Chapter Eleven

Serena was right. Things were happening around them that would shape the destiny not only of two lovers, but of the whole of Scotland.

Within days of Brigham's arrival at Glenroe, the French dealt the English a crushing defeat at Fontenoy. Though Charles's, and many of the Jacobites' hopes rose with it, Louis of France still withheld his support from the rebellion. Charles had hoped to ride on the glory that surrounded the French victory, to gain much-needed impetus for his cause; once again, however, he was left to his own devices.

But this time he moved. Brigham was both confidant and informer. He knew to the day when Charles, with money raised by the p.a.w.ning of his mother's rubies, fitted out the frigate Doutelle and a ship of the line, the Elizabeth. While the push in the Highlands, and in England, went on for support, Charles Edward, the Bonnie Prince, set sail from Nantes for Scotland and his destiny.

It was high summer when word came that the Prince was on his way.

The Elizabeth, with its store of men and weapons, was chased back to port by British pursuers, but the Doutelle, with Charles aboard, sailed on towards the Scottish coast, where preparations were being made to greet him.

"My father says I cannot go." Malcolm, sulking in the stables, frowned up at Brigham. "He's says I'm too young, but I'm not." The boy had just pa.s.sed his eleventh birthday, Brigham thought, but prudently held back from mentioning it. "Coll goes, as do I."

"I know." Malcolm glared at the toe of his grubby boot and thought it the height of injustice. "Because I'm the youngest, I'm treated like a bairn."

"Would your father trust his home and his family to a bairn?" Brigham asked gently. "When your father leaves with his men, there will be no MacGregor in MacGregor House, but for you. Who will protect the women if you ride with us?"

"Serena," he said easily, and he spoke no less than the truth.

"Would you leave your sister alone to protect the family name and honor?"

The boy moved a shoulder, but began to think on it. "She is a better shot with a pistol than I, or Coll, really, though he wouldn't like to say so."

This news brought Brigham's brow up. "But I'm better with a bow."

"She will need you." He dropped a hand on Malcolm's tousled hair. "We will all need you. With you here, we needn't worry that the women are safe." Because he was still young enough to know what it was to be a boy, he sat on the mound of hay beside Malcolm. "I can tell you this, Malcolm, a man never goes easily to war, but he goes with a lighter heart if he knows his women are protected."

"I won't let harm come to them." Idly Malcolm fingered the dagger at his belt. For a moment, Brigham thought he looked too much a man.

"I know, as your father knows. If the time comes when Glenroe is no longer safe, you will take them up into the hills."

"Aye." The idea made Malcolm brighten a bit. "I'll see that they have food and shelter. Especially Maggie." "Why especially Maggie?"

"Because of the bairn." His fingers slid away from his dagger. "She's to have one, you know."

For a moment, Brigham only stared. Then, with a laugh, he shook his head. "No, I didn't. How do you?"

"I heard Mrs. Drummond say so. She said Maggie's not sure she's increasing yet, but Mrs. Drummond was sure and there'd be a new wee bairn by next spring."

"Keep your ear to the ground, do you, my lad?"

"Aye." This time Malcolm grinned. "I know Gwen and Maggie are always talking about how you'll be marrying Serena. Will you be marrying her, Brig?"

"I will." He ruffled the boy's hair. "But she doesn't know it yet."

"Then you'll be a MacGregor."

"To an extent. Serena will be a Langston."

"A Langston. Will she like it?"

Brigham's eyes lost their amus.e.m.e.nt. "She'll grow used to it. Now, if you've a mind to take that ride, we'd best be off."

Always cheered by the idea of his horses, Malcolm jumped up. "Did you know that Parkins is courting Mrs. Drummond?"

"Good G.o.d." Brigham stopped in the act of leading out his horse and turned to the boy. "Someone should plug those ears of yours." Malcolm only laughed, and Brigham, unable to do otherwise, put a hand on the boy's shoulder again. "Is he really?"

"Brought her flowers yesterday." "Sweet Jesus."

From the window of the parlor she was supposed to be dusting, Serena watched them ride off. How wonderful he looked, so tall, so straight.

She leaned out the window so that she could watch him until he was out of sight He wouldn't wait much longer. Those had been his words the hut time they had stolen an hour together by the loch. He wanted her wedded, and properly bedded. He wanted to make her Lady Ashburn of Ashburn Manor. Lady Ashburn of London society. The idea was nothing less than terrifying.

She looked down at herself now, at her dress of pale blue homespun and at the dusty ap.r.o.n that covered it. Her feet were bare-something Fiona would have sighed over. Lady Ashburn would never run over the moors or through the forest in bare feet Lady Ashburn would probably never run.

Her hands. Serena turned them this way and that examining the backs and the palms critically. They were smooth enough, she supposed.

Because her mother insisted she rub lotion into them every night. But they weren't lady's hands any more than hers was a lady's heart But G.o.d, she loved him. She understood now that the heart could indeed speak louder than the head. English or not she would be his. She had even come to know that she would leave her beloved Scotland behind for his England rather than live without him. And yet...

How could she marry a man who deserved the finest of ladies? Even her mother had thrown up her hands at Serena's attempts to learn the spinet She couldn't do fancy work with her needle, only the most basic st.i.tches.

She could run a home, to be sure, but she knew from Coll that Brigham's house in London and his manor in the country were a far cry from what she was used to. She would make a mess of it, but even that she could almost bear. It was knowing how poorly she had dealt with her one brush with society-the brief months she had spent in the convent school.

She had nothing to say to the kind of women who spent their days shopping for the right shade of ribbon and making social calls. A few weeks of that life and she would go not-so-quietly mad, and once she had, Brigham would hate her.

We can't change what we are, she thought. Brigham could no more stay here in the Highlands and live her life than she could go with him to England and live his.

And yet... She had begun to see that living without him would be no life at all.

"Serena."

She turned quickly to see her mother in the doorway.

"I'm nearly done," she said, flourishing her dusting cloth again. "I was daydreaming."

Fiona shut the doors at her back. "Sit down, Serena."

Fiona used that quiet but concerned tone of voice rarely. Usually it meant that she was worried or annoyed. As Serena moved to comply, she searched her mind for any infraction. True, she'd been wearing the breeches a bit too freely on her rides, but her mother usually overlooked that. She had torn the skirt of the new gray dress, but Gwen had mended it so that it hardly showed at all.

Serena sat, pulling the cloth between her fingers. "Have I done something to upset you?"

"You're troubled," Fiona began. "I had thought it was because Brigham had gone and you were missing him. But he's been back for several weeks now and you're troubled still." Serena tucked her bare feet under the hem of her skirt as her fingers knotted and unknotted the cloth. "I'm not troubled really. It's only that I'm thinking about what will happen after the Prince comes."

That was true, Fiona thought, but not all the truth. "There was a time you would talk to me, Serena."

"I don't know what to say."

Gently Fiona laid a hand on hers. "What's in your heart."

"I love him." Serena slid to the floor to lay her head in her mother's lap.

"Mama, I love him and it hurts so terribly."

"I know it does, my darling." She stroked Serena's hair and felt the pang in her own heart that only a mother understands. "To love a man is great misery and great joy."

"Why?" There was pa.s.sion in Serena's eyes and voice as she lifted her face. "Why must it bring misery?"

Fiona gave a little sigh and wished there could be a simple answer.

"Because once the heart opens, it feels everything."

"I didn't want to love him," Serena murmured. "Now I can do nothing else."

"And he loves you?"

"Aye." She closed her eyes, comforted by the familiar scent of lavender in the folds of her mother's skirts. "I don't think he wanted to, either."

"You know he has asked your father for your hand?"

"Aye."

"And that your father, after long thought and consideration, has given his consent." This she hadn't known. Serena lifted her head, and her cheeks were pale.

"But I can't many him. Don't you see? I can't."

With a frown in her eyes, Fiona caught Serena's face in her hands. From what source did this fear written so plainly on her daughter's face spring? "No, I don't see, Rena. You know well your father would never force you to marry a man you didn't want. But did you not just tell me you loved Brigham and that your love is returned?"

"I do love him, too much to marry him, too much not to. Oh, Mama, how much I would give him frightens me."

Fiona saw a bit clearer now, and she smiled. "Poor wee lamb. You're not the first to have these fears, nor will you be the last. I understand when you say you love him too much not to marry him. But how can you love him too much to marry him?"

"I don't want to be Lady Ashburn."

Fiona blinked, surprised by the vehemence in her daughter's words.

"Because he's English?"

"Aye-No. No, because I don't want to be a countess."

"It's a good family. An honorable one."

"It's the t.i.tle, Mama. Even the sound of it frightens me. Lady Ashburn would live in England, grandly. She would know how to dress fashionably, how to behave with dignity, how to serve beautiful dinners and laugh at the cleverest wits."

"Well. I never thought to see the day that Ian MacGregor's wildcat cowered in a corner and whined."

The color rose sharply in Serena's cheeks. "I am afraid, I'll admit it." She rose, locking her fingers tightly together. "But I'm not only afraid for my own sake. I would go, I would try, I would be determined to be the kind of wife Brigham needs, to be the best Lady Ashburn ever to rule in Ashburn Manor. And I would hate it. Never to be free, never to have a moment with the s.p.a.ce to breathe. But there's more." She paused a moment, wanting to choose her words so that she would be understood.

"If Brigham loves me, he loves me, as I am. Would he love the woman I would have to become to be his wife?"

Fiona was silent for a long moment. The girl had surely become a woman, with a woman's mind, a woman's heart and a woman's fears.

"You've given this a great deal of thought."

"I've hardly thought of anything else for weeks. He will have his way, of that I'm sure. But I've come to wonder if we might not both be sorry for it."

"Think of this. If he loves you, for yourself, then he would not want you to pretend to be what you are not, nor would he ask you to."

"I would rather lose him than shame him."

"I could tell you you will do neither," Fiona said wearily as she rose.

"But you must learn it for yourself. But I want to tell you one more thing." Now it was Fiona who linked her hands together. "There's been gossip in the kitchen." Her mouth twitched lightly at Serena's expression. "Aye, Parkins and Mrs. Drummond. I chanced to overhear while working in the kitchen garden."

"Aye, Mother?" Serena managed, barely able to smother a giggle. The idea of her mother eavesdropping on the valet and the cook was almost too ludicrous.

"It seems on the morning he left London, Brigham fought a duel with an officer of the government army. An officer called Standish."

At this, all humor drained from Serena's face, along with all her color.

"Brigham." She remembered the wound on his shoulder, the one he had steadfastly refused to discuss. "Standish," she said in a whisper as the name came home. She saw him, as she had seen him almost ten years before, bringing his hand against her mother's face. "Dear G.o.d, how did it happen? Why did it happen?"

"I know only that the duel was fought and Standish is dead. G.o.d help me, I'm glad of it. The man you love avenged my honor, and I will never forget it."

"Nor will I," Serena murmured.

She went to him that night. The hour was late, the house quiet. After pushing open his door, she saw him with the moonlight and the candlelight tangled around him while he sat at the desk by the window penning a letter. The air coming through the open window was hot and still, so he had stripped to his breeches, leaving his shirt hung casually over the back of the chair.

It was only an instant before he glanced up and saw her, only an instant that she could look at him un.o.bserved. But the instant flashed into her mind and was seated there to make a memory as precious as a kiss.

The light fell over his skin, making her think of the marble statues Coll had described from his trip to Italy. Statues of G.o.ds and warriors. His hair, thick and dark, was tied back from his face and mussed a bit, as though he had worried it with his hand. His eyes were dark, as well, holding a combination she recognized as concentration and concern.

Her heart began to dance in her breast as she stood in the doorway. This was the man she loved, a man of action and loyalty. A man both reckless and deliberate, a man of arrogance and of compa.s.sion. A man of honor.

He looked up, and saw her. In the woods beyond an owl hooted, the sound rising on the air and fading like a ghost He set the quill down and rose even as she shut the door at her back. The movement stirred the air and sent the flame and its shadow wavering.

"Serena?" "I needed to see you alone."

He released a difficult knot of bream. It took great care and great restraint not to cross to her and gather her up. She wore only a thin white linen nightdress, and had left her hair unbound to fall in a wild ma.s.s over her shoulders and down her back. "You should not have come here like this."

"I know." She moistened her lips. "I tried to sleep, but couldn't. You are leaving tomorrow."

"Yes." The intensity in his eyes softened, as did his voice. "My love, do I have to tell you again that I'll come back?"