A Forbidden Liaison with Miss Grant Page 5

  But before she could make up her mind, Grayson did it for her, getting to his feet with enviable ease to greet her. If she’d been sitting leaning against that tree, she’d probably have had to roll over on to all fours to get up. ‘Good morning. Fancy meeting you here! I take it this is Angus?’

  The terrier was sniffing at his legs, yapping as usual, and for once a welcome distraction. Constance tugged on the lead and the dog bared his teeth at her before returning to his sniffing. ‘I’m afraid he doesn’t take to strangers but don’t worry, he doesn’t bite.’

  Grayson knelt down, taking the dog’s muzzle firmly in both hands. ‘No, but I do. Enough of that, do you hear?’ he said gruffly.

  To her astonishment, Angus’s straggly tail started to wag. ‘My goodness, you are honoured.’

  ‘He just needs to know who’s boss.’

  ‘Be careful though, because...’

  ‘Bloody hell!’ As Angus lunged to lick his face, Grayson recoiled in horror. ‘His breath’s minging!’

  ‘I know.’ She tried in vain to smother her laughter as she hauled Angus back. ‘It’s his teeth—or lack of them.’

  ‘Hence the reason you were so sure he wouldn’t bite me!’

  Watching him brush the grass from his trousers, Constance’s doubts returned. ‘I shouldn’t have come. I mean, I shouldn’t have hinted so heavily that you’d be able to find me here.’

  ‘You’d rather that I left?’

  That wasn’t hurt in his eyes, she told herself, it was more likely relief. ‘You’re probably only here because you felt obliged.’

  ‘I was the one who engineered another meeting. I thought—if I was mistaken...’

  ‘No! I want—I don’t know. It’s difficult, I’ve never been in this situation before.’

  He laughed softly. ‘I’m as confused as you. I thought I’d made it clear that all this is completely new to me too.’

  ‘You did.’ She didn’t have to explain herself, but she wanted to. She didn’t owe him anything, he was a complete stranger. But he wasn’t. ‘Yesterday was perfect. A moment out of time for both of us. I simply wonder if it would be better to leave it at that?’

  He thought for a moment, a slight frown pulling his brows together. ‘Of course, if that is what you wish, but—Constance, for me yesterday was not only about what happened, delightful though it was. I took a real shine to you. You make me smile, and that’s a rarer thing than it should be. I feel as if we’re in tune, somehow. I know that probably sounds daft, but...’

  ‘No, it’s not daft, it’s what I was thinking too,’ she confessed.

  ‘That’s a relief. Look, I’m only going to be in Edinburgh for a few days. What I’m trying to say is, I’d like to spend as much time with you as you can spare.’

  Which was exactly what she wanted too. Yet still she felt obliged to put up some sort of resistance. ‘I do have some free time, with Pearl being away, but we might find we have nothing in common.’

  ‘In which case we’ll say goodbye, and no harm done, but if we said goodbye right now...’

  ‘We’d both regret it,’ Constance said impulsively, casting caution to the winds for the second time in as many days.

  ‘Aye.’ She wasn’t imagining it. He almost visibly relaxed. ‘My thoughts exactly. Shall we stop fretting about what we’re doing, and just enjoy each other’s company then?’ Grayson eyed Angus, snuffling about in the grass. ‘How about we leave him to do his business, and take a stroll around the gardens?’

  ‘Oh, no, poor wee thing, we can’t abandon him, he might run off—well, trot off, he’s not really up to running. Pearl would be devastated if she came home to find I’d lost him. She and Angus are perfectly matched.’

  Grayson took the leash from her, tugging Angus into action. ‘You mean Mrs Winston has no teeth either?’

  She laughed, only now admitting to herself how much she craved this little bit of extra time. ‘Oh, no, she has a full set, unlike Angus here, though they are not her own. Unfortunately they don’t fit well either. She finds them a hindrance rather than a help when chewing, so she takes them out and hides them under her napkin. She forgot, one night after dinner, to retrieve them, and there was a new footman clearing the table, and the teeth ended up in the laundry with the napkin. Fortunately, I managed to get to them before the laundry maid was confronted with them smiling up at her.’

  ‘What big teeth you have, Grandmama,’ Grayson said, grinning. ‘It’s from the tale of Red Riding Hood, a wee lassie who meets a grisly fate at the hands of a wolf who has eaten her grannie.’

  ‘It never fails to amaze me how much children prefer dark tales to happy ones. Ghosts and ghouls were what my pupils loved best. Changelings being snatched by the fairies. Kelpies, and sea monsters, they couldn’t get enough of them.’

  ‘It was the same with Shona when she was wee, though her mother considered her too young to read lurid tales such as Red Riding Hood, promising her that she would have the book when she was old enough. It was only after—after. I found Shona crying over the book, and had not the heart to take it from her. I told her it would give her nightmares but she clung to it for grim death.’

  ‘Sometimes,’ Constance said gently, ‘it’s good for children to escape into a fairy-tale world, no matter how gruesome.’

  ‘Aye, that’s one of the many things I learned.’

  ‘I can’t imagine how difficult it must have been for you,’ Constance said, ‘having to cope with two motherless wee ones while mourning your wife.’

  ‘They kept me sane, not the other way round.’

  She could not recall that he’d mentioned his wife by name. Her parents didn’t approve of the marriage, he’d said yesterday. A grandmother would have been an immense help to a widower with two bairns, but it didn’t sound as if much assistance had been forthcoming. How many men would have devoted themselves to raising two children as he had, and not a hint that he’d resented it either—quite the contrary. Here was proof that it was possible for a man to put his personal responsibilities first, rather than his career. The contrast with Lockhart was impossible not to draw. ‘So some stories have a happy ending,’ she said brightly, noting Grayson’s bleak expression, ‘unlike poor Red Riding Hood! Eaten by the wolf, same as her grannie.’

  ‘Well, it was a happy ending for the wolf.’

  Constance couldn’t help laughing. ‘That’s one way of looking at it. I think we had better slow down a bit if you don’t mind. Angus’s legs are much shorter than yours.’

  ‘That looks like a nice patch of grass under the tree over there, and it’s in the shade. Will we sit down and let the dog have a well-earned breather? You see Angus is well ahead of the game, making himself comfy.’ He’d let go of the lead and the dog, having circled his chosen spot, fell panting to the ground while Grayson took his coat off. ‘There, you can sit on that.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Constance managed to do so with a modicum of grace, praying that she’d manage to get up again with the same ease, and knowing for a fact that she wouldn’t.

  Grayson sat down beside her, stretching out one long leg, curling the other under, angling himself to face her. ‘Mrs Winston was your mother’s friend, you said? Is she a Highlander too, then?’

  ‘Not at all. She’s originally from the Borders, which is where she is now, and only moved to Edinburgh when she married.’

  ‘Then how...’

  ‘My parents are also from the Borders. Even after they’d lived in Clachan Bridge for years, they were still referred to as the Sassenach Settlers. My father was an orphan who did well for himself, becoming a teacher. My mother’s family were well to do, and didn’t approve of their daughter falling in love with him. They had ambitions beyond a mere teacher for their daughter, and so they used their influence to have my father dismissed, thinking that would precipitate the end of the romance.’

  �
�I am assuming, given your presence here, that it did not?’

  ‘They eloped, and through a more sympathetic but distant connection of my mother’s, moved to Clachan Bridge village, and set up the school there.’

  ‘And what of your mother’s family?’

  ‘I have no idea. I’ve never met any of them. I’ve managed without them my whole life and they have never shown the slightest bit of interest in me. When Màthair died, Athair, my father, wrote to them. At the time he told me he expected no reply, and none came.’

  ‘That’s hellish.’

  ‘You can’t miss what you’ve never had,’ Constance said. ‘I consider myself a Highlander, and was raised to speak Gaelic and to teach it too, though we always spoke English at home. For my parents, Clachan Bridge was a haven. They were very happy, we all were, while the old laird was alive, but he died ten years ago, the same year as we lost Màthair, and that’s when everything changed.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Grayson caught her hand. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. Don’t say any more, it’s obviously a painful subject for you.’

  ‘But I want to explain.’ She had removed her gloves and bonnet when they sat down. His skin was cool against hers. ‘The folk who inherited Clachan, which is the name of the estate, had no interest in it you see, and the house, all the lands were sold.’

  ‘To an improver, I presume?’

  ‘An improver!’ Constance swore under her breath in the Gaelic. ‘If you class burning down villages and chasing families from their homes as improvement then yes, that is what he was. Ours was just one of the many villages he set his factor to improve. The last one to be cleared, as it happens. There’s no village now, it was razed to the ground. There are no crofts, and no one left to farm them, even if there were.’

  ‘Dear God. You don’t mean they actually set alight to people’s homes?’

  ‘To prevent them from returning,’ she said bitterly. ‘To ensure they relocated to whatever godforsaken patch of land they could call home, or took a ship to some far-flung wilderness overseas, as is increasingly the preferred option.’

  ‘Constance, wait. You can’t force people to emigrate.’

  ‘Put the rent up every quarter until they are deep in debt and starving. Then the law is on your side when you evict them for non-payment. Burn down their cottage, give their crofts over to sheep, make sure their minister is right by your side, telling his flock that it is God’s will to obey their laird. Then offer them an assisted passage to Canada. No,’ Constance concluded, her chest heaving, ‘of course you can’t force people to emigrate.’

  ‘I had no idea.’

  ‘You have that in common with most of Scotland.’

  ‘You saw this? You actually witnessed this take place, in your own village?’

  He looked so shocked that her flare of anger died. ‘Athair—my father, he—his heart failed him while we watched. The schoolhouse was the one building left standing. It was a shelter for some of the villagers, in the weeks after, but I doubt Lockhart would have permitted them to remain there after I left.’

  ‘Lockhart, he was the laird, I take it?’

  ‘No, his factor, who did the dirty work while the laird was safely far away in his big fancy London house. Lockhart was our minister’s son.’

  ‘The minister who stood by while his flock were evicted?’

  ‘I’m not making it up, I assure you.’

  ‘No.’ Grayson ran his hand through his hair, shaking his head. ‘I can see you’re telling the truth, but it beggars belief.’

  ‘Ah, but it gets worse, for Lockhart was the man I once planned to marry.’

  Grayson’s jaw dropped. ‘Your future husband burnt down your village?’

  ‘I had broken the engagement the year before, when it became clear to me that he would put his ambition before all I thought we both held dear but yes, he did, acting on the laird’s orders.’

  ‘I don’t know what to say. I simply can’t imagine what you must have gone through.’

  Constance shook her head, unable to speak for a moment for her throat was clogged with tears. ‘What I suffered was nothing compared to some,’ she said passionately. ‘There was one old woman. Her family carried her out on her bed, for she was too frail to walk. And there was another family, who...’ Her voice broke. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to blurt all that out. I don’t know why I did. I never talk of it.’

  Grayson swore under his breath. ‘I’m not surprised. Here.’

  She took the handkerchief, mopping her cheeks and blowing her nose. It was fine cambric, but there was no monogram, in keeping with the rest of his raiment, good quality but plain. ‘Thank you, don’t worry, I’ll have it laundered before I give it back to you,’ she said, tucking it into the pocket of her gown.

  * * *

  ‘Don’t worry about a daft handkerchief,’ Grayson said, still trying to come to terms with what she had told him. ‘After an experience like that, it’s testament to your strength of will that you’re even here to tell the tale.’

  ‘It’s a tale that no one wants to listen to. What happened to my village is happening on almost every estate in the Highlands, but no one seems to care.’

  Every estate? The Glenbranter lands belonging to his in-laws and how they were run were none of his concern, that was what he’d always told himself, and what he’d had drummed into his head too. No matter what he thought of the Murrays, and he could make a list as long as his arm of their failings, they were not brutes. Shona and Neil said little of their regular visits north, but he couldn’t believe they would have failed to notice such barbarous measures, had they been taken. They’d have told him, wouldn’t they? Uncomfortably, Grayson was forced to admit that he had no idea if they would confide in him, and he certainly didn’t want to get into a discussion on the subject with Constance.

  What he really wanted, looking at her tear-stained face and brave smile, was to pull her into his arms. ‘I can’t believe I’ve known you less than twenty-four hours. Maybe we have met after all, in another life.’

  ‘That sounds like something Mhairi, our village fey wife would say. You don’t really believe it, do you?’

  ‘Not really, though I can’t shake off the conviction that something brought us together.’

  ‘Well then, let’s call it fate for want of a better explanation.’

  He frowned at the mutt contentedly sleeping a few feet away. Angus was making snuffling noises, one of his rear paws twitching. ‘I’m not used to having time to myself, with no business issues to occupy me and my weans being looked after by someone else. I’ve no time to feel lonely, but I’ve not much time for making friends either. Self-sufficient, is how I’d describe myself, and happily so, but it feels good to talk to someone who wants nothing from me, save to know me a bit better, and to share something of herself too.’ He shifted on the ground, moving closer to Constance. ‘Does that make sense?’

  ‘Perfect sense.’ She smiled at him. ‘We really are kindred spirits.’

  ‘So you won’t be surprised then, that what you told me of your parents’ marriage struck a chord. My late wife was from a very well-connected family. They thought a rough Glaswegian shipbuilder who, at the time, had not yet made his fortune, was not nearly good enough for her. They opposed the match, and so we married without their consent. Her parents disowned her at first, but she was the light of their lives and unlike your mother, they welcomed her back into the family fold after a few months of exile. Their forgiveness never did extend to me, though.’

  ‘That’s what you meant yesterday, when you mentioned complications.’

  ‘You wouldn’t believe the half of it. While my wife was alive, it didn’t matter so much, she’d take the children to visit, leaving me to concentrate on business for a few weeks at a time. But when she died, they wanted to take Neil and Shona away from me.’

  ‘No!
Oh, Grayson, how awful. And selfish, too. Your children are all you have left of your wife.’

  She was so obviously indignant, it made him feel considerably better. ‘They thought they could offer them things I can’t, open doors for them socially. They still think that way, and constantly point this out to Neil and Shona whenever they see them. I sometimes wish...’ He sometimes wished that the Murrays and their blandishments would disappear in a puff of smoke and spare him sleepless nights! If it would have been wrong of them, all these years ago to take his weans from him, it would be tantamount to a crime now. ‘Ach, never mind them,’ he continued, as much to himself as Constance, ‘I wouldn’t stop Shona and Neil seeing them, even if I hadn’t promised Eliza.’ It provoked an odd kind of relief to speak her name. ‘My wife, I mean.’

  ‘Even I can see you’re a devoted father, and I barely know you. I’m sure your children know how much you love them.’

  ‘Loving them is the easy bit. Making them happy, that is more of a challenge with every passing year. You could say they are my life’s work.’

  ‘A task you’re happy to undertake.’

  And one he was determined to keep to himself. ‘I wouldn’t have it any other way, though as I said, it leaves me little time for myself.’

  ‘You’ve never thought of marrying again?’

  ‘Never. Neil and Shona are well past the age of needing a replacement for their mother, and as far as I’m concerned, it wouldn’t be worth rocking the boat. We’re happy just the way we are. What about you though, have you no thoughts of ever marrying?’