Island of the Swans (15 page)

“I have a great
deal
of good sense, James,” she replied calmly, “and you’ll come to understand my reasons for coming to Leith to bid you a final farewell. Where
is
young Thomas Fraser, may I ask?”

“Right here, Mistress Maxwell,” said a deep voice behind them.

Jane jumped up from her chair and whirled around to gaze at the tall, handsome figure who strode into the room. She gazed at Thomas wordlessly, her eyes drifting down to his strong, muscular legs in their red and white checkered stockings, fastened at the knees with broad red garters. A thick woolen kilt with the familiar Black Watch green and black tartan hung trimly on his slim hips, secured by an ox-leather belt with a silver buckle. Her eyes took in the large sporran made of otter skin that hung over that mysterious region below Thomas’s waist. She savored the sight of his scarlet waistcoat and his handsomely tailored short scarlet jacket with its buff facings and white lace trimmings. His blue pancake bonnet with its border of red around the band sat at a jaunty angle on his dark russet locks, completing the picture of quite the handsomest soldier Jane thought she’d ever seen.

“Oh… Thomas…” she breathed, unable to say another word.

When he merely continued to stare back at her with a shocked expression on his face, she crossed the three feet that separated them and flung her arms around his neck. She hugged him tightly to her, ignoring the bemused looks of her aunt and uncle.

“Thomas, I was so afraid I would never see you again!” she breathed into his ear. “Thank God we got here before you departed! If Aunt Elizabeth hadn’t brought me to Leith, I—”

“Your darling aunt has been very naughty to have disobeyed a standing order on that score,” boomed Uncle James. “But I’m deuced glad she did!”

Jane disentangled herself from Thomas’s arms and glanced at Elizabeth long enough to see she was locked in her husband’s embrace. Jane faced Thomas once again and drew him aside. Ill at ease, she cast about for a way to apologize for using the duke to make him jealous, while conveying to him her distress over the way he had permitted Master Simon to order him about.

Reaching for her, Thomas put his hands on her small shoulders.

“I can actually touch you and not be dreaming,” he said in a soft whisper, glancing over at Elizabeth and James who were now seated in front of the fire, enjoying an intimate conversation.

Soothed by the warmth of his hands on her shoulders, Jane uncertainly began to speak.

“Thomas,
please
forgive me for dancing with the Duke of Gordon instead of you at Hogmanay.” She gazed into his eyes earnestly. “’Twas just my terrible temper… you know that…”

“I’d like to skewer that dandy with the point of my sword!” Thomas replied, scowling. “It looked to me as if you were enjoying yourself mightily when I saw you dancing with the fop!”

“I only acted that way to make you jealous so you’d elope with me… but you seemed so
pleased
about your Commission, and leaving Edinburgh… and it angered me.”

“I
was
pleased my Commission came through,” Thomas replied thoughtfully. “But that doesn’t mean I’m happy to be leaving
you.
” He demanded to know if she had received any of his letters. “Or did you choose not to be writing a poor lieutenant, what with a duke coming to call?”

“Don’t be daft, Thomas,” Jane replied tartly, secretly pleased to learn he still cared enough about her to write, although she was angry with her mother who, just as she’d suspected, had intercepted his missives, save for the one sent through Uncle James this morning. “I received not a word from you since that night. And as far as the duke… ’tis said he has a mistress at Gordon Castle, and is about to become a father in the bargain. No one’s seen a trace of him since the night of the ball.”

“Such news must be disappointin’ to you, lass,” Thomas commented sourly.

Jane remained silent for a moment.

“Pray let us stop dissembling,” she replied quietly. “My mother obviously confiscated your letters. I came all this way to apologize for what happened at Prestonfield, and to tell you that I still wish to be your wife someday—that is, if you feel the same as you did before.”

Thomas’s jawline softened. A look of tenderness came into his eyes, telling her instantly all was well between them again.

“The point is, we’re together—isn’t it?” he said softly. “You’re
here
, though I can hardly believe you’re real…”

Thomas moved his hands down Jane’s velvet sleeves to grasp her gloved hands tightly in his own.

“I’m real, to be sure,” Jane agreed teasingly, smiling up at him. “But aren’t
you
the wonder!” she laughed, stepping out of the circle of his arms to take in the full magnificence of his military attire. “Will you look at you, now! Aunt Elizabeth says Uncle James counts you among his best men. ’Tis proud I am of you, Thomas,” she finished sincerely, discreetly glancing at her aunt and uncle. Uncle James had a look of pure joy on his face and bent forward to kiss his wife directly on the lips.

Jane beckoned Thomas to lean down so she could whisper into his ear.

“From the looks of things, I think she must have told him about the new bairn coming,” she said softly, her lips just grazing his ear’s smooth pink shell. His clean male smell was heady to her nostrils and she felt slightly dizzy. She clung to his forearms to steady herself.

Thomas folded his arm around Jane once again, sheltering her in the crook of his elbow.

“Someday you will tell me you feel
our
baby movin’ inside you,” Thomas whispered fiercely. “In two years time, ’twill be Lieutenant and
Mrs.
Fraser.”

“We’ll elope to Gretna Green and take Uncle James and Aunt Elizabeth as our witnesses!” she whispered gaily, her spirits soaring for the first time in months. Thomas kissed her tenderly on the lips.

“I promise you, Jenny, when I return in Sixty-eight, there’ll be naught to prevent us from becomin’ husband and wife!” His eyes gleamed ominously as he added, “And if Gordon ever so much as
looks
at you with that mocking stare of his, I
swear
by St. Ninian—I’ll run him through with my sword when first I set foot on Scottish soil!”

His voice cracked with anger. Jane wondered, though, if Thomas recognized, even now, who was the real threat to their future plans. Jane knew she would simply defy her mother, but had it finally penetrated his consciousness that his godfather would use him for whatever purpose suited Simon Fraser’s far-reaching ambitions, regardless of its impact on Thomas’s happiness? Suddenly, Uncle James cleared his throat, crossed the wide expanse of the hotel’s lounge with Aunt Elizabeth on his arm, and took command.

“We are already late, m’dear, for our meal aboard the
Providence
with Captain Milner,” he said to his wife. “I don’t suppose the good Captain would object to two lovely lassies joining us for supper on the occasion of our departure for such exotic lands as Maryland and Pennsylvania, do you Thomas?” James joked.

Relief brightening his features, Thomas squared his shoulders and replied with a snappy, “No,
sir
!”

“That’s splendid then,” James replied. “Let’s be on our way, little mother… I expect Mr. Johnstone’s still waiting with the launch, wondering if we’ve jumped ship!”

A light chop rippled across Leith Harbor in the stiff spring breeze as the small skiff ferrying the Maxwell party to the
Providence
ploughed through the whitecapped water. Squeezed next to Thomas in the bow, Jane closed her eyes for a few moments and tilted her head back to capture the warmth of the sunshine against her face. The raucous caws of the seagulls overhead punctuated the comfortable silence floating between her and Thomas.

“You look so peaceful, Jenny lass.” Thomas smiled at her, adding softly, “I think I’ll remember you exactly the way you looked a moment ago… your eyes closed as if you were asleep beside me.”

She reached across and tucked a lock of his garnet hair beneath the band of his hat, teasing him lightly.

“How could I forget a redheaded lad in such a handsome blue bonnet!”

The oarsman shouted for a line as the skiff approached the sleek brig, a two-masted square-rigged ship that, given favorable winds and currents, would carry Thomas to Annapolis in two to three months at sea. Uncle James caught the line cast down to them and secured it to their bow. A large-boned man with tufts of gray hair shooting out at odd angles from his temples and over his heavy-set brow strode forward to greet them. His uniform and commanding demeanor told Jane immediately that this was Captain Milner, master of the
Providence.
Uncle James hastened to explain the presence of the two ladies.

“I hope I’ve not presumed too greatly on your hospitality, Captain, to have included my wife, Elizabeth, and my niece Jane Maxwell in your invitation to sup?” James glanced at Jane with a hint of the same disapproval he had voiced at the hotel. “These two minxes thought to
surprise
us, coming all the way from Edinburgh for a final farewell.”

Captain Milner boldly appraised both women from head to toe and then nodded a short welcome.

“Aye, Captain Maxwell. Predictin’ what lassies’ll do is like predictin’ the weather; ’tis a foolhardy occupation. We’ll fit ’em in somehow,” he said gruffly.

The group settled down in Captain Milner’s private quarters to partake of a simple meal of sole and boiled potatoes. Jane gauged the passage of the minutes by the fading of light in the cramped cabin, while a white-coated cabin boy served their midday repast.

“No doubt you must have many details to attend to, Captain, before we sail,” Uncle James announced, setting down his empty glass of port. “May we offer the lasses a brief tour of the ship before sending them ashore?”

Nodding his agreement, their host bid the foursome adieu. Jane followed behind Thomas’s broad shoulders down the narrow passageway and into the dazzling afternoon sunshine.

“I’m taking Elizabeth forward where there’s a fresh breeze,” James said, guiding his wife toward the ship’s prow without further discussion.

Sensing a moment of privacy had finally arrived, Jane and Thomas turned and headed in the opposite direction toward the stern.

“I want to see your cabin,” Jane said suddenly, once they’d reached the afterdeck where the ship’s standard snapped in the breeze on its flagpole. “I want to picture in my mind where you’ll be these next months before you disappear into the wilderness.”

Thomas smiled wickedly and took her arm.

“Do let me show you where the guns are placed, Mistress Maxwell,” he smirked. Glancing quickly around the deck as they passed a set of stairs, Thomas grabbed her hand. “Shh… here’s the ladder. Follow me, I think I can find it!”

He quickly led her down a flight of steep wooden steps, and abruptly turned left into a passageway. Ignoring the rows of cannon that poked their iron snouts through holes in the side of the ship, Thomas hurried her through another long passageway and turned yet another corner. Thoroughly disoriented, Jane wrinkled her nose at the smell of pitch and tar that permeated the bowels of the ship. Nearly tripping over a pile of hemp line, Thomas suddenly pulled her into a small cabin with his and another name scrawled on a scrap of parchment tacked to the door.

“My loyal bunkmate isn’t here, thank God!” Thomas breathed, locking the door and pulling Jane to him almost roughly.

Jane inhaled once again the slightly spicy smell of his skin and felt the rough texture of his woolen jacket against her cheek. The sweep of her fine woolen traveling gown nearly filled the tiny cabin. The bunks, spartan even for officers, were hard and uninviting, but Thomas sat them both down on the canvas cover and began kissing Jane’s lips and throat, heedlessly plunging both his hands into her carefully coiffed hair.

Jane sank back and stretched out on the flat, unyielding surface, pulling Thomas’s weight against her body. The layers of petticoats and velvet swirling about them seemed to conspire against her overwhelming desire to be close to him, to feel the smooth expanse of his chest cushioned against her breasts, to extend the length of her legs along the longer, more muscular length of his.

She wondered if anyone had seen them steal below deck or enter Thomas’s cabin. Despite her rising tide of passion, she nervously listened for the click of the door latch, signaling that Thomas’s fellow officer had returned.

Her nagging apprehension was soon blotted out by the insistent probing of Thomas’s tongue against her parted lips. His hands on her breasts and the sensation of his powerful thighs, pressed against her own, pushed all thoughts from her mind except getting closer… closer…

“Jenny, darling…”

Thomas’s whispers filtered through the haze of feeling and need that had enveloped her. Jane opened her eyes and found herself looking directly into his. She glanced down at their bodies—his green and black tartan blended at the hips with her darker forest green skirt. Thomas’s sporran had swung to the right and lay slightly askew on the narrow strip of bedding that lay between them. His kilt had separated at the waist, exposing a lean stretch of naked thigh.

“I seem to be far more accessible than you are,” he joked, his voice low with a passion she had never heard before. Slowly, with calm deliberation, he drew her left hand below his waist to the place his sporran no longer camouflaged.

“If you ever doubted my longing for you these last months, you have this proof,” he whispered in her ear, pushing his pelvis lightly against hers, his breath sending tremors down her spine. “I went nearly mad that night at the thought…”

Jane’s fingers slipped around the last woolen layer of his kilt and she heard Thomas moan as he nuzzled her neck.

“Oh God, Jenny!” he cried before burying his lips in her hair. “I want you so much!”

Roughly, Thomas rolled over on his side and reached down to the tangled hem of Jane’s gown. He slid the warm palm of his hand the length of her silk stockings to the bare flesh above her satin garters. Jane sucked in her breath and tensed her body as he traced his fingers deliberately across her skin.