Moon Dreams (36 page)

“You have news?” Alyson asked when he did not speak first.

Rory had doffed his coat earlier. Now he loosened his jabot
while he sought the words he had not planned in advance. She looked so serene
and young sitting there with her hair tied back in a ribbon, leaving only a few
ebony curls around her pale face. The pearly gray of her satin robe was
gathered to fit snugly around her breasts, and the lamplight gleamed on the
luminous flesh revealed above the lace. He remembered how it felt to slip his
hand in there, and his loins tightened punishingly.

“Farnley says you have never discussed the possibility of an
annulment with him.” There was no point in treading around the subject. He owed
her honesty, at least.

“Annulment? What made you ask that now?

Rory sank into a dainty chair with a heart-shaped back. She
did not sound as if she had thought about this. “I never meant to force you to
something you did not wish, lass. I was drunk and hasty, but I thought wedded
life was what you wanted. I can see now that I made a mistake, that I cannot
make you happy with the kind of life I lead. If you still wish your freedom, I
think it can be arranged.”

Alyson stared at him, clasping her hands in her lap. “Where
would you go?”

That was a strange question under the circumstances, but Rory
replied patiently. “The charges have been dropped against me, lass. I will go
home.”

“Your cousin has sold you the estate, then?”

He shook his head. “No. Drummond agrees only to sell the
worthless parts, and those for enormous sums. I have saved enough to offer him
a fair value, but he will not take it from me or any I appoint in my stead. He
steals the money he needs from the tenants. There was wealth there once. It is
nearly gone now. I have to return home to help.”

“Why can’t I go with you?” she asked reasonably.

Rory stared at her in astonishment. “To Scotland? Away from
your friends, from all society? I told ye, lass, I have no home. I will live
with the crofters. That’s no life for the likes of ye.”

“And that is the reason you ask for an annulment? Is there
some Highland lass waiting for you there to keep you warm?”

“Alyson, be fair!” Rory cried, standing up and pacing the
room. “If I could keep any woman at all, it would be you. I only wish to return
the freedom I stole from you. Farnley will go over the books with you, show you
what I have done. You can hire someone else to manage it when I’m gone. Keep
paying Cranville, and he will most likely leave you alone. If not, I’ll come
back to quiet him. I will not desert you entirely, lass. I just want you to be
happy.”

“Then you will not ask for an annulment.”

Rory stopped his pacing to stare at the woman illuminated in
the lamplight. She seemed changed, but he could not quite put his finger on the
difference. Her misty eyes still hid behind a black fringe of lashes.

“What are you saying, Alys?” Her quiet words had sent his
heart into a dive.

“I am saying I don’t want an annulment, Rory. Even if I
thought it would make you happy, I’m not certain that it can be done now.”

Rory wished for another drink to clear the clouds of fog in
his brain. In her own oblique way, Alyson was trying to tell him something, but
his brain was too numb to accept it. “You have talked to someone besides
Farnley about it?”

“I don’t think I need to. I understand enough to know there
are certain conditions to an annulment. I fear no court in the land would
acknowledge that those conditions exist.”

He could dismiss her words as naiveté. Judges could be
bribed. Physicians would lie. The proof that she was no longer untouched did
not have to actually exist. There was only one thing she could be talking
about, and he didn’t think he could survive that news standing up. He promptly
sat down on the edge of the bed nearest her chair.

“Tell me, Alyson, why do those conditions no longer exist?”

With a deep breath she replied, “Because I am three months
gone with your child.”

Rory felt the air rush from his lungs. He lacked the
presence of mind to draw it in again. His child! She was carrying his child! He
gulped a breath before he passed out, then did hasty mental arithmetic. He didn’t
need to. He already knew when it had happened—in that very first week of their
loving. Thank God he had had the sense to marry her!

He didn’t know what to do, what to say. She had just hit him
over the head with a brickbat, and he was still dazed. The sweet sound of her
voice repeating his name returned some portion of his senses.

“Alyson, I didn’t mean to . . .” But he had
meant to, his conscience warned him. With a sigh, Rory acknowledged his guilt
in trapping her.

Rising, he lifted Alyson from her seat, swinging her into
his arms as he sat down and pulled her into his lap. Her hands fluttered
against his shirt, and he captured them against his chest.

“I’m that sorry, lass. There’s nowt fair in what I’ve done
to ye, but I’ll try to make it right. I’m a wretched excuse for a husband,
probably worse as a father, but I’ll see to it that neither of you lacks for
anything.”

Alyson huddled forlornly against her husband’s broad chest,
hearing Rory’s words as a bleak wind dissipating her dreams. Even telling him
of the child wouldn’t hold him back. Tears rimmed her eyes, but she refused to
give in to them. Whether he wanted one or not, Rory would have a home and a
family. She’d had enough of this living in purgatory. It was her turn to make
the decisions now.

“Take me with you.” She spoke into the lace frill of his
shirt, not lifting her head from the thud of his heart.

Rory sighed and caressed her hair down. “If only I could,
dear heart. Someday, maybe.”

“Not someday. Now.” Alyson pushed from the comfort of his
arms to glare into his dark features. “You are not leaving me behind, Rory Maclean.”

“Alyson, be sensible. I could not take a lass such as
yourself even before I knew of the child. There’s twice the reason to leave you
here now. I can live off the land, sleep on the ground, survive the winter wind
off the loch. You canna.”

“I will not have to. I found a map in your library. Your
home is on Loch Linnhe, isn’t it?”

Rory narrowed his eyes. “It is.”

“So is my grandmother’s home. Can it be so very far from
yours? My grandfather kept up the house even after she had gone. It cannot be
in too poor a condition.”

“What was your mother’s family name?” he asked cautiously.

“Maclnnes.”

Rory leaned his head against the back of the chair and
frowned. “Maclnnes. It has been nearly fifteen years, but I vaguely remember hearing
tales of the MacInnes witches. The castle was crumbling to the ground when I
was but a lad. There was nowt but the tower left. ’Tis doubtful it is
habitable. In the winter, it would be a cold, drafty place.”

Alyson set her chin stubbornly and shoved from his lap.
Setting her hands on her hips, she glared at him. “Those witches were my mother
and grandmother. I am going, Rory Maclean. You can come with me, if you like.
Or you can freeze your toes off on the moors for all I care. My grandmother had
no money to make the tower comfortable, but I do, if you’ve left me any.”

“Left you any! I haven’t touched a farthing of your fortune,
Alyson. Even the wages Farnley insisted I take, I spent on you. Don’t go
throwing your bloody blunt in my face!” Rory threw himself from the chair and
stalked toward the sitting room.

“I don’t care about the money!” Alyson cried as he tried to
escape. “You can have it all, buy back your estate, feed your tenants, just let
me come with you. This child needs a father.”

Rory swung around, his fingers curled into tight fists of
resistance, his expression one of struggle.

Sensing his hesitation, Alyson whispered her final argument.
“I’ll do anything you want, Rory, anything. Just take me with you.”

That promise—more than any promise of riches—broke his
resolve. Rubbing a hand across his brow, he nodded. “Very well, lass. We’ll
talk of it in the morning. Go to sleep now.”

Joy swept through Alyson at his surrender—joy muted with
fear. She knew the promise that had changed his mind. How soon would he call on
her to make it good?

Scotland, November 1760

As the icy deluge began once more, Rory cursed his haste. They
could have traveled safely around the coast on the
Witch
if he had
waited for Dougall to complete his shipment
.
It might have meant a delay
of a month or more, but at least Alyson would not have been subjected to the
worst of the winter weather as she was now.

As the carriage lurched through a particularly deep mud hole,
Rory realized his memory of riding across these unmarked roads at great speed
had much to do with youth and a spirited horse and little to do with carriages
and pregnant wives. His foolish notion that they could save time by taking the
first ship north and hiring a carriage from Edinburgh to Loch Linnhe had
certainly given Alyson a fine insight into the country he called home.

Glancing over his shoulder to be certain the carriage had
pulled out of the hole intact, Rory had to admit Alyson had not voiced a single
complaint throughout the abominable journey. Pulling his hat down farther to allow
the rain to funnel down the back of his cloak instead of his neck, he sent his
mount ahead to test the condition of the road.

She had agreed to his every command, smiled at the other
female inhabitants of the ship’s cabin she was forced to share, and didn’t
murmur when their first day on land and every day since had been accompanied by
a steady downpour. At times she had looked a little green, and he’d had to stop
the carriage, but if she heaved up the better part of her breakfast, she didn’t
complain.

Her ability to smile at him at the end of the day multiplied
Rory’s guilt. Even without the burden of a child to carry, she had no place in
these wild, barren lands. If anything should happen to her, he would not
survive the loss, let alone the guilt. Just the thought of losing her twisted a
knife in his heart. Rory slowed his horse to check on the carriage again.

His reasons for bringing her had been entirely selfish.
Despite Alyson’s pleas, he could have left her behind. Common sense told him
she would be safer and happier in London than in these harsh lands in
midwinter. But just as they had from the first, her desires and emotions had
twisted his logic until he could no longer think straight. He didn’t want to
leave her behind for the admiration of London society.

He wanted her with him. He wanted his child to be born in
these hills that he loved, and most of all, he wanted Alyson to love his home
as he did. Some insane quirk of his mind believed that if they ever had a
chance at happiness, it would be here. It was that madness that had brought
them to this boggy trail in the barren hills with daylight fading fast and no
shelter to be found.

Cursing again, Rory spurred his horse over the next hill. If
he had ever imagined bringing a wife home, it would not have been with her
fingers turning blue with cold and her trunks turning green with mold. He would
have liked to bring her in the spring, with the broom blooming a brilliant
yellow over the hillsides and the purple rhododendron and wild foxglove spreading
across the valleys, or in August, with the heather turning the hills to
celestial colors. Anything would be preferable to this.

A but-and-ben cottage nestled into the next hillside,
sending up a thin gray swirl of smoke from the rock chimney, a luxury that
indicated the owner had given some care to the building of his home. Inside it
would be warm and dry.

Rory would have called it a day and stayed here had it not
been for his entourage. He could not ask Alyson to sleep in a
mud-daub-and-thatched cabin, no matter how cozy it might be. If he remembered
correctly, they were near enough to some friends of his to pass the night. The house
had been cold and drafty when he was a lad, but at least it had wooden floors
and bedrooms and beds. After a day like this, a feather mattress would be
welcome.

Not wishing to think too hard on the subject of beds and
mattresses, Rory pushed his tired mount to the crest of the hill overlooking
the next valley. He groaned as he realized that the trifling burn he remembered
cooling his heels in had become a river with the heavy rain. The carriage could
never ford it.

Resolutely he turned back to break the news. The crofter’s
cottage would have to serve as inn for the night.

***

Alyson set her heavy patten on a rock near the carriage
door. Holding Rory’s hand, she lifted her skirts from the ankle-deep mud and stepped
on the next outcropping of stone. One wrong move and she would be face-first in
the pebble-strewn yard, but she feared she would never pull her feet from the
mire should they land in it.

From beneath lowered lashes she studied Rory’s stony
expression rather than the low hut to which he guided her. She could see where
a stark land like this would cultivate stoicism, but she thought his rigid
expression hid pain. Rory had learned to hide his feelings, but she understood
his emotion more than his thoughts.

Once inside the cottage, she shed her dripping cloak and
muddy pattens with the aid of a wizened old woman. Her hostess murmured
reassurances in an accent so thick Alyson could make little sense of it. Her
gaze drifted to the smoke-blackened beams barely giving Rory’s height headroom.
The ill-chinked fireplace sent gusts of smoke into the room. But the
hard-packed dirt floor was covered in coarse grass to form a carpet against the
damp, and the warmth of the tiny peat fire dried the air.

She thanked her hostess and drifted toward the fire. Coming
in from securing the horses in a small shed attached to the house, Rory and
their host exchanged glances as they watched her. The older man’s murmurs of
appreciation brought a tired grin to Rory’s face, who answered in the same
strange language.