Thirteen
“So, are you my brother’s mistress now?”
Constance was so shocked by Fiona’s question, she almost stumbled over her own feet as she carried a bundle of dry brambles and twigs toward the fire they were preparing.
She, Fiona, and Grace were doing laundry and had set up their enterprise by the edge of the loch so they wouldn’t have to carry water very far for the different tasks. Besides the water they were preparing to heat, Grace was filling a tub of cold water for rinsing.
Constance was surprised Fiona had volunteered to help. Although, to be fair, she knew that Fiona had been doing more than her share of the work around camp since that first day. However, aware that Gordon’s sister watched her closely, Constance was thankful that Grace had volunteered, too.
It was Grace who answered Fiona’s too direct and too personal question. “You’d best be careful what you ask,” she advised. “You may not want the answer.”
“I want the answer,” Fiona said. She poured another bucket of water in the kettle prepared for the fire and asked Constance again, “Are you his mistress?”
“No,” Constance replied. “And I don’t know why you even asked such a question.” She avoided Fiona’s eyes by pretending to search for the tinder box in her apron pocket.
“Because you’ve been sleeping in his tent these past two nights when you didn’t need to. He no longer has you tied to him or treats you like a prisoner. And now you are preparing to do his laundry,” Fiona answered.
Constance finally pulled out the tinder box.
“I’m doing laundry,” she emphasized. In fact, she’d made a point of gathering a number of people’s wash to avoid just such an impression.
“I’m a captive here. Why wouldn’t I be doing these things?
If I was an Indian captive, I’d work from sunup to sundown. ”
“Or you could be doing these things for the same reason you follow him with your eyes whenever he’s close,” Fiona suggested quietly. “Don’t think we are blind. We see how you anticipate whatever it is he needs. How you wait for him in the evening.”
“I’m usually asleep before he comes into the tent,” Constance said in her defense. “And he is usually gone before I wake.” It was true she hadn’t moved from Gordon’s tent. She didn’t want to…and she didn’t want to examine her motives too closely. It just seemed right that she be there.
Constance pulled out flint and cloth from the tinder box and tried to strike a flame. It failed because her hands shook.
Fiona knelt beside her. “I like you,” she said.
“You’ve been good for all of us. But I don’t want you to forget why you are here.
” She took the tinder box, flint, and cloth from Constance.
“My brother’s life is dedicated to only one thing, and that is his cause.
” She struck a spark and caught the cloth on fire.
Leaning forward, she held it to the kindling.
“I don’t believe he’s thought this whole endeavor with you through.
He didn’t anticipate you being the woman you are.
” The kindling caught fire and she blew on the flame to encourage it.
Constance glanced up at Grace, uncertain if she should trust this new side to Fiona. Grace shrugged. She didn’t know, either.
Fiona rose and offered the tinder box back to Constance, who had no choice but to come to her feet to accept it. But Fiona didn’t release her hold on the palm-sized tin immediately. Instead, she met Constance’s eyes and said, “I’m asking again, for a third time, are you my brother’s mistress?”
“He has not touched me.”
“But you are wishing he would?”
Constance was horrified by the guilty heat that stole up her face. “We’ve said less than three words to each other.”
“See?” Grace said to Fiona. “You have no worries.”
Fiona shook her head, her gaze never leaving Constance. “I’d wager you know his scent better than your own. You probably know when he’s been to his tent while you aren’t there. You can feel his presence.”
Constance didn’t answer, but knew Fiona was right.
“What nonsense are you speaking?” Grace interjected, as if she was the voice of common sense. She placed herself by Constance’s side. “We’re blessed to have her here,” she said. “I, for one, appreciate her.”
“I appreciate her, too,” Fiona said, surprising Constance.
“She’s left her mark on all of us, including my brother.
You’ll pardon me, Grace, if I deem it important to see to his welfare and ask the questions aloud everyone gossips over behind his back.
” To Constance, she explained, “I know how it is to have all their bickering tongues wagging about you, and how dangerous.”
Of course, people would be talking, Constance realized. Of course, they would assume she was Gordon’s woman. It added titillation to ordinary lives.
What caught her off guard was that she’d ignored the whispers—purposefully. What had mattered was being close to Gordon. The rest was immaterial.
Something of what she felt must have shown on her face. “You’re in love with him,” Fiona said.
“I admire him,” Constance quickly corrected.
“And what is that, if not love?” his sister countered.
Grace rolled her eyes. “This is foolish.” She threw a twig she’d been holding in her hand on the fire, stepping between them as she did so. “People don’t fall in love in a matter of days. And Constance has too much sense for such poetic humdrum.”
“What would you know about love?” Fiona asked.
“I’ve been in love before,” Grace answered. She looked at the shocked faces that greeted this news. “What? I’m four and twenty. One would expect me to have been in love at least once if not more. Haven’t you ever been in love?” she asked Fiona.
“Never,” Fiona said. “But given that you are a wh—” She broke off, hesitating only a moment before plowing on. “Doesn’t your choice of profession betray the whole notion of love?”
“I’m no longer in that ‘profession,’” Grace primly informed her. “Sometimes life takes us in directions we don’t understand. That we never would have anticipated.” She shrugged. “I ended up here…and, perhaps, this is where I was meant to be.” She looked to Constance. “You’ve pricked my conscience.”
“How could I do that?” Constance asked, startled by Grace’s candor.
“By taking your life into your own hands,” Grace said.
“At first, when I heard they’d caught you attempting to run away to America, of all places—you, a woman alone—I thought you strange.
Unnatural. A woman doesn’t just go off and do what she feels like.
But over the past several days, watching you work as hard as any man and stand up for yourself, I’ve come to realize that each of us makes our own fortune.
I was making mine on my back, and not doing very well at it.
I have nothing to show from Thomas except relief that I don’t have to smell his breath in the morning anymore.
I want to be something more than a whore. ” She directed this last to Fiona.
“I never said you were a whore,” Fiona countered, and then added honestly, “Not lately.”
“Thank you, Grace,” Constance said, deeply touched by the other’s appraisal. “I fear my sisters would not admire my independence—”
“Who were you in love with?” Fiona interrupted, her interest not leaving Grace. “Is that why you chose the devil? Unrequited love?”
Grace frowned at the “devil” description. “Do you not fear the same fate?” she countered.
Fiona immediately took a step back. “I don’t know that I need or even want marriage.” She picked up a bundle of clothing lying nearby and dropped it into the pot of warming water. Taking up a wooden paddle from the ground, she pushed the clothes under the water.
Grace wasn’t about to be lenient. “A woman like you—one born, bred, and molded to be a wife—is helpless for anything else,” she challenged Fiona.
“I have to be worth something more,” Fiona answered fiercely. She began stabbing the clothes. “I refuse to believe I’m ruined. I did nothing wrong.”
Grace’s response was to begin clapping her hands.
“What are you doing?” Fiona said irritably.
“Congratulating you,” Grace answered. “There may be hope for you yet. You’ve shown more spirit today than you have all the days before Constance arrived.”
Fiona’s brows came together. “There are times I don’t like you.”
“Or I you,” Grace countered.
“Then there are other times when I believe we could be friends,” Fiona said.
For once, Grace was apparently too stunned to answer.
“In truth, I admire both of you,” Fiona continued, turning her attention back to churning the laundry with her paddle, as if not wanting to meet their eyes.
“I’m trying to be as brave as you are, and I’m not certain I want to see you go, Constance.
My brother may very well be a fool if he releases you.
” She caught some clothes on her paddle. “Here, are these done?”
Constance recovered from her shock enough to murmur something about letting the water heat more and putting in a bit of soap. Not that she didn’t appreciate the change of topic. Fiona was far more perceptive than she had given her credit for, and was right—she was falling in love with Gordon.
No other word could describe the way her heart raced and her mind went on alert anytime there was the possibility of catching even a glimpse of him. Sometimes, when he slept beside her, she’d lie awake watching him breathe, wishing…
She reached for the paddle, taking it away from Fiona, needing something to do with her hands.
Grace spoke. “I think Gordon Lachlan is the finest man I’ve ever met.”
Constance agreed…although she sensed Grace had a purpose to her comment.
“Wasn’t it amazing,” Grace continued, “how he alone heard Jamie Allen and Peter McKenna’s calls last evening?” The young troublemakers had scaled down the Cliffs and discovered a cave, but found they couldn’t climb back up. “No one else, not even their own parents, noticed they were gone.”