Chapter 53
53
The greatest happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved; loved for ourselves, or rather, loved in spite of ourselves.
Victor Hugo
As the Buchanan coach rattled over the road to Paisley, Juliet could see lights from the glittering house shining from a distance. Across from her sat Leith, newly arrived from Glasgow. They’d barely had time to give a greeting, though she’d heard him rumbling around their shared dressing room upon his arrival. When he emerged, she’d felt her heart give a little leap. Resplendent. That was the only word for how tailored he appeared tonight, his jaw smooth. Had he found the razor she’d hidden in his washstand?
His navy suit paired perfectly with her pale blue silk, as if they’d conspired. But he’d barely glanced at her tonight, only murmured something complimentary about her gown as he accompanied her downstairs then helped her into the waiting coach. Settling her skirts around her so as not to crowd his legs opposite, she felt at a complete loss for words, though her feelings seemed to fill the conveyance to bursting.
She’d not seen him in a sennight. Long enough to let the romantic memory they’d made in his bedchamber fade. Was that his hope? To remove them from the embarrassing blunder? For her, the delay had given her time to ponder and conclude she’d rather risk her heart than hide it. She must explain to him her tears, her fleeing, rather than endure another clumsy separation and uneasy reunion.
Was now the time? The beat of her heart seemed as loud as the coach wheels bumping along the rutted road.
Into the stilted silence they spoke at once.
“Forgive me, Jul—”
“Pardon me, Lei—”
Awkwardness ensued as they left off. A feverish heat engulfed Juliet, tying her tongue and sending her digging for her feather fan.
“We obviously need to continue this conversation in future,” Leith said as the coach slowed and joined the line delivering guests to the front door. “For now, please accept my apology for my conduct the other night.”
There was a note of regret in his voice she’d not heard before. Instead of his usual cool courtesy, there was just ... courtesy. A contrite courtesy. Mystified, she mulled it.
“No apology needed.” Her voice came soft but insistent. “’Twas I who trespassed—”
The coach door opened, halting her words, and she was handed out, her husband following.
As footmen announced them at Paisley’s front door and then at the opening of the drawing room, Leith was hard-pressed to keep from staring at Juliet as she made her entrance. Every eye in the suddenly hushed room was upon her. She was Mrs. Leith Buchanan and she wore it well, though what she deserved was a tiara and a title.
He led her forward, her gloved hand resting on his forearm. Lyrica greeted them, Euan not far behind. Since the guests were mostly neighbors and kin, this gathering lacked the heavy presence of the city’s assembly room. Loveday followed with Colonel Catesby and Zipporah, adding a pleasing Virginia air to the Glaswegian gathering.
“Your gown is exquisite,” Lyrica said, voicing Leith’s thoughts and kissing Juliet on both cheeks, “as are your pearls.”
“They were my mother’s.” Juliet smiled, touching the necklace with a gloved hand.
Was she nervous? Or still thinking, as he was, of their honest exchange in the coach?
Leith took stock of who was in attendance, watching Niall extricate himself from his present company in favor of Loveday. A wedding was in the offing. Lamb Hill needed a mistress too. Having Juliet’s sister near would be as beneficial as having his brothers near him. Family was always a bulwark for a more secure future.
When the country dances began, Leith partnered with Lyrica while Euan escorted Juliet and Niall accompanied Loveday. Round and round they went until Leith broke protocol by choosing Juliet for a reel, avoiding the men and the usual cliques of political talk along the room’s edges. He’d had enough of America’s cry for liberty, at least for now.
“You’re breaking all the rules,” Lyrica teased as the reel ended. “First, you partner with your wife, and second, your affection for her is evident to all.”
“All but the lass in question. I’ve not seen her for some time.”
“You’ve been in Glasgow?”
He nodded, regretful, holding fast to his change of heart. “There’s much that needs deciding regarding the colonies and our interests there.”
“Have a care...” Her gaze pivoted across the room. “We’ve enough trouble at home. Cochrane is here.”
Even the name raised his hackles. “Why did you invite him?”
“Because I didn’t want to snub his poor, long-suffering wife.”
“Better that than offend mine.”
“Come now, Leith. Juliet doesn’t even ken who he is. Besides, any lass who took a horsewhip to an overseer can take care of herself.”
“He was a brute.”
“I dinna doubt it. And now ’tis the clipeing going round town. You ken how Glaswegians adore colonial gossip.”
He felt unusually protective of Juliet, aware in that moment that he always had been. “Mayhap I should have schooled my ire with Cochrane. Walked away from our fight at the Saracen’s Head.”
Lyrica studied him in bewilderment, then flicked her fan open. “Since when do you take blame for any Cochrane-related offense? You’ve always settled matters with your fists since you were a wee lad.”
“It hardly becomes a grown man. A husband and father.”
“Speaking of children, how are they?”
How would he ken, absent as he was? Yet he felt a growing need to know. “Ask Juliet.”
“Remember what you told me about Ardraigh Hall when the foundation was laid? That you wanted it built big so it could hold half a dozen bairns.”
Such plain speaking resurrected thoughts of Havilah and his high hopes before everything had come crashing down. But it also kindled his desire that he and Juliet might build a different sort of life.
“If you have plenty,” Lyrica said a bit more lightheartedly, “then we can continue to borrow yours.”
The music ebbed, and she began talking with another guest while he sought Juliet, who was in a high flush after dancing several sets. Catching his eye, she looked toward open double doors as if signaling she wanted to go outside. He fixed his gaze on a footman lighting a globe lamp on the terrace and ushered her out into the cool, damp dark where lanterns flared along walkways, illuminating the first blooms of spring. Together they walked to the farthest edge of the terrace overlooking the formal knot gardens edged in boxwood.
She gave him a tentative smile. “The ballroom is so warm that this is welcome. Thank you.”
He swallowed, more tapsalteerie. He’d been absent long enough that it seemed almost as if they were starting over, trying clumsily to accommodate each other. Would they continue the conversation interrupted in the coach?
He raked his mind for a start, then took a safer approach. “How are the twins?”
“They ask after you. They approached one of your horses the other day thinking you were near.”
His chest tightened. So they associated him with coming and going. Such had never occurred to him before or troubled him much. Till lately. He’d always thought children should be reared by servants if one had them. Juliet obviously protested the notion.
She continued quietly. “They are doing well, taking an interest in everything outdoors, especially the lambs, now that warm weather has come.”
“I’ve arranged for the Shetland ponies I told you about to be delivered to the stables next week.” Heat crawled up his stock to his ears. He had the uncomfortable sense he was talking to someone in his hire. A governess or domestic servant. Hardly a wife.
“They’ll be so delighted, as will I. We’ve been discussing ponies, and they’re eager to try riding.”
“I’ll be in Edinburgh, but the head groom kens they’re coming.”
“When do you leave?”
“Daybreak.” When she didn’t reply, he asked, “Have you had time to choose a mount and go riding?”
“Not yet. I’ve been occupied with merging households and looking over accounts. I’m still recovering from the fact that your candle count runs into the thousands.”
His smile was rueful. “Would you return us to rushlights, Mrs. Buchanan?”
“I’m not complaining, mind you, just recovering. On a lighter note, the children get the best of my time, including taking our meals together, all but breakfast.”
“An American custom, mayhap.”
“At Royal Vale, yes. But not in Britain, I take it.”
Uneasy, he reached back into the vault of memory he kept locked. “I rarely saw my parents. The few memories I have of them are ones I’d rather forget.” The admission, never voiced till now, seemed more lesson. “Aside from the day of their burial, I’ve ne’er returned to their graves.”
“I understand,” she said softly. “It was hard to return to my mother’s.”
Was it? He didn’t even know when Charlotte Catesby had died. A husband should. The right husband would take pains to offset its melancholy. God help him. He didn’t know how to be a husband, how to share a life. All he knew were market prices and tons burden and profit and loss.
Emotion thickened his next words. “If matters had been different between us, I would have asked you to take me to your mother’s grave.”
“A gracious gesture.”
Gracious. Few would accuse him of that.
Light flickered across her lovely profile, her expression poignant. “I have regrets of my own in regard to us, including the night I surprised you in your bedchamber.”
“When I behaved badly.”
Her voice was so low it was nearly lost beneath the music. “I thought you behaved very well indeed.”
He leaned in to hear her and caught the teasing lilt in her voice.
“I’d never been kissed before,” she said, looking up at him. “And I enjoyed every moment of kissing you back.”
“But your response—”
“My reaction was far from a refusal—or distaste. In those moments we seemed to have found a way forward, and then...”
“And then I ended the matter because I misread you.”
“Which I deeply regret at so tender a time,” she said, making him want to kiss her all over again.
He stared into the darkness. Regrets, so many of them, on both sides. But she admitted she enjoyed his kisses? He’d never been so lost for words.
As if sensing his struggle, she turned toward him slightly and placed a hand over his as it gripped the stone terrace railing. “Perhaps—together—we can right any wrongs done.”
He swallowed past the thickness in his throat. “How so?”
“By not being strangers. By taking time for each other—for the children, at least.”
Could it be? Would she rejoice that he’d made the decision to be more at home? “You want to see more of me?”
“I do. ‘Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave.’”
“Clever, Juliet.”
She squeezed his hand. “I didn’t say it. Martin Luther did.”
“The monk turned preacher who married a nun.”
“He had many things to say about marriage. ‘There is no more lovely, friendly, and charming relationship, communion, or company than a good marriage.’ But I like this best—‘The Christian is supposed to love his neighbor, and since his wife is his nearest neighbor, she should be his deepest love.’”
His deepest love . He swallowed hard. “A high standard.”
She faced him, as resolute as she was romantic. “Then we shall start small.”
We. His gladness in the word was tempered by small. His feelings for her weren’t small. They were staggering. Did she not suspect it? In that light, might he mean more to her than he realized? Mightn’t it spur him past his fears and move him forward?
At midnight they opened the door of the nursery and entered, the only sound the silken swish of Juliet’s skirts. Leith held a candle, and they looked into the miniature beds that held the twins. Fast asleep. Both wore linen nightgowns and caps, the sound of their easy, relaxed breathing reassuring. Bending low, she kissed them both. Though Leith didn’t follow, at least he’d come.
“I missed saying bedtime prayers with them,” she whispered, lifting a blanket over Bella.
He looked down at Cole, whose boyish features reminded him increasingly of Niall. In the hall outside, he heard Juliet’s father and stepmother make their way to their bedchamber, followed by Loveday. Paisley’s parties were especially agreeable given they ended early.
They left the nursery and traveled the length of the long corridor, past portraits and mirrors and wall sconces and then the main landing with the central stair to their rooms. Leith paused at Juliet’s closed door. Behind it he could hear a recovered Minette moving about, waiting to help her undress and ready for bed.
“I suppose this is not only good night but goodbye,” she said softly but matter-of-factly. “May Edinburgh treat you well.”
“I should return by sennight’s end.” Even to him the forty-six miles loomed long, and he was already wondering how he could curtail his business there.
“Is it safe traveling that road? Safe from highwaymen and such?”
“With a pistol and fast horse, aye.”
“And my prayers,” she added with a fleeting smile. She reached for his hand as if about to shake it and seal some sort of business arrangement.
We shall start small.
He brought her gloved fingers to his lips, wanting something more. Wanting even to remove the glove—or take it with him. Though he did have the miniature and her blue ribbon and the now blissful memory of their midnight kiss.
“In the spirit of Luther, you are making me sorry to see you leave.” She gave him a last, lingering look before she entered her bedchamber and shut the door.