Here Burns My Candle Part 24

Nae, she would not ask him that. But she would ask him why.

"Why, Donald?" She spoke the words aloud, her throat tight with grief. "Why is my love not enough?"

Thirty-Seven.

The living man who does not learn,

is dark, dark, like one walking in the night.

MING LUM PAOU KEEN.

W ill ye tell yer wife, milord?"

Donald noted the spark in Rob MacPherson's eye. Was it curiosity? Or mistrust? Rob had become a permanent fixture at White Horse Close, slipping among the ranks, exchanging vital information, yet never drawing attention to himself.

"Aye, I'll inform Lady Kerr when I see her this eve," Donald told the tailor's son. "Though I imagine she's received news of the council's ruling by now. They've hardly kept it a secret." Donald cast his gaze round the inn's noisy public room crowded with Jacobite officers raising their gla.s.ses with loud huzzahs. Their long-awaited orders had finally come. Prepare to march southward. First place of rendezvous: Dalkeith.

"Mebbe they're lifting their gla.s.ses to King Geordie," Rob said with a wry smile. He took a long drink of ale. "'Tis the auld Hanoverian's birthday, ye ken. Two-and-sixty."

Donald nodded. "I heard the guns saluting him from the harbor." Nearly a dozen English ships were anch.o.r.ed off Leith, blocking the promised help from the French. The newly arrived Gloucester, with its fifty guns, increased the looming threat.

The Jacobites had already tarried in Edinburgh too long, trying to raise capital, struggling to increase their numbers. They could delay no longer.

"Naught but one hour," Lord Elcho had warned his men. "Then send your ladies home and be ready to depart at a moment's notice."

Donald consulted his watch yet again. Our last hour, Bess.

His brother stood near the inn door, watching for their wives, an anxious look on his face. Andrew's color was poor-flushed cheeks above an ashen neck-and his wheezing more p.r.o.nounced. Donald repeatedly cautioned him to rest whenever he could, but his brother insisted on becoming the equal of the other guards. To his credit, Andrew's seat on his mount had improved considerably over the last month. Instead of just polishing his French musket, he'd learned how to employ it.

His brother's determination had fueled his own. Donald found he was a better rider for the effort and a more accurate marksman. But in the dark hours of the night, fear and apprehension gnawed at his soul. The enlistment notice had traveled home in his waistcoat, not Andrew's. If anything happened to his brother, Donald would wear the guilt round his neck like a noose.

He eyed his pocket watch. Nearly eight.

Rob elbowed him. "There's yer leddy."

Donald stood just as Elisabeth turned in his direction. As if for the first time, her beauty struck him like the flat blade of a rapier, knocking him back on his heels. Glossy hair gathered on the crown of her head. Long, graceful neck. Full, sweet mouth. And dark blue eyes looking for him.

"I've not seen her in a week," he admitted to Rob, climbing over the rough bench where he'd been sitting. "'Twill be a short hour, I fear."

Rob looked up at him, his black eyes sharp as stones. "I hope ye ken what a lucky man ye are."

"Aye," Donald said over his shoulder, already making his way through the restless crowd, dodging uplifted tappit-hens with ale sloshing over the rims and red-headed Highlanders swaying on their feet.

Prudently, Elisabeth waited for him. Even with Gibson by her side, she might be swept into some drunken captain's lap with his stout arm round her waist, the stubble of his beard chafing her tender skin. The thought of it sent Donald crashing through a knot of soldiers. "Lady Kerr!" he called out loudly enough to stake his claim on her.

Andrew and Janet, not wasting a moment, had already started for the stair, bound for a vacant room, when Donald finally reached his wife's side. "You came," he said a bit breathless, wishing he sounded more like a royal guardsman and less like a besotted fool.

"I was summoned." Elisabeth held up his brief, scrawled note. "'Tis eight o' the clock, aye?" Though her tone was light, her point was not lost on him.

Donald bowed and kissed her gloved hand. "I had only a moment before the caddie departed for the High Street," he explained, wishing he'd not been so brusque with his pen. "Will you forgive me, milady?"

Elisabeth looked into his eyes, any trace of amus.e.m.e.nt gone. "I shall endeavor to, milord." She lightly rested her hand on his arm rather than curling it round his elbow. "Shall we?"

Her cool demeanor puzzled him. Was Elisabeth not as eager for their hour together as he? She'd written him letters almost daily, expressing her affection in no uncertain terms. Perhaps his impending departure troubled her. "Have you heard the news from Holyroodhouse?" he asked, testing his theory.

"Over supper," she admitted, drawing closer to his side as they wove through the room, thick with peat smoke. "Gibson informed us the army might be leaving soon."

"We ride out with the prince on the morrow," Donald said as gently as he could, "though we've not been told the hour."

Elisabeth looked at him. "You'll send word? So your mother and I may see you off?"

"Depend upon it." Just as he'd suspected, Elisabeth was upset because he was leaving, nothing more.

A chorus of ribald comments followed them up the stair. Donald led her to a warren of small rooms, m.u.f.fled voices behind each door. "I fear our lodgings are no better than last time," he warned her, a musty smell rolling over them when they entered the room. A mouse skittered along the far edge of the wall, and filmy traces of a cobweb hung from the ceiling. He'd done his best to straighten his belongings. Andrew hadn't been so diligent, nor had Duncan Belhaven, the Life Guard who shared their room. "At least we have the place to ourselves. Andrew made other arrangements."

"Good," she said, unfastening her wool cape, "for I prefer not to share you with anyone."

Donald heard something in her voice. Not anger or impatience. More like resignation. Little wonder with such squalid accommodations.

As Elisabeth smoothed her hair in place, he studied her regal profile, reminding him again of how much he'd missed her. And how much he loved her. Had he not told her so on the afternoon of his departure? I do love you. G.o.d help me, I do. Far from idle words, they were meant as a pledge of faithfulness even though he was not certain such fidelity was possible.

The strumpets loitering about the inn at White Horse Close offered little temptation. Lucy Spence, however, was harder to resist. On two occasions the young widow had appeared at the inn door, her ident.i.ty well concealed and her intentions abundantly clear. Other than their brief interludes in a hastily borrowed room, he'd been a model husband since enlisting, though he could hardly boast of such things to his dear wife.

He latched the door behind them. "We shall miss our feather bed," he confided, glancing at the narrow heather mattress tossed on a bare wooden floor. The unpainted walls, low beams, and dearth of windows made the room especially dreary. "I did manage to find candles, such as they are." He held up two stubs in plain iron holders.

"And I brought you something." Elisabeth loosened the strings of her reticule. "To keep you warm." She held up his gloves.

"Well done, Bess. I fear we have a cold winter ahead." He took the lambskin gloves from her hands. "I last wore these on Candlemas. At Lady Northesk's ball in Covenant Close."

Elisabeth nodded, not quite meeting his gaze. "We both wore dark blue that evening."

"Aye, we did." He slipped his left hand inside the glove, relishing the softness of the rabbit fur against his skin.

"I thought you might have missed them," Elisabeth said, watching him closely.

"Indeed I did." When he tried on the right glove, Donald discovered something sharp edged and stiff inside. "What have we here?" As he pulled out a square of paper, his wife's complexion turned the color of fresh snow on the Eildon Hills.

She did not speak, only gazed at the paper as he unfolded it.

"Oh, Bess." He touched the curl of dark hair resting inside. "For remembrance, is it?"

"So the auld wives say." She turned her head, blinking as if a speck of dust were trapped in her eye.

He refolded the paper and slid it back inside. "To keep it safe," he told her, then tossed the gloves on a battered corner table, wanting far more of his wife than a lock of hair. "Bess," he said softly, drawing her closer, kissing her neck. "We've not much time. Let me help you."

After a moment's hesitation she lifted her arms, giving him access to the laces and ties, the stays and hoops that held her mourning gown in place. His nimble fingers moved with practiced efficiency while he murmured endearments, hoping to put her at ease.

"You look lovely tonight," he began, lightly touching her cheek in pa.s.sing. "I believe black suits you after all. Do tell Mrs. Edgar she's turned into a respectable lady's maid," he said, admiring the sweep of Elisabeth's hair. Though he longed to pull out her many hairpins and run his hands through the thick and fragrant ma.s.s, he could never hope to put it all aright when their brief tryst ended.

When only her chemise remained, Donald made short work of his clothing, and they were both left shivering in the unheated room. "Come, milady." His heather bed was neither warm nor comfortable. It mattered not. He drew his woolen plaid over them and wrapped her in his embrace.

"Donald," she said on a sigh, "we must-"

"Make haste, aye?" He kissed her thoroughly, reveling in the taste of her. "My bonny Highland Bess," he whispered, "let me warm you with my hands." He felt a slight tremor run through her body. "Chilled to the bone, are you? Well, I've a remedy for that."

He tried to be gentle, but he could not be patient. Not this night.

Thirty-Eight.

Shame rises in my face,

and interrupts the story of my tongue!

THOMAS OTWAY.

T he tallow candles were almost spent as Donald brushed a last kiss across his wife's brow. He eased onto his side and rested one hand on her slender waist. "You've been quiet this evening."

Elisabeth turned away from him, pressing her cheek against the threadbare sheet. "I have something to tell you."

"Oh?" he said, hearing the strain in her voice. Was it some unpleasantness with his mother? The dowager seldom hid her disdain for Elisabeth.

When she looked up, he was dismayed to see tears spilling down her cheeks. "Bess, what is it?" He smoothed them away, only to watch her eyes fill again as she slowly rose to a sitting position and gathered the wool plaid round her. He gave her some room, trying to steal a closer look at her in the waning candlelight. "Will you not tell me what grieves you so?"

She dabbed at her tears with a corner of the linen sheet. "I found a note. Inside one of your winter gloves."

A note? "And you read it?"

She nodded, coloring a little. "Forgive me, but 'twas neither folded nor addressed. A small white card with two lines."

Donald frowned. He did not like the sound of this. "What did the card say?"

Elisabeth's voice was low but her words sure. "'May these gloves warm your hands, as your hands warmed me.' Signed by J. M."

He knew at once. Jane Montgomerie. 'Twas the sort of thing the sentimental creature would do. Never guessing where her note might land. Or whom it might hurt.

Elisabeth looked up at him, her chin trembling but her eyes dry. "Have you nothing to say?"

His mind reeled, searching for some explanation. "My love," he began haltingly, "that was some time ago-"

"Nae." Elisabeth tugged the wool blanket closer, covering her bare skin. "Your gloves were new last winter. A gift for our second anniversary."

Losh. He'd not remembered that.

"Donald, 'tis plain that you... that you spent time with the Widow Montgomerie long after we married."

He blanched. "How did you learn the lady's name?"

"I watched you dance with her. So did the rest of Edinburgh society. We are none of us blind, Donald."

Her words were bravely spoken, but he saw how she gripped the blanket so tightly her knuckles lost all color. What a simpleton he'd been to think his wife would never discover the truth. He had to say something, anything. "Beloved, you must understand-"

"Stop." Her eyes were dark as midnight, her brow creased with pain. "Nae more lies, for I cannot bear them."

A bitter taste rose in his throat. "Ask what you will, then."

Elisabeth's very soul shone in her eyes. "Have there been other women since we married?"

Aye. Many women. His shoulders slumped beneath the weight of his sins. "Elisabeth, I hardly know where to begin."

"Then begin with the truth." Her voice broke. "If you love me at all..."

"You know that I do." He reached for her, but she shrank from his touch.

"Nae." She shook her head so vehemently that hairpins scattered across the dirty floor. "You love this." She aimed a pointed gaze at the mattress beneath them. "But you do not love me. Not enough to be faithful."

Donald could no longer look at her, so great was his shame. He heard his father's voice: And why wilt thou, my son, be ravished with a strange woman? Why indeed when Elisabeth Kerr was everything a man could hope for in a wife?

He loved her, aye, but he'd also deceived her. Over and over, time and again. How could he hope for mercy?

"Bess, I have deeply wronged you," he finally said, lashing himself with the truth. "You have every right to despise me."