Then I can work on
perfecting other methods of having my way with you.”

His mouth followed up immediately
with a kiss, and Millicent was lost in the taste and texture and heat of their
mating lips and tongue. She pulled back slightly to catch her breath.

“I think you have mastered the
technique very well, in any case.”

His hand reached under her cloak. “But there are a few other skills I still need to work on.”

She leaned into his touch. “I was
told the guests might be arriving anytime from the early afternoon on.”

“We’ll just let that nervous flock
of titmice at Baronsford entertain the bloody intruders until we are ready for
them.”

He drew her more tightly against
him, and Millicent relished the feel of his lips grazing her neck. Then she
looked over her shoulder and found Howitt standing at a respectful distance
from the carriage, moving impatiently from one foot to the other.

“I think your secretary is anxious
for us to get started.”

“Remind me to dismiss the scoundrel
tomorrow.”

“I’ll do that.”

Millicent still had stars dancing
in her eyes when she stepped out of the carriage and stood waiting for it to
drive away toward the village. She still had not told him anything of her
pregnancy, but the news would wait until after the party tonight. A second
carriage, which had carried more food and Howitt and couple of the servants,
was parked on the road a few steps away.

“I promised Mrs. MacAlister to get
you back by noon, m’lady,” the young man said, having already lined up the
servants with baskets of food to distribute. “So perhaps if we start in
different directions and—”

“That would be just fine. But before we begin, you will explain to me why you are so uneasy.” She stood before him, refusing
to move.

“Why…nothing, m’lady.” He was
avoiding her eyes. “This uneasiness you refer to is just one of my many flaws—”

“Stop right there, Mr. Howitt,” she
scolded quietly. “The entire household is a wreck, and you know it. Has the
king been invited without telling me?”

The young man’s gaze met hers
nervously.

“I am much easier to deal with when
I am
told
what the problem is.”

He let out an agitated breath. “The
truth of it is, mum, the last time Baronsford was preparing a gathering of this
magnitude was the day…well, the day of the accident.”

Millicent should have guessed. With
Lyon injured, and Emma dead, there was no reason to celebrate after that
terrible day. And more than a few members of the household at Baronsford were probably feeling a little superstitious.

“In spite of the tragic events of
that day,” the secretary continued, “many of the guests who stayed on that
night behaved in a fashion that was less than genteel.”

“Whispering about what had
happened?”

“Speaking openly of scandal,”
Howitt said flatly. “That is why we are all determined to make this night so
perfect. Begging your pardon, we understand and support what you and his
lordship are trying to do. At the same time, we would like to show these people
that Baronsford has not suffered from the previous countess’s death. We’d like
to show them that since your arrival, we are faring even better than before. We
should like these guests to see how fortunate we are to have you.” 

“I am honored, Mr. Howitt, by your
words.” Millicent fought back tears and tried to calm her emotions. “We shall
all do our best. So let us, then, be off. We shall see to our mission here and
be on our way back to Baronsford with plenty of time to ready ourselves. We
shall be back before they expect us.”

As she turned toward the muddy
river, Millicent never imagined that so soon after speaking those words she
would be forgetting the hour, the day, and the guests. Her lapse in memory came
just as she came upon the cart belonging to the old woman, and asked about the girl
Jo.

****

The burly, muddle-headed Earl of
Dumfries had taken it on himself to show up far earlier than everyone else at Baronsford. After two hours of being closed up with him in the library, listening to the man’s
whining, Lyon was ready to pick up his favorite pistol and shoot him squarely
between his squinty black eyes. He refrained, however, unwilling to ruin the
library’s handsome Persian carpet.

Though he was in large part
responsible for much of the problem in the Borders, he sulkily argued that if Lyon were to speak tonight for the protection of the land and its tenants, then he would be
unfairly represented as a villain before their peers.

Just as Lyon was about to tell the
earl that he was a fat, jabbering mealworm, Walter Truscott appeared at the
door. The rest of the guests were beginning to arrive, and Lord Aytoun still
needed to get himself ready. He was surprised, though, when his cousin followed
the servants who carried him up to his dressing room.

“What’s wrong, Walter?” he asked.

“Millicent has not yet returned.”

“Howitt is with her.”

“I believe he is. We have seen no
sign of the carriage or the servants or the two of them.”

“Did you send someone to the
riverbank?”

“An hour ago. No news yet,” he said
with a frown. “I am riding down there myself right now. I don’t want you to
worry about anything. I shall bring her back. She must have been distracted and
lost track of the time.”

“Go,” Lyon snapped. “I need to know
she is safe. I don’t care a straw about the strutting popinjays coming here
tonight. I care only about
her
, Walter. Bring my wife back.”

*****

The doctor that Millicent had sent
Howitt to fetch from Melrose had come too late. Jo had died with her tiny,
tartan-swaddled daughter in one arm while her other hand had clutched Millicent’s.

The crowd of onlookers just stared.
No one whispered a word, and then most of them simply shook their heads and
turned away. Millicent didn’t attempt to mumble words of solace. It was a hard
world, and they knew it well.

From the few whispered words the
dying Jo had spoken before the end came, Millicent had pieced together an
understanding of what had happened to the young woman. It was a story of
suffering. It was a story of betrayal. 

She was relieved when Truscott
arrived. He knew what to do, and he took charge of the arrangements.

After what felt like a lifetime
later, Millicent found herself standing on the muddy bank of the river, holding
the sleeping bairn beneath her cloak, while her people wrapped Jo’s body and
carried it up to the village kirk.

The old woman who had shared her
cart with Jo stood next to Millicent. “Ye will take the bairn?”

“I believe that would be best.”

“Aye. Part o’ that lassie lives on
through her bairn. I heard her. What she whispered to ye about her life. Mayhap
someday the wee one’ll find justice for her mither.”

Perhaps someday. But not for a long time.

“Will you stay with us? Come back
to Baronsford. You can be there and watch her as she grows.”

The old woman shook her head. “Nay,
but thank ye. I may just come back, though, to see how ye’ve done by her.”

“You are always welcome,” Millicent
whispered.

She watched Truscott’s solemn face
as he came down the hill. She knew it was time to go.

In the carriage, Millicent pushed
back the cloak and gazed at the baby’s pale face. She admired the small tightly
fisted hands. She would do right by the child. She and Lyon would both cherish
her and raise her with their own.

Millicent nestled the bundle in her
arm more snugly against her chest. There were so many things that she needed to
tell her husband—about this new addition to their family, and about the other
one that was growing inside her now. She could hardly wait until everyone was
gone tonight.

“From the number of carriages and
horses and grooms in the courtyard and down by the stables,” Howitt said,
peering out the carriage window through the fading afternoon light, “it looks
as if most everyone has arrived.”

Truscott frowned. “We can pull the
carriage around to the side entrance if you wish. No one needs to know you have
returned until you’ve had a chance to change.”

“No,” Millicent said. “We will go
in the main entrance.”

She expected an argument, but he
surprised her by immediately relaying her wishes to the grooms.

“And everyone was hoping so
desperately to avoid another scandal,” she said to Howitt.

Walter Truscott leaned over and
touched her hand. “I shouldn’t worry too much about that, m’lady. You do as you
wish, and let them see what their greed is doing to innocent folk.”

The carriage stopped before the
impressive entrance of Baronsford. Truscott stepped out and assisted Millicent
from the carriage. She could hear the whispers even before reaching the open
doors. A few late arrivals stood just inside, shedding expensive cloaks and
hats. Millicent looked down at her mud-stained cloak, at the boots caked with
muck. 

“I can find my way from here,” she
told Truscott before going up the steps.

As Millicent stepped inside to the
bows of the surprised footmen, no introduction was made. Instead, an immediate
hush fell over those who were gathered in the entrance hall. Then like a giant
wave, the whispers rolled and spread into the other rooms, through the great hall
and the saloons and the ballroom. Then, like the calm before a storm, silence
once again fell. Even the musicians in the ballroom ceased their playing.