Chapter 4
A bigail bobbed in front of her, a smile on her round face.
“Ma’am,” the young maid announced, “you have a visitor.”
Susanna didn’t bother looking up from her sewing. “If it’s the parson again or his wife, Abigail,” she said firmly, “then please tell them I am unwell at the moment.” Not exactly a lie, since Mrs. Parker had just left her with a new list of complaints.
She’d managed a house with three boarders for over twenty years, but Susanna had never had a more disagreeable person living under her roof than Adelaide Parker. Something was always wrong—either wet or dry, hot or cold, soft or hard. Susanna closed her eyes and leaned back against the chair.
Why had she ever thought of employing the woman in the first place? Because she had been recommended by the pastor’s wife, a sweet and endearing woman who must not be related in any fashion to Adelaide Parker.
Abruptly, she realized that Abigail was still patiently standing in front of her.
A year ago she’d hired Abigail from the village.
Her smile was always in attendance. Even the gloomiest of days had no effect on her mood, and as far as she knew, Abigail liked everyone.
She was one of those genuinely good people who made others consider their own flaws simply by entering a room.
Laughter halted, gossip stopped, and people glanced from one to the other as if ashamed of their own verbal viciousness.
Susanna wondered if God created people like Abigail to make the rest of the world a better place.
Small in stature, Abigail had blond hair and soft blue eyes, and her cheeks seemed perpetually pink. She had a habit of brushing at her face with the backs of her hands as if to wipe the color away.
“It’s not him at all, ma’am,” Abigail said. “Nor any of the villagers come to call.”
Or gossip, Susanna silently amended.
“It’s a tall man with the most beautiful blue eyes you’ve ever seen and a smile that warms your heart just to look at it.”
Susanna looked up curiously. Abigail seemed caught up in some kind of daydream. Her eyes were vacant, her smile oddly crooked, and she breathed in deep gusty sighs.
“Did he give his name?”
“No,” Abigail said, looking disconcerted. “I’ve gone and forgotten to ask him, ma’am.” She turned as if she would rectify the matter this very moment.
“Never mind, Abigail.” Susanna stood, setting aside her needlework. “I shall attend to our visitor.” Before he strips another thought from your mind.
Truly, she should have taken Abigail’s words to heart, Susanna thought a few moments later.
She had no one to blame but herself for the surprise she felt, or the strange fluttering in her chest. For a moment she chastised herself, because the visitor in her parlor was much, much younger than she.
But should she be denied an appreciation of masculine beauty simply because she was getting older?
She thought not.
He was as tall as Abigail had said, and slender, with broad shoulders straining the fabric of his buff coat.
His face was narrow, ending in a squared chin and graced with an aquiline nose.
Eyes of startling blue, so pale they looked almost transparent, stared back at her, divulging intelligence as well as force of character.
His hair was black and unruly in the front where it fell over his forehead, and as she watched, he brushed it back impatiently.
Abigail was indeed correct. He was quite the most handsome man ever to stand in her parlor.
She inclined her head, realizing that she had been staring. “Forgive my rudeness, I’m Susanna McKinsey. May I be of some service?”
He smiled then, revealing white, even teeth, and for a moment she felt as if she were no more than a young girl herself. Flattening her hand against her midriff to ward off a quivery sensation, she counseled herself against such foolishness.
“I am James MacRae,” he said, his voice low and resonant. “My Uncle Fergus sent me here with a message.”
Until this moment, she’d forgotten the almost desperate letter she’d sent to her old friend. Riona had reluctantly acceded to the betrothal a week after she’d implored Fergus to come to her aid.
“Oh dear,” she said, embarrassed that she hadn’t informed Fergus of the new development.
Turning, she gave instructions for refreshments to be brought to the parlor. For a second, Susanna thought her maid had lost her wits entirely. Abigail only continued to stare at their guest before Susanna cleared her throat. The young girl finally giggled and left the room.
Shaking her head at such foolishness, she waved James to one of the settees.
“I hope Fergus is well.” Sitting opposite him she wondered at the fact that there was no resemblance. Fergus was as tall, but stockier, and his hair had been a red to rival the setting sun.
“He is indeed well, and regrets that he could not come to your assistance himself.”
“I did not think Fergus had any relatives.”
“We believed him dead as well,” he said, flashing that astonishing smile. “His sister immigrated to Nova Scotia years ago, thinking all of her family dead. Fergus had no idea that she survived, wed her childhood sweetheart, and became the mother of five sons.”
“And you are one of the five?”
He nodded. “The second oldest of the brothers.”
“I am so happy for Fergus,” she said. “The loss of his family weighed heavily on him.”
“He is about to acquire even more kin. He is due to be married soon.”
“Married?” How curious that she felt no jealousy. For years, she had nursed a fondness for Fergus, but it was all too evident that he had loved another, a woman lost to him years before. The reason that, more often than not, there was an air of melancholy about him.
James nodded. “To a woman he’s known for a great many years.”
He handed her a letter, and she opened it with fingers that suddenly trembled.
Instead of reading it in front of him, she walked to the window, spreading open the paper and fingering the broken seal. There had not been that many occasions to witness Fergus’s handwriting, but the bold strokes seemed so much like him that Susanna felt a catch in her heart.
My dearest Susanna,
I am saddened to hear of your dilemma with Riona, and pray for you and her in this hour of indecision and strife. She is a level-headed girl, and I have no doubt that she will make the right decision in the end. In the meantime, please note that my heart and my prayers are with you.
Forgive me for being unable to call upon you myself, but I know that you wish me the greatest of happiness. I have been reunited with the woman I once lost and have loved all these many years. Please know that you can count both Leah and me as your friends.
Yours in friendship,
Fergus MacRae
She stared out the window, thinking that she was not quite done with envy after all. Fergus and she were not that different in age, yet love had come to him once more.
Had she truly forgotten to write him again? Or had she secretly wished that he would call on her?
The sight of a boy standing beside two horses drew her back to the present.
Turning, she addressed James, “I am sorry he was unable to come himself,” she said honestly. “But I’m glad for the reason that he was not. How kind of him to have sent you in his stead.”
Polly entered the room with a tray on which a pitcher and two glasses rested, the giggling Abigail blessedly absent.
“There is a young man outside,” Susanna said before the housekeeper could leave the room, “who looks tired and dusty. I have no doubt he would be grateful for some refreshments as well.”
“Indeed he would,” James said, smiling. “Thank you.”
Waving away his thanks, she sat once again. “We make a fine cider here at Tyemorn,” she said, pouring from the pitcher on the tray. She handed him a tumbler and sat back against the settee.
“Tell me, how did you find yourself back in Scotland?”
“It is a long and complicated story,” he began, his words interrupted by Abigail’s entrance into the room.
Her knees were nearly buckling beneath the weight of the tray she carried.
Bemused, Susanna stared at the array of dishes aligned there—slices of the cake Cook had made a few days ago, a selection of dried fruit, and an assortment of cheese and hard crackers.
The larder had been emptied. Or, at the very least, severely depleted.
James stood, helping her lower the tray to the table. Abigail bobbed another curious curtsy, her legs bowing out. Taking pity on the girl, Susanna dismissed her with a smile and a fervent wish that Polly would send her upstairs to dust.
“May I serve you?” she asked, already preparing a selection of delicacies for him. “I would dearly love to hear the tale,” she said as he took the plate from her. “I must confess that I am somewhat lacking in news from time to time in this out-of-the-way place.”
Now, that was a blatant falsehood since the inhabitants of Ayleshire were remarkably informed as to events transpiring in the world.
No doubt due to the trade for which the village was known, linen so finely woven that it attracted buyers from a dozen nations.
After politics, talk of rebellion, and news of faraway wars were exhausted as topics, there was always gossip.
“My brother was heir to an earldom,” he said. “On the way to England to decline it, Alisdair found himself married. Consequently, he returned to Scotland with both a wife and a title, intent on rebuilding our ancestral home. I chose to remain at Gilmuir in order to help him build his shipyard.”
“And your other brothers?”
“Douglas is too young to be of much use to anyone,” he said, smiling. “But Hamish and Brendan command their own ships, as I did once.”
“My husband was a sailor,” she told him. “He would have been miserable on land.”
“I’ve merely traded my captain’s duties for those of a shipbuilder. At least for the moment.”
She took a slice of the jewel cake, thinking that Cook had outdone herself.
“Have you traveled far from Gilmuir?”