Chapter 15
Fifteen
At breakfast, Ewen MacEwen asked Arabella if they might take the new steamboat from Dysart to Newhaven. He had been reading about steam as a propulsive force, and he thought he might be able to persuade someone on board to let him get a look at the workings of such a ship.
Paterson grunted, and Alasdair translated. They would be better off crossing the Firth of Forth at the old Queensferry crossing since they intended to skirt Edinburgh.
“Next time, Ewen,” Arabella said. “On the way back.”
“I dinnae think so,” he said. “I’m nae sure I’m coming back.”
“I will be,” Arabella said and raised her chin. There was nothing for her in England. Alasdair being persuaded by Harry to act as her escort to Sommerleigh did not change that.
The carriage left the village of Strathlochirn with just Arabella and Alasdair inside of it. Both Arabella and Alasdair had tried to persuade Ewen MacEwen to come into the carriage with them, but he refused.
“I have nae been this far south before. Sitting inside would defeat the purpose of traveling,” he said and climbed up next to Paterson.
“Besides,” Paterson grumbled, picking up the reins, “the boy tells good stories. I have ne’er been entertained so well. And today he has promised to finish the story of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.”
It was the longest speech Arabella had heard from Paterson in their two-day acquaintance.
Alasdair handed Arabella into the carriage, and they sat opposite each other as they had when Maggie had been with them.
Arabella did not know if this arrangement was best. Yes, she had had wicked thoughts about what she might do if she were seated next to him, but, now, in this position, facing him, unchaperoned, even looking at him had become tinged with danger.
She stole a glance. The bit of sunburn on his nose—where had he gotten that?
His mouth. His green eyes, the left one hidden by that lock of his hair.
She looked down and saw his long legs, his gloved hands with those long fingers holding one of his medical journals.
She turned her eyes to the window, suddenly shy.
They exchanged fewer than two-dozen words in the first hour of their journey that day until Arabella abruptly stood and turned around and sat next to Alasdair.
“I just needed a change,” she said.
And their new positions relative to each other, seated side by side so they did not have to look into the face of the other, did seem to free both of them to talk.
He commented on Maggie’s sister’s situation.
“’Tis good she has Mrs. Gunn with her.”
“Yes, Maggie will sort it out, what can be sorted out. But it’s horrid for that man to leave them with no money, no word of where he is. He has condemned those children to poverty.”
“But ’tis good the children have their mother. To have one parent who loves ye, ’tis important.”
Arabella remembered then that Alasdair had been orphaned at a young age and raised by an aunt and uncle until they died, too.
“As ye had yer mother,” he went on. “When yer father died.”
She shifted on the seat. She did not wish to speak of her mother. “When you were a boy, where did you go when you left Bailebrae?”
“I went to Edinburgh. I dinnae ken why. I was ten or so. I must have heard something about the city to make me pass Inverness by and keep going. I walked. It took well over a fortnight.”
“Only ten years of age? To make your way so far.” In her mind’s eye, Arabella saw a small, redheaded boy walking on this very road. Alone. She had to blink rapidly.
“I was lucky. ’Twas a very dry and warm September. But I remember dreaming of food.”
And the solitary boy had been hungry, too. She made her gloved hands into fists and willed herself to betray no emotion in her voice since, after all, he could not see her face as they sat side by side. “What did you find to eat?”
“I cannae remember what I ate while walking. But I do remember the first thing I ate in Edinburgh. A carrot. Dr. Murray’s wife saw me climb the wall to steal some carrots from their garden.
She came out of the house, and I was frightened and started climbing the wall to get away, and she said, Let me wash those for ye. Meaning the carrots I had in my hand.”
“Dr. Murray is the teacher Harry mentioned in her letter to me?”
“Aye. He and his wife took me in. And he helped me gain entrance to study with the Edinburgh Medical Faculty.”
“Harry said he was ill.”
“Aye. He died just before I came to ye.”
“I am very sorry.” She thought how important this man must be to him. “A very great loss. Were you with him when he died?”
“Aye.”
“I am glad of that, for his sake. And his wife?”
“Mrs. Murray died when I was still in training.”
“You are quite alone, then.”
“Well, I had forgotten about the Cormacks. Until I saw Boyd. Then it came back to me that I did still have family.”
“Mr. Cormack told me you did not speak much when you were young.”
“Aye. I found I had nothing to say. I liked to listen.”
She laughed a little. “I, on the other hand, have plenty to say and can’t bear to listen, Alasd—Dr. Andrews.”
“I am,” a hesitation here, “very interested in what ye have to say.”
Suddenly, she had nothing to say.
The carriage went over a rut, and they bounced a bit on the seat, and Arabella jostled into Alasdair.
“My apologies, Miss Lovelock,” he murmured and pulled away.
The words burst out of her. “Mr. Cormack understands I have refused him.”
She bit her lip. He said nothing.
Her body touching his for just a moment. And it had not escaped his notice that she had almost called him Alasdair.
But he did not say anything when she told him she had refused Boyd. And, surely, that would have been the right time for him to have said something to her of his intentions. To hint, at least. To have said something like, “Perhaps ye might accept someone else?”
But if she had rebuffed him, then to sit in this carriage with her for another five or six or seven days? It would have been torture. How could he have borne it? He would never be able to recover from that injury to his uncalloused heart.
And she would be witness to his pain.
He was still a coward.
She broke the awkward silence, rescuing him. Dauntless Arabella.
“What do you do for amusement, Dr. Andrews?”
He cleared his throat. “Chiefly, I read. But yer sister and her husband are kind enough to have me for dinner from time to time.”
“And what do you read? Your medical books and papers?” She gestured at the forgotten periodical in his hand.
“Aye,” he said slowly. “And the works of Sir Walter Scott.” He looked at her out of the corner of his eye, thinking he might see some spark, some recognition, and she would seize on this topic, and he would finally be able to impress her with his interest in her own pastime.
But she was looking out the window at the backward-rolling scenery. He returned his eyes to the seat straight ahead of him.
“I don’t seem to have much time for reading novels anymore,” she said, absently. “But perhaps once at Sommerleigh, I might.”
“Yer sister will be happy to see ye.”
“And I, her. The best thing about Harry is that there will be no recriminations. She will accept me as I am.” She shook her head. “No grudges, no what-ifs, no mourning. No living in the past. No being haunted by mistakes.”
“Is that,” Alasdair hesitated and then plunged ahead, “is that why ye have nae asked yet about yer mother? Or even mentioned her? Ye fear how she will treat ye?”
He could feel Arabella stiffen next to him.
“Yes, but . . . Dr. Andrews, I don’t know what you know about why I left London.”
His mind raced. What should he tell her? As always, he felt the truth was the best course.
“Lady Drake told me something of it when I asked about yer absence.”
“Harry?” Arabella leaned forward in her seat and kept her face resolutely turned towards the window.
“Aye. So, of course, I ken it may nae be exactly how others see it.”
“What did Harry say?”
To have to tell this to her. It tore at his heart.
But he repeated what Harry had told him on Christmas Day, years ago.
That Arabella had been seduced by a married man and it had come to be known by many.
He worked hard to control his voice. Whatever he felt could be nothing in comparison to what the event had meant to her since it had led to her separation from her family.
“No. Harry was accurate,” Arabella said to the carriage window.
“But I am sure yer mother feels nothing but love for ye. Ye should nae be worried about seeing her.”
“She will want to talk about things, and I don’t want that. I want to leave that time behind. I know she feels shame over . . . what happened. Which she should not.”
“And neither should ye.” Alasdair could not believe his boldness.
The silence stretched.
“Thank you,” Arabella said quietly. He felt a brief pressure on his gloved hand.
Cowardice be damned.
He grabbed at what he presumed was her hand, clamping it.
“I must tell ye,” he said, not turning his head, still staring at the opposite seat. “I must tell ye the greatest regret of my life has been that I didnae ask yer mother if I could write to ye. In that time before ye left yer family. To say I am sorry disnae begin to express my remorse.”
“You are very kind.” Her voice was choked, as if by tears.
He moved to the seat opposite her, still holding her hand, leaning forward, looking at her blue eyes brimming with tears.
“Nae, I am nae kind,” he said. “I am nae kind, at all. I am a fool.”
“I won’t have you talk that way about my personal physician,” she said, smiling through her tears, clearly trying to make a joke.
Oh. Oh, no. His heart sank.
She did not want this intimacy from him. She did not want to hear he had wanted to write to her.