The Laird Takes a Bride(100)
Isobel managed to retain her composure until the third day of their journey. She and Fiona had finished their evening meal, alone in a capacious private parlor of the inn where they were to pass the night, and they were sitting before a large comfortable fire that helped chase away a threatening dampness. Rain had swept down upon them late in the afternoon and now they could hear it drumming hard upon the roof, lashing furiously at the windows.
Isobel drew her shawl more closely about her and looked anxiously at Fiona. “Are you sure you’re not catching cold from riding in the rain?” she asked, for the third or fourth time. Maybe the fifth time.
“I’m sure,” answered Fiona, staring as if transfixed into the leaping flames of the fire.
“I’m afraid you were utterly soaked—positively dripping by the time we got here. How brave you are! No word of complaint has passed your lips even once. Oh, my dear Fiona, I must say I don’t care for this weather at all. I believe it’s made me feel—well, I must confess I feel just a trifle low.”
And with that Isobel burst into tears. She pulled from her reticule one of those absurd little handkerchiefs and, sobbing piteously, dabbed at her eyes.
Then and there Fiona vowed to make Isobel a large set of handkerchiefs, big absorbent handkerchiefs, lavishly embroidered and crafted from the finest linen money could buy. She stood, went to Isobel, gently patted her shoulder.
Isobel covered Fiona’s hand with her own. She cried for a long while, and Fiona simply stood, patiently, until she was done. Saying nothing. But being there.
Then Isobel said, shakily:
“Thank you, Fiona dear,” and took away her hand, to rub the back of it against her soft wet cheeks. “How silly of me to break down like that, when your troubles are so much greater than my own. Forgive me, please, won’t you?”
“There’s nothing to apologize for, Cousin, I assure you.” Fiona went back to her seat before the fire.
Isobel drew in a deep breath. “Oh, Fiona, I seem only to bring you bad luck in love. I should never have permitted Logan Munro’s advances—I see that now—and to think how that turned out for you. I do need to apologize! I should have done so years ago! What a foolish, sentimental old maid I was—and am! And now, it’s all my fault that your marriage is over. I am so deeply sorry!”
“You were not—are not—responsible for Logan’s actions,” Fiona said, slowly, her eyes once again fixed on the ever-shifting fire. “Or for mine. My God, how long ago that was. A lifetime ago.” All at once the old resentment, the old stubborn grudge, which for so many years had been lodged in her heart like a thorn, finally fell away, and was gone.
Not that Fiona felt like hopping up and dancing a reel, but still.
It felt better. Was better.
She continued:
“It’s not your fault, either, about discovering the other decree. It just—happened.”
“That’s how it seemed to me,” replied Isobel, nodding vigorously. “There was something which seemed to compel me to read that boring old Tome! As if—as if I was somehow being pulled along! And when I saw how unhappy you’d become in your marriage, I just read more and more. As if by doing it, I would somehow be helping you!”
“Helping me . . .” Fiona murmured. A memory opened up. The morning after her wedding; she had agreed to allow Isobel to stay on with her at Castle Tadgh. A visibly relieved and grateful Isobel had declared, I will make myself very useful to you—I promise!
And so here she was, halfway back to Wick Bay. Isobel wasn’t to blame, of course not. But there was no escaping the cold hard facts.
No husband, no baby.
No husband, no baby.
No husband, no husband . . .
It almost sounded like a child’s refrain.
She could almost hear little Sheila’s voice chanting it. Almost—
But instead she seemed to hear again Sheila saying dejectedly, Why must trouble come in threes? Why, lady?
It now occurred to Fiona, uneasily, that perhaps Sheila had not been tallying up her own misfortunes.
Maybe it had been an oblique reference to herself.
No baby. That was one.
No husband; love unrequited. That was two.
Or was that three, according to the vagaries of cosmic accounting?
If not, what then was the third?
Her mind revolved uselessly. A broken carriage wheel tomorrow, fleas in their beds, Father’s fury when she arrived on his doorstep? News that Alasdair had, within hours of her departure, married someone else? Why did there have to be a third? Weren’t things bad enough already?
“— and I do hope there will be ample room for both of us,” Isobel was saying, “although I cannot think the marsh air salubrious. My petticoats will doubtless become mildewed, and it seems all too likely I’ll succumb to an inflammation of the lung before the year is out. Which will at least make the hut less crowded,” she concluded, in the tone of one looking hard for a silver lining and finding it decidedly meager.