Chapter Five

CHAPTER FIVE

“Aunt Ceana?” Fiona said, standing in the doorway of the Tartan Parlor. “May I ask you a question?”

“Of course you can,” Ceana said, making room on the settee for Fiona.

Her niece sat beside her, folded her hands very primly and looked at her somberly.

“Is it so terrible living in Ireland? Do you miss Scotland so very much? Papa said you must. I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else but at Drumvagen. But I suppose I must, because one day I’ll marry and move away.”

“And you’re afraid you might go as far away as Ireland, is that it?”

Fiona nodded.

“I doubt you will,” Ceana said. “But if you fall in love and wish to marry someone, the distance won’t matter. You’ll go anywhere with him and hardly notice where you are.”

“Does it hurt very much to be in love?”

What a question. How on earth did she answer? Perhaps it would be better to direct the girl to her mother, but then Fiona continued.

“Sometimes I see them, my parents, and they look at each other and there is such pain in their eyes.”

Oh dear.

“I don’t think it’s pain at all, Fiona. I think it’s love you’re seeing. I was there, at the very beginning, you see. I remember when they first saw each other and it was like no other person existed for Virginia and Macrath. Or nobody was ever more important to my brother and your mother.”

Fiona threaded her fingers together.

“Sometimes I think they don’t notice when anyone else is in the room.”

“That’s a wonderful thing, don’t you think? A mother and a father should love each other the most first and then their children. Your grandfather, for example, spoke fondly of your grandmother every day of his life. When he died, it was with her name on his lips. I like to think he saw her at that moment and went to join her in heaven.”

“Like you’ll go and join Uncle Peter?”

The child knew how to ask questions, didn’t she?

Very well, she would turn the tables on her. “How do you like being the only girl in the household?”

Fiona sighed. “I do wish I had a sister. But then, she’d probably steal my hairbrush and want to wear my ribbons. Carlton steals things from me all the time, but he never wishes to wear my clothes.”

Ceana bit back her laughter with difficulty.

“There’s always a first time,” Bruce said.

She looked up to find the man grinning at her.

“I wouldn’t put it past Carlton to wear your clothes and pretend to be you, Fiona, in order to escape Drumvagen. He’s the master of escape.”

Fiona nodded. “He would. He doesn’t like to be confined. Or punished.” She sighed. “He’s very trying for a younger brother.”

“I can attest it’s also very trying to be the youngest,” Ceana said.

“Did you disobey your father?” Fiona asked.

“Indeed I did not.”

“Or tell tales that couldn’t possibly be true?”

She really couldn’t lie to her niece. “Maybe once or twice.”

“I would wager you didn’t stow aboard ship because you wanted to see America,” Bruce said.

“Oh, dear, did he really do that?” Her nephew sounded a great deal more adventurous than any of the family.

She heard Virginia calling her daughter. Before she could alert Fiona to her mother’s summons, the girl had scooted off the settee and was at the door.

“Thank you, Aunt Ceana,” she said, and smiled in parting, a gamine expression equally distributed between Ceana and Bruce.

She smiled after her niece. Her daughters would like Fiona. She truly needed to bring them home. They would love Scotland.

Bruce stared out the window at the waves rolling into shore. What was he thinking? That she wanted to know was a surprise.

“Why are you here, Mr. Preston?”

He turned his head and studied her.

“I’m not at liberty to discuss it with you, Mrs. Mead. I would if I could.”

He was the most annoying man.

“Tell me about your children,” he said.

She eyed him. “To what purpose?”

His smile was wry, as if he mocked his interest or her protectiveness.

“Can’t I simply be interested?” he asked, coming to sit beside her.

She wasn’t certain it was wise for him to be interested or for her to feel pleased. She looked out at the view, feeling like she was on a tiny island surrounded by the ocean. All she could see was Kinloch Bay and beyond to the North Sea.

“I have two daughters,” she said. “Ten and seven. Nessa is the youngest and the mischievous one. Darina’s more solemn. She worries about everything, and that worries me.”

“Were you the same?”

She considered the question.

“I don’t think I was. I was the youngest. First, there was Mairi, then Macrath, then me. Even after our father died and I knew we didn’t have much money, I didn’t worry. I knew Macrath would take care of me. Or Mairi.”

“You were fortunate to have such protectors.”

She nodded.

She hadn’t forgotten his response when she asked if he had children. He said “not anymore,” leaving her filled with curiosity. But it wasn’t a question she could easily ask. Instead, she let silence envelop them.

The sea breeze from the open window cooled the room, brought the scent of the ocean inside.

He didn’t talk or try to fill the silence with platitudes. Instead, he sat beside her as quiet as she, seemingly content.

She put her hand on the settee. Her little finger was only a short distance from his hand. They were so close yet so far away.

“My wife was from Mississippi,” he said. “We met during the graduation ceremony at West Point. Her brother was a good friend of mine.”

She didn’t turn, didn’t look at him, merely inspected the toes of her shoes peeping out from beneath her skirt.

“I knew about the tension between the states, but I never expected the situation to escalate to war. She’d taken the children to visit their grandparents in Mississippi. The day Fort Sumter was fired on, I was given my own division. Suddenly, the South was my enemy and my in--laws were traitors.”

He didn’t say anything else for a few moments. He simply sat studying the tartan pattern of the settee.

“She was stuck behind enemy lines.” He turned his head to look at her. “That’s how I was told to think of it. It took me a year to get to Mississippi.”

She really didn’t want to hear anymore. She wanted to wave her hand and send him from the room, allow her to think about her own children safe at Iverclaire.

Most of all she wanted to banish the spike of fear deep inside warning her of the horror of his tale. But once curiosity had been set free, it was difficult to quash it entirely. The question of his wife and children’s fate hung in her mind, desperate to be answered.

“Daniel was five. Sarah was six.”

“You never saw them again?”

“No.”

The one word was too simple, filled with such hopelessness she wanted to weep.

“After the war I tried once more. This time I found my sister--in--law.”

When he finally spoke again, she let out a relieved sigh, then caught her breath in the next second.

“She led me to all three graves,” he said, lowering his head to study his interlinked hands. “I don’t know what was worse, knowing or not knowing.”

“How did they die?” she softly asked.

“Corinth was a hospital town,” he said. “Soldiers returning from Shiloh were sent there, but the town wasn’t prepared for hundreds of thousands of men. -People died of the heat, of dysentery, of other diseases. So did my family.”

He looked away. “It was a very long time ago.”

“Do you ever truly forget such things? Is there enough time in the world to cope with such loss?”

He stood, glancing down at her, his fascinating eyes gleaming. “Perhaps not. But sooner or later you have to make a choice. To live in the world as it is. Or to sit wishing and hoping things were different. Wishing and hoping never made anything change.”

Before she could say anything else, he left her sitting there, staring after him, feeling as if she’d failed in some elemental and important way.

He hadn’t intended to tell her anything. He never talked about his wife or children. Instead, they were locked away in a vault in his mind.

Then why had he?

There was something about Ceana Mead that called to him. Maybe it was her nurturing nature? After all, she was trying to save Carlton when he first saw her. Fiona had taken to her immediately and Alistair couldn’t say enough good things about her. Or maybe it was the way she had of looking at him that seemed to burrow down into the core of him where the real Bruce lay, the person he never showed anyone.

He hadn’t wanted her pity, but perhaps he craved her understanding.

She had a directness about her that he hadn’t found in many women. But then he wasn’t in the company of women much. Had that been a conscious decision? If so, here at Drumvagen he had no option but to notice Ceana.

He wondered about her marriage. She said she’d loved Peter with all her heart. Did she miss the man the way he’d once missed Kate, as if part of his life had been turned to ashes at her death?

In the beginning he’d had to make a choice each day, the same one he suspected Ceana was making now. To live or to will himself to die. To choose to put one foot in front of the other, to enjoy life without guilt, to accumulate a treasure trove of memories having nothing to do with Kate or his children. To begin to build a life alone.

Was she doing that? And why did he care so much?