Chapter 29 #2
Not without subterfuge, but every time she had sought comfort, he had done his best to provide it. Now while she was alone on her bed, Elspeth could remember with perfect clarity the many times they had lain together, with him holding her in an embrace so solid it may as well have been a fortress.
Was her own rejection of Struan in essence any different from her father’s rejection of her?
Though the situations were not at all similar, the fact remained that Elspeth had rejected Struan, and left him, ostensibly for a short visit, though she couldn’t deny the many times she had considered the possibility of never returning to his home.
It was a fantasy, for she had no illusions about her ability to live independently, nor about Struan’s tolerance for an errant wife.
Good Lord, what would he do if he knew she was with child?
(If she was with child!) He certainly wouldn’t have allowed her to leave Linneliath, and if he knew her state now, he would come storming over to retrieve her personally.
Struan had been clear what he wanted from the marriage: children.
He wanted an heir, as so many men did. In truth, Elspeth ought to write to inform him of her suspicions, if only because that fact might soften his displeasure at her defiance.
Unconsciously, she dropped one hand to her belly, which was still the same shape it had been before. There was as yet no obvious outward sign of her condition. If that was her condition. Nothing was proven.
And yet she felt that her guess was right.
Elspeth spread her hand across her stomach, knowing that whatever decisions she made, she was not making them only for herself.
She had to think what was best for her son or daughter, and she must be willing to endure more pain if it meant their safety and comfort.
She thought of her father again, and wondered how he would greet the news of his first grandchild, and the first grandchild of his late wife.
Would his hatred continue for another generation, or would that child be fully forgiven, Elspeth having taken on all of its sins?
The next thought rose unbidden and unwelcome in her mind. What would happen if she herself died in childbirth as her own mother did? Would Struan hate his son or daughter for that?
Whatever happened, her child would require a guardian, and Struan was the only possible choice.
He would treat their child well, even if there was no love between him and Elspeth.
Once again, it seemed her only course of action was to put aside her own hazy dreams and desires and think of others.
It was what she had done her whole life, and now as a mother-to-be it was the only rational choice.
There was a soft knock at the door. “Pest?”
Elspeth didn’t answer, but a moment later the door pushed open and her sister slipped in the room. “I knew you had to be awake. But what’s wrong? You’re crying.”
And then Elspeth told her what had transpired between her and Struan, and her fear about being pregnant.
“We could run away together,” Elspeth said desperately. “I do have all those jewels, and I don’t care how low a price they fetch. We could make it work. You could be a schoolmistress and I could be a seamstress. We could go to London, or perhaps Dublin. We could save money for passage to America.…”
Mairi sat on the bed and reached out a hand to hold Elspeth’s.
“If you’re right about your condition, it’s not just the two of us.
And I would never destroy your life or that of your child because of my own fear about my future.
But you, my darling Pest, you must think of your child.
If you flee, and he knew you took his child with you, he would pursue you to the ends of the earth. ”
“Oh, God. I almost wish he would,” Elspeth whispered, clinging to her sister.
“Do you, Pest?” Mairi asked, stroking her head.
“I don’t know! I don’t know what I want. I’m a wreck, Mairi. Everyone wants me to be something for them, and there’s none of me left to be something for me. And now there’s a baby…maybe…and I must be something for them.”
She burst into a new round of sobbing, and her sister—her prickly, stormy sister—soothed her with whispered words that solved nothing, but still built a bulwark between Ellie and the world.
* * * *
The hulking footman’s name was Michael, and he’d also been to war. Struan had hired him because he needed work, and the fact that he looked more like a bodyguard than a footman hadn’t really occurred to him until that day.
Michael reported to him in the parlor. “She refused to come, sir. She wrote this for you.” He offered Struan a folded note on green paper.
Struan opened the letter, his heart pounding at seeing his name in Ellie’s handwriting in dark blue ink. The note inside, written in the same dark blue, was brief, even brusque.
If you wish to discuss matters, be at St Giles at one. If you are not waiting outside the main doors when the clock strikes, I will assume that no arrangement can be reached and we shall place our wagers where we stand.
He frowned. That didn’t sound like Ellie at all.
The lettering was sloppier than on the outside, and it looked like she broke the nib off at one point.
She must be enraged, he thought, to have written something in such a haphazard way.
And she hadn’t bothered with a seal. That was a mark of disdain, and he felt it keenly.
But at least she had written. That meant something, didn’t it?
There wasn’t much time to alert the other men, prepare, and get to the church she’d mentioned. So Struan sent off a hurried note to Calan and the others, asking them to join him at St Giles, but not to interrupt if they saw him and Elspeth talking.
Struan arrived at St Giles and stood outside as he’d been told.
Why had Elspeth picked this place, of all the possible spots in Edinburgh?
It wasn’t the church where they’d got married.
This cathedral was more atmospheric, though.
Done in a gothic style, the dark stone and lofty height of the building set an ominous tone.
None of the other men had shown up yet, at least as far as Struan could tell. He waited anxiously for Ellie to arrive. He assumed she’d come in a carriage, but every time one stopped in the street and someone emerged, he was disappointed.