Chapter 26
Robert knew something was bothering Meleri, and he could only assume she was beginning to doubt his intentions regarding marriage. To put her mind at ease, he sent for Gowan.
“Take a message to Donald McDonald.”
“The minister?”
“Aye, tell him that he is needed at Beloyn to perform a wedding as soon as possible.”
After Gowan departed, Robert went searching for Gram. He wanted to talk to her about their resident—but heretofore unseen—ghost, since she was the most knowledgeable about the legend.
It took him a while to find her, and when he did, she was in the kitchen, almost standing on her head, leaning into a flour barrel, which she said she was cleaning.
“I didn’t know you knew how to clean,” he said.
“I never knew, either,” she said with a laugh that blew puffs of flour from the smudges on her face. She dusted her hands by clapping them together.
As flour filtered through the air, Robert coughed and took a step back.
“Did you come to help or to observe what work looks like?” she asked.
“The turnip fields have shown me plenty of that,” he replied. “I came because I want to talk to you.”
“Can it wait until I’m finished?”
“How long will that take?”
“Two hours, perhaps three.”
“This is of an urgent nature.”
She leaned over and put her head back into the flour barrel, and when she spoke, she sounded as if she were in a cave. “What is so urgent that you need to talk right now?”
“Meleri thinks she has seen a ghost.”
His grandmother remained headfirst in the barrel. “I don’t find that strange,” she said with great resonance. “She is in Scotland. You know it is a common enough occurrence around here.”
“Aye, but this wasn’t just any ghost.”
Her head popped out of the barrel, and Robert winced at the giant cracking sound as it came in contact with the shelf overhead.
Rubbing her head, she said, “She told me.”
“Do you think it was the old earl?”
She picked up the edge of her apron and began wiping her hands. “Aye, who else would it be?”
“Did she tell you about his clothes?”
“Aye. That was part of the reason I suspected it was the old earl.”
“You don’t seem surprised.”
“I was expecting it. I don’t know why, but I had an uncanny feeling she might be the one to see him.”
“That makes no sense, but she is convinced she saw him. I wanted your opinion, since you are more familiar with the legend than anyone.”
“It is not my familiarity with the legend that makes me recognize those clothes, but the miniature of his cousin, James the Good, that is in the library. He is wearing almost exactly what she described.”
“Do you think she could be the one with the heart of the truest Scot that the legend says the ghost will reveal himself to?”
“Aye.”
“But, Meleri is English to the core. How could she have the heart of the truest Scot?”
Gram looked a bit perplexed. “You will have to ask the old earl about that. I’m afraid I don’t have an answer. However, if I were to venture a guess, I would say perhaps she has a heart more in line with a Scot than an Englishman. She certainly has tried to do everything in her power to prove she is a part of the family. No one can accuse her of expecting to be treated differently. She carries her weight and then some. Or it could be referring to some future event that has not yet occurred. Both explanations are possible, and then again, it could be something else entirely.”
“Or it could be that we are mistaken, that she isn’t the one.”
“If she saw the earl, he will not appear to anyone else.”
“Do you think he will talk to her at some point?”
“Perhaps, if she speaks to him first. Ghosts are like ladies. They never speak until spoken to.”
“Charming, a ghost with manners. We should have nothing to worry about, as far as getting him to talk. Remaining silent is not one of Meleri’s outstanding attributes.”
“Let me know if she sees him again…or if he speaks to her.”
The rising sun was barely making itself known when Philip cursed and walked back to his horse. He was angrier than he could ever remember being. He had waited for Meleri all night. What a fool he was, checking his watch in the moonlight, first at midnight, then at two o’clock and again at three.
She was not coming. She never intended to. He remembered the words of Demosthenes. “A man is his own easiest dupe, for what he wishes to be true he generally believes to be true.” Well, he had wished, and he had been duped, but what made him so bitter about it was she thought herself more clever than he. She was clever, all right, and well he knew that the height of cleverness was the ability to conceal it, and as far as that went, she had done it well.
He had underestimated her. He would not do so again.
As he rode away, he wondered if she really thought herself clever—more so than he? Well, she was wrong on that score, and he would prove it. Now he understood the game she played. He would not trust her again. She might try to give him an excuse for why she could not come, but he would not believe her.
Philip could not bear humiliation, or being played for a fool. It was something his father excelled at; something he did at regular intervals. He was powerless against the duke, and that left nothing for him to do but accept his father’s treatment.
He did not have to do so with Meleri.
Poor foolish chit! She did not realize he would succeed simply because he had to. She might be desperate, but he was more so. His entire existence, his future were all contingent upon his marriage to her. Marriage at all costs, and once that was done, he had the rest of his life to make her regret it.
He did wonder why she had played along with him instead of telling him she was married, not that it would have done her any good. He had already inquired about that and learned there had been no wedding.
He mounted his horse and rode off. She had not come to him as she promised, but that was not the end of it. He could always go to her.
Oh, yes, he would go…when she least expected it.