She tried to tell herself that this was Scotland, that she was no longer in America, but at the same time, she saw the rags the children were wearing. The word “clan” meant children. These people were by tradition Harry’s children, yet he didn’t act as though he were their father.
She tried not to think of Harry in a bad light. She couldn’t think of Harry in any way except a good one. If she was in love with him then she was in love with him as he really was, not as she wanted him to be.
She stood and went to the wardrobe to get an afternoon dress. Perhaps Harry didn’t know any other way. Perhaps Trevelyan was right and this was the way Harry had been raised. This was all that he knew.
After lunch she would talk to him. Perhaps he would be willing to allow her to make a few changes after they were married. Maybe not drastic changes but enough to make a difference. There was no reason why Bramley couldn’t become a paying enterprise. Perhaps that’s what Harry wanted too, except he didn’t know how to go about achieving it. Yes, that was it. She was sure of it.
She pulled a dress from the wardrobe and began to smile. Yes, that had to be it.
Chapter Eleven
I want to know every word she said,” Eugenia, duchess of MacArran, said to her youngest son.
“Mother,” Harry said. His voice was pleading. “I’m sure Claire didn’t mean—”
“Let me be the judge of what she meant.”
“She’s an American. One has to make allowances.”
Eugenia fixed her son with a look.
“All right,” Harry said in exasperation. “This morning I took her on a tour of the estate. Charles went with us, or I should say that we went with him.” He paused a moment. “I had no idea so much was going on in this place. It was interesting—not that I want to repeat it, but it was interesting. I must say that Americans are an odd lot, though.”
“What did she do?”
“She seemed to like the children. The whole filthy lot of them. She drank milk from pails that had cow manure on the bottom of them. I don’t know how she stood it.”
“Perhaps after you’re married you shouldn’t allow such things.”
Harry shrugged. “I don’t think it will matter after we’re married, because the filthy beggars will be gone, won’t they?”
“You haven’t told her that, have you?” Eugenia asked sharply.
“I’m not a complete idiot. I’m not going to tell her that you plan to ship her adored crofters off to America or wherever and tear down those hideous old houses and run sheep over the land.”
“I have no idea why you sound as though it were something bad. It is what nearly all the other landowners have already done.” Eugenia’s voice had a sad tone to it. “After all, Harry, I’m doing this for you.”
“I know, Mother, and I appreciate it. I’ll be as glad as you to get rid of those houses. Once they’re gone I shall be able to lead hunts across the fields.”
“And you can profit from the sheep.”
“Now you sound like Claire.”
“What does that mean?” Eugenia snapped. “Are you saying that I am like your interfering little American?”
“No, of course not. I merely meant that Claire talks constantly about ways to make money. She wants to cut down trees; she wants to plant fields with corn; she wants to sell bramble jelly. I don’t know what else. It makes my head swim just listening to her.”
“She means to run this place,” Eugenia said softly. “She means to have me out of here.”
“I haven’t heard her say any such thing. I don’t see why my mother and my wife couldn’t work together. If you both want to make this place pay then why not work together?”
Eugenia looked at her son for a long while, saw the way he was lounging in his chair, bored with the whole idea of work. Together! Eugenia thought. What Harry didn’t realize was that the two women were about to engage in a power struggle, and Eugenia meant to win.
Eugenia gave a loud moan and put her hand to her ankle. Her left foot was encased in a thick, built-up, black leather boot.
Harry came instantly alert. “Mother, are you in pain? Would you like to lie down?”
“No,” Eugenia said softly, weakly. “I’m not in pain, at least not more than usual, not more than I have suffered every day since you were born. It’s my heart that hurts me. When you marry you will no longer be my son.”
Harry sat on the floor at his mother’s side and put his head on her knee as he’d done a thousand times before. “What nonsense do you speak? I could never forget you.”
She stroked his fine, blond hair. “It’s traditional that when the son marries, the mother retires to the dower house. After you’re married, your pretty little wife will send me away to some cold place. I will no longer have my things about me, for they will be hers then. But, most of all, my darling, I won’t get to see you every day.”
“Of course you will. I shall ride to wherever you are every day of my life.”
“Harry, my dearest child, how sweet you are. But it will rain and it will snow, and then there will be things to keep you from seeing your poor old mother.”
“Mother, I promise that—”
“You won’t allow her to throw me out of my own house? The house where I’ve lived most of my life?”
“But Mother, Claire will be the duchess and she should—”
“I understand. But of course you will be the duke, and it’s such a small thing that I ask of you. Merely to stay in my own home.”
“Yes, of course it’s a small thing.” He squeezed his mother’s hand as she smoothed his hair behind his ear. “You may stay. I’m sure Claire won’t mind.”
Eugenia was quiet for a moment. “Do you love her so very much?”
“I do rather like her. Although…”
“Although what?”
“The last few days she has been different.”
Eugenia’s ears perked up and her caressing voice changed. “How is she different? What has changed her?”
It was on the tip of Harry’s tongue to say that Trevelyan had upset Claire, but he didn’t. It was one thing to tell a few white lies to the woman he was planning to marry, but it was another to tell his mother that her second son had come back from the dead. Sometimes Trevelyan made Harry angry, but he didn’t hate his brother, and that’s what he’d have to do in order to justify telling his mother that Trevelyan was not dead and was staying in the old part of the house.
“She has trouble adjusting to this way of life,” Harry said. “I gather that in America she had a very different sort of life.”
“Such as?”
“Busy. Very, very busy.” Harry took his mother’s hand and kissed it. “I think you’re going to love her. I think the two of you will become great friends. You will be the two women I love most in the world.”
Eugenia smiled at her son. “Send her to me for tea tomorrow afternoon.”
Chapter Twelve
By five o’clock, when it was time for tea with the duchess, Claire was a nervous wreck. She was dressed in her best lace gown, all the lace handmade in France. She had purchased this dress especially with the idea of meeting Harry’s mother.
Miss Rogers escorted Claire to the duchess’s door, then, with a little shake of her gray-haired, gray-faced head, as if to tell Claire that she, an American, would never live up to standards, she left her there.
“Thank you for the encouragement,” Claire muttered. She checked that her dress was straight, checked for the hundredth time that she had the little notebook and pencil she had been instructed to bring, took a deep breath, and put her hand on the doorknob.
The moment Claire walked into the enormous sitting room, she thought, This is where all the wealth is. It didn’t take a scholar of art to see that the paintings on the walls were old and very valuable. She recognized Rubens, Rembrandt, Titian. On carved, gold-leafed tables were objects of great beauty and great value. In the rest of the house the furnishings were dirty and torn, but in th
is room all was spotless. The silk that draped the walls and the windows was new and, to Claire’s experienced eye, astonishingly expensive.
Mother will be green with envy, Claire thought as she looked about the room.
But Claire’s eyes were soon drawn from the walls and the Aubusson rug to the woman sitting in the big chair near the silver tea tray. She was a stout woman, with steel gray hair severely pulled back from a handsome face. Claire thought that at one time the woman might have been pretty, but now there was a sternness about her that was…well, frightening. She was dressed in an expensive gown of dark blue silk, well cut, but at least ten years out of fashion. Below the dress Claire could see the heavy black boot on her left foot.
“How do you do, Your Grace,” Claire said, smiling at the woman.
The duchess did not smile back, nor did she ask Claire to sit down. Claire stood where she was, not sure what to do. She watched as the duchess poured a cup of tea and Claire stepped forward, assuming the woman was going to offer it to her.
She did not. The duchess lifted the cup to her own lips and began to drink.
Claire took a step backward, puzzled and feeling awkward.
“So, you plan to marry my son.” The woman looked Claire up and down. “Are you a virgin?”
Claire blinked a couple of times. “Yes, ma’am,” she whispered. “I am.”
“Good. I will not have my son marrying used goods.”
Claire swallowed. This was not how she’d imagined a duchess to talk. She took a step toward a chair across from the duchess, meaning to sit down, but the duchess paused with the cup on the way to her lips and looked at Claire in horror. Claire immediately straightened and did not sit down.
“I assume there is nothing wrong with you, that you can bear children.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Claire whispered. “I believe that I can.”
“The bearing of children is your first responsibility as the eleventh duchess of MacArran. You are to bear my son sons of his own. There should be a son produced within the first year of marriage and another son within the second year. After that it is up to my son as to what he wants.”
Claire could feel herself blushing. “I will do my best.”
The duchess picked up a saucer, put a small, iced cake on it, and began to eat. “Your second responsibility will be to take care of my son. While I am alive I will take care of him. I will see that he has what he needs and that he gets what he wants. But I will not always be here, therefore you will have to take over some of my responsibilities.”
Claire thought that by saying she would not always be here, she meant that after the marriage she would be moving to the dower house, a lovely place Claire had seen yesterday. Claire smiled. “I will never be able to replace you in Harry’s life and I’m sure he will visit you often. I’m sure that—”
The duchess gave Claire a look that made her take a step backward. There was sure fury and rage and…and, she wasn’t sure, but it looked as though there was almost hatred in that look. “Visit me? You are saying that you think my son will toss me from his house?”
“No ma’am,” Claire stammered. “I assumed that you would live in the dower house.”
The duchess gave Claire a look that was almost a sneer. “You want my rooms, do you? You want my rooms as well as my son? What else do you want?”
At the moment what Claire wanted most in the world was to leave that room and never see it again. “I meant no disrespect,” she murmured softly, her head lowered. She did not want to anger Harry’s mother, didn’t want her telling Harry that the woman he wanted to marry was an aggressive American.
The duchess watched Claire, then gave a sound as though she were mollified. “All right,” she said at last. “It’s better that you and I get along. This will be difficult enough as it is.”
Claire let out her pent-up breath and gave the woman a tentative smile. “I think it would be good for Harry’s sake if we became friends. He speaks so highly of you.”
“Of course he does,” the duchess snapped.
Claire tensed again. Everything she said seemed to offend the woman.
“Shall we get on with it?” the duchess said. “You must learn how to take care of my son.”
“Yes,” Claire said. “I would like to know about Harry. He—” The duchess cut her off, not allowing her to say another word.
“Open your notebook.”
Before Claire could get the little book open, the duchess began speaking very rapidly.
“We will start with peas. My son will eat peas with ham and beef, but he’s not to be served peas with chicken. Except chicken in cream sauce. Then peas are always to be served. Of course he never eats peas with mutton, but peas with lamb are allowed, but only if the lamb is under six months old. Peas can be served with veal but only in the spring. No peas with veal in the winter and of course no peas with fish of any kind. Nor are peas to be served with game, except squab, of course. Shall we proceed to carrots?”
During this Claire had not had time to get her mouth closed, much less her notebook open. But at the word carrots she moved so she could rest her notebook against the back of a chair and began to write as quickly as possible. But it wasn’t nearly fast enough. There were instructions about vegetables, meat, game, how to serve Harry’s food, when it was to be served. It was all much, much too complex to understand, much less write down.
Once the duchess had finished with the food, she told of Harry’s weak back and how he was to be taken care of should he have back pains. The treatment involved tents full of steam and hot towels and compresses full of aromatic herbs.
Claire was never to raise her voice to Harry, never to argue with him, never to cross him in any way. The duchess told Claire what games Harry could and could not play, and she advised Claire to allow Harry to win any and all card games. “To win gives him such pleasure,” the duchess said.
She went on to tell Claire what colors Harry’s clothes should be. Harry was never, never to have wool next to his tender skin. With an angry look at Claire she told how she did not approve of Harry’s wearing of those disgusting Scots’ clothes. Her look let Claire know that it was her fault Harry was running around bare legged and that she was close to killing him with her absurd love of these clothes. Claire heard herself murmuring an apology.
The duchess told of Harry’s schedule, of when he could and could not do things. She chastised Claire for being so selfish as to drag Harry from a warm bed to take her on a survey of the estate. “My son is a man who tries to please. He likes to give to people. He will do whatever anyone asks of him, for he is generous beyond belief, but this morning I could tell he was nearly ill from having to spend a cold morning yesterday wearing improper clothes and traipsing about the countryside.”
Claire had no idea Harry was of such a delicate constitution, that he caught colds so easily or that he had a weak back, and she felt bad that she had been so unobservant as not to have seen it. “I will be more careful in the future,” she murmured.
“Yes, see that you are.”
At seven, after the two longest hours of Claire’s life, Harry came into the room. Claire was so glad to see him she almost ran to him to throw her arms about him, but then she remembered his bad back.
“Mother,” Harry said cheerfully, “the two of you have been in here for ages.” He went forward and kissed his mother’s cheek, then perched on the edge of her chair.
Claire watched from her place behind the chair and saw the way the woman’s face softened when she looked at her son. Her eyes looked younger, almost like those of a girl who looked on the face of her lover. Claire looked at Harry and saw the tenderness between the two of them. And as she saw them together, she knew that she would always, forever, eternally be an outsider.
Harry raised from bending over his mother, took a biscuit from the tea tray, and munched as he looked at Claire. Claire wondered if almond cookies were on her list as a yes, a no, or a maybe. “Why are you standing?” he asked. br />
Claire looked at the two of them, the old woman sitting on the chair that now she thought resembled a throne and Harry draped over the arm of it, his kilt showing his strong legs, and she plainly and simply wanted to run away. The duchess was looking at her with interest, to see what she would answer to Harry’s question.
“I can write better when I’m standing,” Claire said.
The duchess lifted one eyebrow in acknowledgment of Claire’s quick thinking.
“Mmmm,” Harry said, not really interested. “And what are you writing?”
“About you,” Claire said, smiling at him and not looking at the duchess.
Harry bent and again kissed his mother’s cheek. “You old darling, you haven’t been boring Claire with all my childhood ailments, have you?”
“I was just trying to take care of you. That’s what a mother does.” She gave him a look that was so full of love Claire was embarrassed to have seen it. It was too private, too intimate for another person to see.
Harry smiled at Claire. “You will probably hear dreadful stories about my mother,” he said, and he was thinking about Trevelyan, “but I want you to know they aren’t true. She is the kindest, sweetest person in the world, and I’m sure that in time you will come to love her as much as I do.”
Claire looked at the duchess and saw the sly smile on her face. It was an expression that let Claire know she owned her son and always would.
“I must go,” Claire said. “I…I promised my mother I’d see her before dinner.” Quite suddenly Claire thought that she might explode if she had to stay in that opulent room one more minute of her life.
Harry got off the arm of his mother’s chair. “Stay and I’ll order fresh tea. You can tell Mother all about the horse I bought you. You haven’t even named it yet. The two of you can decide on the horse’s name.”
“I really must go. Thank you, Your Grace, for…for everything.”
“Wait,” Harry said, “I’ll go with you.”
“No, please don’t,” Claire said. “I have to go.” She was at the point that she didn’t care if she was rude or not. All she knew was that, as she lived and breathed, she had to get out of that room.