Chapter 29
Riona had escaped to the village church. In a matter of days, her wedding would be held here.
“Dear St. Margaret,” Riona began softly, well aware that she was committing a sin in beseeching a saint here in this lovely, shadowed church where people did not believe in such things.
The altar, dappled by the muted colors from the stained-glass window, had been transformed to a communion table.
If there had once been statues in this place, they’d long been discarded, leaving an empty, cavernous space for only God to fill.
Riona wondered how many other women before her had considered St. Margaret a patron of sorts. The woman who had found refuge in Scotland a thousand years earlier had been welcomed by the man who would become her husband. A match made due to power? Or the heart?
Clasping her hands in front of her, she bowed her head.
Dear St. Margaret, she began again, this time silently.
I need some intercession, please. God has not seen fit to answer my prayers, and a word from you would not be amiss, I think.
I have made mistakes in my life, not all of which I have confessed, but you and I know that God sees all.
So I cannot claim purity in all my deeds and thoughts. In fact, I have sinned, and enjoyed it.
No answer was forthcoming. St. Margaret did not whisper to her, but thunder rumbled overhead, as if the approaching storm was the voice of a stern and admonishing deity. She had a sudden sinking feeling that perhaps God was displeased that she’d gone to St. Margaret instead of directly to Him.
Please, take the vision of James from me, so that I might not remember him.
I want not to recall the day we loved, or his smile, or any of his kisses.
Or think of all those times we’ve met and talked.
Or if he must remain in my heart, God, then let me see him as only a friend, a dear and valuable and cherished acquaintance.
Do not let me wonder what my life might have been under different circumstances.
Something was wrong with her chest because it felt so tight that she could barely breathe. There must be something in the air, some dust or pollen from the flowering plants. That was the only reason her eyes felt gritty and near to tears.
She opened her eyes, her gaze fixed on the stone floor, pocked in spots and worn smooth in others by generations of worshippers. Had any of them prayed as selfishly as she?
Leaning forward, she lowered her forehead to rest against the backs of her hands.
For a long time she simply sat there, waiting for the peace of the sanctuary to heal her.
But peace couldn’t enter where tumult lived, words she’d once heard the pastor speak.
Then how did she quiet her mind? Become resigned to the future?
She hoped James would be leaving soon. She didn’t want him there for her wedding. The sharing of vows was a sacred thing. She could not stand before the communion table and say the words binding her to Harold when he was in the room.
Do I wish this man for my husband? No. Do I want to bind my life to his? No. Will I promise to be a good wife? Yes, but only reluctantly. She would not lie to God.
Agreeing to marry Harold had been a necessity, but not a disaster, all the same.
Granted, if he’d not threatened ruin she would never have considered his suit, but there wasn’t anyone else she’d wanted to have as husband among all the men she’d met.
No one to tempt her humor or her curiosity.
No one to impress her with his judgment, fairness, and strength.
She’d found him too late.
Riona heard a sound, an intrusion in this world of silence, and sat up straight. Glancing behind her, she saw James. Did God have a sense of humor that He would send her the very person she did not wish to see?
“I didn’t mean to disturb your prayers.”
Riona stood, arranging her skirts. At least she hadn’t given in to tears. There would be no sign of weeping to explain away. “Did you follow me here?”
“Yes.” Was she to receive no more an explanation than that? A moment later, he spoke again. “You left the house very quickly. I was concerned.” There, too much of an explanation. He shouldn’t be so kind.
If he had flaws, let her see them now. Let him be parsimonious to a fault, or uncaring for the poor, or cruel or hateful. Let him be arrogant and vain. Or let him be more like Harold.
She glanced at him, wondering if he knew what she felt. But the expression on his face was guarded. Perhaps she should ask him how he masked his emotions so well, and do as he did.
“Sometimes I think I know why mankind creates churches. So that God can come and rest here. He can blow His breath and give life to this place, yet never needs to prove anything.”
He smiled, an almost encouraging expression. Two small words were all she needed to speak, and he would accede to her demands. Please leave. But she didn’t say them.
“Do you think God gets tired of the endless prayers He must hear?”
“I doubt He has the impatience of mortals,” James said with a smile. “He is, after all, omnipotent.”
“When I was a little girl, I believed that God only gave you a few prayers at birth. As if He said, Here, I bequeath you twenty prayers, Riona. If you waste those there are no more. Feel free to keep saying them, for devotion is a wondrous thing, but do not expect them to be answered.”
“What if you were a greedy child? How unfortunate if you’d expended all your prayers in your youth and have nothing left.”
She considered his remark. “Perhaps, in that case, a person could be the recipient of another’s prayers.
A mother’s prayer that you are happy, for example.
Perhaps you’re even the answer to a prayer.
A woman might pray for an end to loneliness, and a man without any prayers left finds himself happily married. ”
“Perhaps I have none left, according to your premise. I’ve prayed my way through enough typhoons and gales.”
She smoothed her hand against the wooden pew, finding the wood warm to her touch. “But they must have been granted, James, else you would not be standing here.” How adept she was becoming at hiding her emotions. A few moments earlier, she’d wanted to weep. Now she was discussing religion.
His smile grew broader. “You make God sound finite and prayers no more than wishes.”
“Do we not use them as such?”
“Your pastor would not approve of your thoughts,” he said.
She nodded. Not many people would. “The kirk holds that you must accept all that you are told without questioning the why of it.”
“Perhaps they believe that freedom of thought is a dangerous thing.”
“Sometimes that’s the only freedom we have,” she said, thinking of the choices she had in life. To marry. Or remain a burden to her mother.
“I once found it easy to be free,” he said, surprising her with that declaration.
Perhaps it was the church itself, a structure dedicated to worship and contemplation, that encouraged such candor.
“You must be part of society in order to live by its rules. As the captain of a ship, I was free to choose no one’s company but my own and my crew. ”
“Yet now you’re no longer a ship’s captain,” she reminded him.
“Instead of the sea surrounding me, I’ll have fields.”
“Will you be as free, however?”
“A man’s freedom is in his heart, Riona,” he said softly.
A moment passed, silent and serene, marred only by the furious beat of her heart.
“You looked very beautiful in your wedding dress,” he said unexpectedly.
A comment that had the power to halt her breath.
“Thank you.” She stiffened her shoulders and pasted a smile on her face.
“Don’t marry him.”
She looked up, startled at his words. His expression had altered.
Gone was the surface affability. His eyes hadn’t left her, and now they seemed particularly intense.
His mouth, that beautiful full mouth that doled out mind-numbing kisses, was thinned.
His face was still, his features immobile. As if he had simply become frozen.
“You can’t marry him. You’re mine.”
He took a few steps toward her, bending his head to speak against her temple. If someone had seen them, James would have been viewed as solicitous. Two worshippers, one standing, one seated in a pew beside the aisle.
But his words were wicked, salacious. “I know how you feel when I enter you, all hot and wet and welcoming. I know how your breasts feel against my palms. Each night I relive how you shuddered against me in your release. How can you think of giving yourself to anyone else?”
“James…” Dear God, she couldn’t breathe.
“Come with me, Riona. Live with me on the abbey land. I’ll build our home, and we’ll be impervious to scandal or whispers. Let the biddies say what they will. We simply won’t care.”
“I can’t.” She lowered her head, closed her eyes. “Please do not ask it of me.”
Nothing had changed. Nothing but her love for him.
“Do not marry him, Riona. Don’t turn your back on happiness. Do not turn your back on me.”
She stood, slapped both hands against his chest, and shoved with all her might. He barely budged. “You don’t understand,” she said, her voice thick with tears. “It isn’t just me. It’s not just my happiness. It never has been.”
Her voice seemed to carry, echo strangely across the church as if she’d shouted the words. A repudiation, but not because of honor or decency but rather due to guilt.
How could she deny Maureen the happiness she deserved by taking her own? Her sister had done nothing, was innocent in all this.
“I can’t,” she softly repeated. Her heart was breaking, and still he regarded her with those beautiful blue eyes.
“I’m leaving, then,” he said. “Do not expect me to stay and see you wed. I’ve no stomach for it.”
“When?” Wasn’t it odd that she could still speak? Her heart had stopped as well as her breath, but her body didn’t seem to know. How strange to feel so distant from herself.
“Today,” he said. The word was too vague. She wanted to know in hours and minutes.
“You’ve bought the abbey land,” she countered.
“I need to return to Gilmuir to tell Alisdair of my decision.”
“But then you’ll be coming back.”
“Not until you’re in Edinburgh.”
“I’ll think of you here,” she said. Mild words that didn’t begin to hint at what she truly felt. She would do more than think of him. He would forever be in her heart and in her mind.
Even now she ached, as if her body suffered for his absence, preparing for the long months and years to come.
“We haven’t been the wisest people, have we, James?”
He didn’t answer. His face was suddenly a mask; no emotion shone in his eyes. He held himself so stiffly that she felt as if he’d disappeared and left only an effigy of himself behind.
“Would you change it?” he asked. “If you could go back and change my coming here, would you?”
“No,” she said honestly and perhaps unwisely. The word thawed him. He smiled softly, charmingly, devastatingly. “I will always cherish the memory of these days. As long as I live, they will always be with me. Even if I were given a chance to remove them from my mind, I never could, James.”
He turned on his heel and left her.
She watched him until he walked through the door of the sanctuary. Only then did she allow her tears to fall.