Here Burns My Candle (28 page)

If the dowager missed having so many leather pouches beneath her floor, she did not say so. What she did miss were her sons, which she bemoaned on a daily basis.

Elisabeth felt quite the same. She’d not seen Donald since her visit to White Horse Close more than a week ago, and then ’twas only for an hour. To stem the growing problem of desertion among his men, the prince insisted they keep to their quarters. Hence, Jacobite officers who were billeted at the inn took turnabout, vacating their cramped sleeping quarters for an hour to accommodate visiting wives. The room was dank and dirty, the bedsheets worse, but at least in that small, windowless room Elisabeth had Donald all to herself.

Most of the females she passed on the stair weren’t wives at all but tavern maids and servant girls. “The prince is anxious to leave Edinburgh,” Donald told her when last they were together. “If his men remain in town much longer, he fears they’ll be thoroughly debauched by women and drink.” Elisabeth understood those fears. Though Donald seldom drank to excess, women were another matter.

The note she’d received from him that morning was a terse command rather than a loving request.
Tomorrow night at eight
. Not a word of endearment, not even a signature. Did her husband miss her as she missed him? Or did he think of her only occasionally, when he lay alone on his narrow bed?
If he lay alone…

Nae
. Elisabeth banished the thought before it took root. Tomorrow evening at eight she would sink into his embrace and count herself fortunate to be the wife of Lord Kerr of Selkirk.

Hearing footsteps approach, Elisabeth turned toward the door.

“Leddy Kerr?” Mrs. Edgar softly knocked, then entered the bedchamber, balancing a steaming cup of tea and a plate of sweet almond biscuits. She held them up with a tentative smile. “With milk and sugar, the way ye like it.”

Murmuring her thanks, Elisabeth sat at her dressing table and moved aside her sewing basket to make room for the housekeeper to serve her tea. When Elisabeth noticed her scissors gleaming in the candlelight, an idea came to mind. “Mrs. Edgar, would you kindly snip a lock of my hair?”

“Nae mair than a lock?” The housekeeper took the scissors to hand, cutting the air to test them. “I thocht whan the moon was
fu’
, a leddy cut her hair a’ the way round. To make it grow, ye ken.”

Elisabeth took a sip of her tea and smiled. “Aye, so I’ve heard. But I need just one small curl.”

“Oo aye.” Mrs. Edgar nodded. “For Lord Kerr.”

“If you would.” Elisabeth put down her teacup and bowed her head slightly. “’Tis so thick in the back, I’ll hardly miss it.”

Mrs. Edgar took her time, choosing one spot, then another, until she found what she was looking for. She snipped with great care, then held out her hand, a slender curl nestled in her palm. “Will this do?”

“It will indeed.” Elisabeth reached for a piece of stationery and Donald’s paper knife. She quickly fashioned a small square and folded it round the lock of hair. Would he think the gesture too sentimental? Or would he keep it in a pocket close to his heart? Perhaps if she gave him something useful along with it, Donald would not find her gift too trifling.

“Mrs. Edgar, do you know the whereabouts of Lord Kerr’s winter gloves? I’ve looked high and low and not found them.” Made from sturdy lambskin and lined with rabbit fur, the handsome pair was her anniversary gift to him December last. Now that colder weather was upon them, his thin kid gloves would never do. And a Life Guard needed to look his best for the prince.

“I’ll find them,” the housekeeper assured her as she began searching
through his clothes press. She took her time, lifting out each item of clothing, checking his coat pockets, and reaching into the far recesses of the narrow drawers. “There ye are!” Mrs. Edgar’s arm disappeared inside the furniture as she strained to claim the prize. After much effort she pulled out one leather glove, then a second, and grinned as she held them up by the fingers. “A
saicret
nae mair,” Mrs. Edgar said proudly, giving them a gleeful shake.

A small white card slipped out and fell soundlessly onto the carpet.

“What’s this, now?” Mrs. Edgar bent down to collect it and paused only for an instant before slipping the card in her oversized apron pocket. “Och, ’tis nothing.”

Elisabeth saw the color rising up the housekeeper’s neck and the look of pity in her eyes. “Come, Mrs. Edgar. Is it truly nothing?”

Her lower lip began to tremble. “Nae.”

“Let me see it, please.” Elisabeth held out her hand.

“Och, Leddy Kerr.” Mrs. Edgar slowly pulled the card from her pocket. “I wish ye wouldna read it.”

Elisabeth hesitated, so sorrowful was the woman’s expression. But she had to read it, had to know what troubled her housekeeper so. “Whatever words are on this card, you are not to blame, Mrs. Edgar. Not for a moment.”

“Bliss ye, milady.” She sniffed, her tears coming in earnest. “I wouldna hurt ye for anything.”

Elisabeth took the small card, surprised to find her hands shaking.

One side was plain. No embossing, no ink. When Elisabeth turned the card over, Mrs. Edgar looked away.

The words were few, but they were enough.

May these gloves warm your hands,
as your hands warmed me.

J. M.

Neat, round letters, penned with care. The writer had weighed every word.
Your hands warmed me
. Donald, her husband, her love, had touched this woman. Nae, had warmed her.

J.M.

“Who is she?” Elisabeth whispered, pinching the card as if to make it speak.
Jean? Jessie? Jo?

“I dinna ken,” Mrs. Edgar said, wringing her apron strings, her face a picture of misery. “Half the toun has a family name beginning with
M.
Is it McDonald, mebbe? McKenzie? Mitchell? Och, milady, I canna say wha she might be.” Her brow darkened. “Though I ken a wird or two would suit her verra weel.”

Elisabeth lifted her head, an image dancing before her eyes. The widow at Assembly Close. A handsome woman several years older than
she. Jane Montgomerie
. When she looked down at the card, there she was.

J.M.

The letters began to swim as Donald’s voice whispered inside her.
You alone have my heart
.

“Nae!” With a soft cry she threw the card into the fireplace. “’Tis not true. I do not have your heart, Donald. I do not.
I do not!”
She fell to her knees, crushing her black gown against the carpet.

Mrs. Edgar knelt beside her. “Is there anything I can do, milady?”

Elisabeth shook her head, her face awash in tears.

They remained there, lady and maid, until every trace of light in the windows disappeared. At last Mrs. Edgar rose and helped Elisabeth to her feet and gently seated her at her dressing table before finding two clean handkerchiefs.

“Thank you,” Elisabeth murmured, embarrassed to be seen in such a state.

She watched Mrs. Edgar fasten the shutters round the room, then light fresh beeswax candles, filling the air with the scent of honey. Muted sounds floated up from the street below. A man laughing. The clip-clop of a horse. A mother calling to her children. Elisabeth listened but did not truly hear so disjointed were her thoughts.

Finally Mrs. Edgar stood before her, hands folded at her waist. “Have ye niver wondered why Peg flitted like she did?”

“Peg Cargill?” Elisabeth dabbed at her eyes. “I believe she feared the Highlanders.”

“Nae, milady. She feared yer husband.”

Elisabeth stared at her in disbelief.
Not one of our own servants. Not Peg
.

“She didna tell a soul but me,” Mrs. Edgar said grimly. “Mind ye, he didna misuse her. He leuked, but he didna touch. Still, ’twas mair than the
puir
lass could bear.”

“I see.” Indeed, Elisabeth saw it all quite clearly: the hunger on his face, the desire in his eyes. “You’re certain Peg told no one else?”

“She promised me she wouldna. And I’ve not breathed a wird, not even to Gibson.”

Elisabeth glanced toward the door, thinking of the household. “No one must be told, Mrs. Edgar. Especially not the Dowager Lady Kerr.”

She frowned at that. “Should a mither not ken what her son is capable o’ doing?”

Elisabeth sighed, shaking her head. “Naught would be gained by it. Either she would count your story as false and hold it against you. Or she would discover it to be true and suffer endlessly from the shame.” She stood, taking Mrs. Edgar’s chapped hands in hers. “I must apologize on Lord Kerr’s behalf.”

“Och, milady. I kenned what kind o’ man ye married. The gossips are not aye right, but they’re not aye wrong.” Mrs. Edgar’s voice softened. “Dinna blame yerself. Ye ken what the Buik says. ‘A faithful man wha can find?’”

I thought I’d found one
. Elisabeth gently released her. “I’m afraid I’ve kept you from your duties.”

“Not at a’, milady. I’ll be in the kitchen if ye’ve need o’ me.” Mrs. Edgar looked at her a moment longer, compassion in her gray eyes, before she curtsied and was gone.

Alone in her chamber Elisabeth held on to the bedpost, feeling faint as the truth sank in.
The gossips were not always wrong
. Meaning Jane Montgomerie wasn’t the only woman her husband had bedded.
I made the acquaintance of many women
. Aye, so he had. Not only before they married, but after the wedding as well.

Her head fell forward.
How many, Donald?
She sank onto their bed, her eyes again filling with tears.
How many times have you betrayed me?

Nae, she would not ask him that. But she would ask him why.

“Why, Donald?” She spoke the words aloud, her throat tight with grief. “Why is my love not enough?”

Thirty-Seven

The living man who does not learn,
is dark, dark, like one walking in the night.

MING LUM PAOU KEEN

W
ill ye tell yer wife, milord?”

Donald noted the spark in Rob MacPherson’s eye. Was it curiosity? Or mistrust? Rob had become a permanent fixture at White Horse Close, slipping among the ranks, exchanging vital information, yet never drawing attention to himself.

“Aye, I’ll inform Lady Kerr when I see her this eve,” Donald told the tailor’s son. “Though I imagine she’s received news of the council’s ruling by now. They’ve hardly kept it a secret.” Donald cast his gaze round the inn’s noisy public room crowded with Jacobite officers raising their glasses with loud huzzahs. Their long-awaited orders had finally come.
Prepare to march southward. First place of rendezvous: Dalkeith
.

“Mebbe they’re lifting their glasses to King Geordie,” Rob said with a wry smile. He took a long drink of ale. “’Tis the auld Hanoverian’s birthday, ye ken. Two-and-sixty.”

Donald nodded. “I heard the guns saluting him from the harbor.” Nearly a dozen English ships were anchored off Leith, blocking the promised help from the French. The newly arrived
Gloucester
, with its fifty guns, increased the looming threat.

The Jacobites had already tarried in Edinburgh too long, trying to raise capital, struggling to increase their numbers. They could delay no longer.

“Naught but one hour,” Lord Elcho had warned his men. “Then send your ladies home and be ready to depart at a moment’s notice.”

Donald consulted his watch yet again.
Our last hour, Bess
.

His brother stood near the inn door, watching for their wives, an anxious look on his face. Andrew’s color was poor—flushed cheeks above an ashen neck—and his wheezing more pronounced. Donald repeatedly cautioned him to rest whenever he could, but his brother insisted on
becoming the equal of the other guards. To his credit, Andrew’s seat on his mount had improved considerably over the last month. Instead of just polishing his French musket, he’d learned how to employ it.

His brother’s determination had fueled his own. Donald found he was a better rider for the effort and a more accurate marksman. But in the dark hours of the night, fear and apprehension gnawed at his soul. The enlistment notice had traveled home in
his
waistcoat, not Andrew’s. If anything happened to his brother, Donald would wear the guilt round his neck like a noose.

He eyed his pocket watch.
Nearly eight
.

Rob elbowed him. “There’s yer leddy.”

Donald stood just as Elisabeth turned in his direction. As if for the first time, her beauty struck him like the flat blade of a rapier, knocking him back on his heels. Glossy hair gathered on the crown of her head. Long, graceful neck. Full, sweet mouth. And dark blue eyes looking for him.

“I’ve not seen her in a week,” he admitted to Rob, climbing over the rough bench where he’d been sitting. “’Twill be a short hour, I fear.”

Rob looked up at him, his black eyes sharp as stones. “I hope ye ken what a lucky man ye are.”

“Aye,” Donald said over his shoulder, already making his way through the restless crowd, dodging uplifted tappit-hens with ale sloshing over the rims and red-headed Highlanders swaying on their feet.

Prudently, Elisabeth waited for him. Even with Gibson by her side, she might be swept into some drunken captain’s lap with his stout arm round her waist, the stubble of his beard chafing her tender skin. The thought of it sent Donald crashing through a knot of soldiers. “Lady Kerr!” he called out loudly enough to stake his claim on her.

Andrew and Janet, not wasting a moment, had already started for the stair, bound for a vacant room, when Donald finally reached his wife’s side. “You came,” he said a bit breathless, wishing he sounded more like a royal guardsman and less like a besotted fool.

“I was summoned.” Elisabeth held up his brief, scrawled note. “’Tis eight o’ the clock, aye?” Though her tone was light, her point was not lost on him.

Donald bowed and kissed her gloved hand. “I had only a moment before the caddie departed for the High Street,” he explained, wishing he’d not been so brusque with his pen. “Will you forgive me, milady?”