Once Upon a Tower

Page 73

“Yes, Your Grace,” he said, with that withering tone she hadn’t heard recently.
She nodded and he left, walking quickly back up the path.
“Just when I think that man is turning human, he shows a reptilian side,” Layla commented. “I have to say, though, I’ve never seen anyone work so hard. He’s up at dawn and never sleeps.”
It started raining again, only pattering down. Edie drew Layla inside and they began to climb the stairs. “Who would have thought that Scotland was so damp? I thought that England was famous for rain, but I’ve never seen so much water in my life.”
“It’s very snug in your tower,” Layla said. “You should see how chilly the nursery becomes on occasion. I have moved the majority of Susannah’s toys into another room while . . .” And she talked on while Edie tried to imagine herself climbing into a carriage. Leaving the tower, Bardolph, the servants who populated the castle. And Gowan.
The fact that he hadn’t cared to return or even to send a message made it easier. If her problem-solving husband had wanted to solve their marriage . . .
He would have returned. Layla had turned completely against Gowan; she kept saying that a different man would come along. But every time Edie tried to imagine such a thing, she saw Gowan’s eyes and the way he used to look at her.
The truth was heavy in her soul: she would not love any man other than Gowan. So, for her, it would have to be music.
Thirty-eight
It was time to go home. The loch was whipped by rain, its edges beaten into froth by a brutal wind. All this water would be flowing to the Lowlands, Gowan thought absently. It didn’t matter. His evacuation plans for the villages bordering the Glaschorrie were in place, and Bardolph would see to it they were carried out, if need be. He would leave the next morning.
The door opened, and Gowan’s head jerked up. The daily report had arrived. This week Bardolph hadn’t written a word about Edie or Susannah, or even Lady Gilchrist, although he reluctantly found himself thinking of her as Layla again. It was hard to loathe Layla, even knowing that she thought him less than a man. He kept hearing Edie’s sob, “She’s like a mother to me.” Would he condemn her for telling her mother?
At the time, that word had whipped his rage higher. But it was unreasonable to loathe mothers, and he knew it. Stupid, really.
After reading Bardolph’s report, Gowan summoned the groom who brought it from Craigievar. The man reported that everyone in the castle talked about nothing but the duchess’s music.
Gowan frowned, confused. “Do they hear it from the corridor?”
The groom had spent only an hour or so in the castle before turning back. But his understanding was that Her Grace put on a recital every afternoon, somewhere other than the castle. Down by the river, he thought. Anyone who was free went along to listen.
Edie was holding recitals for his servants. The idea that his own footmen were seeing her with her legs spread on either side of her cello, ogling her as she closed her eyes and swayed with the music . . . It opened up a gaping pain in his chest.
The feeling wasn’t a new one. One night, when he’d been a boy of around six or seven, his father had caught his arm, gripping it so tightly that Gowan began to cry, even though he knew better than to show even the slightest weakness in front of his father. Sure enough, the sight had infuriated the duke. He had gripped him harder, twisting the skin so that Gowan cried out . . . and then his dog, his brave, loyal Molly, had barked and leapt in the air and bitten the duke’s cheek. It was just a scratch, but it didn’t heal properly, and His Grace carried the scar to the day he died.
Gowan never forgot the moment when his father took Molly by her hind legs and threw her far into the raging river. He saw her head for a moment, and then she was gone.
He had walked the river for hours the next day. Bardolph was a young footman at that time, assigned to keep an eye on the heir. They walked and walked; Bardolph never suggested they turn back, and he never said a word about the fact that Gowan stumbled along crying.
They never found her. She could have been swept out to sea, all the way. She could have washed up somewhere . . .
He didn’t believe that, though. He was no good at believing in fairy tales, even at that age. He’d seen her head go down, and he hadn’t seen it come back up.
The memory brought the pain back as if it had happened yesterday, though surely it was sacrilege to compare one’s wife to a dog. Molly had been a gallant, foolish creature. She’d loved him and been loyal to him. She had no resemblance to his will-o’-the-wisp wife, who wasn’t his and would never be his.
And yet he was like a man possessed. It didn’t matter what Edie had done or not done. He loved her. It was as if part of him, some vital part, was cut off merely because he couldn’t walk into a room and see her.
The butler opened the door again just as he turned away from the rain-streaked window. “Your Grace, there is an urgent missive from Mr. Bardolph.”
An electric shock went from the roots of Gowan’s hair to his ankles. Nothing was ever urgent except death.
Death was always urgent.
He ripped the letter open so fast that a corner of paper tore off and spun to the ground. He read it. Read it again, read it a third time. Bardolph must be mistaken. Edie couldn’t leave him. What was she thinking? She couldn’t leave him. They were married.
He had considered leaving her, to be sure. But the idea had evaporated twenty minutes from the castle. Even the very first night, lying in an inn on his way to the Highlands, it had taken all his considerable willpower not to return to the castle and beg her to let him back into her bed.
His attention spun back to the paper in his hand. Layla, Susannah, and Edie were all leaving. His family. No. He threw the letter down and strode from the room.
“Of course, Your Grace,” his butler said a moment later, bowing. “The coaches will be ready early in the morning.”
Gowan looked out the window. It was still early afternoon, but the sky was an ugly gray. “I’m leaving now.”
The butler blinked. “I could have a carriage ready in two hours . . . an hour . . . without your valet?” The last part squeaked out, but Gowan was already striding down the corridor.
He had horses stabled all along the road. If he rode steadily, trading horses, he could be at Craigievar in thirty hours, give or take.
Fifteen minutes later, he was warmly dressed and watching with irritation as his stable master checked the saddle. “He don’t like rain,” the man advised. “He might spook, so watch your seat, if you don’t mind my saying so, Your Grace.”
He did mind. He never fell from a horse. Ever.
There’s always a first time for everything.
After three days, Edie finally gave in and asked Bardolph if he had informed the duke of their departure. Bardolph managed to convey with a bow that he disapproved of Gowan’s continued absence, which was consoling, in an odd way.
By the following morning, the ground had become spongy all the way down the hill to the tower, and the river had broadened and quickened. It was no longer a fat, lazy snake: now it rushed—with purpose. Its murmur had turned to a loud conversation, and her cello wound through the music of it as if the river played counterpoint.
Lord Gilchrist’s carriage drew up at the castle around noon. Edie saw it from the tower, but she decided that Layla and her father needed privacy. They would come to her when they were ready. She added a little prayer that her father would love Susannah as much as she and Layla did.