03 - Dreams of Destiny Read online

  “Why, Miss Gwyneth! I’m sure we weren’t expecting you.”

  Gwyneth turned her back down the stairs. “Please take some breakfast to Captain Pennington in the library,” she told the young woman. “And if he asks about my aunt, tell her she should be down in an hour.”

  “But Miss, Lady Cavers left for Bristol the day before last.”

  “You know that and I know it, too. But we have to keep Captain Pennington from learning the truth for a couple of hours. Would you please help me with this?”

  “Aye, Miss.”

  “Hurry.” The young woman gave a quick nod and ran down in front of her.

  Gwyneth waved to a number of the other servants as she ran through the servants’ hall and dashed out through a kitchen door onto the walkway that ran next to the house. Hurrying out to the street, she saw the carriage. The driver was in his seat and the attending groom was standing by the door. She was relieved that they had understood her silent plea and had not unloaded her trunk. So different than she’d planned, her elopement was ending up to be quite dramatic. She had a momentary vision of exchanging vows with Ardmore as David tried to break down the door of the blacksmith shop at Gretna Green.

  “Sorry about the little side excursion,” she told the man as he opened the door of the carriage for her. “You can continue on now as originally planned.”

  Gwyneth was halfway inside the carriage before she saw him.

  His muscular legs were stretched out, his boots up on the seat opposite. His arms were crossed, and his chin was resting on his chest. He looked as if he were sleeping.

  The door clicked shut behind her, and the carriage lurched forward, tumbling her into the seat beside him.

  “I expected you sooner,” David said, never opening his eyes.

  ****

  For so many years, the building had been a ruined tower house, abandoned long before the Pennington family built Baronsford. No more than a remnant of the time when the Borders had been a constant battleground, the place had stood empty for longer than anyone knew. Fire had consumed it, and then wind and rain had battered the structure until all that was left was keleton of stone walls with holes that were once windows and portions of a shattered roof.

  He liked to come out here at odd times. He enjoyed standing on what remained of the rough wooden flooring of the Great Hall and imagining what the place had once been. As he grew a little older, he enjoyed the feeling of accomplishment in rolling up his sleeves and climbing high on the walls to try to repair the roof to keep out the rain.

  This was a forgotten house. He was a forgotten boy. He’d pretended it was his place now, his castle. On warm summer afternoons, he liked to sit on the ramparts of the tower and dream of a future for this place—of a future for himself. And he continued to work at the place, reclaiming it piece by piece.

  But he kept it to himself. All of it—his work, the gradual changes, his dreams. The old ruined tower had become his sanctuary. He wanted no help. If it took days or months or years to make the place live again, then that was as it had to be.

  She found him, though. He didn’t know how. But one day he came down the spiraling stone stairwell, and Emma was standing there.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Barefoot, starving, and ragged she was. Feverish, too. A blind man could see the lass was sick, as well as being with child. Still, they just left the poor thing at our door during the night.”

  The old cotter’s wife stood with Walter Truscott just outside the open door of the cottage. The sky above was gray, and the air was warm and thick with the threat of rain. The cottage was the farthest one on the land that belonged to Baronsford.

  “I dunna know if the sorry lass will survive with her bairn and all, but something about her made my Angus send the lad to ye. He wanted ye to come if ye were able.”

  Walter ducked his head as she led him through the door. The single room of the cottage was hot and smoky from the cooking fire, in spite of the open door. Leather hides covered the two small windows, and there seemed to be no fresh air getting in at all. He could barely breathe inside.

  “She hasn’t stirred since we laid her down. I tried to get her to drink something, but ‘twas a waste as it just trickled down the side of her mouth.”

  He could see the ancient quilt and tattered blanket that had been spread over the woman in spite of the lack of air in the cottage.

  And then he saw her, and Walter felt a sharp twist in his gut. His breath caught in his chest. The blonde curls. The pale face. The small nose. The woman’s eyes opened for a few seconds, and she stared without focus in his direction. Even their eyes were the same color. She closed them again. He stood stock still for a moment, confused, feeling as if he were looking at a ghost. It couldn’t be. He’d seen her dead. He had been the one who had carried Emma’s cold body up from the river. He let out his breath. A chill washed down his spine.

  “She must have been traveling with the folk coming in from the west and the north,” the old conjectured. “Every day, we’ve been seeing more than a few of them that have lost their farms come passing through.”

  Her face was much thinner. Walter tried to focus and see through the thick fog of guilt. As he approached the bed, all the similarity disappeared.

  “What they were thinking, I’ve nae idea. One of her kin could at least have knocked on our door to tell us they were leaving her. The poor creature was near drowned with the rain. We dunna know her name, sir, nor where she come from, nor where she was going. The rags I peeled off her had once been a fine dress, though. Lord knows, but she might even have be gentry.”

  This close, there was a look of angelic innocence in the face. Her features were more delicate. Long eyelashes lay peacefully against cheeks that were deadly pale beneath the dirt. She shivered, and Walter pressed the back of his hand against her ashen cheek. Despite the suffocating heat of the room, her skin was cold.

  “The bairn could come at any time, sir,” the cotter’s wife said over Walter’s shoulder. “I dunna think ‘twould be wise to go and move her. The midwife from the village should be by soon, too.”

  He couldn’t tear his gaze from her face. Her chin quivered a little as he watched, her lips opened to say something but closed again. She looked to be caught in the middle of some nightmare. One hand pushed restlessly at the blankets and then lay still on the bedding. Walter saw the calluses on her long slender fingers. These were working hands, not the hands of gentry. He stared at her swollen belly showing prominently beneath the blankets.

  “I can send for the doctor from Melrose to come and check on her, but perhaps you and your husband could manage if she were to stay here a few days?”

  “Aye. We managed last night. A few more nights will hardly kill us.” The cotter’s wife went around and tucked the blanket under the sleeping woman’s chin. “Angus was talking about sweeping out the shed and laying some bedding in there for her, but we just dunna know if the lassie will survive the day.”

  Walter glanced at her again and saw a tear trickle from her eye even as she slept. It ran across the dirty face and disappeared into the blonde hairs at her temple. He reached down and wiped the trail with his thumb.

  “Perhaps the midwife can do something for her. Still, I shall bring the doctor back myself. I can also arrange for some things to be brought out from Baronsford for you. I know his lordship would not want to reward your kindness with any more of a burden on you both than is necessary.”

  The old woman led Walter out of the cottage, her comments making him believe that she was happy with the arrangement.

  Moments later, Walter was riding hard for Melrose, wondering at his own sense of urgency. He certainly couldn’t understand the emotions that were surging through him. Hundreds of tenants were being pushed out of their farms all over Scotland. The land clearing was forcing people to pile their belongings on the backs of carts and donkeys, and go off looking for work or passage to the colonies. So many had been coming through the villages around Bar
onsford. So many poor and hungry folk. So many heavy with child and desperate…as Josephine’s mother had been this past spring.

  When Millicent, Lord Aytoun’s new wife, had found her, the frightened lass had been barely surviving, living like a dog on scraps of bread and hiding beneath a vagrant’s cart in the muck by the river’s edge.

  No kin. No husband. No home. Still, the woman called Jo had been too afraid to accept Millicent’s offer and leave the squalid encampment. The next day she went into labor. The doctor Lady Aytoun had sent to Melrose for had come too late. Jo had died with her tiny rag-swaddled daughter in one arm while her other hand had clutched Millicent’s.

  Jo had left her daughter to the safekeeping of Lady Aytoun. Millicent and Lyon had in turn named the child Josephine. They would raise her as their own. Not all the bairns of Scotland would be as well cared for, though.

  Responsible for managing Baronsford and all of its farms, Truscott tried to be a compassionate man. He helped wherever he could, but his time and responsibilities never allowed him to get too closely involved. And he preferred it this way, for these people were vagrants, passing through. They had no connection to Baronsford, and he had no control over what was to become of them once they left. So why had this one made such an impression that he was spurring his horse on toward Melrose beneath a gray and threatening sky?

  He knew the reason. He didn’t want to admit it, but he knew it as certainly as he knew every bend and turn of the Tweed, every play of sunlight and shadow on the Eildon Hills.

  For a few brief seconds, when he had entered that one room cottage and had looked across at the young woman with her blonde hair strewn around her, she had been Emma.

  Emma.

  The moment had passed. She wasn’t Emma. She was just a sick and homeless young woman, unwanted by anyone, it seemed. An uncomfortable feeling lingered within him, though, goading him, driving him on. Perhaps this was a second chance though to do right where he’d gone wrong before. Perhaps this was an opportunity to redeem himself.

  Large drops of rain began to fall, stinging his face and blinding him momentarily. Still, Walter pushed his steed even harder.

  ****

  The rain had come down relentlessly for what felt like weeks. The family was away. Boredom had just about crushed his body and soul. When the clouds finally showed a rare glimpse of blue in the sky, he was like a bird who’d suddenly grown new wings. He left Baronsford with only one destination in mind. He didn’t mind his boots sinking ankle deep in the mud. He ignored the showers from the heavy leaves on the trees soaking him as he ran through the deer park. He was going to the ruins, though he no longer thought of it as that. His determination and hard work was gradually reshaping the place. He had even mentioned it to the family and had been told the old tower house was his to do with as he wished.

  His own.

  The ominous clouds had once again closed in overhead as he arrived at the tower. A sudden crack of thunder exploded behind him. He ran up the wooden stairs and went inside just as the sky once again opened its floodgates and the rain fell again with no mercy.

  Sheltered in the stone entryway, he turned to watch the storm sweep across the valley. That was when he saw her. Emma running from the woods and straight toward the building.

  His hearleapt with joy at seeing her. Her absence of nine months felt like nine years. He noticed that despite being covered with mud, she was wearing shoes. And her hair, although soaked, was gathered on top of her head. Her dress was made of fine cloth, but it was now ruined, to be sure. She had grown during these past months—in womanly ways. She was now fourteen.

  She smiled as she ran toward him, and he saw the old Emma in her sparkling eyes.

  “I knew I’d find you here,” she said, laughing as she came up the stairway and collapsed into his arms. When he said nothing, she looked up at him. “My God, you have changed.”

  He knew he had grown, too. The top of her head only reached to his chin. He now had a man’s body. But the changes in her were of more interest to him. He admired the droplets of rain making their way down her flushed cheeks. Smiling, she took his hand and drew him inside the tower house.

  “Tell me what you have been doing while I was gone. No, first show me what changes you have made in this place since I went away.”

  They’d spent so many hours here together. Since that first summer, when she’d showed up one day at this door, a special bond had been forged between them. This was the place where, while he worked, they talked and shared their deepest secrets.

  It was strange, though, the connection between them. He was the same person wherever he went. But she was different when she stepped beyond these walls. He didn’t like that other Emma, for she was distant and aloof to him, as if denying their friendship—innocent as it was. He never asked anything of her before the others. He never pressed for more. Still though, he could not deny her anything when she came back to him here at the tower house.

  He wanted to show her everything he’d done, but soon after he started talking, she slipped her arms around his waist and just held him.

  “I’ve missed you.” She pressed her face against his heart.

  He stood there awkwardly, trying to draw back, incapable of returning her affection. His body’s reaction to her embarrassed him. She was soaking wet. The budded tips of her breasts showed clearly through the wet dress. Her scent clouded his mind and conjured images in his mind that terrified him. He reminded himself who she was, of how young she was, and tried to separate himself from her.

  “Let me show you what I have done.”

  “Later. You are the reason I came here.” She held on to him. A smile broke out on her lips when she looked down his body. “You have changed.”

  Embarrassment burned his face to the tips of his ears. He froze when she looped her arms around his neck. Her blue eyes looked up into his.

  “Kiss me.”

  He stared at her wet lips. He wanted to. His need burned in his hardened body. He shook his head and tried to back away. This was Emma.

  “David will be back any day now,” he said weakly.

  “I want you to be the first man who kisses me.”

  His back came in contat with the wall behind him. She pressed her breasts against him, and her hands drew his face down to hers.

  The moment their lips touched, he was lost. She tasted just as sweet as he’d always dreamed. Their mouths greedily fed on the other as if they’d both were starved for this moment. He was the one who forced them apart, though. He understood the need for control, and he knew that he was on the brink of losing it.

  “I want you.”

  His knees almost buckled at the look he saw in her face.

  “We cannot,” he said hoarsely, pushing her away and stepping toward the door. “This is a mistake.”

  “You and I are alike. I want this.”

  A peel of thunder cut the air nearby, crackling and booming. The rain poured down in buckets, but he didn’t care. He ran from the tower house and did not stop until he was standing on the cliffs, panting and looking down at the rushing brown waters of the Tweed.

  CHAPTER 4

  No arguments. No explanations. Once assured that she was trapped securely on the seat next to him, the beastly man had simply appeared to go to sleep.

  Gwyneth let the wound from his intrusion fester during the first hour or so of their journey. As the carriage made its way northward out of the busy streets of London and into the open countryside, the names she intended to call him to his face arranged themselves in her mind like lines of lancers on a broad battlefield. The injuries she planned to inflict on him were horrid. She jabbed her elbow onto his side at every turn and bump on the road. She managed to push his boots off the seat and tried to unsettle him every time he managed to get comfortable. He was somehow able to sleep through it all.

  The passing time, though, and the sight of the little cluster of houses at Pond Street to the north of London brought home again the real
ity of her situation. Almost too soon, the carriage started making the long climb up Red Lion Hill. No matter how severe she might reprimand David for his heavy-handed interference, she didn’t think she could stop him from facing Sir Allan Ardmore. And a fight or duel between them would surely prove to be no contest whatsoever. Sir Allan might outduel him in a battle of words, but with swords or pistols or whatever other barbaric weapon David would force him to use, the baronet was sure to be beaten. And Gwyneth did not want anyone’s blood on her conscience.

  Pushing the door open and leaping from the slow-moving carriage was out of the question. The couple of times that she’d tried to move to the seat across, David’s heavy hand had clamped on her arm, forcing her to stay. He appeared to be sleeping, but she now knew he wasn’t.

  Gwyneth considered their exact arrangements. Sir Allan was to join her near Spaniard’s Tavern in Hampstead Village, at the top of the long, winding hill the team of horses was now laboring to climb. But was she to wait for him, or would he be waiting? She couldn’t even ask the driver to forgo the stop and continue northward without arouavid’s suspicions. Hampstead Village was a customary stop for changing horses.

  She shoved her elbow into David’s side and, hearing a grunt, felt slightly better.

  The carriage finally topped the long hill, and she could see they were entering the village proper. She leaned over the sleeping beast next to her for a view of the shops on his side of the street. Soon they would be stopping at the tavern, and a feeling of dread washed through her.

  “I am quite hungry,” he growled under his breath. His eyes slowly opened.

  Gwyneth fought back the quiver of excitement that flashed through her when she found him staring at her mouth. In her effort to look out, she was resting an elbow on his chest, her body practically draped across his. She tried to pull back but the sudden lurch of the carriage as it came to a full stop flattened her against him. Gwyneth tried to scramble off of him, but his powerful arm shot around her, holding her where she was.