Chapter 16
You were unkind, Montgomery. Caroline’s voice censured him.
She’d said the same when he’d ignored one of her cousins, a girl with a braying laugh who’d come to spend a few weeks at Gleneagle.
He’d found almost any excuse to avoid her.
Caroline had had fond hopes, of course, and he’d already warned her about trying to pair him with one of her many female relatives.
The woman he was watching, however, wasn’t one of Caroline’s cousins. Nor did Veronica have a braying laugh. She was, however, stubborn. No doubt a Scots trait. What about her disconcerting ability to disturb him? He suspected that was something only Veronica possessed.
Her eyes were warm, too compassionate and caring. He didn’t believe she could feel his emotions. Yet she always seemed to know when to touch him, when to lend her support.
She surprised him with both her curiosity and her passion. He suspected there’d be no sensual limits between them, and that was an arousing thought, one that momentarily took his mind from the tasks at hand.
He turned, walked back into the distillery, and tried to occupy his mind with something other than his wife. Veronica, however, refused to disappear that easily. She was as determined a ghost as Caroline, for all that Veronica was alive.
He’d have to apologize.
What did he say? That he was as uncertain of himself as he’d ever been? That he felt out of place? He hadn’t yet formulated a goal, a reason for waking every morning.
The only thing in his life that was familiar and comforting was his airship.
Resolutely, he began an inventory of the items being uncrated, pushing thoughts of Veronica away.
Thanks to the fortune accompanying the title, he’d had enough money to order items he couldn’t afford since before the war: two envelopes of silk, one in an inverted teardrop, the other in an oval shape, a burner, made in Germany and boasting a paraffin oil reservoir, and three woven basket-like gondolas, two square, and one in a larger rectangular shape.
He’d utilized enough of his own fortune before the war to know how expensive it was to operate an airship. Nor had he flown in one since the War Department disbanded the Balloon Corps.
Six years ago, he’d amused his family with his love of all things aerial.
He’d corresponded with the giants in the field and created an area not far from Gleneagle where he experimented with and launched his own design.
The day he took Alisdair and James up in a tethered balloon and seen the expressions on their faces was when he knew they’d never ridicule him again.
Nor had they.
Two years later, he was flying high above Confederate forces, using his airship to spy on the enemy. An enemy comprised of his family and friends, people who no longer existed.
If a man lives on through the memories of others, then the whole of his family would perish when he, too, died.
There would be no one to remember all his aunts and uncles, his parents, or his brothers.
No one who’d known Magnus. No one would remember their names or even that they’d lived in a place called Gleneagle in Fairfax County, Virginia.
He turned to look toward Doncaster Hall again.
The house had remained standing for hundreds of years, proof the Lords Fairfax existed, walked the earth.
Some of the lords had performed deeds that would be forever remembered.
Most simply lived ordinary lives in the house now standing as a monument to their family’s continuation.
Montgomery was one of them now, whether he wished it or not. Even if he returned home, he’d forever be known as the 11th Lord Fairfax.
The future was like a silk envelope before an influx of hot air. Nothing was destined, nothing determined. He might become anyone he wanted. He might be a despot or beloved for his kindness. He might remain aimless or possess a fire for achieving a goal yet unknown.
And happiness? How, then, did he become happy?
No one greeted her as Veronica opened the front door.
She regarded the oval staircase in front of her.
Such beauty, such magnificence, was wasted on a house built for only one family.
Such architectural genius should have been saved for a public building, perhaps.
Something that could be viewed by more than just a few people.
Two of the maids nodded to her as she passed.
In England, they no doubt would have curtsied to her, at which point she would’ve felt embarrassed and unworthy of such obeisance.
In Scotland, however, the lowest member of the clan was equal to its chief.
Her father had taught her never to look at another human being as if he were subservient.
We are all here to strive and to learn, Veronica, he often said. Some of us are in different stages of our education.
What would he have said of Montgomery? Would he have been angry on her behalf? Or would he, more likely, have counseled patience on her part?
She didn’t feel exceptionally patient at that point. Yet what other option did she have?
“Your Ladyship, you’re back,” Elspeth said, peering around the landing. “Mary said she saw you in the ballroom earlier. I was wondering if you were doing a tour of the house.”
“Only my own,” she said, forcing a smile to her face.
“So Mrs. Brody didn’t take you, then?”
She shook her head.
“You’ll not have seen the secret passages, and the dungeon as well,” Elspeth said, joining her on the stairs.
“Dungeon? You didn’t say anything about a dungeon.”
“I didn’t mention the ghosts, either,” Elspeth said with a twinkle. “A drummer boy plays when anything bad is about to happen to one of the Lords Fairfax. It happened when the 10th Lord died. Granted, he was an old man, but one of the maids heard the drummer, all the same.”
“The very last thing I choose to worry about, Elspeth, is whether or not someone hears the sound of a drum. We’d be in a constant state of alarm.”
Elspeth nodded. “I agree, Your Ladyship. Plus, the girl who heard it was a silly sort anyway.”
“We’ll put off the tour of the secret passages and the dungeon for later,” she said.
“If it’s all the same with you, Your Ladyship, I’d rather not see the dungeon, and the secret passages give me the shivers.
The 10th Lord was all for the maids using the passages to go from room to room, but Mrs. Brody put a stop to that when one of the girls forgot how to open the door in the study.
You could hear her scream through the whole of Doncaster Hall. ”
“Mrs. Brody sounds like an eminently practical woman.”
Perhaps she should emulate the housekeeper and become more practical herself. Dismiss the notion she could feel the emotions of others. Banish the thought, too, that she’d seen anything in Montgomery’s magic mirror.
In the next three hours, she met with the seamstresses and was then given a comprehensive tour of Doncaster Hall, including those rooms she’d already seen.
She didn’t mention her earlier explorations.
Nor did she tell Mrs. Brody, when the housekeeper asked if the Family Dining Room would be suitable for their dinners, that she was certain Montgomery would avoid her if he could.
From now on, she would either take a tray in her sitting room or do without dinner altogether. Too much pity was, well, simply too much pity.
Three lanterns illuminated the interior of the distillery, with another lantern on each end of his makeshift worktable providing enough light despite the hour.
It’s that damn airship again, James said, repeating a refrain he’d uttered often enough in life.
Montgomery checked the barrel of paraffin oil next to the wall and performed a final inspection of all the empty crates.
I would have thought you’d get bored with that.
He had no intention of arguing with a ghost. James had been an irritant when he was alive. Why should death render him silent?
This time, however, he also heard Alisdair’s comment, one his older brother had made numerous times.
He’ll give it up once the newness wears off.
He thinks he can fly like a bird. James flapped his arms.
“Am I supposed to be amused?”
They never answered him. He’d be shocked if they did. His ghosts were remnants of memory, plucked from the past and set among his present moments. Perhaps his mind did so in an attempt to ease him, to remind him he’d once been surrounded by people so intrusive he’d wished for solitude.
Veronica could soften his loneliness. Veronica, with her ability to make him smile, her surprising passion, and the comfort he found in her arms.
He owed her an apology. Would she see his appearance as that? Or as weakness, that he couldn’t resist her?
Damned if he cared at the moment.
After dinner, Veronica took a bath, dismissed Elspeth, and retired to her sitting room. For long moments, she sat there, trying to calm herself. The emotions coming from others were sometimes easier to decipher than her own feelings. Was she simply angry? Or hurt as well?
Montgomery could touch her, and her will melted. Her body knew his, craved his. Outside their bed, he wanted nothing to do with her. He wouldn’t talk to her, wouldn’t spend any time with her.
She was a wifely concubine.
She stood, walked to the connecting door, and hesitated.
Was he inside? She heard no sounds to indicate he’d returned.
She opened the door and stared into Montgomery’s room.
Being there was, no doubt, violating some marital rule.
A wife was not supposed to transgress against her husband’s privacy or dare too much.
Theirs was not any ordinary marriage, was it?
Where would he have put the mirror?
She moved to his armoire, feeling a tug of conscience for violating Montgomery’s privacy as she opened the doors. She found the drawstring bag in the bottom of the armoire, grabbed it, and returned to her chamber.
Montgomery was standing in her bedroom.