Chapter 3
Elspeth McGregor regarded her father in disbelief. “You’ve what?”
It was Sunday. Morning sunlight filtered into the breakfast room of the spacious townhouse owned by the McGregor family.
Her father liked nothing but the best. Elspeth loved Sundays for their quiet and peace.
Most days, she awoke almost at the same time as the chambermaids, and directed the majority of the tasks as well as pursuing her own projects around the house.
For instance, on Saturday, she’d worked on the kitchen garden to expand the plot for onions and garlic.
The day before had been washing day, so the whole backyard had been occupied by the tubs of water and the lines of drying linens.
Sundays were meant to be a respite.
She normally enjoyed her morning coffee on her own, being the earliest riser in the family.
However, today her father had appeared almost immediately.
There was an edge of excitement in his face that she associated with long nights spent at card tables, so she attributed his glee to a particularly lucrative hand.
But then he told her the news.
“I said, I’ve promised you in marriage. You should feel honored,” he said, patting her hand.
The gesture was unlike him. He’d always been a distant man, his concerns never overlapping with her own.
By her own choice, she confined herself to home and hearth, always striving to keep her household as comfortable and as efficient as possible.
Her father, by contrast, was always about town, or at his club, or handling matters of business.
He was an important man in the city of Edinburgh, at least according to him.
So the fact that he had come to her felt like an event in itself.
She looked down at her hand, the light skin against deep-dyed fabric.
Elspeth wore a plain day dress in a rather unflattering purple color, with an apron tied around her waist because she intended to prepare the morning meal for the rest of the household.
If she had known what momentous news awaited her, Elspeth would have removed the apron.
“You are to be wife to a wealthy and important man. He has chosen you especially, so you should respect that decision.”
“I do, of course. But I don’t recall ever having met the gentleman,” Elspeth said.
Her voice was low and soft, as always. She had been instructed how to make the best possible impression on the people around her, which usually entailed keeping herself quiet and out of the way, so that she wouldn’t bother anyone.
Elspeth viewed a peaceful and harmonious home as the pinnacle of achievement.
She’d worked hard to make that happen for her own family and she was alarmed by the revelation that she would shortly be doing it in another location entirely.
“It will be a good match,” he said.
“I do wish to make a good match, Father. And I’m grateful that you have handled the matter so smoothly.
” By which she meant, quietly, or quickly, or even stealthily, though she would never say those words to the man in charge of her home.
“But I thought that you wished both Mairi and Averill to be married before me.”
“Well, that had been the intention, though Mairi…” He gave up the rest of the sentence with an aggrieved sigh. “But who am I to stand in the way of fate? This offer of marriage is a blessing.”
Elspeth nodded automatically, having been trained to believe that blessings were good.
“When is the formal announcement to take place?” she asked.
Elspeth had always dreamed of a summer wedding, and it was possible that she would be able to be married by the end of summer if everything were to go as expected.
She would have to prepare her trousseau, and pack what she owned, and make arrangements for the wedding, as well as what she would need to do in order to step into the role of wife to a gentleman.
Yes, it was likely that she would not be married until autumn…
“The announcement will go out in the morning edition of the newspapers,” her father declared. “You will marry on Friday morning, after which you both will travel to his home in the Highlands.”
It took her far too long to process that.
“This Friday?” Elspeth asked at last.
Now her father showed a trace of irritation. “Of course this Friday. If it were to be a different Friday, I would have said. Thank God we’re not in England with their banns and rules.”
“That’s less than a week! I can’t prepare what I need by then.”
“What’s to prepare? Your new husband will provide for you,” her father said. He smiled, showing gleaming yellow teeth. “Pack your personal belongings, and the rest will be handled once you arrive.”
“But I don’t understand. Are you and my stepmother…
doing anything?” she asked. Elspeth never called the second Mrs McGregor mother.
For similar reasons, she did not like to refer to Averill as her sister, though that was how her father introduced them on the rare occasions that the whole family attended an event requiring introductions.
“We’ll attend the wedding ceremony, of course, but probably not the breakfast. If he has one—I am not sure what his plans are.
But I believe he intends to waste no time in returning to his home, which I understand is far from here.
” Her father patted her hand once more, then released it.
“Now why don’t you get to packing? As you said, there isn’t much time. ”
By his manner, the discussion was over. Elspeth rose, too flustered to ask out loud the thousand questions in her mind. One thing she knew above all. When her father made a decision, it was made forever. Elspeth was going to be married. But she didn’t know who she was marrying.
At the top of the stairs, she rushed into her sister’s room. Mairi groaned when Elspeth pulled aside the curtains. “It’s far too early, Pest! Why are you tormenting me?”
“Mairi, wake up. Something has happened.”
“Did someone die?” Mairi sat up as she asked it, looking bleary-eyed.
“I’m to be married!” Elspeth announced, hoping to jolt her sister into alertness.
“Better you than me.” Mairi groaned, then asked, “Hold a moment. Were you being courted by anyone? Who’s the gentleman?”
“That’s why I’m here, Mairi. I don’t know who he is! Father said he made the offer last evening, and he’s admired me from afar.”
“Very afar, if you don’t even know him. He must have a name.”
“Mr Struan MacInnes. He’s got land up near Wick. Or Thurso? I’m not sure. And he was in the army, but he’s not anymore.”
Mairi sighed. “I expect many soldiers are searching for wives now that the war is over. After the bleeding, the breeding.”
Elspeth frowned at her sister’s matter-of-fact tone. “Mairi, that’s harsh of you!”
“It’s true. Men are all the same.” Mairi was a firm proponent of the rights of women, to the point of joining a local society for the cause: the League for the Advancement of Scottish Women.
She read literally every book, pamphlet, tract, and newspaper article published about the issue.
While Elspeth admired her sister’s singular focus, she thought Mairi had acquired a few more radical notions than were strictly helpful to a young lady in 1816.
Elspeth herself joined no societies, and her singular focus was nothing more radical than the running of the house…
a task at which she excelled. Elspeth felt close to her late mother when she worked at that.
She had no memories of her mother doing such things—after all, Elspeth’s birth had caused her mother’s death.
But her father sometimes remarked to visitors that there had been no finer lady than the first Mrs McGregor when it came to matters of homekeeping.
The second Mrs McGregor, whose given name was Susan, showed no offense at this, her focus being much more directed toward her own daughter.
So Elspeth strove to do the same work as her birth mother, though she had not yet earned the same level of praise.
But other matters were paramount this morning.
“You have to help me find out more about him!” Elspeth said to Mairi. “Where can we do that?”
“As unmarried young ladies with no connections to him? Nowhere,” Mairi said. “Let me think. You could write to Uncle Nicholas. He might know something. Father really didn’t say anything else?”
“Just what I told you.”
“That’s odd. One would think Father would vet the man, if only to ensure he doesn’t accidentally lower our family’s social standing.”
Elspeth nodded at that, for their father was intensely concerned with such things. A scandal or shame on one branch of a family tree could blight all other branches. She said, “Well, then it’s certain that Mr MacInnes is respectable. That’s reassuring.”
“Is it? Many men are considered respectable without doing anything worth respect. All it means is that they haven’t done anything bad enough to be ostracized.”
“You are oil upon troubled waters,” Elspeth joked with an exasperated yet affectionate smile.
“Your waters are never troubled, Pest,” Mairi retorted. “I could lead a charge of elephants at you and you’d merely offer them tea and…whatever elephants eat.”
“Straw or corn, I think,” Elspeth said. “But Mairi, please pay attention! What can I do?”
“Run away, if you don’t want to be married.”
“Don’t be absurd. Of course I wish to be married. But I don’t wish to be surprised. If I can learn about my husband, I’ll know what he likes.”
“Sounds as if he likes you,” Mairi said with a shrug. “Well, I’m awake now. We’ll write to Uncle and see if there’s any information to be had about your mysterious suitor.”