Chapter 16
When Cora came down to breakfast, Cameron could see that she’d had a restless and anxious night, but he did not bring it up.
He had no desire to make her feel more self-conscious than she already seemed to, given the tenor of their conversation in the garden.
Instead, he simply greeted her with a warm smile.
Harry took his place at the table, grumbling to himself all the while. He appeared disheveled and out of sorts.
“Are you quite all right, Brother?” Cora asked.
“I do wish you hadn’t asked him,” Matilda said with a weary smile. “Now we shall never hear the end of it.”
“I am not alright, dear sister, no, not in the slightest!” he answered hotly. “I rang for Carstairs repeatedly, but he did not appear! I was forced to dress myself, for heaven’s sake!”
“And had you forgotten how to do so?”
Cora couldn’t help but rib him, given that he was the only person there who appeared to be having a worse time of it than she was.
“Oh, he was fine,” Matilda assured her dismissively. “I helped him. Honestly, he’d look a good deal better if he hadn’t been so flustered about the whole thing.”
“Of course I’m bally flustered!” he snapped irritably. “My manservant has gone missing!”
“Somehow, I severely doubt that his well-being is paramount in your mind at the present moment,” Matilda commented wryly.
For their part, the members of the Wallace family exchanged bewildered looks as though uncertain of how Harry could be so displeased over something as simple as the valet not answering the bell.
Just then, Carstairs entered the dining hall, an apologetic expression on his face.
“Carstairs!” Harry exclaimed. “Good lord, man, where have you been?”
“Dreadfully sorry, sir,” Carstairs replied.
“I awoke early this morning and went for a stroll in the gardens, and…well, to be frank, sir, the scenery was so magnificent that I quite lost track of the time. I hadn’t expected to encounter something so similar to a proper English garden in the middle of Scotland! And outside a castle, no less!”
“I am pleased that you enjoy it, Carstairs!” Laird Cawley chortled. “I have done all I could to lend it the proper authenticity, though sadly, I’ve only had books to compare it with. The considered opinion of a real English valet on the subject would be delightful!”
“I would be happy to answer any questions you may have, Laird Cawley.” Carstairs’s tone was oddly relaxed, almost beatific, really, given how tightly wound he generally seemed up until this point.
The change in him amused Cameron, though he thought it best not to comment upon it for fear of making Carstairs too conscious of the change in his own behavior. In doing so, Cameron knew he might cause the poor valet to save face by becoming his stuck-up and stuffy former self once more.
“Also, I could not help but appreciate the freshness of the air in this country,” Carstairs went on happily.
“And the peace and quiet! No carriages thundering by outside the windows at all hours of the night, no beggars and madmen yelling in the streets! This place is marvelous for relaxation, I’m pleased to say. ”
Laird Cawley nodded, looking satisfied.
Cora was happy for Carstairs. She only wished that she, too, could appreciate Scotland the way the valet seemed to. She hoped that the visit to the village would change all of that.
After breakfast, as Carstairs led Harry back upstairs so the viscount could be re-attired to his satisfaction, Cameron brought Cora to the stables and allowed her to select a horse to ride that day. She chose a magnificent white creature with a flowing mane and a proud gleam in its eye.
“That’s Lilac,” Cameron told her with a grin. “She’s a good steed, swift and true, with a lovely disposition. You have chosen well.”
He helped her onto the horse, then mounted one himself, a dappled animal called Clover.
Together, they rode toward the village. As they did, Cora faltered a bit here and there.
She was, indeed, woefully out of practice.
There was even a point when she almost fell off entirely, but before she could, Cameron rode up beside her and helped her straighten up.
The way he touched her, the strength and surety in his hands and arms, stole her breath away.
She had not felt those arms around her since her disastrous turn at the soiree, and for the first time, she allowed herself to truly imagine what it might be like to be held in their embrace during their wedding night… if they had one.
She felt herself blush and turned away, hoping he would not notice.
When they reached the village and secured their horses at the livery, Cora looked around her, astonished. “This town is really quite something!” she marveled. “It looks rather like something one might have seen over a hundred years ago, yet it’s entirely unchanged!”
“Aye, you may find that’s true of a great many places here in Scotland,” he laughed. “These people don’t have much use for modern ways. The simple life tends to suit them.”
“And you as well, I imagine?” she guessed slyly.
He nodded. “It does, aye. But only if you’re here to share it with me.”
“That remains to be seen,” she observed primly. “Come, now. Show me around.”
Privately, she continued to appreciate his unabashed enthusiasm when it came to wooing her.
She had always assumed that eventually, she’d catch the eye of some fellow or other, and he would go through the (rather tedious) motions of courtship.
That day came for almost every young lady in her position, and she’d supposed she’d be no different in that regard.
But she had never imagined that someone would yearn for her so deeply and truly that he would seek her satisfaction so consistently and long for her affection so desperately.
This big man with his muscular shoulders and powerful arms seemed as though he could easily bestride the world with a roguish grin…
yet he was sensitive and attentive where she was concerned, even apprehensive when it came to guaranteeing her comfort.
Could she spend the rest of her life with a man who treated her that way?
Yes, she rather thought she could, and happily. Even in this place, which was so far removed from the setting she’d grown accustomed to.
As they walked down the central road of the village, however, she noticed that most of the peasants were not smiling at her.
If anything, many of them were openly scowling and several of them very deliberately turned away from her as she passed.
Even though the day had turned out to be relatively warm, she felt a distinct chill emanating from them.
“Why do they react to me so?” she whispered to Cameron. “What injury have I done to them that I should merit such scornful looks and rude behavior?”
Cameron looked uncomfortable. “Ah. I think perhaps they are dissatisfied with the fact that I was sent to London to seek out a wife instead of marrying a Scottish lass. If I had chosen a young lady from one of their families, that might have been an opportunity for them to improve their station in life.”
Those words made Cora think of her brother.
How desperate he had been to scrape and scratch his way up from the middle class, to do whatever it took to elevate himself (and, by extension, her).
There were many times when Cora doubted that he even had much love for Matilda since he had largely married her for her family’s money and social status.
Somehow, she supposed she had come to think of such things as problems more common to where she was born and raised—a bustling city where the lower and middle classes tended to crawl all over each other like crabs in a barrel, endlessly reaching for the heights of luxury and influence they routinely saw passing them by in ornate coaches and carriages or waving from the balconies of wealthy manors.
Could it be that these attitudes were so prevalent here, too, in this rustic setting where the people seemed to prefer “the simple life”?
That thought disquieted her immensely. She went back to fretting about whether living in this place with Cameron would be a good decision or whether she would be more content back in London.
“How likely is it that you would have wed one of them, though?” she inquired. “Don’t the sons of lairds typically marry the daughters of other lairds? Or of noblemen, at least?”
“For the most part,” he affirmed, “though there have certainly been notable exceptions here and there, where a fellow of noble birth would fall madly in love with a peasant girl and take her away from all this. It’s happened a handful of times in my family in previous years, so no doubt these people had pinned their hopes to such an outcome. ”
Cora sensed that there was something he was holding back from her. “What aren’t you telling me, Cameron? There’s more to it than that, isn’t there?”
He sighed heavily. “Aye, I fear there is. Just as Londoners like your brother have contempt for Scottish folk, well, the feeling tends to be mutual, if you see what I mean. There are many in this land who continue to resent your people for seizing control of our country.”
She felt a bit foolish for not having figured that out for herself. “I see. That isn’t widely known in England. Or rather, I suppose most of us simply don’t give it a great deal of thought, one way or the other.”
Cameron’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “No, I don’t suppose you would.”
Now Cora was beginning to feel clumsy and foolish in her phrasing. Her words didn’t appear to anger Cameron, but he seemed rather hurt by them just the same.
“That was poorly put, and I apologize,” she told him. “Even so, perhaps we ought to return to the castle. I find that these glares from them are making me dreadfully uncomfortable.”
Cameron turned to her and, to her surprise, put his hands on her shoulders so he could look into her eyes intently.
It was a strangely intimate gesture, she felt, given that they were unmarried and in public (among people who were already glowering, and this sight certainly did not seem to make them any happier).
“I love you, Cora, as I have never loved anyone before in my life. I never believed I could feel such soaring joy as I do whenever I’m with you. It may take these people some time to become accustomed to the idea of an Englishwoman marrying the man who will be their laird someday.”
A brief shadow passed over his face as he said this, and she wondered at that. Was there still more he was not telling her?
“Even so,” he continued, “these are good people at heart, and I have faith that they will come to adore you as well, given time and patience.”
As they rode back to the castle, Cora kept turning his words over and over in her mind. She desperately wanted to believe that things would turn out as he predicted.
But by the time they’d returned to the stables, she had discovered, much to her dismay, that she simply could not.