Island of the Swans (33 page)

Alex still did not reply, but, with a sudden look of hot determination, he slid one palm beneath her voluminous skirts, tracing his fingers along the length of her silk-clad leg. Jane stiffened and closed her eyes. The memory of the hard, narrow cot aboard the
Providence
lying at anchor in Leith Harbor flashed across her mind, and, helpless to suppress it, she saw Thomas repeating that same gesture as a kind of torturous echo.

“Alex…” she protested weakly, as his fingers invaded her most private realm.

“Let me pleasure you like this, darling,” he urged, lightly kneading the flesh between her thighs. “This lovely part of you, I think, is what needs looking after…”

The coach rocked them to and fro like a sensuous cradle, heightening Jane’s arousal as Alex stroked her. He seemed bent on prolonging her physical delight, challenging her to cry out for relief from the cascade of pleasure assaulting her senses. Gradually, he began to set a different pace—swift and deeply penetrating. At length, exhausted, Jane could not control the voluptuous shudders overtaking her body as she arched against him. She heard herself whispering Alexander’s name over and over in a kind of litany, terrified the name Thomas might slip from her lips, unbidden.

A few minutes passed in silence. Jane was puzzled by her feeling of deep, physical contentment, when part of her longed for their lovemaking to be gentler—less a contest of wills.

Would the day ever come
, she wondered,
when she and Alexander could blend their passion together with a desire to disclose their deepest feelings and give of themselves fully
—
without reservation?

Her silent query was met by the sounds of distant cheers from the assortment of yeomen and goodwives lining the streets of the tiny border town of Gordon, named for her husband’s family eight centuries ago.

A discreet knock on the bedchamber door was followed by the sound of the door opening and the rattle of cups on a tray.

“Just put it on the table over there,” Alex directed the maid from behind the closed curtains of their four-poster. Jane listened sleepily to the sound of the woman who scurried to do the duke’s bidding. “I’ll see to the fire,” he said, pushing the peach-colored velvet hangings to one side. “Are Mr. and Mrs. Fordyce up and about yet?”

“Yes, Your Grace. Mr. Fordyce asks if eleven would be a suitable hour for your ride, sir?” the maid inquired, averting her eyes as Alex pulled back the other bed curtain, revealing Jane leaning contentedly against plump linen pillows.

“That will be fine,” he replied, dismissing the maid with a nod. Jane watched with amusement as he padded over to the fireplace, poking at the dormant coals until the brazier glowed invitingly. “Jane, will you be riding with us this morning?” he asked, heading toward the bed in his bare feet.

“No-o-o,” she groaned, sinking languidly into the feathery softness beneath her head. “I have scores of letters to attend to. I must pen notes to all those people who were so hospitable to us in London, so I shall stay right here to write them. You and John and Catherine may freeze if you choose… I shall be cozy and warm, awaiting your return.”

“What a lovely thought.” He grinned, slipping back under the bed linen and enfolding her in his arms. “Perhaps I shall change my mind about our ride…”

“
Alex!
” she giggled as his head ducked under the covers and his lips trailed kisses down the front of her sheer cotton nightdress toward her breasts.

A preemptory knock interrupted them. Alexander hastily emerged from beneath the coverlet. With a sense of easy familiarity, Jane’s sister and brother-in-law entered the room, their arms laden with wrapped packages and letters, part of the bridal booty that continued to accumulate at Ayton House during the ducal honeymoon tour.

“Forgive us for intruding… Tessa told us you were awake and having breakfast. Look!” Catherine said excitedly, indicating one of the packages. “This one came only two days ago, by special equerry. It’s from Their Majesties! Things were in such a tumult last night when you arrived, I completely forgot. And look at all these others! You’ll need an extra carriage to transport all your wedding gifts to Gordon Castle. The post alone will take you weeks to sort through.”

“Oh no!” groaned Jane. “More thank yous to scribble.” She heaved a mock-tragic sigh. “Put the letters on the bed here, and the packages over there,” she directed. “At least half the letters are addressed to you, Alex,” Jane said with a laugh. “I shall be more than happy to allow you to dispense with those as you wish!”

“’Tisn’t that why I married you, wench?” he teased, kissing her on the nose before getting out of bed once again. “To take care of such things?”

“Aye,” she agreed with a sly look in Alex’s direction, “but I fear, Your Grace, I am too fatigued this morn to see to such matters!”

“Jane!” Catherine exclaimed, blushing, but her husband John and Alex laughed heartily. The men withdrew to Alex’s dressing room as Catherine poured a cup of coffee for herself and her sister and sat on the bed. “All seems quite well with you,” she said tentatively, a flush beginning to spread up her neck once again.

Jane smiled.

“Aye… Alex and I have no problems in
this
department,” she said, lightly patting the bed’s pale peach damask coverlet. “We still have much to learn about each other, and I wish Alex weren’t so closemouthed about problems that bother him… but all in all, everyone’s advice, including yours, urging me to marry the man against my inclinations, has proved quite sensible. And how about you?”

“I’m breeding,” Catherine said in a soft, low voice. “At least I think I am… but don’t tell Mama till I’m sure!”

“Of
course…
but that’s wonderful!” Jane exclaimed, bouncing up and down on the bed excitedly and scattering the piles of letters in all directions. “Darling, Catherine’s
enceinte
!” Jane called, summoning Alex and John from the next room. “Isn’t that
wonderful
!”

“Congratulations, my good man!” Alexander exclaimed, thumping Fordyce on the back. “This is capital news! Jane, get dressed, lass! This calls for a wee dram or two, wouldna you say?” he added, adopting their Scottish brogue for a moment in jest. “Let us drink to your health in the drawing room in five minutes! And we can open the packet from Their Majesties.”

All of them cheered his proposal and scattered to comply with the duke’s suggestion. Alexander hurried downstairs with the wedding gift from the king and queen while Catherine repaired to her chamber to fetch a shawl against the morning chill. Her maid, Tessa, returned to brush Jane’s hair. Hurriedly she directed the girl to pile her tresses atop her head and secured it with pins.

“Now where are my blue slippers!” Jane exclaimed aloud, yanking open the tall armoire that towered against the wall. “Will you be so kind as to look in the trunk over there?” she directed the maid, “and I’ll look under the bed.” In a most unladylike fashion, Jane got down on her hands and knees, next to the four-poster, and lifted the brocade bedskirt. Peering under the mattress, she cried in triumph, “Ah… I’ve found one!” as she pushed aside several letters that had fallen to the floor in the earlier excitement to grasp a slipper. “And here’s the other!” she said, pulling both the lost slipper and another stray letter toward her.

Something caught her eye. A watermarked missive beside her satin-clad toe read:

Jane Maxwell, Hyndford Close, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Jane immediately recognized the hand. She began to tremble as she slowly retrieved the letter and pulled herself to her feet.

“You may go now,” she said faintly to the maid, as she sank onto the bed, staring at the yellowed epistle in her shaking fingers.

Her breathing had become labored, and blood seemed to be pounding in her temples. The post frank said
Philadelphia.
The date at the top, when she finally broke the seal, read:
Antrim Hall… Maryland… 1 August 1767… My dearest Jenny…

Thomas’s familiar handwriting swam before her eyes.

This can’t be happening!
her mind screamed.
This letter was written five months ago… months after Thomas died!

Her hand trembled so violently, she could hardly hold on to the vellum on which a postscript was written in a different color ink below Thomas’s signature.

…by the time you read this, I should be in Ireland… the fantastical tale of my survival proves I was saved to come back to you, Jenny, my love… I shall be by your side in November, at the latest… my love for you was the single thing that saw me through the darkest days… I love you with my life, sweet lass, and return with only one thought in my heart: to make you my bride… and to remain with you till the grave… Your T.

Carefully, Jane folded the pages and reached for her cloak.

It was an hour or more before they found her shivering and sobbing on the stone bench in the church cemetery that sloped down to the River Eye. The sluggish waters were nearly frozen over in the December frost. Alexander collected the pages of Thomas’s letter, scattered like dead leaves at Jane’s feet, while John Fordyce summoned two footmen to carry the half-delirious young woman back to the house. They placed her on a makeshift litter and slowly, the melancholy cortege wound its way across the snow past a row of headstones marked Martin, Cameron, and Graham. Jane struggled frantically, crying out that she must wait for Thomas Fraser beside the church, where he would come soon to marry her.

Once inside the house, Alexander gently lowered Jane’s prostrate form on the peach-colored counterpane that graced the four-poster and then immediately walked out of their bedchamber. The entire household spoke in whispers when the duke’s black carriage and another, hastily outfitted for the dowager duchess and Staats Morris, were brought around a few hours later to the front of the pink stone country house. Catherine, silent tears streaming down her cheeks, rose from her vigil beside Jane’s bed to watch through the casement window as the two vehicles began the long journey north to Gordon Castle. She turned to bury her head in the hollow of her husband’s shoulder, weeping quietly, while Jane’s mother stared, dumbstruck, at the carriages disappearing over the snow-clad hill at the end of the drive.

“Dear God!” was Lady Maxwell’s stricken cry, as she turned to stare at her daughter, slumbering fitfully in a laudanum-induced stupor. “What’s to become of the lass? What’s to become of us
all
?”

Katherine, the Dowager Duchess of Gordon, laid her hands along the sides of the silver teapot that rested on a small table in the drafty drawing room. The pot was distinctly cool. She gazed out the window, and a look of irritation creased her powdered brow.

Her son Alexander’s behavior during the past month and a half had been trying beyond words. How many days could a man disappear with his longbow and shoot deer for sport? The larder at Huntly Lodge was overflowing with carcasses! It was time the Duke of Gordon ceased his interminable stalking and made some decisions.