“You’re not married, are you?” James said quietly. “Never have been, have you?”
“I, ah . . . You want any more chicken? Or would you like some pie? Ramsey picked blackberries all afternoon.”
She stopped because James had leaned back in his chair and was smiling at her as though he knew something that she didn’t.
“Would someone pleeeeeeeeassssssse tell me what’s going on in this house?” she asked. “Every person in it is acting strangely. Alys has been whispering with Ramsey, and Grace looks like she’s at a funeral. And you have been brooding so much that Heathcliff would envy you.”
But James didn’t answer her. Instead, he said that he would like to have some pie. And for all the world he seemed to have solved some mystery, and he was very pleased with himself for having done so.
Sixteen
Mad, Temperance thought. Everyone on the almost-island had gone crazy.
It was the evening of the day after that strange dinner with James and, if possible, the people on McCairn had all gone mad. Maybe they’d drunk something that had a poisonous herb in it, she thought.
She was now at the top of the mountain, and she had practically run up the steep, narrow trail. A few weeks ago she’d been terrified by that trail, but not now. Now it seemed like the least fearful thing in the entire village.
For the last day and a half she had been living with people who made no sense at all. It was as though they were in on some conspiracy that she knew nothing of.
This morning Horrible Hamish’s wife had come running up to Temperance and whispered that Hamish had seen her naked in the pond.
Taken off guard, Temperance had said, “He saw me? No, wait, I wasn’t naked in any pond. Do you mean the bathtub?”
Lilias looked at Temperance as though she were daft. “Not you. Me,” she whispered. “That’s how Hamish and I met. I was taking a bath in the pond by the bottom of the rock fall, and he saw me. Of course I knew he was there and that’s why—” She broke off when she saw Sheenagh walk by, then Lilias put her finger to her lips in secrecy as she hurried away.
Temperance was sure that Lilias had just shared some great secret with her, but why had she shared such an intimate secret? And then there was the thought of stripping off so Hamish would see her naked. At that Temperance gave a shudder of revulsion. Why in the world had the woman wanted that odious little bull of a man?
Shrugging, Temperance had continued walking down the street that ran through the center of the village. At the end of it was the warehouse where Grace’s hatmaking shop was going to be established, and Temperance wanted to see how the work was going.
But she was stopped by Moira, who was a cousin of Grace’s late husband. Moira whispered to Temperance that her husband had broken his arm and she had nursed him back to health. “We were left alone a lot, if you know what I mean.”
All Temperance could do was give a weak smile, and after the woman went away, she continued walking. But two steps later, a woman she had never seen before told Temperance that she and her husband had been trapped together in a shed all night. “After that we had to get married,” the woman said with a great cackle of laughter before hurrying away.
By the time Temperance got to the warehouse, she was sure that the people had gone insane. Grace was there with Alys, and Grace was telling the men that, yes, the windows had to be made larger. “You spend fourteen hours a day sewing without good light and see how your eyes stand up to it,” she was snapping at Rory, the man James had put in charge of the rebuilding.
Temperance dropped the big bag that Eppie had filled with food for the workmen by the door. “Could someone please tell me what’s going on?” she said. “Is there a festival in the planning?”
“Not unless someone else does the planning,” Grace answered quickly. “Why?”
“Because every woman in this village is telling me how she met her husband. I must say that for so quiet a little place, there have been some risqué meetings. The women of McCairn—”
She broke off because Alys looked at Grace, and the girl’s eyes were wide in horror.
“I told them to tell us!” Alys said in a whine; then she turned and ran out the doorway so fast that she nearly knocked Temperance over.
“What’s going on?” Temperance asked, eyes narrowed at Grace.
“The children are planning a surprise for you,” Grace said quickly. “They’re writing a history of Clan McCairn for you to take back to New York with you.”
“And the history tells who had to marry whom?” Temperance asked. “You wouldn’t believe what these women are telling me. Hamish’s wife . . .” She trailed off because she didn’t want to betray a confidence, but if it were a secret, why was Lilias telling it to be put into a book about the history of the clan?
“I don’t think that what I’ve been hearing is quite suitable for a history,” Temperance said. “At least not if it’s to be published. Haven’t there been some battles near here or something bigger—in a historical sense? And, anyway, should the children be hearing what their parents got up to before they were married?”
She looked at Grace and Rory, but they just stood there staring at her without saying a word.
Finally Rory said in a voice louder than it needed to be, “I think you have enough light. It’s going to cost too much to heat the place in winter if you have these huge windows.”
Grace turned her back on Temperance to face Rory and said just as loudly, “You don’t know what you’re talking about. It’s my business, and I’ll have it as I want it.”
Temperance stood there looking at the back of the two of them and knew that what she’d just been told was a lie. Not about how Mrs. Hamish had danced about in a pond naked in order to attract the ramrod-stiff Hamish, but about there being a book written on the history of Clan McCairn.
But whatever the secret was, Temperance wasn’t part of it, and they weren’t going to let her in on it.
Slowly, Temperance turned away and left the warehouse. For the first time in a long while, she felt like an outsider in the village. As she made her way back down the street, no one grabbed her arm and whispered intimate secrets about how she’d snared her husband. When she saw Lilias, the woman turned brilliant red before dashing inside McCairn’s one and only store. Temperance thought about following her and seeing if she could get some answers from her, but she knew that the village had closed itself and she was on the outside.
In the end, Temperance decided to spend the day in her room writing about all that she’d observed since she’d arrived in McCairn. She told herself that it was good that the villagers had shut her out of their lives because she needed to remember why she was there in the first place. She wanted to discover new ways to help the people in New York, the people who really needed her.
But Temperance found that she had difficulty writing because she kept remembering her time in McCairn. She thought of roller-skating with the children.
And sliding through James’s legs.
She thought of helping Grace with her hat business. And just yesterday when she’d quizzed Alys on numbers. “What’s 367 times 481?” she’d asked the girl. Temperance had no idea if the number 176,527 was right, but it sounded good. And the girl had looked into Temperance’s eyes and said that she wanted to be a doctor more than she wanted anything else in the whole wide world. Temperance agreed that it was good to have an education, but why would the girl think that she wanted to be a doctor?
And Temperance remembered the night James had thrown Charming Charmaine out the window. And the afternoon the muscular woman had appeared outside the cave. And how they had laughed over each incident.
And Temperance remembered delivering a sheep with James. And how she’d worn his shirt afterward. She thought about the times they’d shared lunch in his little cave. She wondered if he had ever taken other people to the cave. His wife, maybe? What had his wife been like? Other than unhappy, that is? As for that, why had she been so very unhapp
y? After all, there was so very much to do in McCairn. For all that Temperance had managed to get one business started, it wasn’t enough to sustain the whole place. The men had their sheep, but most of the women had . . .
Temperance looked down at her paper. She was supposed to be writing about what she would do when she returned to New York, but instead she’d written a list of things that needed or could be done in McCairn. She’d heard that Blind Brenda had some stories to tell. Were they good enough to be published?
After four unsuccessful attempts to get her mind back on New York, Temperance threw down her pen and went downstairs to the kitchen. Old Eppie was hacking away at some meat on the wooden table, so Temperance looked away. She would not now or ever again eat lamb.
“Letter for you,” Eppie said as she pointed a bloody hand toward the windowsill.
Was it from her mother saying that she’d found the most perfect of women for James to marry and soon Temperance could leave the place?
Hesitantly, Temperance took the letter, then smiled. It was from Agnes in New York. Now she’d be able to get her mind away from McCairn and back to her real work.
Temperance went outside, then leaned against the wall of the house to open the letter. It was short, as Agnes wasn’t much for writing. Temperance scanned the single page, reading that everything and everyone was all right, and that Temperance didn’t need to worry.
“She could have at least pretended to miss me,” Temperance whispered to herself. She had been away a long time, first the six months it had taken to make Angus McCairn come to his senses and now these many weeks here in McCairn.
“Thought you’d like to see this,” Agnes wrote. “She’s ever so nice.”
Attached to the page was a newspaper article that Temperance had to read three times before she believed what she was reading.
The news reporter had written a comparison of the “infamous” Temperance O’Neil and a Miss Deborah Madison, who had taken over the work “abandoned” by Temperance after she’d departed the country.
By the second reading, Temperance’s hands were trembling. The article talked about Temperance as though she had left the U.S. of her own free will, as though she’d grown bored with helping distressed women and had walked away from them, leaving them in a much worse state than they had been originally. Miss Madison had taken over the work Temperance had abandoned.
The article went on to compare the two women in a personal way. It said that Miss Deborah Madison was a much gentler, less abrasive woman than Temperance and, as such, she was able to accomplish so very much more.
Also, the article said, the woman was much, much younger than Temperance, and her ways were “more modern.” The article made it sound as though Temperance were 105 years old and her methods were from the Dark Ages.
“ ‘Younger,’ ‘more modern,’ ‘less abrasive,’ ‘easier to work with,’ ” Temperance whispered as she looked down at the article.
It was while she was in a state of shock over this letter that Ramsey came to her and handed her a folded piece of paper. The edge had been lapped over and a bit of red sealing wax poured onto it.
“What’s this?” Temperance asked the boy as she shoved the newspaper article and Agnes’s letter into her pocket.
“I don’t know. I was told to give it to you. That’s all I know.”
Yesterday she wouldn’t have been suspicious, but today she was sure that every word said to her was a lie. She glanced down at the paper. There was no writing on the outside, and the wax had not been stamped with a seal. She thought, I’m not going to open this, then looked up to tell Ramsey to return it to whoever had sent it.
But the boy was gone, and she was standing alone outside the house. How Temperance wished she were the type of person who could stamp down her curiosity and not open the letter!
But it was no use wishing. She broke open the page and looked at it. She hadn’t seen James’s handwriting but a couple of times, but that was enough to recognize it now. He’d written the note in a hurry.
Come at once. I need you immediately. Tell no one. The sheepherder’s cottage near where we delivered the sheep. J.
The treasure! was the only thought in her mind. James must have found out something about the treasure.
Without another thought in her head, Temperance started hurrying toward the mountain. After what she’d been through all day, it was good to be needed somewhere, by anyone.
It was only when she was nearly at the top of the mountain that she began to think. It was growing dark, and it felt as if it was about to rain. But then it was Scotland and it always seemed to be raining or about to rain, so that wasn’t unusual, but she didn’t want to be caught in the dark in the midst of a downpour.
Looking about her, she expected James to pop out of the bushes. He had the uncanny ability to walk absolutely silently and to be in places she didn’t expect him to be in.
“James?” she said out loud, but she didn’t hear anything except sheep. She took a few steps and her footsteps seemed to be very loud.
There was something about this whole situation that she didn’t like. James wasn’t the type to send her a note. He might tell Ramsey to deliver her somewhere, but he wouldn’t order her to climb a mountain alone. Certainly not at dusk.
Turning, she started back down the mountain, but then she heard a voice call her name. She stopped and turned back. “James?” she said.
“Over here,” came a voice that sounded like James’s, but she wasn’t sure.
Unfortunately, as she hesitated, the skies chose that moment to open up and within seconds she was soaked— and freezing. With her hands shielding her face from the pouring rain, she ran toward the little stone cottage that she knew was just ahead.
She saw the cottage just in front of her, and there was light coming from the door that was standing open. Through the deluge washing over her, she could see that inside was a fire burning in the fireplace. For a moment she had a sense of déjà vu, as it was what she’d dreamed of finding the first time she’d seen McCairn.
Running, she nearly leaped inside the cottage and slammed the door behind her. There was a table and two chairs on one side of the single room and a bed covered in sheepskins on the other. In the far wall in front of her was a fireplace and a stack of peat to keep the blaze going.
Temperance was so wet from her run in the rain that steam came off her clothes when she got near the fire, and she was shivering with cold. As she turned her back to the fire, it was then that she saw that there was a sheepskin flask hanging from a peg on the wall and on the table was a loaf of bread and a huge chunk of cheese, and when she lifted a crockery cover, she saw two chickens that had recently been roasted.
“What is going on?” Temperance said aloud, holding her arms across her chest as she shivered.
But she didn’t get an answer because at the next moment, the door flew open and in stormed James, his face drawn into a rage.
But when he saw Temperance, relief flooded his face. Crossing the room in one long stride, he pulled her into his arms. “Ye’re all right,” he said, and there was nothing but relief in his voice. “I was out of my mind with worry. Everyone is searching for you, and when I got your note that said you’d meet me here, I thought that maybe you’d been kidnapped.”
Temperance’s cold face was pressed into his wet clothing, and a sane part of her knew that she should disentangle herself and tell him about the note she’d received. Then they could sit down and logically discuss what was going on in the village and who had sent them both these manipulative messages. And who had called out to her?
But Temperance didn’t say anything. Maybe it was that odious newspaper article that she’d just read, but right now she needed to feel young and feminine. She’d never thought much about her age before, but since she’d first met Angus McCairn months ago, her age had been dangled in front of her until she was beginning to need something to prove to herself that she wasn’t a dried-up old woman.
>
She was sure that she was doing the wrong thing, but instead of pulling away, she lifted her face to look up at James. More than anything in the world, she wanted him to kiss her.
And he obliged. After a second’s hesitation, as though he wasn’t sure he should, he brought his lips down to hers.
A woman had once told Temperance that she couldn’t talk about resisting temptation until after she’d felt true ecstasy with a man. And Temperance thought that she’d felt that because she had kissed a few men before, had even kissed James, but then, she’d felt nothing like what she was feeling now.
One moment her body was freezing and the next she was warm. As James’s lips moved over hers, she stood on tiptoe to reach him. When he opened his mouth over hers and she felt the tip of his tongue, for a second, she pulled back; then she flung her arms about his neck and pressed her closed lips hard against his.
At that James drew back and looked at her, his eyes opened wide in wonder. “Merciful heavens,” he whispered. “You’re a virgin.”
For a second Temperance thought he was going to move away from her, but instead his arms tightened about her waist; then he twirled her around, her toes just touching the floor. Sheer happiness was on his face; then holding her aloft, he began to rain tiny little kisses on her neck, kisses that warmed her down to her wet shoes.
She thought she heard him say, “Not even my wife was a virgin,” but she wasn’t sure. Whatever he said, he wasn’t going to stop, wasn’t going to send her away.
In the next moment he stood her on the floor and began to unbutton her blouse. My goodness! but he was an expert at buttons. They came undone on the wet fabric much faster than she could ever have done them herself.
It was warm in the cottage, and the light from the fireplace made a lovely glow. She could smell the burning peat and the succulent food on the table. But most of all, she could smell him, the warm, delicious male smell of him.