Around her slim—the less charitable might even have said bony—wrist was looped the silken cord of her reticule.
Surreptitiously Fiona loosened the opening of the reticule and pulled out a small piece of paper, quietly unfolding it. On it she had written her latest list.
Ask Dallis—when new baby due?
Avoid Logan
5 sheep with bloody scours, 2 with rupturing blisters—why?
Help Aunt Bethia find her spectacles (bedchamber? solarium?)
Avoid Logan
Avoid Cousin Isobel, too
Mother’s birthday next Saturday
Tell Burns—STOP cutting roses too early
Avoid Logan
Avoid Logan
Fiona withdrew a small pencil from her reticule and added another item.
Stop thinking about Logan
She also wrote:
Make sure maid packed Rossalyn’s warmest wraps & tartans
Northern cow pasture—fence fixed?
Osla Tod—toothache—better or worse?
Stop thinking about Logan
Then she carefully folded the little piece of paper in two, slid it and her pencil back into her reticule, and looked toward the front of the church, ensuring that her gaze was firmly fixed on Rossalyn and her bridegroom, Jamie MacComhainn.
How exquisite was Rossalyn’s gown, all shimmery silk and delicate lace, and how beautiful she looked in it. Jamie, in his turn, was a bonny young man. Fiona eyed him—the back of him—speculatively. Perhaps even a little bit suspiciously. He was amiable and intelligent, and from a good family. Father had approved his suit readily enough and had even, in a sentimental spasm, doubled Rossalyn’s dowry, and so here she was, not quite seventeen, a bride.
Fiona watched as Rossalyn and Jamie turned to each other and smiled. Oh, she hoped that all would be well. She wished that she knew Jamie better, that she trusted him more.
But thanks to handsome, charming, winsome Logan Munro, Fiona tended to view men with a certain skepticism.
A certain reserve.
She thought back to that dark time when she was eighteen, when Logan had come to Wick Bay to visit. Nothing formal had been declared between them, but enough had transpired, previously, in Edinburgh, to make Fiona feel confident that she’d soon be betrothed.
Instead, with stunning speed Logan had transferred his affections to Nairna, gone to Father to request her hand in marriage, and been—to everyone’s amazement—accepted on the spot, quite possibly because Nairna, among all her sisters, held the softest spot in the hard and erratic heart of Bruce Douglass.
Even though Fiona had confided in her mother about her hopes, Mother had, without missing a beat, continued to smile and flutter around Logan, petting and praising her future son-in-law. Fiona had long considered her mother—warm and affectionate, plump and still pretty in middle age—as soft and yielding and altogether as comfortable as a child’s stuffed toy, but still, her behavior did seem a trifle callous.
Privately, Fiona had said to her, hating the little tremble in her voice:
“Mother, why are you so friendly toward Logan? After what he did to me?”
“Oh, my darling child, I know how hard it is for you, truly I do,” said her mother, her large dark eyes filling with tears. “I remember how dreadful I felt when I discovered that your father had married me for my fortune—I really had thought it was a love match. It all happened during that terrible famine of the eighties, and people were starving. I was an heiress, you know. And only seventeen, like dear Nairna! But,” she had added, smiling through her tears, “I was considered quite beautiful in my day! Even your father said so! And he used my dowry so cleverly—within a few years he brought the clan back into prosperity!”
Earnestly Mother had leaned forward to pat Fiona’s hand. “Thanks to your father we all live so comfortably, Fiona dear! Our gowns and jewels! Everything of the finest quality! So you see, everything always works out for the best. I’m sure that Nairna and Logan will be very happy together—such a handsome couple, and he simply dotes upon her!—and that another suitor will come along for you—someone you’ll like even better.”
Fiona had brushed that aside. “You don’t regret marrying Father?”
“Regret?” Mother’s dark eyes had shown nothing but bewilderment. “What a foolish notion, Fiona, to be sure! Besides, by the time I met your father I had, luckily, very nearly recovered from my stupid infatuation for my second cousin Ludovic—or was he my third cousin? So confusing!—it would never have done, you know, for the very next year he went to America and was killed. And your father so tall and so strong, and so handsome! Like a Viking warrior, everyone said!” Mother had fidgeted with the soft fringe of her shawl, then smiled again and with every appearance of sincerity went on: “I’ve been very happy these twenty years. Your father has taken such good care of us, and I’m just sorry that I haven’t been able to do my duty by him.”