An American in Scotland Read online

  “With the slaves?”

  She nodded, and he wondered why he wasn’t surprised at her revelation.

  He still held her hand, but before they descended the steps he grabbed her and hugged her. The meeting with Bruce had been difficult for her, especially in light of Claire’s silence.

  “I’m not willing to quit yet,” he said.

  She frowned at him. “What are you going to do?”

  “Come back later and see if he’ll at least meet and talk with me.”

  “In other words, without me.”

  “I think it would be best, don’t you?”

  She blew out a breath and nodded. “I should have said something about his leg. About how sorry I was.”

  “Are you?”

  She looked sideways at him.

  “Then don’t practice being a hypocrite. Better say nothing than something you don’t mean.”

  “How did you get to be so wise?”

  He began to laugh, evidently startling her, judging by her expression.

  “Here I am, standing on the steps of the oddest place I can imagine being, trying to figure out how to negotiate with a tyrant who bears my name. Not exactly a demonstration of wisdom.”

  “It’s all my fault,” she said, turning and taking the first step.

  He accompanied her down the stairs.

  “Yes, it is, and thank God. If not here, I’d be in Glasgow furiously working on plans for new looms and the import of Indian cotton. I’d never have experienced nearly dying in a storm at sea or Nassau and a certain tub, or being with you.”

  He sent her a glance. “I find I’m caring less and less about Bruce’s damn cotton. You’re the prize from this trip.”

  In full view of the house and probably as a gesture to annoy her brother-­in-­law, she raised up on tiptoe and kissed him.

  “See, I told you that you were wise,” she said, and smiled brightly at him.

  Chapter 23

  Halfway down the road she turned and stared back at the house.

  “It’s never been home for you, has it?” he said.

  “How can it be, when I hated everything about it?” She glanced at him. “You realize that if something goes wrong in the future, it will be my fault. The Yankee in their midst. Perhaps even until his dying day, Bruce will blame me for something. For the Emancipation Proclamation, if the South loses, if they all starve—­all of it will be my fault.”

  “You can’t save him,” he said. “Some ­people don’t want to be saved.”

  “I don’t want to save him,” she said. “He never saw the brutality of slavery. Why should he see reality now? Unless the Confederacy paid him well, which I doubt, or gave him a stipend for his missing leg, he has no money. As for banning me from Glengarden, he told me, more than once, that he only tolerated me for Claire’s sake. What he said today wasn’t any different from what he’s always thought.”

  “Show me your cabin.”

  She turned to him, surprised. “My cabin?”

  He nodded.

  She grabbed his hand and pulled him through the trees.

  They topped a mound of earth that reminded him of a dike, then moved through a ditch and another line of trees. It was only then that Duncan could see the buildings. Each was long, with two doors but no windows. From what he could see, it looked as if there were four rows of six structures.

  “How many are there?”

  “Twenty,” she said, her tone one of loathing. “Bruce would have built more, but the only slaves he could buy before he went off to war were skilled in rice, not cotton. He was very annoyed by that fact.”

  “But didn’t you say there were over a hundred slaves here at one time?”

  She nodded. “One hundred seventeen.”

  “That means every house had to accommodate five ­people.”

  “Or more,” she said.

  Some of the pine buildings were obviously older, but each was built the same. They were elevated slightly off the ground with one wooden step leading to a door.

  She led him inside one of the pine structures. It was empty except for a cot with a blanket neatly folded at the bottom and topped with a pillow that was nearly flat.

  There were no windows, so the door would need to be kept open for any light at all. And at night, would there be a breeze of any kind to ease the heat? If so, would they need to prop the door open then, too? Was there any kind of privacy? That question was answered with Rose’s smile.

  “The second thing you lose as a slave is privacy. The first is your freedom, of course. But everything you do is watched, either by the man who owns you, the overseer, or your fellow slaves.”

  She went to stand at the door.

  “This is where I slept most of the time before Bruce went off to war.”

  “Why did he put you out of the house?”

  She smiled. “A gesture to make me grateful for my blessings. He achieved his aim, but not in the way he understood.”

  She turned to him. “Have you ever been completely alone? Without one friend or anyone you knew?”

  “No,” he said. “I haven’t.”

  Another blessing she pointed out to him if she but knew it.

  “I learned so much from them. Sometimes I used to feel sorry for myself, but that only lasted until I came here. The slaves had nothing, yet they shared what they did have. They found joy in places I would never have looked.”

  She leaned up against the doorway, looking into the cramped and dark cabin. “I would hear them singing and wonder how they could find something to be happy about.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “It made me want to fight harder for them.”

  The structure was tiny and he could have crossed it in a few steps, but he wasn’t going to chase her. Not after he’d been a satyr aboard ship. He didn’t want her to think he was captivated by lust every time he was near her, although that might well be true.

  “You’re a Highlander,” he said. “Never mind that your family comes from Ireland, you’ve the blood of warriors in your veins, Rose O’Sullivan.”

  “I doubt I’m that strong,” she said.

  “What would you call it, defying them all?”

  “Doing what they should have been doing,” she said. “Not brave as much as simply being human. Bruce and ­people like him are like children, I think,” she added. “They believe that tomorrow will never come, that it’s this far off thing that remains just out of sight. Tomorrow is here, Duncan.”

  Yes, it was, in more than one way.

  “You said Bruce attended the Military Academy,” Duncan asked. “Did he never serve in the military before the war?”

  “Bruce resigned on his graduation leave. Two days after he and Claire were married. Said he didn’t wish to be affiliated with his alma mater or most of his classmates.”

  “A man of expediency, then.”

  He tilted his head back to study the ceiling of the slave cabin. He could see chinks in the roof and the bright sky. Was she drenched when it rained?

  “Is that what it’s called, expediency? To wish the world the way you want it and refuse to participate unless it is? To me, it sounds like being a boy of five.”

  He smiled. “Perhaps it’s that, too.”

  “What would you have done in his place?”

  “Fortunately, I wasn’t placed in that position.”

  “But what would you have done if you had been? If you’d been born into this world, if you were like Bruce?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “We’re each dealt a role in life. Is it fair to say what a different person would do if given that card?”

  “I don’t see why not,” she said. “I’ve been placed in Claire’s position all my life, expected to deal with my circumstances exactly as she has. I’ve never had her dreams, her aspirations, her wish
es. I never once wanted to marry a prince and go live in a castle.”

  “What did you want?” he asked.

  “To be myself,” she said, without a moment’s hesitation. “To become eccentric, if I must. To be pointed out in the street. ‘Oh, there’s Miss O’Sullivan. Strange woman, she is. She has a liking for bean salad and apple bread. And cats. Oh, and dogs as well. She recites poetry to herself late at night and composes it when the mood strikes her, which it seems to do often of late. She likes thunderstorms and snow and can often be found staring at the lightning from her parlor window and out in a blizzard laughing like a demented child.’ ”

  “All that?” he asked, smiling. “Perhaps you should think of it as exactly the opposite,” he said. “Think how well or poorly Claire would deal with your life.”

  “It’s no use,” she said. “Claire would have been rescued, like as not, by some attractive man with a fortune at his disposal. She would have been whisked away to a faraway land to be worshipped as the beauty she is.”

  “Claire’s a pale shadow to you, don’t you know that? Claire’s auburn hair is no match to yours.” Especially now when flickers of sun were visible through the roof to light her red gold curls.

  She threaded one hand through her hair self-­consciously. “I’ve always hated my hair. My father said it was an indication of my temper. He said that God had given it to me to warn the rest of the world what I was like when I was angry.”

  “I’ve never seen you angry.”

  “You don’t make me angry,” she said. “But then you don’t own slaves and you don’t abuse ­people who are powerless.” She narrowed her eyes at him. “If you did, I’m certain Glynis or your mother would have warned me about you.”

  He smiled again. “I’m more than certain they would have.”

  “They didn’t give me any warning at all. Nor did they recite all your virtues to me as if they were matchmaking. Why do you think that is?”

  “I think they probably figured it out before we did,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “That I would fall in love with you,” he said simply.

  Her smile disappeared.

  “Oh, Duncan.”

  “I’ve said it before and I’ll keep saying it. However silent you remain.”

  He went to her, wrapped his arms around her and lowered his forehead to hers.

  “Why are you so surprised? I’ve told you how I felt.”

  “But we were in bed,” she said. “Isn’t that part of making love, for a man to tell you he loves you?”

  “I haven’t bedded all that many women, but I’ve never said that to one. Ever.” He pulled back. “Is that why you never said it in return? Or am I foolish to think that you don’t feel the same? I’ve never been in love before, so I’m not very experienced at it.”

  “Oh, Duncan.”

  “Would you please stop saying that? It sounds like pity.”

  She closed her eyes, causing one tear to escape and slide down her cheek.

  Do not try to talk me out of it. Do not give me words to ease my soul and make this moment easier.

  He didn’t want it easier. He wanted the passion and pain of it. He wanted to feel it all. If she was going to repudiate him, if she wanted to say something kind or sweet to ease his feelings, let her know the whole of it, how he truly felt first.

  “I look at you and I lose my thoughts,” he said. “And they might have been important thoughts like payroll or the loom maintenance schedule. Nothing seems as vital as simply looking at you.”

  He brushed away the tear with one finger, and thankfully, it wasn’t followed by another. When she opened her eyes to look at him, he thought he could dive into those pools of green and lose himself. Who said that eyes were the windows to the soul? If that were true, Rose’s eyes were a gateway to heaven itself, an oasis of comfort, joy, ease, and endless peace.

  “When I’m near you, I wonder what your perfume is and where you’ve placed it. Then I find myself imagining being on a treasure hunt to find all those places. Behind your ear, your knee, the crook of your arm, your neck. All those lovely curves and hollows I discovered.”

  Her cheeks grew pink, but she didn’t look away.

  “When you kiss me, my mind dissolves. I no longer care who I am or where I am or how we’ve gotten there. Anyone could be watching or judging or ridiculing and it simply doesn’t matter. All that matters is you, Rose, and the fact that you’re kissing me.”

  He pulled back and looked at her, wishing he could always remember her as she looked right now, the shadows no match for the fiery color of her hair and the deep green of her eyes.

  He didn’t give a good damn where they were. All he knew was that she eased his heart and gave him hope and laughter. He admired her, lusted after her, respected her, and loved her with all the love he’d stored in his heart all these years.

  “DO YOU think our children will have bright red hair? I suspect they will, just as I suspect they will be little hellions like their mother.”

  There was a twinkling in his eyes that was rarely there, which made her think she was being ridiculed, except that Duncan was not the type of man to make fun of other ­people.

  She didn’t know which part of that comment to address first.

  It would be extraordinarily helpful if her heart would stop beating quite so fast and if her mouth wasn’t suddenly dry. She might be trembling as well, but her hands were gripped so tightly together that she couldn’t be certain.

  “Are you offering me marriage, Duncan?”

  “I am, Rose.”

  “Could you be phrasing it a little better, then?”

  He didn’t look the least disturbed by her words. If anything, his smile broadened.

  “Would you marry me, Rose O’Sullivan? Would you do me the very great honor of becoming my wife? Would you come back to Scotland with me and live there the rest of your days?”

  “Love frightens me.”

  “Why?” he asked. “The last thing love should do is frighten you.”

  “I don’t want to change,” she said. “Not like Claire has. It’s like she doesn’t have her own thoughts, her own feelings. Bruce is the filter through which everything she feels or thinks passes. If he doesn’t approve, she doesn’t speak or doesn’t think or maybe even feel.”

  “Do you think I would do that to you?”

  She glanced at him. “I don’t know. I don’t think you would, but what if you change? What if, a year after we’re married, you suddenly decided that I shouldn’t learn French?”

  “I didn’t know you were studying French.”

  She rolled her eyes. “I’m not. That’s just an example.”

  “All right,” he said. “So you’re studying French, metaphorically, and I’m disagreeing. What happens next?”

  “You would expect me to stop studying French.”

  “Would I?”

  “Well, wouldn’t you?”

  “My name is MacIain,” he said. “It’s an old and venerable name in Scotland. There’s a history to it. My family fought against the English. In 1745, they lost and Scotland was punished for its insurrection. Highland families that had gone against the crown were especially singled out to be punished.”

  She tilted her head and looked at him.

  “Three brothers in our family left the Highlands to go and find their futures elsewhere. One went to Glasgow. That was my branch of the family. One went to England. That’s Dalton’s branch. You’ll have a chance to meet him later. The third brother came to America, where he built Glengarden.”

  He walked to the door and stared out at the rows of slave cabins.

  “I used to imagine that we must all somehow be alike. Dalton and I are friends. He’s the one who financed this venture. We have the same tastes in whiskey. We laugh at the same jokes. But j
ust because our names are the same doesn’t mean we’re identical. He’s an earl and I’m a mill owner.”

  He turned to face her. “But Bruce? I don’t even want to get to know Bruce. I find nothing about him to admire. Whatever he’s done, you can’t apply it to me. It’s hardly fair and it’s not applicable. I don’t give a blazing bottom if you study French or practice the harpsichord or even sing. Whatever you want to do is fine with me, if it interests you and makes you happy.”

  “I can’t sing,” she said. “Well, not well. Would you really not forbid me to sing?”

  “Don’t you understand, Rose? I wouldn’t forbid you to do anything.” He shook his head. “No, I’m wrong. There’s one thing I would forbid and that’s staying here.”

  “Do you believe in fate?” she asked, coming to stand slightly behind him. She placed her arm around his waist and leaned against him. “Just think, if I’d never come to Scotland, we never would have met.”

  “I never have before,” he said, “but perhaps I do now.”

  “I haven’t anything to give you,” she said.

  “What?”

  “You would give me a home and a family. You would give me a place to belong. I don’t bring you anything. I’m not sure I can count Claire as family anymore, so I don’t bring that. I have no place in the world. All I have is a valise, two dresses, my mother’s hairbrush, and assorted other clothing and that’s all.”

  “Take away the valise, the dresses, and the other odds and ends and that’s all I want. You. Rose O’Sullivan, family or no. Alone or with a thousand ­people. Without a home or with a dozen. Do you think I care about any of that?”

  He tipped her chin up to look at him. “All I care about is that I love you. I’m even willing to wait until you decide you love me, too. I have all the confidence in the world that you will, you see.”

  “I love you, Duncan. I’m not very experienced at love,” she said, almost repeating his earlier words, “but I know how I feel about you.”

  He didn’t speak, only pulled her into his arms and kissed her.

  “I’ll try once more with Bruce,” he said, after she’d been thoroughly kissed. “But if he’s as stubborn as before, I’m all for leaving Glengarden as fast as we can.”