Chapter 35
Due to the abrupt end to the masquerade, there was an embarrassing amount of uneaten food in the house.
So Ellie told the servants to distribute as much as they could to whoever they thought needed it.
But there was still more, and thus the next day she was serving an odd breakfast to those who were present—caviar and cake not usually being part of the meal.
“Your father finally confessed what happened,” Struan told her after a long sleepless night watching McGregor.
“Mr Lister, the father of Averill’s child, was blackmailing McGregor, demanding increasing payments to keep quiet and not destroy Averill’s reputation before she was safely married off.
McGregor paid more than once, but he resented every pence, and then he got the idea for his blackmailer to meet with an unfortunate accident.
But things went awry, and I was the man who came to the designated spot where the stone was to fall.
So I thought your father was trying to kill me, when in fact he was trying to kill another man, to protect an entirely different secret. ”
Ellie sighed. “And since he stopped paying, Lister revealed the truth about Averill at the party. I would scarcely believe it if I hadn’t seen it,” she murmured. “I knew my father was a selfish man, but I never thought him murderous.”
“He thought he’d found a way out of his problems.”
The men had gathered after a long night of trying to discover where Averill had gone, and with who. They’d partially succeeded.
Calan entered the room. He looked haggard, which was not to say he looked bad.
But he collapsed into a chair and reached for a cup of coffee.
“Nothing. She slipped out in the chaos, along with that gentleman dressed in green. I spent most of the night and morning down at the harbor, trying to find out if they boarded a ship. But no one saw anything that I can tell.”
Duncan shook his head. “The harbor was a long shot. I visited each posting inn I could think of that has southbound routes, asking for passengers of their description. No luck.”
“Nor for routes going westward,” Kai chimed in. “Without knowing who the man was, it will be hard to trace their path.”
“They could still be in the city,” said Ellie.
“Possibly,” Struan said. “We’ll keep looking.”
“And Mr Lister?”
“He’s currently a guest of the local magistrate, blackmail being a crime. Whether he’ll actually be punished for it is another matter. And McGregor certainly won’t get any of his money back—he’s in dire straits now.”
“The McGregor name is utterly ruined,” Ellie said with a sigh.
“Good,” Mairi muttered.
“Not just socially, Mairi,” Elspeth cautioned. “The moneylenders will fall upon Father now. They’ve no reason to delay. This house and nearly everything in it will be seized to pay what is owed.”
“I can live in a garret.”
“You may, but what of Father? Our stepmother? Averill, once she returns, as she inevitably will?”
“Who cares about them?” Mairi asked.
“I do! They are family, no matter what.”
“Ellie, you’re impossible! They don’t deserve your love.”
“Love isn’t about deserving.” Ellie smiled. “And I will not let you live in a garret.”
“Don’t ask me to live with you at Linneliath. I can’t live there, Ellie. I’ll visit, but I can’t live there. It’s at the end of the earth. I need a city. I need people. I need…noise.”
“I know,” Ellie said softly.
Struan said, “I’ll ensure that you’re provided for here in Edinburgh. The others as well. I won’t repay McGregor’s loans. His many mistakes are his own. But I’ll provide lodgings and board and a reasonable income to ensure comfort, if not luxury.”
“You have no duty to do so,” Mairi told him.
“As your sister said, love isn’t about deserving. I love her, and she wants you all provided for, so I will do it for her sake.”
* * * *
Three days had passed. Averill had not surfaced. Her mother was in a state of shock.
Mairi said, “She hasn’t left her bed since…well, since it happened. Her lady’s maid says she hasn’t eaten a bite, and she doesn’t even really sleep. She just lies in the bed and stares at the ceiling.”
Ellie stood up from the floor, where she’d been packing up a few more items she intended to take to Struan’s townhome. “I didn’t realize it hadn’t improved. We must go to her.”
Ellie and Mairi entered the room, followed by a maid, who was carrying a tea tray. The maid placed the tray on the table, and both women waited until the servant had withdrawn to speak.
Her stepmother was propped up in bed, but otherwise no attempt had been made to look at all engaged in the world. She was staring at the tea tray rather than at Elspeth, so much so that Elspeth asked if she ought to pour, the impulse to serve never far away from her.
“Only if you wish. I don’t want any,” Susan said dully.
But the mere presence of the tea piqued her interest. Elspeth walked over and poured three cups, then handed one to her stepmother. “Please drink a little. It will give you strength.”
Susan took the cup, but said, “I have no strength. I never did.”
“Don’t be silly. You’ve had a shock is all. We will discuss things and decide what to do about it. Together. For we are family.”
The woman stared at Elspeth. “How can you say that? After how I’ve treated you? I don’t deserve your pity.”
“The incident at the party wasn’t your fault,” said Elspeth.
But her stepmother was already shaking her head. “I don’t refer to last night.”
“It was three nights ago,” Mairi reminded her gently.
Susan looked surprised. “Has it been so long? Anyway, I mean my shame at my behavior over the many years I have been mistress of this house. It will be a little comfort to you, Elspeth, but I would rather have the words spoken late, instead of maintaining silence any longer.”
Recognizing the seriousness in the other woman’s face, Elspeth remained silent.
“Your father had…intense feelings about both you and the loss of your mother. When I first married him, I didn’t understand the depth of his grief at losing his first wife.
And Averill has always been most demanding of my attention, and I’m afraid that I found it all too easy to turn a blind eye to you and your sister.
In truth, I was selfishly grateful for your natural attitude of calm, and what I had assumed to be an inborn desire to ensure the comfort of others.
My life was spent managing both your father and my daughter as well as my own inadequacies, so I treated you as an afterthought.
” She shook her head. “It was most unkind of me. Especially in the last few months, I found I could no longer pretend that my previous actions were right.”
Elspeth had always assumed Susan to be flighty and shallow and self-absorbed, like her daughter, for whom she exerted herself to no end. It seemed that her stepmother had hidden depths.
Ellie confessed, “For twenty years, I held the belief that I could earn my father’s love by obeying every rule he set out and anticipating every wish he expressed.
But no one can force another’s love, and he was determined not to love me.
I can hardly act surprised when I learn that my refusal to ask for anything for myself would result in anything other than people ignoring me entirely.
I suppose I learned the opposite lesson from your own daughter. ”
Her stepmother smiled sadly. “Averill knew from the cradle how to demand the attention of the whole room. When she was a baby, it was through crying. As she grew older, her methods grew more sophisticated. I must confess that I aided and abetted everything she did. I love her dearly, she is my own flesh and blood. And I only want her happiness. But I do realize that for her, happiness doesn’t look the same as it does to me.
By appeasing her whims, I wasn’t giving her happiness.
I was merely teaching her that there were no consequences.
I should have been more alert, but by the time I knew she’d been…
involved with Mr Lister, she was already carrying a babe.
Your father insisted she hide the pregnancy and abandon the baby.
But Averill didn’t protest. She was barely more than a child herself. ”
Elspeth said, “Well, now some new man will have the task of ensuring her happiness. I do hope that he will find the task to his liking, for her sake as much as his. Do you know who he is, the man she ran away with?”
“No,” her stepmother said. “But I’m sure she’ll contact me soon. I’m her mother.”
Ellie and Mairi shared a look, neither of them certain how to tell the woman that Averill seemed to have entirely disappeared. Finally Ellie said, “She will come to you in need.”
“Yes, when in need she is most appealing.” Her stepmother took a sip of the tea and looked steadily at Elspeth. “But that’s not what I need to talk about. I wanted you to know that I am aware of the conversation you had with your father, about the…circumstances of your betrothal.”
Elspeth flushed with embarrassment.
She went on, “I was so appalled. I promise you I had no notion of what he had done to alleviate that particular debt until a few weeks ago. I knew that he had borrowed, I knew that he had done so for years. He was never prudent about money, and it was a failing I was willing to overlook again and again, because I was weak.”
She looked at Elspeth with eyes newly hardened by experience.
“The truth is that I was so grateful to have a comfortable home, and an income and pin money. It meant whenever I needed something, I didn’t delve too deeply into how he maintained our living.
He always told me not to worry, and that he had everything in hand.
And that everything he was doing was to ensure my happiness and the security of him and his own family.
But what he did to you, that was unconscionable.
If there is anything at all that I may do to alleviate your distress, I will endeavor to try. ”
“I’m not in distress,” Elspeth assured her.
“It’s true that when I discovered exactly what happened, I was terribly hurt.
And frightened. I had been lied to not just by my father, but by my husband as well.
That’s the reason I left the Highlands to return here, because I was angry, and also because I feared the same fate might befall Mairi. ”
Elspeth took a deep breath. “However, Struan isn’t a beast. He is the best man I have ever known in my life.
His initial action was a mistake, but I understand now why he did it, and I believe that his motives were always good.
In any case, we have weathered the storm, and I believe we will be happy together now that we’re being honest with each other. ”
“I’m relieved to hear it,” her stepmother said.
“Though I’m all too aware that your circumstances are the results of good luck, for I know that your father did not take Struan’s goodness into account when he made his bargain.
He should be ashamed of himself. And he should be ashamed of himself as a father, blaming you for the death of his wife.
As women, we know that there is always a certain danger in bearing a child.
And we accept it, those of us who wish to become mothers. ”
Elspeth nodded, restraining herself from touching her belly.
Susan continued, “But the fact is that life is uncertain. She might have died from a fall from a horse, or eating something she ought not to have, or simply from getting ill in a cold winter. Would he then blame the stable boy who saddled the horse? Or the meal? Or the season?”
“We must accept fate,” said Elspeth.
“He never did, not about his wife. And we’ve all suffered for it.
I felt your mother’s presence in this house.
Not a ghost; I never felt she hated me. But I always felt my own inadequacy, when I knew in his mind I was only a pale replacement for his perfect first love.
He married me in haste, out of wild grief, and I hoped that I could fill the void in his heart.
I was too young and foolish to understand that at the time.
And after the wedding, it was far too late. ”
“It was too late for all of us,” Mairi agreed.
“I threw myself into raising Averill,” said Susan.
“But part of me always knew that he never moved beyond that first awful phase of mourning, and what’s more, he never wanted to.
I think eventually he came to enjoy his misery and his rage at the world.
By hurting you, he felt in some way he was getting back at Death.
I don’t say this to excuse my own actions.
I should have defended you more often, and I should’ve been a better mother to you and your sister. I suppose it is too late now.”
“No, I don’t think it is,” Ellie assured her, her heart cracking for the woman’s newly revealed pain. “There will be a time soon when I will need to consult with a mother.”
“Truly?”
“Yes. I hope,” said Elspeth slowly, “that I may call on you should I need…wisdom.”
“Always. And I hope I can offer any wisdom at all.”