Authors: Christina Dodd
Lost in Your Arms
CHRISTINA DODD
Lost in Your Arms
This book is dedicated with thanks to
Luke Skywalker, for his constant assistance
in writing my novels.
Luke, no other cat could sit on a keyboard,
shed into a computer, or chose such
inopportune moments to demand to be petted.
May the force be with you.
Contents
Chapter 1
“Please, Mrs. MacLean, won’t ye tell us about
yer
wedding?”
Chapter 2
A black wrought-iron gate with the initial T worked into the metal…
Chapter 3
“Dying?” Enid covered her mouth.
Chapter 4
Each time MacLean awoke, he could see her,
Chapter 5
The female staring at him, her startling blue eyes unblinking,
Chapter 6
Gasping, Enid came to her feet in a rush…
Chapter 7
MacLean opened his eyes to candlelight.
Chapter 8
Enid sat alone in the rocking chair, listening to the creak of the floorboards…
Chapter 9
Enid pretended she didn’t understand, but MacLean didn’t care.
Chapter 10
This time when he woke, it was the middle of the night.
Chapter 11
“Ma’am, do you know what worm is eating at his gut?”
Chapter 12
Kinman looked after her, hands on his hips,
Chapter 13
MacLean recognized the tap of Enid’s footsteps, and he didn’t even wait…
Chapter 14
“Do you mean as man and wife?”
Chapter 15
MacLean. Enid struggled out of the covers.
Chapter 16
“Is there anything I can do for you before you leave, Mrs. MacLean?”
Chapter 17
Enid woke to hear the racket of the metal wheels on the track,
Chapter 18
“Down you go, lass.”
Chapter 19
Just before sunset, Enid crouched behind a coil of rope…
Chapter 20
“So you came racing to my side—or rather, Stephen’s side…
Chapter 21
“MacLean, put me down.”
Chapter 22
Enid woke in a huge, luxurious bed in a massive, luxurious bedchamber,
Chapter 23
What had Enid been thinking when she’d thrown MacLean out of her bedroom?
Chapter 24
MacLean waited until the gladsome greetings had died down,
Chapter 25
“Poor Lady Bess.”
Chapter 26
In the early morning hours before dawn…
Chapter 27
“You’re welcome!” Enid shouted back
Chapter 28
The London solicitor bowed in a most respectful manner…
London, 1843
“Please, Mrs. MacLean, won’t ye tell us about
yer
wedding?”
Her mouth full of cake, Enid stared around at the circle of feminine faces in Lady Halifax’s parlor, all bright with happiness, and at the blond, round-cheeked girl in whose honor they were gathered. The girl who had asked the question. The girl who, in less than a fortnight, would become the blushing bride to Lady Halifax’s underbutler. Swallowing, Enid took a breath. “My wedding? Oh, you don’t want to know about
my
wedding.”
“We do!”
An eager chorus answered her, a chorus from Lady Halifax’s upstairs maids, her downstairs maids, and her scullery maids, all girls with their heads stuffed with puff pastry dreams of love.
Enid, at the ripe old age of twenty-six, was at least five years everyone’s senior in age and five hundred years their senior in cynicism.
“Was yer wedding as wonderful as mine is going t’
be?” Kay clasped her hands at her bosom. The girl was resplendent with flowers and ribbons in her hair, surrounded by gifts given by her friends, and glowing with the light of love.
So Enid tried desperately to divert the conversation. “Nothing could be as wonderful as your wedding is going to be. That lace Lady Halifax asked me to bring as your wedding gift will make a lovely collar for your wedding gown.”
“Aye, it will.” Kay patted the fancy, machine-sewn lace Enid had delivered. “Lady Halifax is a grand mistress, an’ ye must convey me thanks t’er. Mrs. MacLean, did ye have lace on yer gown?”
The problem, as Enid saw it, was that she was a woman of mystery.
Oh, not really. For three years she had lived in the London town house as Lady Halifax’s nurse-companion. At first she had done little more than pass Lady Halifax her cane and make sure she had a clean handkerchief. But as time had gone on and the wasting disease had weakened Lady Halifax, Enid had become her mouth and ears in the household. She had reported the household activities to Lady Halifax and given Lady Halifax’s instructions to the servants. But never, ever, had she confided her past to anyone.
She knew speculation had run rampant. Because of Enid’s upper-class accent, her education and manners, the maids thought that she was a lady who had fallen on misfortune and had turned to labor to support herself. She had done nothing to dissuade them of that notion.
Now they had her trapped with their offer of tea and cake, their high hopes and fabulous imaginings.
“Please, Mrs. MacLean?” Sarah, the upstairs parlor maid, begged.
“Please?” Shirley, fifteen years old and fresh from the country, clapped her hands and tipped her cake plate off her lap and onto the carpet.
Everyone jumped to their feet, but Enid hushed the horrified exclamations and helped clean up the mess. “It’s all right, dear. See? There’s no harm done.” Trying to distract the tearful Shirley, she said, “Stop crying so you can hear the details of my wedding.”
Shirley snuffled into her handkerchief. “Aye.”
“Tell us,” Kay urged.
Enid could never confess the truth—so she would have to tell them a lie.
“Did ye get married in a big church?” Ardelia, plain, plump and brown, dabbed up the last crumbs of cake with her thumb.
Putting down her fork, Enid put the plate on the end table beside her and made the decision that, if she was going to tell a lie, she might as well tell a colossus. “
I
was married in a
cathedral
by a
bishop
.”
“A cathedral?” Sarah’s brown eyes grew huge.
“I was wed on a beautiful, sunny morning in June, with wild pink roses in my arms and all my friends in attendance.”
“Did ye wear white like Queen Victoria?” Ardelia quivered with excitement.
“No, not white.”
The maids groaned with disappointment.
“Her Majesty hadn’t married yet, and it wasn’t the style. But I did wear a blue dimity, very fine”—turned only twice—“with a splendid full skirt and black lace gloves”—loaned by the vicar’s wife—“and a blue velvet
hat with a black veil”—given by Stephen and acquired heaven-knew-where and hopefully by legal means. Carried away with her enthusiasm, Enid added, “And my black boots were polished so brightly, I could see my face in them.”
“Wi’ yer blue eyes an’ yer black ‘air, ye must have looked splendid, Mrs. MacLean.” Gloria, a rather nondescript girl who extravagantly admired Enid, flattered her now. “ ‘Ow did ye dress yer ‘air?”
Enid touched the loose knot gathered in a black net snood at the base of her neck. “It’s so flyaway, I can never do much more with it than this.”
Wide-eyed with innocence, Ardelia asked, “Why didn’t ye ‘ave yer maid dress yer ‘air?”
Bent on making the tale the best, most dramatic story they’d ever heard, Enid told them, “I didn’t have a maid.”
The girls exchanged sympathetic looks.
“My family had had setbacks . . .” Enid dabbed at her perfectly dry eyes. Dear, dear, these girls would believe anything!
“Oo.” Sarah loved a good theatrical better than anyone, and she knew how this story should end. “Yer family ‘ad lost their money, then yer Stephen rescued ye.”
Love never rescued anyone. If Enid were kind, she would have told the truth and disillusioned these girls. But she knew they wouldn’t believe her. Young people never did.
She
hadn’t.
“Yer ‘air’s pretty that way, Mrs. MacLean,” Shirley said.
“Thank you, Shirley.”
Ardelia leaned forward, eyes shining. “Did yer Da give ye away?”
“No, my father was dead.”
Good riddance.
“But I needed only Stephen.”
“Was yer ‘usband a tall and ‘andsome gennaman?” Dena’s ample bosom heaved at the thought.
“He boasted a head full of golden hair, so bright it almost outshone the sun, and fine pale skin.” Enid stared out the window at Lady Halifax’s city garden, not seeing the summer blossoms, instead trying to remember how Stephen MacLean had looked on that day nine years ago. Her memory produced a portrait tarnished by time. But that answer would never do for girls who wanted to believe in love ever after. “His eyes . . . I will never forget the color of his eyes . . .” That much was true, at least. “His eyes were the deepest green, almost like the sea on a stormy day, and shot with gold, like lightning bolts.”
“Sea green lightning bolts,” Ardelia said in tones of awe.
“But he wasn’t at all vain.” Stephen had been the vainest man Enid had ever met, but in this fairy tale he became a prince. “He would chortle and say that no man whose ears stuck out as his did”—she demonstrated with her hands—“could be handsome, but he carried with him an air of adventure and excitement that never flagged.”
“ ’E was an adventurer?” Shirley breathed in quick little gasps.
“Indeed. He was the son of a noble family, unjustly dispossessed by his wicked cousin, so he roamed the byways of England, helping the old and bringing justice to the poor.”
“Like Robin ‘ood,” Sarah said.
“Just like that.” Enid’s narrative carried her away.
“Did ’e sweep ye off yer feet like me Roger did?” Kay asked.
“He did. He met me, and right away he claimed I was the very woman he was looking for.” That, sadly, was the truth. Enid just hadn’t understood the underlying reason why. “He proposed that very night, but I was determined to be wise. I refused him for a fortnight.” She laughed at her youthful foolhardiness. “I was only seventeen. Two weeks was a very long time.”
“I’m seventeen, too!” Kay exclaimed. “An’ it seems like forever until I marry me Roger.”
“Time will pass,” Enid promised.
Kay grimaced. “Ye sound like me mum, Mrs. MacLean.”
Kay’s words pricked Enid’s bubble, and like Cook’s tall soufflé, she wanted to collapse in a wretched heap. Twenty-six years old, and this child proclaimed Enid to be just like her mother? How had Enid gone from youthful indiscretion to aged wisdom so quickly? How had she become like someone’s mother when she’d never even cradled a babe in her arms . . . and because of Stephen, she never would?
She strove never to think of that, yet here she was, glaring at a silly gaggle of girls who gradually straightened in their chairs and looked down at their feet.
“Mrs. MacLean, are ye . . . well?” Kay asked timidly.
Rising, Enid strode to the window to hide her expression. “I’m just lost in memory.” Too true, and too bad.
Sarah broke the brief, fearful moment of silence.
“Mrs. MacLean, if ye don’t mind me asking, what ‘appened to yer ‘usband?”
Enid hesitated, turned her head away, and considered how to end the tale. Finally, with delicate understatement, she said, “He rode out one day on his charger, and he . . . and he . . .”
“Was ’e rescuing some old poor lady?”
Kay furiously turned on Ardelia. “Sh!”
“Just so.” Enid smiled with tragic courage. “Now he is forever gone from me.”
Dena elbowed Shirley in the ribs. “I told ye she was like one o’ those tragic ‘eroines ye like so well.”
Her lies condemned Enid to hell. She knew it. But hell or not, she couldn’t resist one last, theatrical—and in its way truthful—declaration. “There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t think of him, or a night where I don’t wish I could see his face one more time.” Facing the maids, she struck a dramatic pose, her hands clutching the gold fringe of the curtains on either side of her. “I would give anything to see him one more time.”
The maids sighed in gusty, thrilled unison.
Lady Halifax’s quavering voice spoke from the doorway. “Enid, dear, Mr. Kinman has arrived to fulfill your dearest wish.”
Caught! In outrageous dramatizations, and by Lady Halifax, a woman Enid most admired.
There was more than one route to hell.
Enid snapped out of her affected pose. Pain-ridden and confined in her rolling chair, Lady Halifax observed her with sorrowful, incredulous eyes.
Behind her stood an officious-looking stranger,
dressed in the brown tweed proper. He, too, wore a solemn expression on his florid, prizefighter face.
Fear caught at Enid’s throat. What had Lady Halifax said?
Your dearest wish . . .
A whisper of concern rose from the maids.
Dropping a curtsy, Enid asked, “Ma’am? What do you mean?”
“Mr. Kinman?” Lady Halifax gestured at the gentleman. “Would you explain the situation to Mrs. MacLean?”
“It’s true.” Mr. Kinman stepped forward, twirling his brown derby in stubby fingers. “We have found your husband, Stephen—alive.”
Dressed in her sturdy, dark traveling clothes, Enid placed her case on the floor outside Lady Halifax’s bedchamber. With a soft knock, she entered the shadowy room. The new nurse rose from her chair beside the bed and came to her. “Lady Halifax is resting,” she said softly, “but until she’s seen you she refuses to sleep.” With a sympathetic pat on Enid’s shoulder, the nurse left the room, shutting the door behind her.
While Enid waited for her eyes to adjust to the dim light, she breathed in the familiar scents of lavender, cough syrup, old age and pain-wrought courage. Then with a rustle of petticoats, she slipped to the bedside.
Lady Halifax lay flat on her back, the counterpane pulled up under her chin and held in clawlike fingers. Her dark eyes glittered. “A
husband
, Enid? Why didn’t you tell me?”
Trust Lady Halifax to go right to the heart of the matter.
Enid placed a pillow under Lady Halifax’s bony
shoulders to ease her labored breathing. “A failed marriage is nothing to swank about, and a woman who can’t keep a husband is at best an object of pity.”
“Pity? You?” Lady Halifax laughed until she coughed, then rested until she could finish her thought. “You’ve survived and prospered. Nothing to pity about that.”
Enid straightened the bedside table while she thought about that. She could see that where some women would have given up, she had succeeded. She was an independent person. Of course, she had lost a great deal of the girl she had been, too. She was cynical. Sarcastic. She never allowed herself to indulge in the softer side of her nature, didn’t even know if the softer side still existed.
But of course it did. The proof reclined right before her eyes. Lady Halifax, skinny, sharp-tongued, ill-tempered at the best of times, held a piece of Enid’s heart. In a low tone, Enid said, “My lady, I don’t want to leave you.”
“But you must, dear.” Lady Halifax trailed a trembling finger over Enid’s cheek. “No matter what he has done, this Stephen is your husband.”
During the painful interview in Lady Halifax’s library, Mr. Kinman had told Enid she’d been sent for, and when she demanded to know more, he would say only that her husband was injured. Clearly, he’d imagined she would rush to her husband’s side. Such was, after all, a wife’s duty.
Lady Halifax obviously agreed. “It is proper that you go to your Stephen. He needs your loving care.”
“Love.” Enid invested the word with scorn.
“You must have loved him when you wed.”
“Infatuation, easily cured. Nothing kills love like having to listen to a man whimper that the world treats him badly, nothing that’s happened to him is his fault, it’s all bad luck and the fact that the laird of the MacLeans doesn’t like him.” Without realizing it, Enid slipped into a Scottish brogue. “And he’s a MacLean, by God, and not just any MacLean, but a MacLean of the Isle of Mull.”