Elaine Coffman - [Mackinnons 06] (14 page)

He gave her a smile that she knew he did not feel. “How
about, ‘Keep looking’?”

“How many trunks are left?”

He sighed. “Only three.”

She gave him a comforting look. “I know how much time you’ve
spent going through those trunks. I’m sorry this is proving to be so fruitless
for you.”

“So am I.” He tilted his head to one side, and gave her the
once-over. His entire countenance changed. Gone was the sad, melancholy look.
In its place was one of amusement. He smiled.

The intensity of his gaze left her feeling flustered. “What
are you smiling at?”

“You.”

“Why?”

“Do you know, I think this is the first time I’ve seen you
with your face dirty.”

Her hand came up to brush her cheek.

“Other side,” he said. Then, coming to his feet, he moved to
stand in front of her. “Here, let me.” He took her hand and drew her to her
feet, then brought his thumb to his mouth and touched it with his tongue before
he wiped the smudge from her face.

His thumb was warm and smooth as satin as it touched her
cheek. A flutter of feeling washed over her, the blood pounding so hard in her
brain that it drove away all the reasons why she should not be standing here
with him like this; why she should not allow him to look at her as he was; why
she should not return the look, seductive as it was.

She could not help herself.

She found that one act so endearing and so much more
overpowering than anything more blatant, like a kiss. He had, after all, only
touched her cheek with his thumb, so why was her heart bouncing so painfully
against her ribs? And her clothes…why did they seem suddenly so horribly thin,
as if she could feel the warmth of his body against hers, which she knew was
crazy, since he wasn’t even touching her. How was it that her body burned in
many more places than the one had place he touched? She realized she was
learning things about herself for the first time.

Looking into his gentle eyes, she wondered what he would say
if she told him this was the first time she had allowed herself to think the
kind of thoughts she was thinking or to feel the kinds of things she was
feeling. The implications of it left her uncertain and unsure. To ease her
discomfort, she laughed, but feared it had come out more as a nervous sort of
twitter.

If it was a twitter, he was civilized enough to act as if he
had not noticed. He was so close, close enough that she could feel the warm
current of his breath, like a caress against her cheek.

“Do I look funny?” he asked.

“Aye,” she said, feeling suddenly shy, “you do. I’ve never
let a man do that before.”

“What?” he whispered, one long, slender finger coming up to
lift the wisps of hair and push them back, away from her face. “Wet his finger
to clean a smudge?”

“Aye,” she said, thinking it sounded dreadfully like a
croak.

He shrugged. “I was on the receiving end of such an act more
times than I can count. I suppose it comes natural to me.”

“You are so different,” she said, feeling herself drawn into
the warm space that separated their bodies.

“Different? How do you mean?”

“You are very manly, with all the typical attributes—you’re
tall and strong, your voice is deep, you’re brave, determined, and hardworking.
But there is also a soft side to you, a gentleness I’ve never seen in a man,
not even my grandfather.”

“And you find that odd?” he asked in a slow voice.

She began to feel weak from the powerful feelings he stirred
in her. It took great effort to respond, even greater effort to hide the way
she felt. Unable to look at him, she answered, “Aye, most men would go to great
lengths to hide such gentleness.”

He looked at her for a moment before putting his hand under
her chin, lifting her face to his. “I was taught that a man loses nothing by
being gentle. I can be hard and forceful when I need to be.”

She opened her mouth to respond to that, feeling her body
straining weakly toward him. What would it be like to give in, to sway against
him and close her eyes, to feel the soft press of his clothing against hers,
his hands beginning a courtship of her body? What would he think if she wrapped
her arms around him and began to stroke the firm, supple muscles of his back
and shoulders? Carried beyond herself, she pressed forward, feeling the need,
the desire to learn more about this wonderful man.

Suddenly, someone pounded frantically on the front door, and
the spell was broken.

“Damn!” he said.

Dazed, she looked up at him and saw the same confused
expression there that she was feeling.

“Cathleen…”

It was nothing more than a hoarse whisper, the sound of her
name, but it carried a wealth of implication. Her hand weakly found his chest
and lay there for a moment, as if she needed that connection to him.

The knocking came again, louder and harder this time, and
his face came hazily into focus. As if drugged in a state of
what-might-have-been, she could only murmur, “I…I wonder who…” as she turned
toward the door. “It isna my grandfather’s knock.”

“Do you want me to answer it?”

“No, I’ll get it,” she said, wondering if her legs were up
to the task of carrying her to the door.

She opened the door to see Alex Monzie, who appeared
terribly upset. He was panting and unable to speak for a moment. She stepped
outside. “What’s wrong?”

“‘Tis me ma, Miss Lindsay. She’s birthin’ the babe, but the
babe won’t come. Me pa went for the doctor, but he isna home, so he sent me to
fetch you. She needs help. Me pa’s afraid she might die. You must come. You
canna let her die.”

Cathleen’s heart began to pound. Her palms grew damp. For
the longest time she stood there, not really seeing Alex but her mother. She
closed her eyes, but still it was there: the ashen face; the smell of
perspiration; the agonized screams; the sticky warmth of blood seeping into her
clothes. Even now she could feel the bite of the metal buckle of her
stepfather’s belt cutting into her skin.
No. I canna. I canna…

“Miss Lindsay?” Alex looked at her, panic gripping his
features. “You’ll come? You willna let me ma die?”

“I canna,” she said, holding her hands up in front of her
and backing away. “Please. I canna. Dinna ask me.”

She turned to run, but Fletcher was there, taking her by the
arms. “Cathleen—”

“Dinna ask this of me!” she screamed. “I can’t do this! You
know I can’t!” She began to cry.

He drew her against him. “I won’t force you to,” he said,
stroking the back of her head. “Do you know where the doctor is?”

“Aye.” Her words were muffled against his blue shirt. “He
went to the Finlaysons’.”

Fletcher looked at Alex. “Do you know where the Finlaysons
live?”

“Aye.”

Releasing her, Fletcher said, “I’ll go with Alex. You go on
back inside.”

Cathleen stepped back into the doorway, hating herself for
her weakness, yet unable to do anything about it. It wasn’t fair. She did so
much for the people of Glengarry. She went whenever and wherever she was
needed. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for these people. Nothing.

Except this.

Trembling, she stood in the doorway and watched Fletcher and
Alex ride away. When she turned back inside and closed the door behind her, the
world around her seemed terribly small and very, very lonely.

The next day was surprisingly warm and sunny after the early
morning chill and mist had burned away, and Fletcher took advantage of it.

Standing beneath the branches of a grand old rowan tree, he
groomed his horse. Before long, his thoughts began to wander and he placed his
left arm on the gelding’s broad back, his chin resting against the back of his
arm, while the hand holding the brush lay idle a few inches away. He stared
over the gelding’s back, his gaze going beyond the paddock to rest on the line
of trees that rode the hills in the distance. After spending considerable time
thinking about Cathleen, his mind had wandered some five Scottish miles away to
Glengarry Castle.

“Apparently horses aren’t the only animals that sleep
standing up.”

The gelding snorted and sidestepped. Fletcher jumped,
whipping his head around, a startled expression on his face as he saw Cathleen,
who looked mighty bonny in a fetching color of blue violet.

“Are you going to brush your horse, or are you going to
think about it all day?” she asked, giving him a smile whose bittersweetness
tore through him.

Putting the brush down on the fence, he turned from the
gelding, giving him a slap on the rump to move him out of the way, then crossed
the paddock to where Cathleen stood on the other side of the fence. “I guess my
mind wasn’t on what I was doing.”

She looked away. “It didn’t look like it was on much of
anything.”

He was suddenly struck by how very alone she seemed, how
isolated in her solitary dignity. At the sight of her wrapped in her wounded
pride, he felt the stirring of his blood that always drew him to her. He
stepped closer, standing just on the other side of the fence from her, close
enough that he could touch her. “I was cogitating,” he said at last, realizing
the lunacy of his thoughts.

Her eyes told him that she too had been reflecting upon the
things that had happened yesterday, but her voice remained detached—yet with an
element of something else, which he could not identify. “Do you always think
standing on one foot with your eyes closed?” she asked. “What were you thinking
about?”

“I was thinking about last night.”

“Don’t,” she said, and he was aware that what he had been
hearing in her voice was shame. “There are no answers, and to search for them
would only leave you more confused.”

“And if I insisted?” he asked.

There was a silence, made more profound by the knowledge of
what had happened, the unexplained reasons why.

He broke the silence. “And if I insisted we talk about it,
Cathleen? What then?”

She closed her eyes, as if she could shut away what she was
thinking. It must have worked, for when she opened them, Fletcher saw that her
eyes were clear, showing no hint of what she was feeling inside, but even so,
her eyes brimmed with tears, although he knew she would not allow herself to cry.
“I would leave.”

He did not push it, but in the look that passed between
them, he realized that she was aware that something had changed between them.
She
will tell me. It may not be today, or even tomorrow, but it will happen. There
will come a time when she will tell me what I want to know.

Confident in this newfound knowledge, he changed the
subject. “I’ve been thinking of a way to get into Glengarry Castle.”

If Cathleen was surprised by his shift in topic, she did not
let on, but the look she gave him was one of displeasure. “Forget those kinds
of thoughts,” she said. “If there is anything Adair Ramsay is known for, it is
having plenty of his men about. The place is heavily guarded. It wouldna be a
good idea to try to get inside.”

“I agree…at least for the time being,” Fletcher said; then,
seeing the expression on her face, he asked, “Does that surprise you?”

“Aye. We rarely agree on anything.”

He chuckled. “Maybe this is a sign that I’m mellowing.”

She studied his face for a moment before she spoke. “I ken
there is another reason.”

He gave her a smile that said she was right. “All right. I’m
not ready to let Adair know what I’m up to.”

“You think he doesn’t know you are here?”

“Oh, he knows all right, but I’m hoping he does not know
why.”

“Humph! Suspicion is a dog that bites without a cause. It is
the companion of mean souls, and Adair has a verra mean soul.”

“Well, I’m hoping he doesn’t know. He may have his
suspicions, but until I act, he has no proof.”

“Between suspicion and proof falls the shadow, calmly
licking its chops.”

He raised his brows. “‘Licking its chops’? Now you surprise
me. I would have thought the granddaughter of a good and faithful minister
would have said,
‘God stands in the shadow, watching over his sheep’.
”

“Aye, He is there, but it has been my experience that man is
like a bee that finds itself trapped inside the house. It dashes itself against
the windowpane again and again, but God is less merciful than man. He never
opens the window.”

Fletcher felt a great sadness coming over him. Was there no
optimism, no hope in her? Had her past reached out with long, groping fingers
to control her future? Never had he met anyone so accepting of such a bleak
outlook, but then why should she not? She was a woman who had never known the
comforting guidance of a loving mother, the feel of Brussels lace at her
throat, the soft whispers of an ardent lover.

Her life had been as harsh and bleak as the windswept moors.
In spite of that, he could not leave things the way they were. “Perhaps that is
because He knows there is an open window nearby,” he said.

“All my windows are closed,” she said. “They always have
been.”

Without another word she turned away from the paddock and
began walking back toward the house. Climbing through the fence, Fletcher followed
her. Somehow he felt responsible for the loss of harmony between them, and that
made him feel a certain accountability, as if it were up to him to lighten her
spirits. “Cathleen, wait up!”

“I don’t need your good-humored efforts,” she said, not breaking
stride. “Leave me be.”

He came loping up beside her. “I’m afraid my motives are
more selfish than that. Will you give me a moment of your time?”

She stopped and breathed a deep sigh, as if his request were
a tremendous burden to her. “What is it?”

Fletcher paused for a moment. He knew he had to make this
good, for he would get this one chance and one chance only. “Have you ever seen
the cemetery at Glengarry Castle?”

She gave him a suspicious eye, but answered his question
readily enough. “Aye, but only to pass by.”

“Is it in a place I could get to easily—without being
spotted?”

“It’s behind the chapel, set off from the castle by a grove
of birch trees.”

“Well hidden?”

“Relatively so. Are you going there?”

“I am considering it.”

“I’ll come with you!” she said, excitement in her voice.

Now he had done it. Now things were not going as he had
planned. True, he had her mind off the painful past and bleak future, and onto
the curious present, but he could not allow her to come with him. But that, he
knew, would spoil her mood again.

Frustrated, he ran his fingers through his hair, considering
the options. Then he realized that no matter what, he could not risk taking her
along. “No,” he said, seeing the expected disappointment in her eyes. “You have
enough to keep you busy here.”

“But I could show you where it is. Otherwise you could be
searching for hours.”

“I will find it. I cannot involve you in this, Cathleen.”

She gave him a look he had never seen before, and her voice
was undeniably soft as she said, “I ken I am already involved. More than you
know.”

Before he could reply, she quickened her pace and turned
down the footpath to the garden, where the fawn—the one she had found in the
gorse bushes on the moor, lying beside its dead mother—was sticking its head
through the fence, its soft muzzle working frantically as it tried to get a
bite of something more tasty than grass.

She had her bright hair tied up with a ribbon that he had
not noticed before, due to the deep purple color that was difficult to see against
the glossy darkness of her hair. The sight of that ribbon reminded him of how
few treasures there really were in her life.

He watched her go to the fawn, which, seeing her, turned and
trotted to her. Hugging it, she dropped down in the grass and the fawn lay down
beside her in a limp heap of warmth, laying its head in her lap like a baby.

He was fascinated as he always was when he saw her with her
creatures. He felt his heat soften as the fawn began to nuzzle at the folds of
her skirts, butting its head with soft impatience. Cathleen reached down to pet
its head, as if knowing the fawn was asking for it, and presently the animal
lifted its head and looked around.

She had a way of communicating with wild things, like no one
he had ever seen. As he stood watching her with her fawn named Bathsheba, he
could not help wondering if this wasn’t what God really had in mind when He
created the animals and gave man dominion over them.

He saw Cathleen lean down and speak softly, in a language
only the two of them understood. The fawn turned its head, then lay it in her
lap again, and she, placing her cheek against the silky softness of its head.

What would it be like to have her turn to him for comfort
like that?

Cathleen stood at the kitchen window, watching Fletcher ride
off, knowing just where he was headed. She dried the last cup and put it away
before removing her apron and hanging it on the hook by the door.

She went into the parlor, where she thought her grandfather
was working on the Psalms, intending to tell him she was going visiting. She
found him in his favorite chair by the fire, fast asleep. Leaving him a note,
which she placed in his lap so he would not miss it, she went to her room to
change into her brown dress.

Next, she made her way to the paddock where her fat little
pony, Flora, stood munching a measure of oats. It was not much later that she
was trotting down the lane in the direction Fletcher had taken.

When she came to a fork in the road, she took the less
traveled one, cutting across an old stone bridge and riding by the mirrored
waters of the loch. It was a shortcut that she hoped would put her at Glengarry
Castle at about the same time as Fletcher.

Soon Glengarry Castle rose up out of the mists before her, a
grim reminder of a bitter past of wars and betrayal. The heavy, dark roof
seemed to frown at her. The scraping of stout oak branches against the stone
stronghold sent chills up and down her back. A breeze stirred the trees and
sent the iron gate creaking. Cathleen shuddered and urged her pony forward,
taking note as she passed of the lamps burning dim in the library windows.

And all about her, the darkness gathered, seeming eager to
press in. Keeping to the trees, she took a long, raw, uneasy breath, circling
the great gray stone fortress, riding around to the back where the cemetery lay
near the chapel.

Riding over gravel paths and dew-sparkled grassy slopes, she
passed the place where Fletcher had left his horse and kept on going, leaving
her pony some distance from Fletcher’s gelding, since she did not want the two
to start nickering at each other and attract attention.

Several minutes later she was slipping through the birch
trees behind the chapel. When she reached the clearing where she could see the
ancient grave markers rising out of the ground, she paused, looking around her
to make certain none of Adair Ramsay’s men were about.

In the dimness, she searched the area for some sign of
Fletcher. Seeing nothing, she could not help wondering if she had somehow
gotten ahead of him. Feeling a little uneasy about being here, she made her way
forward, going through the iron gate, thankful it did not creak, and spotted
the guelder roses that grew along the fence.

Moving among the lichen-covered tombstones, her gaze took in
the inscriptions, the late afternoon sun casting long, eerie shadows ahead of
her.

She could not understand her apprehension. There was nothing
to fear here. The dead were quite safe—safer, really, to be around than the
living, but still there was an anxiety within her that she could not ignore.

Once, she thought she heard something and ducked down in the
shadowy darkness behind a large stone where an angel peacefully spread its
wings. As she waited, her fingers trembled as they traced over the inscription:

Elizabeth Ramsay, beloved daughter, who departed this
world June 20, 1757, age three

In a flood of fluttering pulse and flushed heat, she sensed
another presence, but she saw nothing. Her fear surrounded her, paralyzing her.
She seemed unable to move from this spot. Her hand came up to brush her
forehead. She heard another noise, this time making it out to be footfalls, and
wondered what she would say to the Duke of Glengarry’s men if she were caught.

She heard another noise, this time closer. Her heart pounded
and her throat grew too dry to swallow. She sensed movement behind her, and
then someone stumbled against her, knocked her over, and fell on top of her.
Then he cursed.

She blinked and looked up into angry blue eyes. She was not
certain if she was more surprised by hearing such language or by seeing a man
lying on top of her.

“What in the hell are you doing here?” a voice whispered.

Fletcher!
She went limp with relief.

He shook her. “Don’t you dare faint!” he said in a louder
whisper.

She opened her eyes, barely making out his furious features
scowling down at her. “I never faint,” she whispered, “but this may be the
first time—if you don’t get off. You are crushing the breath from me.”