Mary Putney - The China Bride

"It's his, but I have my doubts about marrying him"

Mairead's brows drew together. "James talked to him, and Maxwell said he was willing to do the right thing. Is he a lying Sassenach?"

The right thing . Troth's resistance stiffened. "I'm sure he'd do his duty, but I don't want to be married from obligation. I don't know if I want to be married at all. I thought that with a handfast there was no shame to the woman if the couple decided not to stay together. Kyle doesn't have to know, since I can support my child without him."

"That's true for wild Highlanders, but handfasting is rare around here, especially for educated folk. What's wrong with Maxwell? Does he beat ye?"

"Good heavens, no! He's always been kind and considerate."

"Then ye'd better come up with a stronger reason for nae marrying him than romantic fancies." Mairead cocked her head. "Or is this some Chinese way of thinking?"

Troth smiled without humor. "Quite the opposite. In China I was told how I must behave for too many years, and don't want to be dictated to now."

"Ye're Hugh's daughter, right enough." Mairead drummed her fingers on the table. "Ye're a woman grown and we canna force ye to act against your will. But ye must think long and hard about the wisdom of going yer own way at any cost. It takes two people to make a baby. Will ye deprive yer child of his father, and Maxwell of his child? He doesna seem to be an uncaring man."

Troth never should have brought the subject up. Of course, pregnancy wasn't something that could be kept a secret for more than the first few months. "If I decide not to marry Maxwell, will I no longer be welcome here?"

Mairead's face softened. "Ye'll still be my granddaughter, lass. But there will be those in town who'd disapprove, handfast or no handfast. That could make life awkward for yer child if ye raise it here. And what would ye do if ye want more bairns?"

Troth's jaw set stubbornly. "I could marry someone else."

"I doubt there are many men around here that ye'd find to yer taste. I suppose ye could go to Edinburgh-my grandson Jamie moves in good circles, and maybe ye could meet a husband there." She stood and started tidying the table. "But ask yerself what ye'd want in a husband that Maxwell doesna have. He's enough to make a virtuous woman consider violating her vows."

"Grandmother!" Troth said, scandalized.

The old woman smiled mischievously. "I may be an eighty-year-old widow, but I'm nae dead yet, lass. If ye don't want Maxwell, I may decide to find out if he fancies older women."

Laughing, Troth retreated to her attic to pack for her trip to the Highlands. But a small, stubborn core of her resisted the idea of marrying Kyle simply because it was what everyone expected. She'd come to Britain to find freedom. She'd not yield it easily now.

"We'll see ye in a fortnight or so then." Mairead hugged Troth hard. Troth hugged back, then turned to embrace her aunt Jean. She was already missing them and she hadn't even left. Most of her possessions and Pearl Blossom would remain here, waiting for her return. The mere fact that her trunks were entitled to stay under this roof made her glow with warmth.

"I shall take good care of her, I promise," Kyle said.

"See that ye do," Mairead said gruffly as Kyle helped Troth into the rugged little curricle he'd hired for the trip to Kinnockburn.

Troth knelt backward on her seat, waving until she was out of sight of her grandmother and aunt. When she could no longer see them, she turned and settled down. "I hope that Pearl Blossom will be all right while I'm gone."

"I'm sure she will be. Your grandmother raised four children, she can certainly look after one undersized cat for a fortnight. Even one as hell-bent on trouble as Pearl Blossom." Kyle turned the carriage from the lane onto the main road through Melrose. "Have you decided to live here?"

"Does this mean you've given up on the thought of courtship?"

His answer was slow in coming. "You seemed so happy and complete in Melrose. It's hard to imagine that you need a husband."

Briefly she had dreamed of having a cottage within walking distance of her grandmother and aunts and uncles and cousins. She'd planned to learn how to cook and garden, order books from Edinburgh, buy a placid horse to ride over the hills. Those people who looked askance at her foreign face would soon become used to her, and to her child, who would probably look more Scottish than not.

But her conversation with Mairead the day before had woken her from her dreams. In the first rush of pleasure at being welcomed by her father's family, she hadn't appreciated that there were levels of acceptance. She didn't doubt that the bond of blood was a powerful tie that entitled her to warmth and support from the Montgomerys. But blood didn't mean they would always see the world as she did, or approve of all her actions.

Melrose was a small market town, its population limited and homogenous. Even a Highlander like her uncle Tam Gordon was considered foreign. No matter what she did, she'd always be Hugh Montgomery's Chinese daughter.

Not only would she never be fully a member of the community, but she would have few neighbors who'd be interested in the wide world beyond Scotland. Even with a friendly family, in many ways she'd be very isolated.

"I haven't made my mind up," she said with forced lightness. "Melrose is lovely but small. It would be difficult to have secret lovers to supply my life with yang."

"Yin and yang is one area where we had no problems."

"But it's not enough." Realizing they should clear the air-or at least draw their lines-at the start of this journey, she continued, "I don't understand you, Kyle, or your reservations about marriage. Why do you think you're unfit to be a husband?"

"I see that Oriental subtlety has been abandoned in favor of Scottish bluntness," he said dryly, his gaze returning to the road.

"That's not an answer."

"If I had a clear answer, I'd give it to you." A muscle jumped in his jaw. "I fear that… that there's a part of me missing."

For the length of a long hill, she pondered what he'd said. Deciding to try a more oblique approach, she asked, "Why did you want so much to travel? Was it merely to see the world's oddities, or were there deeper reasons?"

"Both." He reined in the curricle as they came on a flock of sheep ambling over the road. "I loved seeing different lands and learning about customs and ideas, but even more than knowledge, I sought… understanding."

Knowledge could be found in any book, but understanding was far more elusive. "Did you find it?"

"Sometimes, especially at Hoshan, where I felt a deep sense of peace. A shadow of understanding about where I belonged in the universe." His mouth twisted. "But whatever I thought I'd found vanished in Feng-tang."

"What's missing must be part of your soul, for that is a person's foundation, and a hole in the foundation weakens the entire structure," she said reflectively.

"You're probably right-but how does one repair a hole in one's soul?" Effortlessly he calmed the fidgeting horses, nervous from the river of sheep flowing around them. "Now that we've discussed my unfitness for marriage, what about you? You have doubts about being in my world. What parts of it can't you live with?"

"I can't imagine myself as a countess, especially not as a grand London hostess," she said, choosing the most obvious barrier.

"Why not? Because of shyness, lack of social skills, being foreign?"

"All of those things."

"Yet when you choose to, you can dazzle a ballroom full of aristocrats with your beauty, wit, and charm. You proved it at Dornleigh, and you could do the same in London if you tried."

"If I impressed your Northamptonshire neighbors, it was because I was too angry to care what they thought."