Here Burns My Candle Part 26

"Aye, not far from here." The la.s.s tipped her head, studying Elisabeth for a moment, then took the copper coin and gave her a half curtsy in return. "Just now I'm bound for the Canongate."

Elisabeth gaped at her. "Surely you'll not travel unescorted? 'Tis nearly ten o' the clock."

"I'm quick on my feet," the widow said with a cunning smile. "And I've a gentleman waiting for me at White Horse Close." She turned to leave. "Guid morrow to ye, Leddy Kerr."

Her too-familiar manner gave Elisabeth pause. "You know my name?"

"Och! Wha in Edinburgh doesna?" the widow said over her shoulder.

"Mine is Lucy Spence." With that she fairly skipped off, disappearing into the night.

The caddie made a sound of disgust. "A crafty limmer, that one," he grumbled. "Begging yer pardon, mem."

Elisabeth turned her head, hoping to stem the flood of gossip before it began. There were soldiers aplenty in White Horse Close waiting to greet such a woman. Whatever the Widow Spence's unfortunate situation, the details were hers to keep.

Pus.h.i.+ng back her hood from her brow, Elisabeth looked up at the night sky and caught a glimpse of the moon. A tiny sliver of light was missing from one side. For the next fortnight cottagers would cut their peat, gardeners would plant bulbs, and wise couples would delay their weddings.

By design she'd married Donald on the sixth day of the moon, a most fortuitous day. Yet all her devotion had not yielded what she'd hoped for: a contented husband at her table and children round her skirts. Instead, her husband was untrue and her womb empty.

Gazing at the bright orb, she remembered the words her grandmother had taught her and wondered if they might yet rekindle her dwindling faith.

Glory to thee forever

Thou bright moon, this night.

She waited but sensed nothing. She listened but heard not a whisper. The stillness inside her was absolute, like a well gone dry, hollow and abandoned.

The caddie held up his lantern. "Leddy, she's here."

Janet emerged from the sedan chair, her complexion as white as bleached muslin and her balance unsure. "Lady Kerr?" she said weakly, stretching out her hand for support.

Elisabeth was beside her at once, helping her toward the stair as she motioned to the caddie. "Go two steps ahead, lad. And hold the lantern as high as you can."

The turnpike stair was too narrow for them to manage side by side. Elisabeth walked behind her sister-in-law, one hand lightly resting on the small of her back. "No need for haste," Elisabeth said calmly. "We'll cross our threshold soon enough."

But the climb took far longer than expected. Janet was unsteady on her feet and confessed to feeling nauseous. "'Twas the sedan chair," she moaned, "or the oysters."

Since early September Elisabeth had watched her sister-in-law consume heaping plates of oysters harvested from beds in the Firth of Forth. As to Janet's unsettling journey in the sedan chair, Elisabeth had never seen such a marked reaction. Still, her discomfort seemed very real indeed.

When they neared the fifth floor, the caddie ran ahead and banged on the door, announcing them in a breathless voice. "The leddy's taken ill!"

Mrs. Edgar was on the landing in an instant, helping Janet manage the last few steps. "Whatever has happened to ye, Mistress Kerr? Come, let me see ye to yer bed."

Elisabeth paid the caddie an extra ha'penny. "Tarry on the stair," she told him quietly. "We may have need of the apothecary."

"Aye, mem." He touched the brim of his dirty wool bonnet. "Say the wird, and I'll flit to Mr. Mercer's on the High Street."

By the time Elisabeth had closed the door and shed her wool cape, Mrs. Edgar was loosening Janet's stays before she tumbled to the carpet in a faint. Elisabeth came to the housekeeper's aid first, moving Janet to her bed, then pressing a damp cloth against her sister-in-law's brow, offering what little information she had. "Her illness came on rather suddenly," Elisabeth said, omitting any mention of oysters. The rest of the household had eaten their evening meal without consequence.

Mrs. Edgar slipped off Janet's damask slippers and began rubbing her stocking feet, clucking like a mother hen. "A cauld nicht for thin shoes," she fretted. When Elisabeth asked what might be required from the apothecary, Mrs. Edgar had a swift answer. "Tincture o' fresh ginger root to settle her stomach."

Elisabeth dispatched the caddie on his errand, then found the dowager in the drawing room, pacing back and forth across the carpet.

Marjory motioned Elisabeth closer to the mantelpiece. "Tell me, Lady Kerr." Her hazel eyes were filled with concern. "What transpired at the inn?"

Elisabeth pressed her lips tightly together lest she blurt out the truth. Your son confessed to adultery. And begged my forgiveness. Instead, she said what she could. "'Twas filthy, crowded, and noisy."

"I'm not surprised." Marjory glanced at Janet's bedchamber door and added, sotto voce, "Your sister-in-law seems most distraught. How was she earlier this evening?"

"Rather out of sorts," Elisabeth admitted. "But her color was fine and her balance steady. Only when she arrived in the square did she mention feeling nauseous. I suspect the sedan chair-"

"And I suspect something else." Her mother-in-law had a knowing look in her eyes. "I have long waited for one of my sons to produce an heir."

Elisabeth's heart skipped a beat. "You believe Janet is-"

"I do," Marjory said firmly. "She's been more irritable of late and seldom breaks her fast before ten in the morning. I was the very same with both my sons." The dowager clapped her hands together like a woman about to pray. "Isn't it thrilling?"

Elisabeth managed to nod. "Aye. Thrilling."

"Andrew may give us some hint on the morrow," Marjory was saying. "In the meantime we'll keep a close eye on Janet. Women cannot hide such secrets for very long, you know." Skirts in hand, Marjory swept into Janet's bedchamber with Elisabeth dutifully following behind.

The wood-paneled room, smaller than Elisabeth's bedchamber and with half as many windows, felt snug and warm, the coals in the fireplace still glowing. With Andrew's weaponry gone, Marjory could not abide having bare walls and so had acquired a series of small oil paintings at auction. "For a song," she'd confided, "with so many folk leaving town."

Mrs. Edgar was fussing over her charge, plumping Janet's bed pillows, then pouring fresh tea in her cup. "Peppermint leaves and chamomile flowers," the housekeeper said proudly. "The verra best for whatever ails ye."

"She forced me to eat a dry oatcake too," Janet said, making a face. "Days old and no b.u.t.ter."

"My mither wouldna use onie ither remedy," Mrs. Edgar declared. "Plain and dry. See if ye dinna feel better afore ye sleep."

Janet exhaled, sinking deeper into her feather mattress.

Mrs. Edgar quit the room, leaving Elisabeth and Marjory to draw their chairs closer to the bed. Janet's unbound hair fanned across her pillow. A pale violet sleeping jacket framed her wan face.

The dowager spoke first, patting Janet's hand as she did. "I am glad to see you eat something. You've been absent from table the last few mornings."

Janet turned her head as if embarra.s.sed. "Nae appet.i.te, I'm afraid."

"Might there be some reason?"

Elisabeth winced, thinking the dowager's question too probing. A gentlewoman was not usually forthcoming with such intimacies. At least not until her condition was undeniable.

"Though I cannot be certain," Janet began, slowly turning back to look at them. "There is a chance... quite a good chance..."

"I thought so." Marjory beamed at her daughter-in-law as if Janet had just given birth to three sons. "Your secret is very safe with us. Isn't that so, Lady Kerr?" The dowager briefly exchanged glances with Elisabeth, then focused all her attention on the apparent mother-to-be. "Andrew must be very proud."

Janet's face clouded. "He is more concerned with bearing arms than my bearing his child."

"Nae," Elisabeth protested gently. "Even the most zealous Jacobite would rejoice at such news."

The cloud across Janet's face turned stormy. "You are the true Jacobite among us, Lady Kerr. If 'twere not for you, our husbands would still be living in Milne Square instead of riding for England."

Elisabeth chafed beneath her accusation. "Were you not the one writing poetry in honor of the prince?"

"Ladies, that's quite enough," Marjory insisted. "My sons have chosen to support the Stuarts, and so have I." She abruptly stood, ending further discussion. "Donald and Andrew are brave and n.o.ble men, virtuous in every regard. We shall send them off with naught but praise for their courage. Are we agreed?"

"Aye," they both said, though not quite in unison.

n.o.ble. Virtuous. Elisabeth knew Donald would ever remain so in his mother's eyes.

She rose and bid Marjory and Janet good night, then pa.s.sed through the door into her empty bedchamber. The room was noticeably cooler than Janet's, the fire reduced to dying embers. At least her thick tapestries held the late autumn winds at bay and contained whatever heat remained.

Mrs. Edgar tapped on the door, then entered with a steaming cup of tea. "Ye leuk a wee bit dwiny yerself, milady." While helping Elisabeth out of her gown, the housekeeper said nothing about her poorly laced stays or her crooked chemise, her tousled hair or her soiled stockings. Mrs. Edgar was especially gentle with soap and cloth, toweling Elisabeth dry as if she were made of porcelain.

She murmured her thanks, certain Mrs. Edgar understood all she could not say. He took his pleasure. Then he broke my heart.

When she was alone once more, Elisabeth finished her tea, then blew out the last candle and slipped beneath the covers, waiting for a soft blanket of sleep to settle over her. Tears came instead.

However would she face the day ahead with its twin heartaches? She'd never done anything so difficult before. And she would have to do them both at once.

Forgive her husband, yet bid him farewell.

Trust him, and then let go.

Forty-One.

The parting of a husband and wife

is like the cleaving of a heart;

one half will flutter here, one there.

ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON.

T he gloaming would not linger, not on the last day of October when a biting wind blew round every corner and thick, gray clouds scuttled across the early evening sky.

Elisabeth stood in the midst of the prince's Life Guards, their uniforms crisscrossed with leather bags, their horses saddled and restless. The dowager and Janet had hurried off to find Andrew in the crowded palace forecourt, giving Lord and Lady Kerr a few moments alone. To settle accounts. To say good-bye.

Astride his chestnut gelding, Donald already had the mien of a veteran soldier. His sword hung from a broad tartan belt strapped across his chest, and Gibson had polished his master's black riding boots until they shone.

"How fine you look," Elisabeth said, gazing up at her husband.

He touched the brim of his gold-laced tricorne, an intent expression on his clean-shaven face. "May I return the compliment, milady?"

"You may." She offered him a faint smile, though her heart was anything but light. Within the hour the prince would ride east to Musselburgh with Lord Elcho's Life Guards and Lord Pitsligo's regiment, more than four hundred men and their mounts. And my Donald.

Elisabeth looked down, lest he mark her distress. She'd returned home last night with her heart in tatters, seeking the strength to forgive him. For all of it. Whether she had the courage to do so remained to be seen.

"Lady Kerr?" Her husband dismounted with ease, the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons on his coat catching the last bit of light. "I would know your thoughts." He stood before her, one hand loosely holding the reins, the other touching her cheek, his winter gloves a painful reminder of truths spoken and unspoken.

"My thoughts are scattered to the winds," she finally admitted, not ready to say more.

"'Tis anyone's guess how far those winds might travel on Hallowmas Eve." He turned toward the Salisbury Crags, where the brilliant orange flames of a bonfire leaped upward. "On the last of October in Castleton, did you march round with torches?"

She nodded, vividly recalling her brother chasing after the lads from the neighboring glens with burning bracken, then tossing his torch inside a circle of stones. "Simon was all for building the tallest bonfire in the parish. Our mother feared her thatch might go up in smoke."

Elisabeth felt the loss of Simon keenly that evening. He should have been in Duddingston mustering with the foot soldiers, preparing to march southeast to Dalkeith. Instead, he lay beneath a cairn in a farmer's field, lost to her forever.

Donald took her gloved hand in his. "Your brother was a fine lad. And a good soldier."

"He was indeed." She looked down at her mourning clothes. Come spring, when Mrs. Edgar wrapped her black gown in wormwood, the memory of her brother would remain in her heart, closer than any silk bodice.

"Lady Kerr," her husband said firmly, "do not imagine I will share his fate."

She lifted her gaze to meet his. "I'll not even consider the possibility."

"Nor will I." He nodded toward the palace. "Six weeks in the capital, yet the prince added very few t.i.tled gentlemen to his ranks."

He added you. A thread of guilt tugged at her heart, pulled more tautly by Janet's accusation. You are the true Jacobite among us, Lady Kerr. Would Donald have taken such a risk without her influence? From childhood Elisabeth had longed for the Stuarts to regain the throne. Then she'd lost Simon. Now Donald was leaving.

Return to me. That's what she wanted to say to him. Come home.

The bells of Saint Giles began chiming the hour. At five o' the clock the sky had grown darker than Donald's midnight blue coat. When the last bell echoed through the air, he surprised her with a song.