Chapter 24
Clara had been to many English weddings as her friends found husbands. These ceremonious, dignified weddings were held in the morning and followed by ceremonious and grave wedding breakfasts during which champagne was the drink of choice.
After her wedding, she and Caelan walked down the village street between a corridor of people cheering and pelting them with blossoms. Once they arrived in the pub, it became clear that whisky was the champagne of Scotland.
“You’re a Highlander now,”
a Mr. McCurdy told her as he handed her a glass, smiling so widely that she could see his back teeth. “I pride myself that mine is a trifle sweet, perfect for a lady. I introduced a touch of honey.”
Clara took a hearty sip and had a hard time not spitting it out. Only her mother’s drilling in ladylike behavior came to her rescue. “It’s . . . lovely,”
she managed. “Very pungent.”
Mr. McCurdy’s forehead wrinkled. “‘Pungent,’ eh? One of those English words I don’t know. I’ll use it in me text. We have to write up a description when we sell it down to the Brits.”
He was shouldered aside by a man who introduced himself as Mr. Monro.
“I’d be right grateful for an English word that might describe mine,”
he said, holding out a glass. “I heard you are a great reader, and the laird himself told me that you have the best vocabulary in these parts. I smoked clover leaves over my brew to add a smoky flavor.”
That whisky was, hands down, the worst thing that Clara had ever tasted. The only thing she could say was that the sip landed warmly in her stomach, but Mr. Monro’s hopeful eyes were fixed on her face. Thankfully, Walter Scott’s poetry came to mind.
“Rugged,”
she said, managing not to shudder. “Deep and broad.”
That was met with delight.
Mr. Halidon was next. Clara sampled his dreadful brew. “Gallant and wild.”
“Wild?”
Mr. Halidon looked somewhat surprised.
“Like a wild harp wakened by the winds.”
An arm closed around her waist. “Are you trying to intoxicate my bride, Mr. Halidon?”
Caelan asked.
“Nay, we’re giving her the tiniest sips,”
he protested. “She has a way with words that’s like a verist Scottish minstrel, laird. To quote the bard himself, ‘Liquor guid to fire his bluid!’”
“Shakespeare?”
Clara asked.
“Nay, Robert Burns,”
Mr. Halidon said, shaking his head. “Only poet worth reading, especially when he’s talking of poor man’s wine. ‘Whether thro’ wimplin’ worms thou jink, or, richly brown, ream owre the brink.’”
“I have no idea what you just said,”
Clara confessed.
“Scots dialect,”
Caelan said, pulling her even closer, until their hips touched. “Shall we try the next?”
Six or seven more men were ranged behind Mr. Halidon, chattering as they waited. “Oh, my,”
Clara breathed, wondering how much poetry she could remember.
“I can tell them that you’ve had all the drink you can stomach,”
Caelan said, bending down to nuzzle her hair.
She shook her head. “I’m a Scotswoman now.”
“You could merely wet your lips. Though a befuddled Clara might be very enjoyable.”
She poked him. “Stop making fun of me, you fiend!”
Caelan’s rumbling laughter broke out, and Mr. Halidon’s face brightened. “Ach, but it’s a year and a day since we heard the laird laughing, is it not? I’m thinking that good Scottish whisky would better any wedding night.”
The whole of them spontaneously burst into song. “‘We’ll drink a cup of kindness yet, for the sake of auld lang syne.’”
Clara didn’t know what to make of it—or even what the words meant—but when they all raised their glasses, she drank with them, finishing Mr. Halidon’s sample. The whisky burned to the pit of her stomach. It seemed to taste slightly better now; perhaps she was getting used to it.
“Off with you,”
Caelan said, shaking hands with him. “Let’s have the next one.”
From then on, Clara sipped each whisky, and Caelan tossed off the glass. He and the crofter in question would have a learned conversation about peat and malt, while Clara desperately summoned up lines from poetry.
Walter Scott’s “Glenfinlas”
proved very useful, as she proclaimed Mr. Hay’s whisky had “potent tone.” Mr. Annard was somewhat taken aback by “rapture’s glow,” especially when Caelan couldn’t stop laughing. But Mr. Shaw rejoiced at “dark and deep.”
After the last crofter had come and gone, Caelan handed her a glass of his own MacCrae whisky just as the wives claimed her. They drew her over to a table and told her stories about Caelan as a boy. Very kindly, no one mentioned Isla’s name. Fiona introduced an elderly woman, Mrs. Baldy, who looked at her defensively and said that the castle steps were more than she could manage most days.
Clara took her hand and confessed that she had made the laird change his own sheets, which caused all the women to scream so boisterously with laughter that a few of their husbands came around and demanded to know the jest.
Mrs. Gillan took the opportunity to whisper that she was glad Caelan had married her, because he did need an heir.
Clara nodded, feeling unsettled all of a sudden. It was one thing to kiss Caelan, but children?
Mrs. Gillan frowned. “Oh my goodness.”
She turned her head. “Fiona, do come here, if you would!”
After this many rounds of ale and samples of local whisky, titles had gone by the wayside. Fiona wobbled on her way across the pub, gathered Clara into her arms, and whispered sweetly, “Now my wee brother will be happy again.”
Wee brother?
Clara stole a look at Caelan. His shoulders were larger than anyone’s in the room, a realization that made her smile like a goose, especially when their eyes met and his conveyed that he was equally pleased with her shape.
That wasn’t a small thing, she thought blurrily.
Mrs. Gillan wrapped a hand around her wrist. “Come along, Fiona!”
she said, pulling Clara into the snug, off the main room.
Fiona wandered after them. “Has anyone seen my son? Or a rabbity chicken?”
“He’s fine,”
Mrs. Gillan said, closing the door. “Now, Fiona, we have a task before us.”
“We do? I thought we took care of it. The bed should be up by now.”
“That’s the problem,”
Mrs. Gillan said impatiently. She, if no one else, had stayed sober.
“I apologize for marrying Isla’s husband,”
Clara said impulsively, sinking onto a bench. “I am sorry for your loss, Mrs. Gillan.”
The older woman smiled, her eyes clear. “Isla adored Caelan from the time they were wee ones. She never would have begrudged him a wife and children.”
“We won’t have the same kind of marriage,”
Clara said. “He feels affection for me. Maybe he called it ‘great affection.’”
Fiona sighed loudly. “My brother. Blind as a mole and always has been.”
“Dear Clara’s mother is not here,”
Mrs. Gillan said to Fiona.
“Leonora says that the woman’s a right—”
Fiona caught herself. “That is, Lady Bufford has a low opinion of your mother, Clara.” She took a swallow of whisky. “‘Lady Vetry’ sounds like a frosty evening.”
“Fiona!”
Mrs. Gillan frowned at her.
“Hmmm?”
“Perhaps I should return to the other room,”
Clara said. She was starting to feel a little queasy.
“No one has told this poor lass about the wedding night,”
Mrs. Gillan burst out. “Fiona, you’re as drunk as a boiled owl!”
“Am not,”
Fiona said, blinking owlishly at Clara. “Wedding night, eh? My brother didn’t manage to talk you into making love on that red sofa of his?”
“No,”
Clara said.
Fiona hooted with laughter. “His seduction skills need work. Maybe Rory can give him some pointers.”
“The laird would never take advantage of a young woman under his own roof, no matter what the gossips say,”
Mrs. Gillan snapped.
“He didn’t,”
Clara assured her. “He’s very honest. Honorable. He was very truthful. Perhaps too truthful.”
“You’re drunk as well,”
Mrs. Gillan observed.
“I believe it is the fault of Caelan’s whisky,”
Clara told her, putting the glass down. “I don’t want to hurt his feelings, but I don’t think anyone will buy it, as it tastes disgusting. Luckily I have a dowry. We can afford to buy some furniture.” She blinked, focusing on Mrs. Gillan’s face. “Perhaps not as lovely as that which Isla chose.”
“Never mind that,”
Fiona said. “Let’s get going with the explanations, because I should find out what happened to Alfie.”
“He’s under a bench against the wall,”
Clara told her. “He has Wilhelmina with him, and last I looked, they were both sleeping.”
“Ach, it’s a marvelous mother that you’ll be,”
Fiona said, sighing. “Now, listen to me. You know that a man has a thing down there, don’t you?” She waved in the general area of Clara’s waist.
Clara picked up her glass of whisky and took another gulp, shuddering as it went down her throat. “I know all about it because Prince George showed me a vase.”
“What?”
Mrs. Gillan frowned.
“A man’s tool can be a wee bit dismaying,”
Fiona said, ignoring Clara’s mention of a vase. “That tool does fit inside a woman, even when it seems as if it wouldn’t and couldn’t.”
Clara smiled. “I’ve already seen my husband without clothing.”
Mrs. Gillan gasped. “No!”
“He was in the loch,”
Clara explained. “I slapped my hands over my eyes, but it was too late. I shouldn’t have looked, but it all happened so fast.”
Mrs. Gillan was aghast.
“That’s why I’m not worried. He’s much more reasonably sized than I would have feared considering how tall he is. The vase was very misleading.”
“Vase?”
Fiona asked.
“A Roman vase.”
Clara lowered her voice and whispered, “The men had preposterous things in the front of them. Big as . . . as carrots. No, bigger. Obviously, the depiction was false.”
She reminded herself not to say anything more about Caelan’s size, not to his sister and mother-in-law. It would be a secret between them.
“I warned my brother that he would be scandalizing innocents,”
Fiona said, giggling madly, “but I didn’t take the effect of cold water into account.”
“The advice I gave my darling Isla—”
“Mrs. Gillan!”
Fiona’s voice was very sharp. “I don’t mean to be unkind, but that is inappropriate.”
Mrs. Gillan started. “Of course, you’re right! ’Twas a totally different circumstance, was it not? I’m a beast to have raised the subject.”
Clara nodded. “They were in love. Different circumstances. Kissing Caelan is scorching, so she . . . it . . .”
“The bride is drunk,”
Fiona said, giggling some more.
Clara decided it would be comfortable to lie down on the bench. “It’s been a very stressful day. I’ll rest my head for a moment.”
“Scorching?”
Mrs. Gillan repeated.
“Well, thank goodness they have that going for them,”
Fiona snapped. She sounded a great deal more sober. “Mrs. Gillan, I shall say this to you once and trust that you don’t disappoint me.”
“Yes?”
“Isla, your darling Isla, is dead. If my equally darling brother is to have a happy marriage and a happy life, we must stop talking about how perfect Isla was and referring to the great love affair of their marriage.”
“I know,”
Mrs. Gillan said.
She sounded so chastised that Clara groggily opened her eyes and thought about saying she didn’t mind talking about Isla. But it wasn’t true. She didn’t want to ever talk about her. “I know she was everything to Caelan,”
she said instead. “He told me that I can’t say her name. Aloud. To him.” She heaved a sigh.
“That fool,”
Fiona hissed.
“Oh dear,”
Mrs. Gillan muttered.
“Most people don’t marry for love,”
Clara told them. “He told me that too, and he’s right. My parents certainly didn’t.”
“Neither did ours,”
Fiona replied. “But Clara, darling, feelings can change. No one knows how they’ll feel on their first anniversary.”
“How did you feel?”
Clara said. She propped herself up enough to pick up her glass and take a sip of Caelan’s whisky. It was so awful that it jolted her awake.
“Well, I was in love when I married,”
Fiona said awkwardly. “I’d known Rory since we were children, you see.”
“Just like Isla and Caelan,”
Clara said before she could stop herself.
Mrs. Gillan looked uncomfortable. “As Fiona said, we should let the past stay in the past.”
Clara managed to give her a weak smile, mostly because she’d suddenly remembered her mother’s command to marry someone ferocious. She had the feeling that Caelan qualified. But then, Lady Vetry would consider this marriage further evidence that her daughter was “impetuous and thoughtless.”
Clara shivered to imagine Lady Vetry’s comments. Not that it mattered, because she was a Scotswoman now.
Mrs. Gillan, despite her tragedy, had been far kinder than her mother would have been.
“Perhaps I’ll take a nap. A wee nap,”
Clara said, determined to start using more words like “wee” and prove herself Scots that way, because she would never love whisky.
Sometime later she woke up in the carriage, snugly held in Caelan’s arms. “My head is terribly foggy.”
He laughed and kissed her forehead. “Thanks to all that whisky.”
“I feel very warm,”
Clara told him. “Very . . . affectionate.” She closed her eyes and turned her head toward his chest. “You smell delicious, do you know that?”
“Clara.”
His voice rasped.
She didn’t pay much attention, because she was sniffing him. “I like the way you smell. That’s a good thing about our marriage.”
She raised a finger in the air and managed to focus on it. “One good thing.”
“Surely not the only good thing?”
“No, there’s the way you look. I love your shoulders. And the size of you, ah, privately. Just right for me, because I’m rather small.”
Remembering that might be an insult, she looked up at him hazily. “I apologize if that sounded belittling.”
He looked confused, so she drew a finger down his brow and his powerful nose. “You’re beautiful,”
she said dreamily, half aware that she would be terribly embarrassed in the morning. “Your legs, your arse—I apologize for being so vulgar—your shoulders from the back and the front. I feel achy looking at you.”
“Do you?”
His voice was almost a croon. “I wish you hadn’t drunk so much whisky, Clara.”
“I couldn’t say no,”
she told him. “You have so many crofters, and they each have their own whisky. I am so sorry to tell you this, Caelan, but it all tasted dreadful.”
His eyes were dancing. “Every single one?”
“Including yours,”
Clara said. “I’m only telling you the truth because I’m a trifle foxed, but whisky is awful.” She thought about it. “Perhaps better after the tenth glass, but I had to tell some terrible fibs this afternoon. I told every single man that their whisky was outstanding. Remarkable. Incredible.”
“I was standing next to you, remember? You were eloquent and kind.”
“You’re laughing at me,”
Clara muttered, turning to nestle her face against his chest again.
His arm tightened, and he bent down, his lips brushing against her ear. “If you weren’t drunk, I’d make love to you in this carriage.”
“What? You can’t do that,”
Clara said, blinking at him.
“Why not?”
His teeth nipped her ear lobe.
Clara felt it like a jolt through her body. “That made me feel—”
She broke off, not sure how to describe it.
“Like?”
His voice was gravelly and low.
“I couldn’t say it aloud,”
she told him, her mother’s most forbidding expression floating through her mind.
“Maybe later,”
Caelan said. He rearranged her in his lap so she was more upright. “I’ll kiss you when you’re sober.”
“All right,”
Clara said, putting her head against his shoulder. She wasn’t entirely comfortable, so she wiggled side to side.
Caelan uttered a guttural sound that made her eyes blink open.
“Are you quite all right?”
She drew up her knees and put her feet on the seat.
“Yes.”
It was one word, but something in his tone shimmered through her body in a peculiar way. Or perhaps that was the fact the carriage was swaying so much.
“Are we going through the pass now?”
she asked.
He didn’t even glance out the window. “Aye.”
“I like it when you talk like that. ‘Aye,’”
she said, trying it out, but it didn’t sound right.
“Like a Scotsman?”
he asked. “You wouldn’t prefer that I spoke like a Lowlander or an Englishman?”
“Why would I?”
Clara asked. “That would be like asking you to wear breeches instead of your kilt.” Sleep was coming over her like a thick woolen blanket.
“Isla did.”
“Say something else to me.”
“‘So fair art thou, my bonnie lass,’”
Caelan said, kissing her forehead.
“That’s nice,”
Clara said.
His deep voice rumbled into her dreams.