Chapter 23 #2
Was he experiencing the same bewilderment she felt?
“Did you know my mother?” she asked, moving aside so he could sit on the bench beside her.
He chose to stand, instead, never moving his gaze from her face. His scrutiny was so intense that she felt herself begin to warm with embarrassment.
“I didn’t know her,” he said, finally speaking. “My father did, though. He spoke of her often before his death.”
“I’m sorry. It’s difficult to lose your parent,” she said. “I know.”
He nodded. “Did she ever mention him? Michael Tulloch.”
“She rarely spoke of Scotland,” Sarah said. “And never of him, I’m sorry.”
He stared off into the distance, as if he were trying to decide on something. Finally, he directed his attention to her once more.
“Are you going to be staying here, then?”
“No,” she said. “We’re leaving soon.”
“Back to England?”
She nodded.
“You’re Scots, you know.”
Half, she almost said, but didn’t get the chance.
He turned to leave. “If you were staying, we might be friends, you and I.”
It was such a strange thing to say that she watched him as he walked away.
When he was almost to the archway, he encountered her grandfather.
They spoke, but they were too far away for Sarah to hear the words.
Her grandfather leaned against his cane, looked first at Brendan, then at Sarah, and she wondered if he, too, were marveling at the resemblance.
A moment later, Brendan disappeared, and her grandfather walked toward her. She stood, hands folded in front of her, a calm, pleasant aspect to her face—the same appearance she wore when summoned to her father.
Donald stood in front of her, then sat on the bench, lowering his body with a sigh of relief.
She sat beside him.
“Dratted knees,” he said, folding his hands atop his cane. “Age is a series of failures. Failures of joints, and eyesight, and hearing.” He stared off into the distance, much in the way Brendan had done only minutes earlier. “Other failures.” He sighed.
He glanced over at her, leaned heavily on his cane, then angled out one leg.
Sarah looked away, glancing at the fountain with its wolf’s head.
“Why do I see a wolf everywhere? Is it a family motto?”
Donald smiled faintly. “You were telling the truth when you said you knew little of Kilmarin.”
Sarah nodded.
“Wolves travel in packs, hunt in packs, live in packs. Wolves are a reminder to the Tullochs that we’re a clan, as fierce and loyal as any found in the Highlands.”
“Except for my mother,” Sarah said. “Why did she leave Kilmarin?”
Donald looked down at the stone beneath his feet.
“It’s my fault she left,” he said. “Mine, and I’ve taken the brunt of that decision for all these years.”
He didn’t look at her. Instead, it seemed as if his gaze was turned inward.
Should she leave him to his memories?
He looked over at her, his wrinkled face set in uncompromising lines, the face of a man who was not happy with his life but accepted it nonetheless.
“Your grandmother loved this garden,” he said. “It was my greatest gift to her.” Several moments passed. “One of my few gifts to her,” he added.
She glanced over at him, then at the pattern of sunlight on the flagstones.
“I’ve got only a short time left on this earth,” he said, his lips curving in what might, possibly, be considered a smile. “I shouldn’t be lying in the face of the Almighty.”
“Why is it your fault?”
She wondered if he was going to answer her, and he finally did.
“She was in love with a clansman,” he said. “A proper match, but I wanted more for my only daughter.”
He turned his head and studied her. She wanted, suddenly, to pat her hair into place, or ensure that her face was not too flushed, but finally the intense scrutiny ended.
“I told her she was destined for greater things.” He looked toward the wall, where a stone urn sat cradled in an embrasure.
“I was a fool back then, thinking of only wealth and power. I arranged for the young man to marry.” He glanced back at her.
“I can’t lie about that, either. It was a good match, but it was not well-done of me.
I gave him a bit of land, and a dowry, of sorts.
” He hesitated for a few minutes before continuing.
“But I also gave him lies. It took me nearly twenty years and a promise to my wife on her deathbed to tell him the truth. He thought Morna wanted him gone because that was what I told him.”
She waited in the silence, determined not to be the first to speak.
“I told him that Morna had fallen in love with another.” He sighed.
“After he married, she never mentioned him again. If her heart was broken, she never spoke of it.” He straightened his left leg.
“But she was like that, with her pride and her stubbornness.” He sighed.
“She showed me both when she came to me with her duke.
“They’d met in Edinburgh. He was a rooster sort of man. I’d seen his type before, ridiculing the very society he meant to impress. This duke of hers thought we should be very happy to have him enter our family.”
He glanced over at Sarah. “The man knew your mother was an heiress to the wealth of Kilmarin. As a Tulloch, she was well provided for.”
Sarah remained silent.
He folded his hands on top of his cane. “He only wanted her money. I knew that. Just as I knew he cared nothing for her. But we cared nothing for his title. Morna would not listen to me. When my words failed, I disowned her. My only daughter.”
Was that why her father disliked her so?
“And I almost did it again, God help me,” Donald said. “Maybe the Almighty sent you to me for that very reason.”
She frowned, not understanding.
“Did you ever ask that she return? Or did you order her back to Kilmarin? My mother had a great deal of pride.” Sarah knew that only too well, having observed her mother’s staunch silence in the face of her husband’s desertion.
“I didn’t order her,” he said. “I begged her.” He smiled. “All these years, I thought it was Morna and her pride against me and mine. Until you came yesterday, I believed it true.”
“Now it’s not?” she asked. A curious stillness passed over her.
“Have you given no thought to the resemblance between you and Brendan, girl? If his father was still alive, I’d parade you in front of him and dare him not to see his face in yours.”
Stunned, she could only stare at her grandfather.
“Morna never came home because the world would see who you were, just as I’ve known ever since last night.” He took a deep breath. “Perhaps she married her duke for pride’s sake,” he said. “But she did it to give you a name as well.”