Chapter 30
“Is that a sparrow?” Agnes cooed as she sat on the grass with Lizzy, enjoying a rather mild afternoon. “Look at it hopping!”
Lizzy ignored the bird, intent on trying to pluck a daisy from the ground.
It had been several days since her father’s arrival, and though it had been pleasant to see him again, Agnes was glad of a moment alone.
A moment where she didn’t have to think about entertaining her father or about gowns or about the wedding that was coming up at a terrifying pace or about anything other than her niece.
She did not doubt that someone would eventually find her to ask her a thousand questions about this and that, but for now, she was content to enjoy the peace.
“Your mother used to love robins,” she said to Lizzy. “She would talk to them when they flew into the gardens at Hampton House. I used to think she was quite mad, but what was madder was that the robins used to chirp back to her.”
Lizzy managed to pinch the daisy, entirely oblivious to the fact she was being spoken to.
Agnes had to laugh. “Not exactly a captive audience, are you?”
Speaking of a captive audience, she had heard from Iona that some men had been brought to the castle dungeons yesterday. Who they were and why they were imprisoned remained a mystery, but Agnes could not stop worrying that Edwin might be down there in the cells.
Gordon would have told me if he was, wouldn’t he?
As if summoned, she looked up to find Gordon himself, walking along that path that ran around the castle. His eyes were shadowed with dark crescents, and he wandered as if in a daze, like a man who had not slept all night. On his hands were fresh bruises, the redness drawing her eye.
Just then, he looked over at her.
Will you keep avoiding me?
She had assumed that was why she had not seen him since he had announced to her father that they were to be wed—because he didn’t want to speak about the wedding. He had been forced into it, she knew that, but couldn’t they at least be civil?
After all, just before that unexpected announcement, he had kissed her as if he believed it was all real. As if she meant something to him.
She got up, deciding that she wouldn’t leave it in his hands to come and speak to her.
“You are a sight for sore eyes,” she said, forcing a chuckle.
Gordon paused, a tight smile on his lips. “I spent the night dealin’ with traitors.”
“Traitors?” Agnes swallowed.
“Aye, but all’s well.”
She nodded, feeling awkward. “I haven’t seen you in days.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Yes… Yes, of course you have.” She took a breath. “I… I just wanted to say that I am sorry about all of this. I am sorry that you are stuck with me when you never wanted to get married. I am sorry that the terms of our arrangement were altered, outside of our control.”
He shrugged. “Serves me right for kissin’ ye with paint on me hands.”
She frowned, surprised by the jest. She had assumed that he would be taking this whole wedding debacle very badly, not making jokes about it.
“But it’s me who’s sorry,” he added with a sigh, all humor vanishing. “Sorry that ye’re stuck with someone who can never be the husband ye want.”
Tilting her head to the side, she risked a smile. “I would not be sure of that, Gordon. Perhaps you already are the husband that I want. You were right when you said there was no other man who could protect me and Lizzy like you can.”
He leaned back against the wall and turned his gaze up to the sky, his chest falling with another long sigh. “Ye’re a young lass, ye’ve never been wed before. Surely, ye want a husband who’ll touch ye, love ye, give ye children of yer own?”
An odd, sinking feeling caught her unawares. “And… that is not you?”
“Nay, lass. It can never be me.” He lowered his gaze back to her. “That paintin’ ye saw the other night. Ye asked about the bairn in it, who it was.”
“It was your son?”
“Aye, in a way.”
“What do you mean?”
He grimaced as if in pain. “It’s what I imagined he might look like, but I never got to meet him.” He paused. “There was a lass, a friend of mine. I’d ken her all me life.”
A small prickle of jealousy jabbed at Agnes’s heart.
“She was the healer’s daughter,” he continued.
“Katherine, her name was. We grew up together, and for a time, she was me only friend. Anyway, we got older, she became a gifted healer, and I went away to fight me faither’s wars.
When I was three-and-twenty, I came back for a while.
She and I were talkin’, and… she asked me to teach her how to make love.
“I laughed at first, thought she was mad. I mean, she was me friend. She wasnae me lover. She and I had never had feelings like that for each other. She got angry, told me that she was serious, and just wanted her first time to be with someone she trusted. Insisted it wasnae about love or anythin’ like that, just experience.
I was young and stupid, so eventually I agreed. ”
The prickle of jealousy ebbed, for Agnes could understand why a woman would choose a man she trusted, even if she didn’t feel anything romantic for him.
And the rules were so different here. It didn’t seem to be about waiting for marriage.
Or at least, you wouldn’t end up being damned if you didn’t.
“A while later, she started avoidin’ me,” he said, shaking his head. “I thought that maybe she’d begun to have regrets about our night together, but she was too embarrassed to say so. I respected her immensely, so I gave her all the distance she needed, even though it hurt to lose me friend.
“A few months after, she left to be the healer of another clan that had just lost theirs. At least, that’s what I was told. I didnae even get to say goodbye to her.” His throat bobbed. “I had no idea that she was carryin’ our son. And I had no idea that she never went to a different clan.”
“Where did she go?” Dread roiled in Agnes’s belly, her heart pounding.
“She was taken to a convent. I daenae ken if she even kent that was where she was goin’.
Apparently, when me son was about a year old, Katherine started to ‘cause trouble’ at the convent.
She wanted our son to meet me. She wanted me to ken about him, so I could make a decision.
” His voice cracked. “She and our son were in a carriage, on their way to see me, when… they were both killed by brigands on the road.”
She reached for his arm. “Oh, Gordon… I’m so sorry.”
“Aye, me too.” He looked down at her hand. “It’s why I’ll never be the husband ye want, lass. I made a vow back then that I wouldnae take a wife or have any more children, to honor them. Now, I’ve already broken half that vow; I willnae break the other half.”
Oh…
She could understand it, of course she could, but that didn’t lessen the sting. Had it been a lesser reason, maybe they would be able to overcome it, but a vow made to a dead son? That was not something anyone would easily be persuaded away from, nor did she feel comfortable being the one to try.
He leaned down and pressed a tender kiss to her cheek. “I’m sorry, Sunshine. If ye’ll excuse me.”
He pushed off the wall and resumed his walk along the path, taking himself further away from her.
She watched him leave as his kiss still tingled on her cheek, uncertain of what to do or how to feel.
She was not ignorant of the effects of grief, nor would she have denied him his pain, but where did that leave her?
Could she accept a marriage without the possibility of children or love or all of the things that happened between a husband and wife?
After all, it didn’t seem likely that he would even risk the prospect of children, which meant…
I will never know what it is like to lie with him. That is what he is saying: that our marriage will never be consummated.
The realization ached in her chest, as if he had reached in and twisted her heart into a knot. After his kiss and his proposal, she had thought that they were growing closer. Now, she could see clearly that they would never be close, not in the way she might have hoped.
But what could be done about it now?
Nothing.
The wedding was just days away. Besides, at least Lizzy would forever be safe. Even if it broke her, Agnes swore that that would be enough for her.
It had to be.
“You are awfully quiet,” her father noted that night at dinner. “Is all well?”
Agnes looked up from the plate of venison and potatoes that she had been pushing around absently. “Hmm? Oh… yes, all is well. Just a lot to think about. A lot still to do before the wedding.”
“Is your gown ready?”
She shrugged. “I believe so.”
“Aren’t you excited about it?” There was a wary note in his voice, his hazel eyes shining with a worry that wounded her.
“I am looking forward to the peace of knowing that Lizzy is safe, and… I think I will be happy enough here,” she replied, with as much honesty as she could muster.
“Iona believes that after the wedding, people will be more inclined to come to the castle, and several English ladies are due to attend the cèilidh, so I am sure I will make friends.”
Her father nodded slowly. “Why is the castle so empty?”
“I do not know,” she answered truthfully.
Iona had mentioned disagreements and disgruntlement, but she had never gone into the specifics.
Agnes had assumed it had something to do with the fact that the castle was pretty much entirely dedicated to training Gordon’s army, though now that she thought about it, she wondered if she was mistaken.
Unless Gordon is like you, Father, and sent everyone away when his son and his son’s mother died.
She had not considered that, though it did explain the permanently closed drapes and the tomb-like state that the castle had been in when she first arrived. A mausoleum to what Gordon had lost.
“I am sorry that I did not visit you at Tabitha’s,” her father said suddenly. “I am sorrier still that it has taken me this long to meet dear Lizzy. She is a charming little thing, and you have done so well to raise her.”
Agnes sipped her wine. “Someone had to, and I owed it to Christine.”
Her father flinched at her dead sister’s name. “I am sorry. I am sorry that I have not been much of a father since I lost your mother.”
“I understand,” Agnes replied, putting on a smile. “You loved her more than life itself. It is natural that you felt like your own life had ended when she was gone.”
He shook his head. “But I had the two of you to take care of, and I shirked my duties. I did the opposite of what my beloved Sophia would have wanted. She would have been furious with me if she had seen how I retreated, hiding away from the world and our daughters.”
“Oh, undoubtedly, she would have raged at you,” Agnes agreed, with a more genuine chuckle. “She would have scolded you again for doing the same thing after Christine died.”
His brow furrowed. “I know. That is, in some small part, why I came straight here after I received the invitation. I knew I would be early. I… wanted to be early, so I could… try to make amends.”
“Then I am glad you are here,” she told him, raising her glass. “To not making the same mistakes.”
With a funny, confused little smile, he raised his glass in turn. “To not making the same mistakes… and to a long and happy marriage for you and Gordon.”
Agnes did not repeat that last part back to her father, but sipped her wine instead, certain that her future was destined to be loveless and not at all happy. The very opposite of the example she had grown up with, until cruel fate had taken her mother away.
Perhaps that is worse. Indeed, perhaps I am the lucky one.
For as far as she could tell, love or the idea of it only seemed to lead to tragedy for her family.
“Although, dear girl, I must ask…” he father said, frowning.
“Yes, Father?” She braced herself for something that would be uncomfortable to answer.
He puffed out a troubled breath. “Is it quite normal here to keep a fox as a pet?”
At that, Agnes let out her first genuine laugh in days.