Chapter 38
Patrick
drove along behind an incredibly slow caravan in his new Vanquish and didn’t have the strength to pass it. He merely drove with the window rolled down, his arm hanging limply out the side, and medical clinic waiting room music on his stereo.
All in all, a very forgettable morning.
It should have been a good morning. He had a new car, courtesy of his insurance, which would no doubt reach ridiculously new heights of premium.
The weather was unusually fine, with the sun actually making an appearance.
The roads bare and dry. Yet all he could do was languish behind a thirty-year-old caravan and breathe things that should have been outlawed thirty years ago.
Frightening.
When he had finally reached the turnoff to his house, he was half-dead from exhaust fumes. It took him all the way home to breathe enough fresh air to feel halfway back to himself. Not that being back to himself was a place he looked forward to being.
His life was, you might have said, in the toilet.
Which in his house wasn’t functioning, either. He wondered what else life was planning to throw at him in the near future. That was probably something he didn’t really want to know.
He drove into his courtyard, looked dispassionately at the shell of his garage. At least most of the debris had been removed. He knew, because he’d removed what of it he could lift himself. And he’d helped with the rest.
It had taken his mind off other things.
He got out of his car, shut the door, and set the alarm.
He shuffled across the courtyard—and when was the last time he’d shuffled, he wondered—and paused in front of his door.
There were three pieces of paper attached, two with tape, one with a dirk.
He pulled the knife free first and read the barely legible note.
Pat,
Put that Yank barrister on the plane meself two days prior. Told him ye’d be pokin’ him with this if he didna just go peaceful like.
Bobby
P.S. Conal made me come. Yer haime is a wreck. Get a bloody stick o’ furniture, would ye?
Patrick would have smiled if he’d had it in him. He stuck the dirk back into the door and removed the second note. It was a dinner invitation from Ian, when he felt like eating something besides tinned beef.
The third note was from Jamie. It also concerned dinner, but it was not a request.
Well, so his laird called, it seemed. Patrick crumpled up that note along with the rest, sighed deeply, and went inside his house, unfurnished wreck that it was. He shut his front door, opened the shutters over his windows, then dropped his coat on one of the stools.
He trudged wearily into the kitchen and surveyed the contents of his fridge. There was nothing edible there—even by his very low standards. He shut the door and went back to sit in his hall. His great hall, if it could be called that.
He built himself a fire, lit a candle, then sat in the one proper chair he owned. He prepared to indulge himself in a well-deserved afternoon’s brood.
And, as if on cue, it was then that the piper started up.
“Oh, by all the bloody saints!” Patrick shouted, jumping to his feet. He threw open his front door, stuck his head outside, and shouted. “Robert, shut the bloody hell up!”
Robert, who hadn’t deigned to show himself of late, merely played on.
Patrick slammed the door shut, turned, and stomped back over to the fire—just in time to be forced to jump aside as a chair much finer than his materialized directly in front of him.
He suppressed the urge to roll his eyes. Would he never know another moment’s peace?
Apparently not.
First came that hale and hearty curmudgeon, Archibald the Glum, first lord of Benmore.
He was joined by none other than his ever obedient and relentlessly agreeable valet, Nelson.
Patrick waited until Archibald had seated himself before he took his own seat.
He watched Nelson see to his master’s comfort and wondered if perhaps he might be happier with a valet.
He didn’t have long to contemplate that possibility before the peace of the afternoon was relentlessly shattered.
Dorcas burst into view, bedecked with jewels, lace, and enough flounces to clothe a dozen women.
Nelson hastily provided her with a comfortable chair.
This one was from a different century. In fact, Patrick wasn’t sure Nelson hadn’t pinched the idea for the thing from a local furniture store. The pattern looked quite modern.
“Patrick, sit yourself down,” Dorcas said briskly, “and let us put this foolishness behind you.”
“Dorcas,” Archibald grumbled, “this is man’s busi—”
“It most certainly is not.” She pointed a rather bony, ring-bedecked finger at Patrick. “Sit. Listen. Prepare to mend your ways. And afterward I will instruct you on how to make this horrifyingly spartan hovel a place your bride will want to come to.”
Patrick sat. He looked at the Glum, who was puffing quite enthusiastically on his pipe and apparently was physically incapable of staring at anything but the fire. He sighed and looked at Dorcas.
“I’m listening, my lady.”
“I should hope so.”
Two
very trying hours later, he was released to go to dinner at his brother’s.
He wasn’t looking forward to that being any less torturous than what he’d just endured, but he went just the same.
Too many years of obeying his laird, mostly, without question left him driving down and showing up at the table without complaint.
Dinner was nothing out of the ordinary. Elizabeth was up and about quite nicely. The baby was beautiful. Holding her fair broke his heart.
Dessert was finished far too quickly.
Jamie rose and walked toward the stairs.
Patrick sighed, rose, and followed. He felt again a lad of thirteen summers, on his way to receive a fine reprimand. He was hard-pressed to remember he had five-and-thirty years behind him.
He walked into his brother’s study and sat down in the chair next to the desk. Unbidden came the vision of the same chamber as it had been some seven hundred years in the past. Grudach’s bedchamber. Sitting in a chair by that bed, watching Madelyn sleep. Waiting for her to heal.
Lying with her in that bed and coming damn close to making her his wife in truth.
“Any tidings?” Jamie asked.
Patrick pulled himself away from the vision with difficulty and focused on his brother. “Tidings?” he asked. “From Gilbert or Madelyn?”
“Either.”
Patrick shook his head. “Nothing from him. Not that I expected to hear anything.”
“And from Madelyn?”
He looked at his brother. “Did you think she would call me?”
“Not after the way you sent her off.”
“What was I to do?” Patrick demanded.
“Not what you did, I’d say,” Jamie said, unperturbed.
“Did you summon me here to berate me for that or did you have some other bit of wisdom to bestow on my poor self this evening?”
“I thought that after a fortnight, you might have managed to remove your head from where you’ve been keeping it. Have you? Have you found sense yet?”
Patrick cursed. “I made the best choice I could.”
“You didn’t make a choice,” Jamie said stubbornly. “You allowed Gilbert McGhee to make that choice for you.”
“And should I have made the choice to put Madelyn in harm’s way? My children? Would you do the same thing?”
“You cannot ignore him and hope he will tire of the chase. The man is obsessed.”
Patrick stared at him in irritation. “And just what is it you would have me do?”
“Sue the whoreson for slander. We’ve all heard what he calls you.” He gestured to a book lying open on his desk. “I’ve been reading about the law. I can help—”
Patrick stood quickly. It was either that or take that bloody book and club his brother over the head with it. “Many thanks, I’m sure. I’ll seek your advice straightway, should it be required.” And that would be when hell froze over.
“Or sooner—”
Patrick started toward the door. “I’ll give it thought.”
“Patrick.”
Patrick stopped, bowed his head, and sighed. He knew what that tone of voice meant. Jamie had been thinking again. It was never a good thing. He turned around reluctantly. “Aye?”
“Do you love her?”
If that wasn’t the question that he asked himself constantly . . . He shrugged. “I don’t know.”
By the saints, he was a liar. He did love her.
Desperately.
Hopelessly.
So much that even thinking about her was like a dagger in his breast.
Jamie leaned back in his chair and looked at Patrick with undisguised pity.
“You poor fool,” Jamie said. “Forgive yourself for a bad choice the first time with Lisa. Everyone deserves love. Forgive yourself, let your heart heal, and let it hope.”
Patrick stared at his brother. He could scarce believe so many sentimental things had come out of the man’s mouth at one sitting. He pursed his lips. “And Gilbert? What am I to do with him?”
“He’ll come to his own bad end. No one can fault you for protecting yourself on your own land. No one,” he repeated.
Patrick closed his eyes briefly. It was tempting. It was tempting to do his enemy in once and for all.
“Go home and think about it,” Jamie said.
Patrick nodded, turned, and left. The hall was empty, so he didn’t have to face any more of his family. He left the keep and drove slowly home, Jamie’s last words echoing through his soul.
Forgiveness.
Healing.
Hope.
It was the last, he realized with a start, that he’d felt listening to Madelyn’s music.
Hope
.
Something she had. Something he didn’t.
He sat in front of his house for a very long time, letting the word seep down into the very bones of his soul.
Hope.
His heart echoed the word with a gentle whisper.
He got out of his car and walked into his house. Archibald was still warming his toes against the embers of Patrick’s fire. Patrick stood near the hearth and looked down into the ruins of his latest effort.
“Goin’ to fetch the gel?” Archibald asked.
Patrick sighed. “I may never have any peace if I don’t.”
“And I’m here to tell you, you won’t if you do—”
Archibald!
The Glum ducked his head, but looked at Patrick meaningfully.
Patrick laughed uneasily and walked back to his bedchamber. Lady Dorcas hadn’t given him any suggestions for improving the decor here, so he assumed he was safe taking off his clothes and going to bed.
Just to be safe, he turned off the light before he stripped.
As he lay there in the dark, he let himself think about what he had been pushing aside for a fortnight.
What could she possibly be thinking? Was she waiting for him to call, or was that misplaced arrogance on his part?
I liked you better in the Middle Ages.
He sighed deeply.
He could lie down and let Gilbert make his choices for him, or he could choose for himself and take the consequences like a man. It wasn’t as if he could take a sword to Gilbert—or couldn’t he? Self-defense was self-defense.
It was so much more clear-cut in medieval Scotland.
But what was clear to him in present-day Scotland was how much he did love Madelyn. He found himself looking for her as he went through his miserable days. He found himself listening for her laugh, waiting for her smile, turning to talk to her about the things that were close to his heart.
He found himself thinking about bloody castle stairs and imagining how she would enjoy them.
He sat up, reached over, and fumbled in his jacket pocket for his mobile phone. He knew her sister’s phone number. It had seemed an intelligent thing to do—the getting of that phone number. Just in case he needed to reach Madelyn and give her important tidings.
He dialed, then paused.
It was too early in the morning there. He might try again later, when he figured out what in the hell he was going to say. When he’d decided if he could bear to hear her tell him to go to hell.
He put the phone down on the floor, lay down, and closed his eyes.
Sleep did not come easily.