Chapter 26
“Would Mrs. Parker approve of this celebration?” James asked an hour later. Lanterns were strung on poles around the green, illuminating the dancers. From maid to innkeeper, stable boy to merchant, every inhabitant of Ayleshire seemed to be in the square.
They had danced the first dance and were now resting on the sidelines, watching as the other villagers joined in the gaiety.
“Perhaps not,” she admitted. “But she has left Ayleshire, and so we’ll have no way of knowing.”
“Good riddance.”
“She’s a very respected member of Edinburgh society,” she said in the silence.
“Used to getting her own way,” he said dryly.
“She can be rather overpowering,” she said, “but I’m sure she means well.”
They exchanged a look laced with humor.
“You’re more charitable than I,” he said. “I am grateful the woman has taken herself off to Edinburgh.”
“She doesn’t truly mean to be so difficult, I think.
She’s considered quite proper, although I have never measured up to her standards.
Mrs. Parker believes I should be less enthusiastic, I believe she said.
And more circumspect.” She glanced at him.
“Did you know I have the laughter of a braying ass?”
“Mrs. Parker evidently speaks for herself and not for a man. I, for one, like your laugh.”
They shared another look. “Thank you,” she softly replied. “If you had a marriageable daughter, you would, no doubt, think differently of her.”
He raised his eyebrow again. “I cannot think of sending a child of mine off to the care of that woman. It would be like sending a tiny fly off to be boarded with a spider.”
“She wasn’t all that bad,” Riona protested. “I was a very poor student.”
“What could she possibly have taught you?”
“How to attract a suitor, for one. How to walk with a gliding gait, how to greet all manner of people. In short, my manners needed to be polished.”
“I have no doubt that you would have done equally as well without her tutelage.”
“I also learned to dance,” she said. “Even though I admit to having no liking for it.” Glancing at him, she smiled again. “There, I’ve told you one of my deepest secrets. I have no grace, Mrs. Parker says.”
“The woman is a fool,” he said brusquely. “You’re a magnificent dancer. You do everything well. Why do you feel the need to defend her when she so obviously disliked you?”
She said nothing for a moment, then finally answered. “Perhaps because I feel sorry for her. I wouldn’t like her life at all, spending her time arranging marriages for everyone else while being alone herself. It seems to be an unbearably sad existence.”
He didn’t say anything, stripped of his irritation toward Mrs. Parker by Riona’s artless words.
He pulled her behind a wagon and bent his head and kissed her, giving in to an impulse that had been present all night. Although it was a light, teasing kiss, it hinted at more.
“Besides,” she said, her lips curving in a smile when they parted, “you truly cannot blame her. She was only trying to render me more marriageable.”
Mrs. Parker hadn’t known what to do with her, he suspected.
Riona spoke in a voice that sounded like poetry, was forever impatient with her hair.
She smiled when there was no reason for it, and her thoughts were years ahead of her speech, leaving him in ignorance and delighted confusion until she shared her musings.
A woman who suited him more than any other.
He raised her hand and kissed her knuckles. There was a scrape on her left thumb. “How did you do this?” he asked.
“Cutting the cake.” She stared ruefully at the small wound.
“It looked like a very good cake.”
“Luck was on my side. It’s the first time I’ve baked one that didn’t fall.”
“Perhaps it was because of the midsummer dew,” he teased.
“More like it was all the whiskey I used to soak it in as it aged,” she said, smiling back at him. “Between it, and the raisins, nuts, and fruits, there wasn’t much cake to taste. But what was there seemed to please the elders.”
She tilted her head and surveyed him.
“Are you sorry you’re not an earl, instead of your brother?”
“Where did that question come from?” he asked, amused.
“Because you look like a prince,” she said, her gaze not veering from him.
He smiled at her words. “I wouldn’t take the position. I think the only reason that Alisdair agreed to be Earl of Sherbourne was in order to rebuild Gilmuir. The undertaking will cost a fortune.”
“Do you think there was once a house on the abbey land? A house as old as Gilmuir with memories of its own, where people laughed and loved?”
“Before the monks arrived and imposed a cloistered silence?”
“For some reason I have difficulty seeing Scottish monks as severe in their religion,” she admitted with a smile. “I think they probably wore kilts and sipped whiskey between prayers.”
“We Scots do everything to excess. I doubt we were any different in religious devotion. Unfortunately, I can envision more austerity than high spirits.”
“Do you think you will be able to expunge their memory, then? Replace it with something happier?”
If he did, another ghost would take their place. A lass with a gray-eyed glance and a teasing smile.
Perhaps it would be better if he left this place entirely, found some other corner of Scotland to call his own. But as Gilmuir called to Alisdair, Ayleshire called to him. Its history was fascinating and its people warm and open and welcoming.
“Perhaps that is the magic of Ayleshire after all,” he said. “That it can grow and transform itself while never losing its past.”
“You do the same, James,” she said. “Changing from sea captain to builder to landowner.”
Her smile was too tempting, almost inviting a kiss. But there were other people around them. He caught sight of Rory and Abigail, each smiling at the other as they danced.
“Will you come with me, to bless my land?” he asked, picking up her hand and bestowing a kiss on it. There, a gesture that he could make in public.
“It would be an improvident act on my part.” She allowed her hand to linger in his, her fingers to entwine with his. Neither of them was behaving with strict propriety. He wanted time alone with her.
“Will you come?” he asked again. “Improvident or not?”
She nodded.
They were the loveliest couple, Susanna thought, watching as James kissed Riona’s hand. Riona’s face was warmed by a blush, and James’s bruises had faded completely.
She should have interrupted, perhaps, but she couldn’t begrudge her daughter this night. There would be time ahead for her to be as proper as a matron. Perhaps memories of this time would make marriage to Harold palatable.
“You’re looking lovely tonight,” a voice said. Susanna turned to find herself face-to-face with Ned. His appearance still disturbed her. Who would have thought that beneath that white-bearded exterior lay a handsome man?
Or one who knew her quite so well?
How horrible to recall all those moments when she’d confided in him, told him things she’d never divulged to a soul, only because she thought of him as an uncle.
“Why do you wear that ridiculous beard?” she asked, annoyed. “To make everyone think you’re so much older?”
“Everyone in Ayleshire knows my age. It’s only those new to the village who make assumptions.”
“Then why do they call you Old Ned?” She was unaccountably irritated at the man. Yet, at the same time, she couldn’t help but recall those nights when he’d worked on the ledgers in the library and she’d sat on the other side of the room, both of them in perfect accord.
“To separate me from the gardener’s boy. Or didn’t you know his name was Ned, too?”
His grin was unsettling. She hadn’t known, of course, which was why the man was so maddening.
“When did you lose your wife?”
“About the time you lost your husband,” he said.
“I wish I’d known you were not as ancient as you appeared.”
“Would it have made a difference to the way you treated me?”
She regarded him steadily, but didn’t answer him. What would he have said to her confession? She might have flirted more if she’d known he was her age, or taken more care with her appearance?
“Was it a happy marriage, Ned?”
“It was,” he answered. “As yours was.”
“How very much you know about me,” she murmured. “While I need to learn a great deal more about you.”
“Shall we begin now?” he asked. “I’ve got one good arm, and that’ll have to do. Will you dance with me?”
He opened up his arms, nodding at the dance floor.
She smiled, placed her hand on his, and accompanied him.