Chapter 21
The dawn breeze fluttered her skirt around Riona’s ankles, brushed against her calves as if demanding attention. She wrapped her arms around her waist, tilted her head up to see the branches of the pine tree towering above her. The day was perfect, with not a hint of clouds in the sky.
Closing her eyes, she tried to identify each separate scent. Earth, still damp from the spring rains. Mushrooms, plentiful now that the ground was wet again. Flowers, the wins and harebells and heather that marked the season so well.
Life was precious at this moment, special and unique.
Especially after they’d nearly been killed in the fire.
The calls of the birds were so much more vocal on this morning, as if they had something of import to share with one another.
Or did they tally up their numbers to ensure that all of them were present?
She smiled at her own whimsy, closed her eyes, and stretched out her arms. In this bright moment she felt a penitent before an all-imposing God, a worshipper at His altar of nature.
Holding her arms out, she began to twirl, a silly movement for a woman of propriety. Her skirts belled up, and she grinned, feeling foolish and too young to be herself. Dizziness prompted her return to decorum, but she was not yet done with dancing.
Here there was no measure to count, no movements to memorize, no constant stream of conversation half understood. No one saw or discussed or judged her as she gripped her skirts with her hands and curtsied to a pine tree.
A most proper companion, Mr. Pine.
Riona grabbed the tip of a low, supple branch, and followed a movement, silent and happy. Not once did Mr. Pine inquire as to how she was enjoying Edinburgh, or if she was discommoded by all the construction in the city. No, the tree was content simply to be itself.
As was she.
She wanted to appreciate each separate moment. To take an hour and savor it. To prize an afternoon or feel joy in a dawn. She experienced every second of her freedom and cherished it, tucking it, used and spent, into a place in her heart.
One day, far into the future, she would pull these hours from her memory and view them again, remembering these days as halcyon and rare, beautiful and splendid.
She attempted to allow nothing into her mind that might tarnish the silver of these days. No thoughts of Harold.
Thoughts of James, however, were harder to expunge.
At times, she’d turn and he would be staring at her, his eyes hooded, as if to hold back any emotion that might have been revealed in them.
Occasionally, he’d make a remark and she’d realize it was a goad, a temptation to speech, a comment deliberately made to incite her interest or her answer.
But she’d keep silent, concentrating on her plate.
Attempting to be decorous. Praying to the dishes.
She turned toward the manor house, wondering what plans he had for today. As she did often, she thought of that moment outside the barn when she’d kissed him. And earlier, when he’d shown her how it was done.
Had he known that she wanted more? Or that her ruin was halted not by temperance or conscience, but by discovery?
She pressed her fingers against her lips. How often in the past year had she attempted to please others by being someone she was not, by holding her own true nature so tightly compressed that not even a shadow of the real Riona was visible? Yet that effort had not proven good enough, had it?
She’d seeped out around the edges, her true nature made visible by comments she couldn’t restrain, exuberance she couldn’t quite conceal, laughter that sounded too loud, and now wishes that were so far from being proper that they almost shocked her.
Did James know that whenever she was around him she felt more herself than at any time in her life? Or that she was carried away by feelings too strong to be labeled by simple speech?
Even now her cheeks warmed at the memory of those moments in the barn. Turning away, she tried to banish him from her thoughts, but the deed was not so easily accomplished.
Gripping the end of a branch, she pulled it sideways, let it spring back into place with a faint whipping sound. Then, holding it once more, she smiled at herself as she again curtsied to her companion.
Mr. Pine became James MacRae in her mind, and her cheeks warmed even further. When she danced with him, her feet suddenly knew their place, her heart heard the beat of the music clearly and without distortion, and she became witty and charming and urbane.
If she were to engage in foolishness, then she would have all her dreams come true. Not simply a country dance executed in perfect decorum.
She would be beloved and cherished, a woman desired. Her life would be ordained not by rules and regulations, but by the seasons and a celestial clock pushing day into night.
Closing her eyes, she tilted her head back and let the wind kiss her cheeks, pretending that it was James.
James scaled the ladder to the roof of the new barn, intent upon finishing the structure in the next two days.
He glanced to his left, then came to a halt, his arms crossed over his chest in a position he often adopted at sea.
Those who knew him well said that it was his thinking pose.
At the moment he was not conscious of having any thought at all, however, being entranced by the sight of Riona, dancing.
The dawn light captured her hair as it fell from its careful coronet of braids to the middle of her back. With two fingers she held on to the end of a branch, and from time to time addressed it as if it were a partner.
There was something youthful and innocent in her delight. He was content to be an observer for the moment, captivated by the sight of Riona as he knew her to be and not as society and Mrs. Parker would have her appear.
He wanted to seduce her with his mouth, taking his time about it until she directed him with her moans and soft, helpless gasps.
Becoming besotted with a woman soon to marry was foolishness and he’d never been considered lacking in wits.
Turning away, he set about his duties.
“Be careful where you walk,” he cautioned Ned as he topped the ladder.
“Do I look the fool, then?” Ned squinted at him. A frown, James thought, or maybe not. With Ned, it was difficult to discern his exact expression through that full beard.
“Are you sure you’re up to this?” he asked, glancing at the other man’s arm.
“I am,” Ned said, his look daring James to argue.
He stifled his smile, and walked to the outermost part of the frame.
The barn was the single most important building at Tyemorn Manor and any number of people could, and had, been recruited to rebuild the structure. Not only were the more valuable animals, such as the horses, sheltered here, but those too young or too old to survive out of doors.
Rolling up the sleeves of his shirt, James knelt and began hammering in the trusses. The framework wasn’t much different from that of a ship’s hull, only inverted.
There were a great many similarities between his shipboard life and farming, he’d discovered since arriving at Tyemorn Manor.
Both occupations required attention to the implements of the trade.
Aboard ship, sails had to be mended, decks kept free of salt spray.
Here, harnesses had to be repaired, plows sharpened.
A day at sea was regulated by bells; Tyemorn’s routine was dictated by the passing of the sun across the sky.
The fields must be tended, the animals fed, the cows milked, the slaughtering done.
Each day brought its own schedule, as fixed and marked as life aboard ship.
But then, life itself was like his grandmother’s rosary, each event a tiny gleaming jewel.
Spring came and lambs were born. Summer arrived and the crops matured.
Autumn brought the harvest, and the winter a dormancy to rest the earth.
Yet there was a curious contrast between the two ways of life. The farms of Tyemorn rewarded hard work with flourishing fields and thriving animals, whereas the sea grudgingly repaid a sailor’s efforts by allowing him to survive from voyage to voyage.
He had become, James discovered, a farmer. Yet that was the only revelation he’d made in the past few days. He’d been unable to discover the identity of the thief or even details of the losses themselves.
Susanna, however, seemed to think nothing of his lack of progress. In fact, each time he broached the subject, she waved it away, changing the topic quickly.
“I’m surprised Susanna let you up on the roof. She’s so particular about your comfort.”
James smiled. He’d heard that tone before.
“She feels the same about you,” he said, in an attempt to ease the other man’s jealousy. “She’s lucky to have you,” he added.
He’d studied the ledgers with great care, attempting to discover if the thefts were as a result of simple mathematical errors. Ned’s entries had been flawless.
Ned sent him a narrow-eyed look, as if to say that he didn’t give a whit what James thought of him.
But James had crewed with older sailors before, those who claimed not to want or need praise.
A man should know when the job he did was good regardless of his age, so James repeated his statement, adding, “I doubt that Susanna could have settled in here as easily as she has without your help.”
“The old barn needed repairing,” Ned conceded. “But I never had the time or the manpower. The rain this year only made the damage worse. Not that I’m complaining. A fool would complain about rain. You take what you get and consider it a blessing.”
“The farmland is rich here.”
“Aye, there’s more rock than soil away from Ayleshire,” Ned agreed. He knelt at James’s side, began to hammer. A curious moment of agreement.
“Have you always lived here, Ned?” Today was one of the few times he and the older man shared a conversation that didn’t involve the manor or farming.
“Aye,” the older man said. “I never went away to war all those many years ago. There were some who call us Ayleshire men traitors because of it, but we didn’t side with the prince for all that Scotland seemed to love him. He watered his horse at our well, did you know that?”
“No,” James said, sitting back on his heels.
“I guess he thought drinking the waters and making a display of himself would change the villagers’ minds.
But not one person came to greet him on the day he and his army came here.
We all busied ourselves doing what we could to keep our homes and hearth around us.
It didn’t make it easier that we were right when it all ended. ”
James nodded, thinking of stories his father had told of the deprivations in Scotland following Culloden.
“Even with help we’ll not finish the barn for a good week,” Ned said, looking around him.
“A better occupation than looking for a thief who doesn’t exist,” James said, eyeing the older man.
For nearly two weeks, he’d begun to suspect that there weren’t any thefts occurring at Tyemorn Manor. People were too casual about guarding the cattle and sheep. There was no suspicion in their eyes or worried looks. If livestock was missing, he doubted that those who cared for the animals knew it.
Ned didn’t even blink an eye. “I told her it wouldn’t work.”
James straightened. The other man didn’t even make an effort to continue the pretense. Nor did it appear, from his wide grin, that he felt any guilt over his part in the ruse.
“If there are no thefts taking place, then what am I doing here?”
“You’ll have to ask Susanna that,” Ned said.
“Was there ever any missing livestock?”
“To be sure,” Ned replied easily. “I sent them to a man on the other side of the village. It cost a pretty penny to keep that creature’s lips from flapping.”
James couldn’t decide exactly what he felt at this particular moment. For some reason, Susanna had decided to lie to him. Yet he couldn’t deny that he’d enjoyed the time here. In fact, working at Tyemorn had helped him crystallize his own future.
“Don’t tell her that I know just yet,” he said.
Ned looked at him.
“If it’s an excuse you need for staying, James, there’s Rory’s healing to do.” Ned glanced down at his arm. “And I guess I could use some help.”
“Am I that transparent?” James asked, unwillingly amused.
“Let’s just say I know what it’s like to be bedeviled by a woman,” Ned said, looking toward the manor house.
For the moment, however, there was nothing to do but concentrate on the roof.
The summer sun was directly overhead by the time the majority of the roof trusses were finished.
The rhythm of hammers and the smell of newly cut wood reminded him of Gilmuir and the new shipyard he’d built there.
He might have been with his crew repairing a sail or testing the structural integrity of a mast. From time to time he’d stand and stretch, seeking Riona from his vantage point atop the roof.
But she had disappeared, leaving him with a curious feeling of emptiness.