Elizabeth Mayne - Man Of The Mist

The smell of a greasy quilt. The thick taste of a heavy fog that lingered over the village at high noon—flavored with the aroma of haggis and cabbage. The sound of buttons snapping their threads as hasty, too-eager hands tore a sark apart and cast it to the shadows. The heat and texture of Evan’s hands spreading across Elizabeth’s belly and cupping her breasts.

No, try as she might to force will to overcome and direct all memory, Elizabeth Murray would never, ever forget Gretna Green, and the day she’d eloped and married Evan MacGregor — May 28, 1802. Only weeks after she’d tossed propriety aside and danced with her childhood sweetheart at Bell’s Wynd.

That day had left unalterable, indelible impressions. Never mind the fact that only three living souls knew of that truth—Master Paisley, who had married them, Evan, and herself—the truth was and always would be unforgettable.

Elizabeth blinked dry eyes and glared at the shut door, wondering what in heaven’s name she would do now. How would she get through tomorrow? She had asked herself that question every night since May of 1802. All the brash and reckless courage of youth had failed her then, turned her into a sniveling, terrified coward once the deed was done.

Every day of her life since, she’d fought with herself to have the strength and fortitude to go forward, in spite of the dishonor and shame she had brought on herself and Evan, and might have brought on both their families.

In the beginning, that had only been for herself — so that she could continue to hold her head up and look her father and her brothers and sisters in the eye.

Living a lie all the while. Denying the truth. Until it was too late to rectify the wrong that had been done by any honorable means. Until it was no longer possible to hide the ever-evident truth that she was carrying a child inside her.

By then it had been way, way too late to own up to the truth. Evan had gone and done the unthinkable, joined the army and been shipped off to war. Alone, Elizabeth couldn’t find the courage to admit what she’d done.

But tonight, the cards in the hand she’d been dealt had turned. Evan had come back. For the first time in almost six years, Elizabeth couldn’t guess what suit the next trump was going to be, and she didn’t know what her next move should or could be.

God save me, she thought, and closed her dry, aching eyes. Willpower and determination would get her through. It had to. It had failed her only once in her life, that dreadful day—May 28, so long, long ago. Dear God, she prayed, please, don’t let Evan discover Robbie. Let me keep my secrets, let me keep my son.

Chapter Four

Sunday was bitterly cold from start to finish. A little weather never kept the duke of Atholl’s hardy ladies housebound on the Sabbath — not when the dowager devoted a Sunday to pursuing the Lord’s work.

They began with services at nearby Saint Mark’s, which were followed by the annual ladies’ guild winter bazaar, a monstrous undertaking that took up the balance of the cold and dreary afternoon. Throughout the whole long, cold afternoon Elizabeth sold rose cuttings to enhance next summer’s gardens. The bazaar made a long day longer.

Elizabeth couldn’t wait to get home and exchange her somber, very damp walking dress and pelisse for a warm gown of velvet and lace. She spent an hour in the nursery telling stories to Robbie in another effort to elicit whole sentences from her monosyllabic son. Since his nanny’s sudden death in October, Robbie had all but quit speaking entirely.

Elizabeth tucked her arm around Robbie’s wee shoulders, drawing him close. “How many beans did Jack get from the peddler, Robbie?”

“Dunno.” Robbie’s shoulders lifted under the light compression of Elizabeth’s loving arm. His thick cap of dark curls brushed against her cheek as he turned his face toward the windows overlooking the park.

“You don’t know?” Elizabeth asked, cognizant of her inner fear that there might be something wrong with her beautiful, perfect son.

It was bad enough that she was not allowed to claim him as her own, to openly act or be his mother. Her father’s acceptance and support of the child came with the stricture that appearances must be kept up.

Elizabeth’s father had guessed her incipient condition before Elizabeth, in her youthful ignorance, discerned it herself. Robbie had been born at Port-a-shee, on the Isle of Man, on March 4, 1803, and legally named an orphan and a ward of her father, under his privilege as Lord Strange, lord of the Isle of Man.

For the past four years, Elizabeth had engaged in an ongoing battle to spend as much time with her son as her father would allow. Considering the circumstances of Robbie’s birth, she was fortunate to have any contact with Robbie at all, and she knew that. Hence, she had always showered the child with loving attention every chance she got. That wasn’t enough for her. She feared her limited concern wasn’t enough for the child, either.

Ever restless, Robbie wiggled off the settee to dart across the room to his low shelf of toys and books. He pulled out book after book, discarding one for the next, until he came to a well-worn favorite, a volume of illustrated fairy tales. His cherubic face was as somber as a choirboy’s as he leafed through the pages, searching for the story of the giant and the beanstalk.

When he found the picture of Jack trading his mother’s cow for three beans, he popped back onto his sturdy feet, ran across the room and laid the open book on Elizabeth’s lap. She rumpled his hair and smiled.

“Ah, I see. You brought me the picture. How many beans is that? Do you know?”

Robbie tilted his face up to hers and sighed, deep and long. He held up four fingers, which was wrong, but he said, “Three,” which was correct.

“That’s right, three beans.” Elizabeth smiled as she tucked his first finger under the tight compression of his thumb, making his gesture match his words. “Three beans and one, two, three, four, five fingers. Very good, Robbie.”

Unconcerned with numbers, he whirled away and sat in the midst of his toy soldiers and castle blocks. In the blink of an eye, the child was engrossed in his toys and oblivious of Elizabeth’s presence.

Fascinated, as always, by everything Robbie did, Elizabeth watched him build a new wall and line a squadron of tin soldiers on its rim, then flop onto his belly to maneuver the pieces.

The door to the nursery opened, and Krissy bustled in, bringing Robbie’s supper on a tray. “Well, and himself does love the wee soldiers Colonel Graham gave him, doesn’t he? Good eve, milady. I’ve brought your supper, Master Robert. Come. Up to the table with you.”

Elizabeth stood. “Robbie, I’m going to go now. I have to speak to His Grace.”

“’Bye,” Robbie grunted, engrossed in the toys, oblivious of both Elizabeth and the servant setting up his supper on the nursery table.

Krissy cast an indulgent smile at Elizabeth that, in effect, excused the child’s bad manners. Elizabeth made her own allowances for Robbie’s not standing when she did. He was so young, a baby still in the nursery. Manners would come in time.

She could no longer put off the necessity of speaking privately with her father, and the sooner the better.

Elizabeth slipped through the door joining her and Robbie’s rooms and closed it quietly, but as she checked her appearance, she kept one ear cocked to the activity in the other room. Krissy could talk the ear off a marble statue. Robbie’s infrequent mumbled grunts made no difference to her.

Elizabeth ran a brush through her hair and vainly tried to loosen the tightness out of her chestnut curls, tugging on the cluster that draped across her shoulder to stretch it. The moment she let the end of the curl go, it corkscrewed back where it had been.