Читать книгу Underneath The Mistletoe Collection - Джанис Мейнард, Marguerite Kaye - Страница 20
ОглавлениеAinsley had assumed they were going to the chapel, but when they got there Innes left the well-trodden path to push through a gap in the high rhododendron bushes in the nook forming the elbow of the graveyard, which she had not noticed before. The grass here was high, the path narrow, forcing them to walk single file. It led through the tunnel of the overgrown shrubs, emerging on a remote part of the cliff top looking not over the bay where the pier was being constructed, but over the far end of the Kyles, and the northern tip of the Isle of Bute.
‘That’s Loch Riddon you can see,’ Innes said, putting his arm around her shoulder, ‘and over there in the distance is Loch Striven.’
‘It’s lovely.’
‘It was Malcolm’s favourite view.’ Innes took her hand, leading her to the farthest edge of the path. Here, the grass was fresh mown around a small mound, on top of which was a cross. A Celtic cross, a miniature of the Drummond one. And on it, one name. ‘My brother,’ Innes said.
Ainsley stared at the birthdate recorded on the stone in consternation. ‘He was your twin! Oh, Innes, I had no idea.’
He was frowning deeply. She could see his throat working, his fingers clenching and unclenching as he stared down at the stone. She was not sure if he was going to punch the stone or break down in front of it. She was afraid to touch him, and aching to. ‘It’s a very beautiful spot,’ Ainsley said rather desperately.
‘Aye. And it was his favourite view, but all the same he would not have chosen to spend eternity here. Malcolm...’ Innes swallowed compulsively. ‘I’ve said before, Malcolm— It wasn’t just that he was raised to be the heir, Ainsley, he lived and breathed this place. The traditions meant as much to him as they did to my father. He would have wanted to be buried with the rest of them. Except they would not let that happen. No matter how much I tried to persuade them, they would not allow it.’
‘Why not?’ Ainsley asked, though she had a horrible premonition as to the answer.
‘Consecrated ground,’ Innes said. ‘My brother killed himself.’
Shock kept her silent for long moments. Then came a wrenching pain as she tried to imagine the agonies Innes must have suffered. Must still be suffering. ‘No wonder you left,’ she said, the first coherent thought she had. Tears came then, though she tried to stop them, feeling she had no right, but his face, so pale, so stiff, the tension in the muscles of his throat, working and working for control were too much for her. ‘Oh, Innes, I am so, so sorry.’
Seeking only to comfort, wordless, distraught, she wrapped her arms around his waist. He stood rigid for a moment, then his arms enfolded her. ‘I’m sorry,’ Ainsley said, over and over, rocking her body against him, and he held her, saying nothing, but holding on to her, his chest heaving, his hands clasping tighter and tighter around her waist, as if he was trying to hold himself together.
Gradually, his breathing calmed. Her tears dried. His hand relaxed its hold on her shoulder. ‘I had no idea,’ Ainsley said, scrubbing at her tear-stained cheeks.
‘Why should you?’ Innes replied gruffly. ‘I made sure not to tell you anything. While I was away from here, I could pretend it had not happened.’
‘That’s why you never came back?’
‘One of the reasons.’ He heaved a deep sigh, tracing the inscription on the cross, before turning away. ‘Come, there’s a rock over there that makes a fairly comfortable seat. It’s time you knew the whole of it.’ He touched her cheek, then dipped his head to kiss her. A fleeting kiss, tinged with sadness. ‘After this morning, we both know we can’t carry on as we have been.’
She knew, but only when he said it did she realise that she still had not accepted it. She’d hoped. Despite all, she had hoped. Sitting down beside him on the huge chair-shaped boulder, her heart sank. Whatever Innes was about to tell her would destroy that hope for ever.
* * *
Innes was staring out at the sea, where the turning tide was making ripples on the summer blue of the surface. ‘You know how things were with me here, when I was growing up,’ he said. ‘I can’t remember a time when I didn’t want to leave, but to leave without my father’s permission would undoubtedly have caused a breach between myself and my twin. It would be an exile for me, unless I returned under the whip, and one that Malcolm would feel obliged to uphold. You must remember, in those days, my father was not so old. An enforced separation from my twin for years, maybe even decades, was not something I wanted to have to deal with.’
‘And yet you left,’ Ainsley said.
‘I had planned to wait until after I came into an inheritance from my mother. I had persuaded myself that it would make a difference, my having independent means, that my father would not see it as a flaunting of his authority. As it turned out, I didn’t have to put it to the test. Events—events took over.’
Ainsley’s hand sought his. She braced herself.
‘There was a woman,’ Innes said.
He was still staring out to sea, his eyes almost the exact colour of the waters below. She loved him so much. A sigh escaped her, and he turned that beloved face towards her.
‘You guessed?’ he asked.
She stared at him blankly, her mind still trying to come to terms with what her heart had been trying to tell her for days now. Weeks? How long had she loved him?
‘I suppose it was obvious,’ Innes said. ‘My being so dead-set against marriage—I always wondered what you made of that.’
‘I thought...’ What? What! She gazed at him, such longing in her heart, letting it flood her for just a moment. Just a moment. She loved him so much.
‘Ainsley? You thought...’ Innes prompted.
He must not guess she loved him, that was what she thought. Because if he guessed, he would send her away immediately, and she needed a few more weeks. Just a few more. ‘I thought there must have been,’ she said. ‘A woman. I thought that’s what it must have been.’
‘Well, you were right.’
She waited, trying not to show what she was feeling. Was she looking at him differently? Innes was staring out to sea again, his throat working. Whatever was coming next, he was struggling with it. She didn’t want to hear him talking about another woman, but he obviously needed to tell her. Ainsley ruthlessly thrust her own storm of feelings to one side. ‘Go on,’ she said. ‘There was a woman. And of course she was lovely.’
‘She was. She was very lovely.’
She hadn’t meant him to agree with her. Now, perversely, she wanted to twist the knife, as if knowing how very different she was from his one true love would stop her loving him. ‘No doubt she was graced with a fortune, too,’ Ainsley said.
‘She was rich. An orphan and an only child, she was brought to live at Glen Vadie when she was just a bairn.’
‘Glen Vadie. That is the Caldwell estate?’
Innes nodded. ‘Aye, she was a distant relative of my mother’s. We grew up together.’
It was beginning to sound horribly like a fairy story, though without the happy ending, Ainsley thought. She already hated this rich, charming, well-born, beautiful woman.
Innes heaved a sigh. ‘I’m sorry, I’m not being very articulate. The truth is, I can hardly bear to think of it, for even after all this time I’m ashamed, and I don’t know what you’ll think of me.’
‘Innes, I could never think ill of you.’
He shifted uncomfortably on the stone and then got to his feet. ‘Ainsley, you will.’ His expression was deeply troubled, his eyes stormy. ‘I could let you go without telling you. I considered it, but I did not want this all to end on a lie.’
‘End?’ He had said it. She had known he was going to say it, but she wished he had not.
‘It was always going to end, Ainsley. We both knew that. It was what we agreed. You made it very clear you did not want anything else.’
Felled. Could a person be felled? She was felled. ‘And you?’
She hadn’t meant it to sound like a question. She couldn’t bear the way he answered her with such finality. ‘And me, too,’ Innes said gently. ‘Your being here, it was only meant to be for a wee while, to help me decide what to do with the place.’
‘But you haven’t decided,’ Ainsley said, unable to disguise the desperation in her voice. She was clutching at straws, she knew that, and knew, too, that it was pointless, but she couldn’t help herself.
‘I’ve decided that I’m going to stay,’ Innes said. ‘Besides, you know that’s not the point.’ He was flushed, but his mouth set firm, and when he spoke, though the words were said softly enough, the tone was resolute. ‘This morning I realised how much I have come to care for you, Ainsley. It’s not only that it breaks the terms of our agreement that makes my feelings for you wrong, nor that I know you don’t want the complication of any feelings at all, it’s that I can’t. It has to stop before either of us gets in too deep, for I will not allow myself to love you, Ainsley. I won’t.’
It hurt even more than she’d expected. She bit her lip hard, dug her nails into her palms, telling herself that she was glad he had not guessed her own feelings.
‘You’ll think me arrogant,’ he said, ‘telling you I won’t love you when you have no thought in your head of loving me.’ He sat down beside her again and took her hand, which she quickly unfurled from its fist. ‘This morning, we both got carried away. I could see from the look on your face afterwards that it—it shocked you as much as me. I don’t know what it is between us, maybe it’s spending so much time together that’s...I don’t know, intensified it, made it seem more than it is?’ He shrugged. ‘I do know that we neither of us want it, though. I do know that if I wasn’t telling you that it’s over, you’d be saying it to me, wouldn’t you?’
She ached to tell him just how far off the mark he had been in his interpretation of her reaction, but she was not so foolish. It was not pride that stopped her telling him how wrong he was, but love. Heartsick, she could only nod.
‘Aye.’ Innes nodded slowly. ‘I thought about letting you go without telling you, but I couldn’t. I want you to know, you see, not only because I owe it to you but because I—I can’t afford to allow myself to hope. This morning was like a glimpse of heaven and glimpse of hell at the same time.’ He stopped, running a shaky hand through his hair, and drew her a very ragged smile. ‘That’s why I brought you here. To remind me why it can’t go any further, and by showing you the worst of me, I’ll be making sure that even if I kept on wanting what I am not entitled to, I could never have it.’
As he looked over his shoulder at the cross, beneath which lay his brother’s mortal remains, goosebumps made Ainsley shudder. Her heart was clinging to Innes’s confession of how much he had come to care for her, wanting to believe it would be enough to turn the situation around, to persuade him that he could care more. Hope, that treacherous thing she could not seem to extinguish, blew this tiny flame to determined life. All she had to do was tell him that she loved him. That was all it would take.
But her head was having none of this. Innes did not want her love. Innes would not love. Innes did not feel entitled to love. It was a strange word to use, but as he turned back to her, his face bleak, the question died on her lips.
‘Her name was Blanche,’ he said.
It was, as Ainsley anticipated, horribly like a fairy tale. Blanche, Malcolm and Innes, like brothers and sister at first, until Blanche changed, seemingly overnight, blossoming into a beauty. The brothers no longer felt at all filial towards her. Desire, lust, and with it competition, had entered into their Garden of Eden.
‘But Blanche preferred you?’ Ainsley said, because of course she would, and who would not?
Innes looked genuinely puzzled. ‘How did you guess?’ Fortunately, he did not wait for an answer. ‘We tried to ignore it,’ he said. ‘How pathetic that sounds.’
‘You were very young.’
‘Old enough to know better.’
‘But if you were old enough—and you and she— If you were in love, then why— I don’t understand what the problem was.’
‘The problem,’ Innes said grimly, ‘was that Blanche was betrothed to my brother.’
Ainsley put her hand to her mouth, caught Innes watching and made a conscious effort to wipe the shock from her face. ‘But you were twins. Surely if Malcolm knew how you felt...’
‘He did not. We made sure he did not. At least, I thought we did,’ Innes told her, his mouth curled with disgust. ‘Besides, you’re forgetting that this is Strone Bridge. My father and Caldwell of Glen Vadie had signed the betrothal papers. A younger son would be no substitute for the heir.’
‘But if Blanche was in love with you...’
‘But Malcolm was in love with Blanche. And since Malcolm was my twin, I persuaded myself that I would be doing the honourable thing in giving her up, then I set about persuading Blanche that marrying Malcolm would not be so very different to marrying me. She and I enacted a most touching little scene, worthy of Shakespeare.’ Innes’s voice dripped sarcasm. ‘The lovers renouncing each other. There were tears and kisses aplenty, though needless to say, there were more kisses than tears.’
He couldn’t look at her. His hands were dug deep in his pockets as he stood before her, gazing over her shoulder at the cross on the grassy mound. ‘Blanche refused to go along with it at first, but I was determined. Carried away with my own sense of honour, I thought I was,’ Innes continued in a voice that poured scorn on his own youthful self. ‘I pushed her. I was determined, and Blanche was in the end a pliant and a dutiful wee thing, so she agreed, and the betrothal was formalised at a party in the Great Hall. I thought myself heartbroken, needless to say, but I told myself that I’d done the right thing by my brother and I told myself that what she felt— Well, I told myself that I knew best and she’d come to realise it. I told myself a lot of things, all of them utter drivel. I was that sure I was right, it didn’t even occur to me to ask what anyone else thought. What a fool I was.’
Ainsley made a sound of protest. Innes shook his head. ‘No, I really was, and arrogant with it. If you give me a minute, I’m nearly done. I just need a minute.’
He took a deep breath, then another, obviously steeling himself. Ainsley had no option but to wait, feeling quite sick at what he told her, and at what the telling of it was doing to him.
With a little nod, as if in answer to some internal dialogue, Innes continued brusquely, ‘Blanche wrote to Malcolm. It hadn’t occurred to me that she’d do that, that she’d want to try to explain herself—and me, too, in the process. She had the letter delivered after she’d fled. She had relatives in London. They were happy to take her and her fortune, I assume. I don’t know. She ran, and Malcolm got her letter, and when he showed it to me, I am ashamed to say what I felt was anger. I’d done my best to make all right, and she’d thwarted me. I didn’t think of her feelings or even his at first, only mine.’
Innes was speaking quickly now, the words tumbling out, as if they’d been packed deep inside him all these years. ‘So I was angry with her. I think I even went so far as to tell Malcolm I’d get her back for him, persuade her to marry him. The arrogance of me! It was that word I used, persuade, that betrayed me. Malcolm had suspected of course, but he had not been sure. “What do you mean, persuade her?” he asked me, and you should have seen the look on his face. Even now I can picture it. “How could you persuade her? Why should you?” I felt sick. Then, when the accusations finally came, I tried to lie to him, but we could never lie to each other, Malcolm and I, I should have remembered that from the first. So finally I told him, trying to sound as noble as I thought I’d been, only in the face of it, seeing his face, seeing his hopes, his dreams, crushed—for he had loved her truly, you see. Unlike me. He really had loved Blanche. “I’d have given her up,” he told me. “I only ever wanted her to be happy. How could you think I would marry her, knowing that she wanted you?”’
Ainsley sat as still as stone, her attention riveted on Innes, but he kept his eyes on the cross. His voice was cold now, as stripped of emotion, as his face was stripped of colour. Listening to him, she felt chilled.
‘I told him it all,’ he was saying, ‘and Malcolm—Malcolm got quieter and quieter. When I asked him if he forgave me, he said there was nothing to forgive, but that he wanted to be left alone, and I was so racked with guilt that I wanted nothing more than to leave him. Then he said that I should go after her. That I should make her happy. He said again that all he ever wanted was for us to be happy, and then he closed the door on me, and—and those were the last words he ever spoke to me.’
Ainsley was lost for words, but Innes was not finished tearing himself apart. ‘So you see,’ he said, with a painful crack in his voice, finally meeting her eyes, ‘my brother took his own life, but it was me who killed him. And now I have his lands, too,’ he said with a bitter laugh. ‘I have all of it, and I deserve none of it.’
‘You do not have Blanche,’ Ainsley whispered. ‘You gave her up, though you loved her.’ It was dreadful, but that was the thing that hurt the most.
‘Don’t go thinking there was anything noble about that,’ Innes said with a sneer, ‘because there was not. I didn’t love her. That’s why it was so easy to try to hand her back to Malcolm like an unwanted parcel, only I was so carried away with my own lofty gesture that I didn’t notice that until later.’ He rubbed his knuckles into his eyes, looking deeply weary. ‘When it came down to it, what I really wanted was to give my brother a reason to side with me against our father. If Malcolm was beholden to me for the love of his life, then he’d take my part, he’d help force my father to let me leave Strone Bridge on my terms. Do you see, Ainsley?’ Innes said earnestly, clasping her hands in his. ‘I was selfish at every step of the way. It cost my brother his life. I owe it to Malcolm to restore the heritage I deprived him of. I can atone here for what I’ve done, but I don’t deserve to be happy. This morning, I caught a glimpse of what that might be like. A timely reminder of what I deprived my brother of. I don’t deserve it, but you do. Do you understand now, why I told you?’
Sadly, Ainsley understood only too well. He thought to drive her away. He thought to disgust her. She felt only unutterably sad, for his tragic confession changed everything and nothing. ‘I understand that I can’t make you happy,’ she said, ‘but if what you intended was to make me despise you, then you have failed. You were all so very young.’
‘That is no excuse.’
His tone made it clear he would not be swayed. Only a few months ago, Ainsley would have accepted this. ‘It is,’ she said. ‘We all make mistakes through lack of experience. If I had loved John as much as I thought I did, perhaps he would not have died.’
‘That’s ridiculous. You know—’
‘I know now how much my own lack of confidence contributed to the—the deterioration of our marriage, but I did not know then,’ Ainsley said heatedly. ‘I know now, thanks to your encouragement, that I’m neither useless nor unattractive.’
‘Ainsley, he did that to you—’
‘No,’ she interrupted him determinedly. ‘I am not saying John was without fault, but nor was he entirely to blame. We were a—a fatal combination, but, Innes, how were we to know that?’ She clutched tightly at his fingers, pulling him towards her. ‘I have learned so much since I came here. I still feel guilty, and I still have regrets, but I am no longer eaten up with them. John is dead, and there’s nothing I can do about it, save make sure I don’t make the same mistakes again. You can do the same. Would not Malcolm want you to be happy?’
He held her gaze for a long moment, then flung her away, getting to his feet. ‘That’s not the point. I understand that you’re trying to make me feel better, but you can’t. You don’t understand.’
‘I do.’ She got slowly to her feet, feeling quite leaden. ‘You have made up your mind that I must go, and that is the one thing upon which we agree. I ask only that you allow me to remain here until I can— There are some things that I...’
‘Of course. Obviously we must wait to ensure that there were no consequences from this morning.’
It took her a moment to understand his meaning, and when she did, another moment to control the tears that welled suddenly into her eyes. Ainsley turned towards the sea, hoping to blame the breeze. ‘A few weeks,’ she said, thinking that would suffice to both torture her and accustom her.
‘The end of the year,’ Innes said. ‘An ending and a beginning.’
She whirled round, thinking for an awful moment that he was making fun of her, but his expression was as bleak as she felt. The thought that he was finding this almost as difficult as she was, however, was no comfort at all. ‘Until the end of the year,’ she agreed.
They made their way back past the chapel in silence, each wrapped up in their own tortuous thoughts. It was not until they reached the terrace again, and both stopped of their own accord, that Ainsley remembered her plans for the castle, but immediately abandoned any notion of sharing them with Innes right now. Instead, she asked one of the two unanswered questions. ‘What about Blanche? What happened to her?’
Innes stared at her blankly. ‘I have no idea.’ Did he care too little or too much? It seemed impossible that he should not know, for the Glen Vadie estate was less than twenty miles from here. ‘She never returned to Scotland,’ he added, presumably in response to her sceptical look.
‘Don’t you want to know if she’s happy?’
Innes shrugged dismissively. ‘I never sought her out, and she has never, to my knowledge, tried to get in touch with me for the same reason. Guilt,’ he clarified. ‘She will not wish to be reminded of those times any more than I do, and I have done enough damage, without dragging it all up for her. I know you think that’s hard, Ainsley, but it’s best left alone.’
‘You are very sure of that,’ she said.
‘Yes. That’s not arrogance. I’ve had fourteen years to make sure.’ He pushed his hair back from his face and smiled very wearily. ‘You do understand, Ainsley, this is how it has to be? I won’t—I won’t— I will sleep in my own bedchamber from now on.’
‘Yes,’ she whispered.
He took a step towards her, then stopped. ‘I must go and speak to Robert. Don’t wait dinner for me.’
He turned away, but she caught his arm. ‘Innes, I— Thank you for telling me. I won’t— I promise I won’t make it difficult for you.’
He enveloped her in a fierce hug. ‘I never thought you would. I only want— I’m sorry.’
She watched him go, hurtling down the scar in the cliff that would be the new road, allowing the tears to run down her cheeks now that he could no longer see her. She stood for a long time, staring out at the Kyles of Bute, her mind numb, her heart aching. Then she scrubbed at her eyes with her sleeve and drew a shaky breath. Innes had done so much to help free her from the burden of her past. She had until the end of the year to do what she could to return the favour. Which meant she had better make haste if she was going to track down Blanche Caldwell.
