Here Burns My Candle (3 page)

“Oh, aye.” Donald relaxed at once. “She seems to think Andrew is in danger of taking up arms.”

Elisabeth met his gaze, a handbreadth away. “You’ve no desire to fight the Highlanders?”

“Nae,” he murmured, pulling her closer still, “for I’ve a Highland wife.”

Her eyes drifted shut as he brushed a kiss across her cheek. “No regrets?”

His lips touched the curve of her ear. “Banish any doubt on that score,” he whispered just before his mouth met hers.

Three

No man does anything from a single motive.

SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE

W
ould he never sleep? Donald stared at the silk bed curtains draped above him, feeling utterly spent yet maddeningly frustrated. Two hours of solid rest would do him. One, if it came to it. Yet his eyes remained open.

O Sleep, why dost thou leave me?

He grimaced, knowing his mother would recognize the line from
Semele
at once. William Congreve, a loyal patriot and a middling poet, was one of her favorites. Why the Dowager Lady Kerr took delight in testing him on such things, Donald could not say. A childhood game better left in the nursery. Still, he indulged her.

O Sleep, again deceive me
.

Donald exhaled into the darkened room. If he was indeed deceived, ’twas a fair turnabout. Earlier that night after quitting his mothers room, he’d paid a brief visit to young Lucy Spence, the fisherman’s widow in nearby Halkerston’s Wynd. A dangerous practice, so close to home. But wasn’t an element of risk part of the pleasure?

Guilt inevitably followed. Never at the start and seldom in the moment, but afterward his conscience always prodded him. Now, for instance.

When a moment later his stomach growled, Donald slowly sat up, taking care not to wake his wife. He’d had little appetite at supper, even with the first oysters of the season on his plate. If he could not sleep, then he would eat. Their cold Sabbath breakfast was already prepared and waiting in the kitchen. A boiled egg would do nicely. Or a slice of bread. Even tea would suffice.

He stood, then pulled on a silk robe and tied it loosely round his waist. Best to go through Andrew’s room since his brother was a sound sleeper. It was also a more direct route to the kitchen than traveling through his mother’s bedchamber, the drawing room, and then the
entrance hall, where Gibson lay sleeping. Whoever designed Baillie’s Land had given little thought to nighttime forays.

Donald navigated his bedchamber with caution, avoiding the tottery pile of books stacked by his reading chair. In truth, he’d claimed every flat surface in the room for his growing library. Atlases and almanacs from London covered the writing surface of his mahogany secretary, and parchment maps lay neatly rolled and tucked in its many pigeonholes. He had his mother to thank for such bounty. Whenever a bill arrived from Mr. Creech, his favorite bookseller in the Luckenbooths, she paid the balance without protest.

Donald paused before entering Andrew’s bedchamber, listening for his brother’s labored breathing. He opened and closed the door without making a sound, a useful skill in the wee hours of the morning. Treading softly, he passed by Andrew’s bed and stole a quick glance. The couple was fast asleep, Janet’s arm draped across his brother’s chest. Andrew, always more interested in weapons than in women, had let their mother choose a wife for him. However brief and businesslike their courtship, the two were managing well enough.

Another door to slip through, and he would reach the kitchen. The hinges creaked a bit. Nothing to be done there. In any case Mrs. Edgar would no doubt stir the moment he set foot in her domain. But she did not. Curled up on a long shelf beneath the wooden dresser, the housekeeper lay perfectly still, clearly lost in her dreams. He envied her that.

Only then did he notice Peg, their new maidservant, standing in the corner nearest the hearth. How small she was! “I beg your pardon,” he murmured, easing toward her. “I did not mean to wake you.”

“Nae, nae, milord. I wasna sleeping.” She tried to curtsy and instead fell forward a step, her pale legs showing beneath her nightgown. “Oh!”

In the shadowy corner he could almost feel her blushing, so acute was her embarrassment. “Not to worry,” he said softly, meaning to put her at ease. “I could not sleep either.”

“Oh,” she said again, bobbing her head.

Donald took a step closer. “I confess, I came looking for a bite to eat. Anything you might suggest?”

“W-we’ve fresh cheese, if ye like.” She hurriedly put several slices on
a plate, then poured a small glass of ale and gingerly placed them both in his hands. “Will there be anything else, milord?”

A dangerous question, lass
.

She stood before him, trembling, her hands clasped behind her back. The light from the hearth burnished her freckled skin and lit her coppery hair until it glowed. Such a pretty little thing. He could not remember how old Peg was. Sixteen, perhaps, yet she had the body of a woman. Her thin cotton nightgown made that fact all too evident.

He looked down at her, unable to resist. “What else might you have to offer me, Peg?”

This time he was certain she was blushing. Her gaze flitted about the room, looking for somewhere to land. His gaze moved as well, slowly tracing every curve and line from her tousled head to her delectable little toes. His hands were occupied, or he might have measured her in a more satisfactory manner.

Or perhaps not. She seemed most uncomfortable.

Donald stepped back. “This will be quite enough,” he assured her, lifting his plate and glass.

“Aye, milord.” She curtsied once more, inching away from him as she did.

Turning toward the door, he realized he could never manage with both hands full. He tossed the ale down his throat, nearly choking on it in the process, then retraced his steps, gripping the plate of cheese, any appetite lost.

Whatever had he been thinking? Making overtures to his own maid in his own kitchen. True, he’d not harmed the lass. Had not laid a finger on her, in fact. But that did not make him innocent. Nae, it did not.

To his great relief, Elisabeth was still sleeping when he reentered their bedchamber. He quietly deposited his plate on the nearest table, then shrugged off his robe, and slipped into bed beside her. Even deep in slumber, Elisabeth Kerr was the most beautiful woman he’d ever clapped eyes on. And far better than he deserved. Far, far better.

Out of habit or necessity, he lightly touched her unbound hair and rubbed the silky strands between his fingers.
Forgive me, Bess
. A daily request. Sometimes hourly.

At the first faint glow of dawn he rose from their bed and took refuge in the closet. Peg would soon be along with hot water and fresh coals. The lass would never breathe a word about their brief encounter-not to him or to anyone else. Peg had her reputation to consider. And his.

He quietly shut the closet door, not caring that he had no candle. Not caring that the room was as dark as night.

Four

Gently on tiptoe Sunday creeps.

JOHN PETER HEBEL

M
orning sunlight filtered through the wooden shutters, drawing pale lines on the carpet. Except for the soft blur of voices rising from the street, Milne Square remained blessedly quiet. It seemed even the rebel army feared disturbing the Sabbath.

Elisabeth eyed the empty pillow next to hers and smiled.
My sweet Donald
.

The rest of the house was stirring as well. Yawning, she stretched her arms and legs, then sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and contemplating the hours ahead.

The night had been too short, and the day would surely be long. At least she would have Donald by her side, at kirk and at home, to ease her mind and heart. Sundays were always difficult. How could they not be when her childhood faith was sorely tested Sabbath after Sabbath?

She touched the broad wedding band on her left hand, a constant reminder of their spoken vows.
They twain shall be one flesh
. She and Donald shared a home, shared a bed, shared a life, but they did not share the same beliefs. He didn’t know that. But she did.

Then she touched the ring on her right hand: a heavy circle of silver engraved with words hidden against her skin.
So long as the moon endureth
. Great-grandmother Nessa had worn the ring first. Then her grandmother Jean. And then her mother, Fiona, who’d slipped the sacred ring on Elisabeth’s finger one midsummer night, her eyes glistening with tears.

“Dinna forget the
auld
ways,” her mother had whispered.

Elisabeth lifted her gaze to the High Street window where she often stood on the sixth day of the moon, hand pressed to the glass, beseeching the Nameless One.
Thou moon of moons
. Aye, she still recalled the simple rituals and sacred words her mother had taught her. What Elisabeth no longer remembered was why they mattered.

“We worship a heavenly body we can see,” her mother had once said, “rather than a faraway God we canna see.”

With the innocence of a child, she’d responded, “I see the moon, Mother. But does the moon see me?”

The question haunted her still. Not only on the sixth day of the moon but every Sabbath day, when she walked through the doors of the Tron Kirk with her Lowland family. Elisabeth did her best to follow their rituals and repeat their sacred words, yet all the while she was seeking answers. Did their God see her when she took her seat each Sunday? Did he hear her when she sang the gathering psalm or read the words in the
Buik?

Above all, did this Almighty God, this Holy One, reach down to his people when they reached up to him? Elisabeth feared the Nameless One did not. Lately she had little sense of being heard and even less hope of being answered.

Her husband knew nothing of the lunar calendar she followed or the engraving inside her silver ring or the monthly entreaties made in secret. She could only imagine the look of horror on his face if he learned the truth. However great his love for her, it would not stretch far enough to embrace the auld ways.

And the dowager would be terrified. Would no doubt banish Elisabeth from the house and report her to the kirk session. Pointed questions would be asked, and accusations might be made. ’Twas a very real danger in this land of repentance stools in the kirk and wooden gallows in the marketplace. In decades past women were burned at the stake for such beliefs…

Nae
. Elisabeth stood, shaking off her fears. In three years no one in the Kerr household had uncovered her secret. Nor would they do so this Sunday.

Breathe, Bess. Just breathe
.

While Donald tarried in the water closet that morning, she had the chamber to herself. Better to quickly bathe alone rather than ring for Peg. The water pitcher was freshly filled, was it not? A bar of Castile soap sat by the washbowl, and the fireplace, newly replenished, would keep her warm.

She filled the porcelain bowl with steaming water, then soaked a fresh cloth before rubbing it with soap. Made of pure olive oil, the white soap was fragrant but slippery and splashed into the bowl more than once. Peg handled things more efficiently, but expecting a maidservant to scrub her long, bare limbs each morning seemed vain and self-centered.

Like Janet
.

Elisabeth splashed her face with water but could not douse her unkind thoughts. What a spoiled ninny her sister-in-law was! Morning after morning Janet dithered over which gown to wear, tossing freshly pressed clothes onto her bedchamber floor, forcing Mrs. Edgar to iron them again. At mealtime her sister-in-law sat at table, hands folded in her lap, waiting for Gibson to fill her glass when the claret was easily within reach. And how many times had Janet dispatched Andrew on some petty errand, fully aware of how taxing it was for him to climb the stair?

Enough, Bess
.

Ashamed of herself, she dried her cheeks more vigorously than necessary, letting her irritation run its course. However demanding her sister-in-law might be, at least Janet never forgot her place in society. She, on the other hand, seldom thought of herself as Lady Elisabeth Kerr. Who could ever live up to such a title? Despite her years at Mrs. Sinclair’s Boarding School for Young Ladies, Elisabeth had spent too many childhood mornings in her mother’s kitchen, too many afternoons round her father’s loom, learning to use her hands, learning to be helpful. ’Twas ill preparation for the idle life she now led. A life which Janet Kerr had mastered and she had not.

“Good morning, my love,” Donald said, rejoining her. “Managing your toilette alone, I see.”

“I’m perfectly capable of bathing myself,” she chided him, then wished she had not. The poor man looked as if he’d not slept a wink.

“I meant only to compliment you,” he murmured, then bent to kiss the oval birthmark above her heart. No bigger than a thumbprint, the color of café au lait, her faint blemish was easily covered by a judicious use of lace round the neckline of her gowns. The simple linen chemise, however, hid very little.

Donald lingered over the spot for a moment, then straightened, affection shining in his bleary eyes. “The auld wives would insist your mother must have touched her heart while she carried you, overcome by some strong emotion. Fear or desire, do you imagine?”

Elisabeth smoothed her fingertips over the mark. “She told me it was love.”

Voices in the adjoining room drew near. They’d not be alone much longer.

Her husband sighed. “I shall see to my newspaper before Gibson appears, periwig in hand.” Dressed in a silk nightgown, Donald draped himself across an upholstered settee and unfolded the four-page broadsheet, holding it higher than necessary.

She knew his actions were a ruse. He’d already scoured every word of Thursday’s
Edinburgh Evening Courant
. Her husband was merely giving her a moment’s privacy since Janet had absconded with her dressing screen soon after her wedding.