Twenty-six
MALCOLM BRODIE WAS quite pleased to see Jamie. He walked out to greet him with a hearty clap on the back. “ ’S e do bheatha,” he said in greeting. “Come and we will talk, the two of us, aye?” He gestured to the door of his home.
“Thank you, Malcolm. Would you mind if I spoke to Isabella first?”
“Aye, aye.” Malcolm smiled as he opened the door of the house. Isabella was coming down the stairs.
“I’ll leave you alone for a wee bit, aye?” Malcolm said. “No’ too long, mind you, or the lass’s mother will have me head.” He laughed heartily.
Isabella smiled indulgently at her father and gestured to the salon. They entered, and she waited with her hands clasped tightly behind her back until he’d closed the door. “I havena said that I am gladdened to see you so recovered,” she said as she moved forward.
Was he recovered? He wasn’t entirely certain he would ever fully recover. From the gunshot, yes. But not from the engagement, the crying off.
When she stood before him, she rose up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “Thank you for coming, Jamie.”
Ah, but she was a bonny lass. She would bear beautiful children. Life would go on, winter turning to spring and summer turning to autumn, and Jamie would sit in his chair, rubbing the gash in the leather. He would determine whose goose it was, and the river of life would flow on, cutting deeper and deeper into its bed.
He took Isabella’s hand, pressed his lips to her temple.
Isabella was still smiling. “What are you thinking, mo ghraidh?”
My love. Those words clanged emptily about Jamie’s breast. “Do you love me, then, Isabella?”
She smiled at him as she had smiled at her father. Indulgently. Patiently. “Of course I do.”
He stroked her knuckles thoughtfully, then let go of her hand. “Do you truly?”
She sighed impatiently. “What is it you want, Jamie? Aye, I am quite fond of you.”
“As I am fond of you,” he said. “But I donna love you, Isabella.”
He expected her to be offended, but Isabella merely blinked at him. Then she smiled sympathetically. “Is that what is on your mind? Jamie, it will come. There is no reason it will no’. We are compatible in every way; we have a fondness for one another. One day, we will love each other.” She smiled reassuringly and stroked his cheek.
Jamie wrapped his hand around her wrist and pulled it away. “Two months ago, that would have been enough for me, lass. But it is no’ enough for me now.”
Isabella’s smile faded. “What are you saying?”
“I think you know,” he said quietly. “I canna marry you.”
The news clearly stunned her. “Are you mad?” she whispered incredulously. “We have a perfect match, Jamie. And you would throw it all away, risk your clan and your lands, because you do no’, in this moment, love me?”
Those were the words. Those were the words he’d been trying to find in himself these last two days. It all came together now. Yes, he would risk all. But not because he didn’t love Isabella. He would risk it all because he loved Daria. She was worth the risk.
“Jamie?” Isabella said, demanding an answer.
He sighed helplessly. “Aye. That is precisely what I would do.”
She took a step back, her eyes wide with shock. “Do you love the Englishwoman?” she asked.
“Aye.”
“But she is English!” Isabella cried. “You scarcely know her! How could you, Jamie? How could you do that to your clan? To Scotland? Is an English woman worth everything that will befall you and your clan if you donna take the offer we’ve made you?”
He pressed his lips together. He didn’t believe Isabella truly wanted to hear his answer.
“Mi Diah, Jamie, think of what you are doing,” Isabella beseeched him. “Your people will no’ stand for it, aye? She canna protect you from Murchison. No good can come of it. You are infatuated, and one day you will regret that you did no’ marry the Campbells and the Brodies, and it will be too late.”
“I canna help what is, Issy. It’s more than my feelings for her. It’s my honor as well, can you no’ see it? If I married you, loving someone else, I would no’ be true to either of us. Is that truly what you want?”
“I donna care about your bloody honor,” she said angrily. “Ach, you Campbells are all the same! My father warned me I should never trust you, and I defended you! First your brother, and now you, Jamie. You have just deepened a rift between the Campbells and the Brodies that will never be repaired. Were I you, I would say farewell to my people and begin to study the farming of sheep, for that’s what you and the English whore will be doing.” She strode quickly from the room, throwing the door open and running out.
Jamie sighed, then closed his eyes. It was done. He’d just made life harder for the Campbells, all for the sake of his heart.
He waited a moment for his head to clear. When it did not, he walked out before a Brodie took it from his shoulders.
HE RODE AS fast as he could through the hills to Dundavie. He knew that Murchison would hear of this and gleefully dive into the rift between the Campbells and the Brodies. He was equally certain that the Brodies would sell as they had threatened to do. He fully expected that Isabella would mourn a day or two and then be on about the business of the Brodie clan. So he had best see about draining the bog as quickly as possible, and even then, he wasn’t certain it would be enough.
Duff greeted him in the bailey as he rode in, a hint of a smile on his fleshy face. “How did you find the Brodies?” he asked hopefully.
Jamie came off his horse and looked at his old friend. “I did no’ accept the offer, Duff.”
A range of emotions instantly flitted across Duff’s fleshy face. He clenched his jaw and shook his head. “Might have avoided a lot of trouble if you’d accepted the betrothal.”
“I am painfully aware, aye,” Jamie agreed. He didn’t say more; he didn’t know how to tell a man like Duff that he could no more marry Isabella than he could marry Duff. And Jamie was certain that Duff would not approve of Daria as his choice for a wife. Yet he was helpless to stop himself. Everything about Daria, from the moment he’d awoken in that opiate haze and seen her, had been beyond his control. He did not want to love her, he did not. But God help him, he did, with everything that he was, and he felt at his core that he could not live without her.
The Campbells would accept it, or they would choose a new laird.
“More English have come,” Duff said.
“Diah, are there none left in England, then? Who is it now?”
“The lass’s parents.”
Jamie stilled.
“In the throne room,” Duff added, and turned about, moving for the door of the keep.
Jamie pulled his saddle off Niall and handed it to the stable lad. “Rub him down,” he said, and removing his gloves, he walked into the keep.
Jamie had expected Daria’s parents to be strong and spirited, as she was. He was not prepared for the couple who looked so uncertain when he entered. Miss Scott was with them, but she remained seated.
“Good afternoon,” he said. As he approached, the couple seemed to take a small step back. They reminded him of a pair of hares who would, at any moment, hop off and hide in their hole.
Jamie paused before them and looked directly at the balding man.
“Ah . . .” The man cleared his throat and took a small step forward. “Mr. Richard Babcock at your service, sir,” he said, and fixed his gaze on Jamie’s neckcloth. “Thank you for receiving us,” he said softly. “We came as soon as we received Daria’s letter.”
Jamie nodded. He thought the man might introduce his wife, but he said, “We brought the ransom,” so softly that Jamie wasn’t entirely certain he’d heard him. Mr. Babcock glanced at his wife, who opened her reticule and removed a bundle wrapped in vellum. She handed it to her husband, who in turn held it out to Jamie. “It’s all there, you have my word.”
Jamie arched a brow. “One would think that a man might first have a question or two for his daughter’s captor, aye? Such as why it is I found it necessary to hold her for ransom? Are you no’ a wee bit curious?”
“Yes, yes, of course,” Mr. Babcock said nervously. “But we are quite concerned for Daria and should like to make the necessary arrangements to have her back.”
“Aye.” Jamie nodded at Duff, who stepped forward to take the bundle from Mr. Babcock. He handed it over hesitantly and swallowed hard as Duff’s hand closed around it.
“Will you no’ sit?” Jamie asked them, gesturing to chairs. The Babcocks chose a bench and sat as one, their hands clasped. Miss Scott sat across from them.
“I thank you for returning my uncle’s money to us,” he said as he took his seat.
“Pardon?” Mr. Babcock asked.
“The ransom,” Jamie said. “It is the sum of what your mother took from my uncle.”
Mrs. Babcock made a sound like a moan, then closed her eyes and dropped her head.
“I see,” Mr. Babcock said.
Jamie looked from one to the other. “Did Daria no’ explain in her letter what had happened?”
“Ah . . . not in great detail,” Mr. Babcock said.
Jamie looked at Miss Scott, who shrugged as if she couldn’t guess, either.
“Allow me to enlighten you, then,” Jamie said. “Some weeks ago, we’d determined that—”
He heard a door slam and Daria call, “Charity! Charity, are you here? Where are you?” She sounded frantic.
He rose to his feet, as did Miss Scott. She and Jamie exchanged a look, then the four of them hurried to the foyer.
Daria stood with her legs braced apart, her riding crop beating a steady rhythm against her calf. She stared at them all, her chest rising and falling with each hard breath. Her eyes were red, as if she’d been crying. But Daria was not the sort to cry easily.
When she saw her parents, she whirled about and stalked to the stairs.
“Daria!” her mother cried.
Daria jerked around. “No,” she said, her voice shaking. “Don’t say my name. I never want to see you again.” She ran up the stairs.
“Daria!” her mother cried again with anguish.
Miss Scott looked helplessly at them, then hurried up after Daria.
“What are we to do?” Mr. Babcock asked.
Jamie glanced back at them, wondering the same thing. And he was wondering something else—who exactly had Daria been speaking to when she declared she didn’t want see you?
Because she’d been looking right at him.
DARIA COULD SCARCELY relate the entire nightmare to Charity between her gasps of outrage and pain and her occasional pounce on the pillows to pound out her fury. “All is lost,” she said. “All is lost!”
“All is not lost,” Charity tried, but it was clear she didn’t believe it. She paced as much as Daria, her brow furrowed. “He must be brought to justice. My father hanged because the earl accused him of thievery, when he himself was the thief! He has ruined too many lives, and I will not stand by whilst he lives in leisure in Scotland!”
“And my parents—my parents—have abetted him!” Daria cried angrily.
She was in the midst of a harangue about the duplicity of her own flesh and blood when Bethia slipped into the room. Daria was in such a state that she very nearly paced right over the wisp of a girl. “Bethia! What in blazes are you doing?” she exclaimed impatiently.
“The laird sent me. He would have you come and see after your parents,” she said. “He does no’ wish to entertain them.”
“No.”
“He has accepted a ransom from them, Daria. It would not do to sup with them and talk about the bloody weather!” Charity snapped. Her nerves were obviously as frayed as Daria’s.
“I can’t speak to them yet,” Daria said. “I simply cannot bear to look at them.” A clap of thunder just overhead startled all three women; Daria stalked to the window and peered out. The skies had opened and were pouring down on Dundavie.
“Bloody hell, we’re trapped,” Charity muttered.
“What shall I tell the laird, then?” Bethia asked.
“Tell him . . .” Daria closed her eyes. Tell him I am so terribly sorry. Tell him I wish he’d never met me. Tell him I wish I had never come to Scotland, for I will spend the rest of my life missing him. She turned to Bethia, her gaze beseeching. “Please, I need time. Divert him—tell him something, anything.”
“He’ll only send me back again,” Bethia said with a shrug.
Daria wanted to throttle the girl. She was the most obstinate female she had ever met—
“Aye, I’ll think of something,” Bethia said.
“Thank you,” Daria said. “Thank you so much, Bethia.”
Daria grabbed Charity’s hand as Bethia went out. “Help me. Help me think what to do.”
“There is only one thing you can do,” Charity said. “You must go to your parents and force them to tell the truth. It is the only way my family will ever have justice.”
“That would mean . . . that would mean returning to England with them.”
“Is there any other way?” Charity demanded angrily. “Do you know how many lives the earl has ruined? And continues to ruin, clearly! By your own admission, your grandmother has been made mad by him. Do you not want to see her avenged?”
“Even if it means turning on my parents?”
“You are not turning on them, Daria. You are the only one who can help them now.”
Tears began to burn in the back of Daria’s throat. She did not want to return to England.
“It’s maddening, I understand,” Charity said earnestly. “You must think you will never be in society, but that is not true. You’ll always be welcome at Tiber Park—”
“That’s not what saddens me, Charity. It’s Jamie.”
“The laird? Oh, poor Daria.”
“You don’t need to persuade me to leave, if that’s what you think. I could no more burden him with who I am now than I could you. I am a bastard child with criminal connections,” she said bitterly.
“Just like Catherine,” Charity responded, referring to her daughter.
“Charity, I didn’t mean—”
“But it’s true,” Charity said curtly.
Daria thought of Charity’s daughter, that sunny little girl, her future so hazy because of the circumstances of her birth. And that finally opened the spigot of her tears. She’d finally found the excitement she’d sought, the taste of living beyond the ivy-covered walls of her home. She’d finally found the man who sparked her imagination, who had captivated her on first sight.
And in one afternoon, she’d lost the only love she’d ever really known, lost her name, her parents, and her future.
Charity wrapped her arms around Daria, weeping, too. They held tightly to each other for a long moment until Daria sucked in her breath and lifted her head. “No more,” she said. “There is too much to be done.”
“Perhaps,” Charity said, wiping the tears delicately from beneath her eyes, “perhaps your parents don’t need you so?”
“What are you saying?” Daria cried. “You’ve said the very opposite for two days.”
“Yes, I know what I’ve said.” She winced as if the memory pained her. “Do you know how I have envied you?”
“What are you talking about?”
“You are the darling of society, Daria, the one everyone wants at their table. When I first came to Tiber Park, I was envious of you. No one wanted me, not with a bastard daughter. And that’s why I have urged you to go home, Daria. I thought perhaps you didn’t understand how fortunate you were.” She shook her head, and closed her eyes a moment.
“I endured a family tragedy which colored everything. Everything! My brother and I lived in squalor. I was forced to learn about the ugly side of life at a very young age. It made me a very lonely woman, Daria. I can’t tell you what I would have given to have had love in my life—any love, if only that of a friend. I wanted desperately what you have found here at Dundavie, and yet, I’ve advised you against it. What sort of friend am I?”
“The very best of friends,” Daria said tearfully. “You were right all along, Charity. I could never fit in here. I don’t belong with these people. And my parents’ deception, the ordeal they have put my grandmother through? I could not dishonor Jamie so.”
Charity sighed. But she did not agree that Daria was right.