Page 43 of The Indigo Heiress

42

Give a little love to a child and you get a great deal back.

John Ruskin

That night Leith came home before midnight. Glasgow law was more lax now, no longer keeping to the ten o’clock curfew he remembered from his university days. The house was dark, and he felt a tick of regret for keeping anyone awake, but the servants were well compensated so it seemed a slight grievance.

“Good evening, sir.”

“All is well?”

“Verra weel, sir. Still snowing, I take it?”

“The ground is covered, aye, and my cloak and hat.” Leith gave them over to the footman’s outstretched hands, then climbed the stairs. The cold in his bones would only be countered by a coal fire. He reached his room by the light of hall sconces but then backtracked. Was Juliet’s door ajar?

The memory she’d made at the countinghouse refused to budge. Though he’d had shipping notices to post and cargo inventories to check, he’d gotten little done since her visit. Midafternoon, a note had come round from the guildhall saying a lady thought to be Mrs. Buchanan had been seen in the assembly room at the Merchants House. Bold of her.

His hand on the knob of her door, he debated the wisdom of what he was about to do.

Wise, nay. Needy, aye.

The door was so new it didn’t creak when opened, nor did the floorboards when trod upon. They were further muffled by the thickest carpets he could find during construction. Though she’d only been here a few days, her presence was palpable. But she’d soon be gone to the country once her trousseau was finished, no longer a temptation or a distraction. He’d allow himself this one last concession.

He saw that the shutters were open as if she’d been watching the change of weather. He recalled her delight while she’d caroled in the Williamsburg snowstorm, when he’d been watching her from the upstairs window at Ravenal’s. The hearth’s fire was blazing as if recently resupplied with coal, and her bed curtains were as open as the shutters, illuminating her form beneath the covers. Her cheek lay upon her hand atop the pillow. A nearly forgotten line from Romeo and Juliet leapt to mind.

See, how she leans her cheek upon her hand! O, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!

He stopped, willed himself to leave ... and lost. It didn’t help that her hair—that extravagance of black that had been all curls earlier—was now subdued and braided like he remembered from the ship. The beribboned end of it draped over the coverlet nearly to the floor.

Drawing closer, he reached out and fingered the silken plait, wanting to unravel it. But the stubborn shadows crept in again, intruding on the moment and destroying the small intimacy before he turned away.

Confined in the coach-and-four the next morn, Juliet and Leith left Glasgow. Feeling that unwelcome beat at her temples, she prayed she wouldn’t be coach sick. She wanted to be her best for the children. For Leith.

He seemed intent on showing her Jamaica Street before crossing New Bridge and the Clyde. “Lyrica and Euan live there in the townhouse my father built. They’re not often in residence, preferring the countryside, though Euan travels to London and Edinburgh oft enough on Buchanan business.”

“I see the Buchanan initial on the gate.” Juliet looked at the shuttered stone building much like theirs, her curiosity about her in-laws growing. She missed Loveday, even Minette, and sat somewhat rigid in the coach, a brazier of hot coals beneath her feet, her hands fisted in her feather muff.

“You’re looking ... colorful,” Leith said. Did she fancy she heard admiration along with amusement in his voice?

“Children like color.” She studied her silk cape with its whimsical embroidery of flowers and animals, even tiny mint-green grasshoppers. “I don’t want to frighten them, being a stranger.”

“Have you been around children much?”

“At church, mostly. Once Loveday and I taught the enslaved children at Royal Vale like the Bray School in Williamsburg, but Father was against it so we stopped.”

He said nothing to this, just leaned back on the upholstered seat opposite and lowered his eyes. Though she didn’t dare say it, he looked more like an undertaker in unrelieved black save the white stock about his neck. Was it a reflection of how he felt about this visit?

Stifling a sigh, she lifted the curtain and looked out on a snowy landscape and what resembled a small, smoke-hazed village. “What are those quaint tents and wagons beside those twin towers?”

“The Romany.”

“We have none in the colonies that I know of.”

“This band—the Ruthvens and Lindseys—make camp at those two auld towers on Buchanan lands. They’re granted leases and pay a small sum yearly. A quitrent of sorts. But the younger of the Romany tend to roam.”

Like his wife. What had he said? A Romany princess, if there is such a thing.

“Many work as tinkers. A few are horse traders, even thieves. One tells fortunes for the nobility and bonnet lairds in these parts. They’re not to trespass near Ardraigh Hall.”

“But what of Isabella and Cole’s kin? Should they not see the twins?”

“Bella, I call her. As for kin, they’ve since dispersed. Where to, I ken not.” His terse tone told her to delve no further.

She closed the curtain, only to open it again when he said they were nearing Ardraigh Hall. A Palladian bridge took them over the River Clyde, and then the drive wended uphill through towering trees before reaching level ground. She’d expected his country house to be no grander than the Virginia Street residence. She’d woefully misjudged. Three-storied, the mansion was infinitely sprawling and grand, a front garden at the foot of a wide double staircase leading to double front doors. Countless chimneys sat atop the main roof and the wings flanking it. Brushed with snow, the magnificent house looked austere, though gardens and parks on all sides promised a lush spring.

“Welcome to Ardraigh Hall,” Leith said, helping her alight from the coach.

“’Tis ... wondrous” came her awed reply.

Before they had trod the first stairstep, a liveried man came out the front doors. Hand on her elbow, Leith tried to shield her from a bullying wind as her cape blew sideways.

“I nearly forgot—” She paused as another gust yanked her hood back and threatened to tumble her carefully coiffed hair. “The toys.”

Leith turned and reminded the postillion to fetch them and bring them inside before the coachman drove on to the stables.

Once in the gleaming entrance hall with its herringbone parquet floor, Juliet noted a frightful number of clocks, so many she lost count. Was Leith obsessed with timekeeping? Bewildered, she faced a housekeeper, several maids, and footmen. Leith made quiet introductions, but overwhelmed as she was, the servants’ names turned to mush in her mind.

Was her thudding heart loud enough for all to hear?

Next came a labyrinth of lamplit, wainscoted corridors that became an impossible maze, far more complex than Virginia Street. The twins were in a separate wing entirely.

Leith stopped just shy of the nursery door. “Are you well?”

“Nay.” The unfamiliarity of everything flooded her. Juliet missed Royal Vale and the cupola and the smallness and sameness of Virginia like never before.

Concern tightened his brow. “Mayhap you need something to drink—and smelling salts.”

“Both.” She smiled, but it took all her composure to do so. “But first, the children.”

Hearing the postillion and a footman following with the toys, she took hold of the knob before he did. With a desperate prayer, Juliet pushed open the nursery door.