The next day, Maddie came into the breakfast room and saw only Mr. Gallagher seated there. She paused on the threshold, feeling a shyness come over her. How would he react upon seeing her?
He looked up and gave her his usual smile. “Good morning, Miss Norton. Sleep well?” His tone was pleasant, nothing strained or awkward in it.
She stifled a sense of disappointment and crossed the room to the sideboard. “Yes, thank you. And you?”
“Very well, thank you.”
He continued eating, so she took a plate and served herself, chiding herself for getting herself all worked up about a simple dance. Was it a sign of an aging spinster when she began having delusions about a gentleman being attracted to her? She seated herself halfway down the table from him, unsure she could keep her own demeanor from betraying her. After a short blessing, she unfolded her napkin. When Mr. Gallagher lifted his coffee cup for a sip, Maddie couldn’t help glancing at his hand.
Even down the length of the table she could distinguish the wedding band he still wore. If she needed any further proof that his feelings remained unchanged, the wedding band was irrefutable evidence.
His eyes met hers. “You’re not too tired from last night’s festivities?”
“No. I didn’t go to bed too late.” She strove to match his matter-of-fact tone.
“You never did tell me yesterday when your birthday is to be.”
She blinked at him, surprised that he’d remembered the topic. She was foolish to make anything of it. “It—it’s next Saturday.”
“We were born a decade apart. I’ll be celebrating my fortieth on the twenty-ninth.”
She wondered how he’d celebrate. Before she could think of anything to say, he changed the subject. “We’ve been having quite a spate of good weather.”
“Yes.” She stirred a spoonful of sugar into her porridge, unused to the Scottish custom of unsweetened porridge.
“I’ve been thinking we should attempt Ben Lawers before the weather turns.”
She paused. Had he said “we”? She cleared her throat. “You said you wanted to climb to the top.”
“That’s right. Do you still want to attempt it?” He grinned. “As a milestone to mark your thirtieth and my fortieth?”
The idea began to grow on her. To scale a mountain peak to mark her birthday would certainly be better than thinking of herself as being forever on the shelf. She nodded. “Yes.” But what if she slowed him down? “That is if you still think I could—should....” She stopped, waiting for him to back out of his offer.
He shrugged. “It’s up to you. I’m told it’s anywhere from a five-to eight-hour hike there and back. We’d need to leave around dawn to return by midafternoon or a bit later.”
She moistened her lips. He hadn’t tried to get out of the invitation. Did that mean he really wanted her to go? His tone sounded noncommittal, yet, he was leaving it up to her. If he didn’t want her, he certainly needn’t have issued the invitation. He hadn’t invited his own sister, for one thing. “Do you think Mrs. Walker would care to go along?”
“Vera? I should hope not. She’d probably expect me to provide a means of conveyance and stop every half hour.”
“Yes, of course.” He was paying her a compliment if he thought she would be little trouble. “When would you like to go?”
“I thought tomorrow, if you’re sure you’re sufficiently recovered from the dance by then. Vera mentioned something about taking Aunt Millicent to Aberfeldy. They should be gone till early evening. I don’t think Aunt Millicent expects you to go along.”
“No.” It seemed perfect. She wiped her mouth with her napkin and set it down. “Then, yes, I should like to attempt the climb, if you’re sure I won’t hinder you.”
“Good. We can leave around dawn, as I said.” His tone conveyed no sign that her acceptance had either pleased or displeased him. “The gillie will accompany us. He knows the best trails from this side. I’ll speak with him about what we need to take.”
She nodded.
“There’s one other thing....” He continued regarding her.
“Yes?” Was there something wrong? He was looking at her a bit strangely.
“It’s just...your outfit.”
She stared down at her starched blouse and dark skirt.
“You’ll need suitable garments.” He cleared his throat. “You certainly can’t attempt a hike of that nature in a long skirt and—and—”
For the first time, she sensed his discomfort with the topic and took pity on him. “That’s all right. I’m used to walking long distances in London.”
“This is a lot different from walking the London streets. What you really need is a pair of...trousers—” His eyes shifted away from her.
She could feel the color stealing up to her cheeks and she remembered the previous time the topic had come up and he’d mentioned the word bloomers. But...was he talking about gentleman’s trousers now?
He gave her no chance to reply, for which she was thankful. “I know it sounds shocking, but it’s not as unusual as you might imagine. Women in India regularly wear loose silk trousers called pajamas. They’re infinitely more practical than what western women wear in the name of fashion.”
She bit her underlip, trying to assimilate what he was saying. She had been brought up with very strict ideas of what was proper and improper for a lady to wear.
“Chinese women, too,” he was saying, but she hardly heard him, too concerned with what she was going to wear herself. Would this one detail keep her from accompanying Mr. Gallagher up the mountain?
“What do you suggest I wear? Those bloomers you mentioned the other day?” She strove to maintain her tone and gaze steady, despite the flush she could feel on her cheeks.
“Yes, precisely.” He sounded relieved that the topic was settled. “Except... I don’t know where you might procure a pair so quickly. Perhaps if we could just furnish you with a pair of borrowed trousers, a young boy’s from here in the house?
“My mother would sometimes don a pair of men’s trousers when she was painting a mural.” He smiled, his expression reminiscing. “She painted a few on the walls of our rooms. We’d catch her gazing at a wall, and Father and I soon came to know that look. A few days later, we’d find her high on a stepladder, palette in hand. She’d borrow a pair of trousers from my father. She finally purchased a pair of her own, tired of having to cinch up the waist on a pair of Father’s.”
She couldn’t help smiling at the picture she envisioned of this unusual, creative woman.
He rose from his chair. “So, I’ll meet you at the stables at dawn then tomorrow. Wear comfortable boots, as well.”
“I will,” she promised. He was gone before she realized she didn’t know what she would do about the trousers. What would Lady Haversham say? Her heart sank.
An hour later, when she went to her room to retrieve some thread for her needlework, she found a package had been delivered there and lay on her bed. She removed the brown paper and gasped when she saw a pair of corduroy trousers in it.
She unfolded them and stared. They looked worn but smelled clean as if freshly laundered. Gingerly she held them up to her waist, hardly able to imagine donning them. But they didn’t seem too wide or long. Where had Mr. Gallagher found them for her? A stable boy’s, most likely. Even a pair of suspenders was provided with them.
At tea she heard Mrs. Walker and Lady Haversham making plans to visit a family in Aberfeldy that had attended the dance. Maddie breathed a sigh of relief. She dearly hoped she and Mr. Gallagher returned before the two ladies came back from their visit.
* * *
It was still dark the next morning when Maddie came down the back stairs and headed for the stables. She felt strange walking with her legs encased in the soft thick material and was glad of the darkness. The trousers did feel warm, she admitted, in the cool air. She had also donned her warmest undergarments, a blouse, a warm jacket and the plaid.
Mr. Gallagher stood by the stable door with Ewane, the gillie, who was holding a pony’s lead. They were to ride in the cart hitched to it, as far as the hamlet of Lawers a couple of miles along Loch Tay. From there they’d proceed northward along a track familiar to the gillie to the foot of the mountain.
“Good morning.” She greeted each man with a brief nod, afraid of drawing too much attention to herself.
Mr. Gallagher gave her the once-over, bringing heat to her cheeks. “Good, I see the trousers fit.” He turned abruptly back to Ewane. “I guess we’re ready.”
“Yes, sir.” The gillie didn’t seem to find her appearance in any way remarkable and she wondered if he was used to seeing tourists of every stripe.
Mr. Gallagher gave her a hand into the farm cart as the gillie took the reins. Maddie was glad of the semidarkness as she climbed aboard. It felt too unnatural to have her shape so revealed by a pair of narrow trousers.
Once seated, though, with a blanket wrapped around her legs by Mr. Gallagher, she felt better. She soon forgot her appearance as they began their journey along the loch. White mists rose from it and birdsong erupted from the tree branches above them.
After a little while, Mr. Gallagher handed her an oatcake. “Hope that’ll do for breakfast. There’re plenty more if you get hungry.” His white teeth flashed in a grin.
“Thank you, this will do fine.” She munched quietly as the cart rattled along the dirt road.
The small hamlet was silent as they passed through it and took the narrow path away from the loch. The path soon disappeared into a grassy sheep track, which began to rise steadily northward. Alongside they heard the gurgle of a brook.
Ewane gestured to it with the stock of his whip. “Lawers Burn.”
About three-quarters of an hour later they reached a small lake. Maddie gazed upward to the west and gasped. A massive peak loomed before her, the first glimmers of sun lightening its green surface.
“There she is,” the gillie said, noticing her admiration. “Ben Lawers, the highest peak in the central Highlands.” He turned to Mr. Gallagher. “We’ll leave the cart here by Lochan nan Chat. There’s a crofter nearby.”
“Very good.” The two men led the pony and cart toward a small thatch-roofed hut tucked away on one side of the small lake. Maddie waited, continuing to gaze up at the sloping mountain peak. Was she really going to ascend it today?
“Ready?” Mr. Gallagher asked when the two men returned a few minutes later.
She returned his smile, her excitement rising. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”
“Good, come along then.”
The gillie led them through a stile and onto a stony farm track. She walked abreast of Mr. Gallagher, behind the gillie. Nobody spoke. Maddie didn’t find the going hard as the slope rose gradually and was mostly grassy with only an occasional rock visible. Stone walls outlined some fields where sheep grazed. The air was cooler up here. She hugged the tartan shawl around her, glad of its warmth.
Mr. Gallagher lifted an eyebrow. “Cold?”
She shook her head. “Not at all. This plaid is very warm.”
Once in a while they passed a heap of square stones. They looked too structured to have fallen that way naturally and she asked Ewane about them.
“Those be shielings. When I was a wee lad, we’d spend summers in them and bring our cattle up here to graze. That was afore the lairds began taking over all the land for sheep.” The gillie kicked at the hard, stubby grass and spat. “They eat everythin’ down to the dirt, leaven’ the land fit for nothing but bracken to grow.”
Once in a while they passed a shieling that still stood. Maddie spotted one in the distance, smoke rising from the center of the roof. A small, dark-haired child stood in the doorway, barefoot and ruddy cheeked. Maddie waved but he didn’t respond.
“They be tenants, looking after the laird’s sheep up here for the summer,” the gillie said.
After a couple of hours’ silent marching, they stopped to rest. The way was beginning to grow rockier and the grade steeper. The walking sticks they each carried came in handy.
Mr. Gallagher turned to her. “All right?”
“Yes.” She was breathing deeply but had never felt more alive. She was also grateful for the trousers she was wearing. She’d become strangely accustomed to wearing them and they certainly made the climbing easier. She slipped a glance at Mr. Gallagher, another thing to be grateful to him for.
She surveyed the distance they’d come, shading her eyes from the rising sun. “My goodness.” Below them lay thick dark green forest to the south and above it the grassy meadows they’d climbed. She could barely distinguish the thin curving line of the burn from where they’d started.
After a few more miles’ march, Mr. Gallagher suggested they stop for lunch. She nodded. He turned to the gillie and exchanged a few words with him.
Maddie looked above her. The hill continued upward, but now the stubby green grass was giving way to craggy gray stones. They settled on some lichen-covered boulders and broke open the lunch packet of more bannocks, some fruit and flasks of tea. The gillie moved off a distance to eat his meal.
They ate in contented silence for a few minutes. Maddie felt as if she and Mr. Gallagher were all alone on top of the world.
“Are you still game to climb higher?”
She smiled at him, experiencing the most freedom she had in a long time. “That’s what we came for, isn’t it?”
“How’re your shoes holding up?”
“Not a blister.” She shook her head. “It’s funny, when I was a young girl, I suffered quite a few bouts of illness. It seems I’ve grown quite hardy in old age.”
“I wouldn’t call thirty old age.”
She blushed at the reference to how old she was to be in a few days. “It’s not exactly youth. It’s more the age of maturity,” she said, attempting to make light of the fact.
“It appears youthful from my vantage, believe me.” He crumbled the remains of a bannock between his fingers. “What would you call turning forty?”
Her gaze traveled from his hand to his blue eyes watching her steadily. “A man’s prime.”
She was rewarded by the grin beneath his dark golden mustache and she felt a warmth spreading through her like the camphor oil her mother used to rub over her chest when she had suffered from congestion during her bouts of illness.
“Diplomatic answer.”
“Truthful, nonetheless.”
He said, “Excuse my impertinence, but I’m surprised you never married.”
She was stunned by his bluntness for a moment. “I was almost engaged...once.”
“What happened?” His voice was gentle, inviting confidences.
It all seemed so silly now. “The gentleman found out that I was obliged to work for a living.” She shrugged. “He backed off before formally declaring himself. Who knows, maybe he never had any intention to.”
Mr. Gallagher frowned. “If you believed he was going to, he must have taken things to a point where you would not have been unreasonable to expect him to. Courtship follows certain steps, and a man is no gentleman who raises a young lady’s expectations without following through.”
She looked away again, afraid of the sympathy in his voice and eyes. “It was so long ago, I can scarcely picture him. So it no longer matters.”
The gillie walked over to them from where he’d been standing. “Excuse me, sir, we best be leavin’ if we’re to make it back afore nightfall.”
“Right you are.” Mr. Gallagher stood and they stowed their things back into a pack, which he shouldered.
She glanced above them. “When will we be able to see Ben Lawers?”
The gillie pointed. “If we reach that rise there, we’ll have a good view of Lawers and Ben Glas.”
“And when we reach the summit of Ben Lawers, we’ll be able to see the entire valley, Loch Tay and Glen Lyon to the north,” added Mr. Gallagher.
“It sounds spectacular.”
After that there was little distraction. The slopes became steeper. Maddie was glad of all the miles she’d walked in London. Even so, she was grateful to rest when they reached a forbidding line of crags. The air had a distinct chill to it.
They were silent, looking at the vast landscape all around them. Bluish-purple mountains strung out to the west and north of them across another valley. The valley they had come from lay to the south, the river scarcely visible between the smoke trails of clouds and thick forests. Maddie drew in her breath, seeing the vast lake connecting to the River Tay.
As if reading her thoughts, Mr. Gallagher said over her shoulder, “Loch Tay.”
“It’s beautiful, so blue against the forests.”
He touched her lightly on the shoulder, directing her view to the opposite side. “On this side lies Glen Lyon.” He turned to the gillie. “Isn’t that right?”
“Aye. Glen Lyon, the bonniest glen in all Scotland. Thataway ye see Ben Lawers.”
Maddie looked to where he pointed to the west and admired the mountain range, immediately distinguishing the grandest peak as Ben Lawers.
They soon recommenced walking, though the going was much slower. Maddie was more grateful than ever for the trousers when she found herself forced to crawl on her hands and knees up narrow, rocky ridges.
“Best keep to this side o’ the dike. There’s a nasty hanging corrie up ahead,” the gillie advised as he reached a narrow ridge and pointed to a hollowed-out portion of the mountainside.
Maddie edged closer to the dike. At the end of the stone barrier, the path leveled off somewhat and began to weave through jagged vertical crags. She had to focus all her thoughts on her steps. Tiny pebbles crunched under her boots and went rattling down the cliffs.
“Watch your step here.” Mr. Gallagher held out a hand to her and she grasped it gratefully as they negotiated a tricky pass.
They reached a spot where another ridge joined the one they were on and stopped a few minutes to admire the view below. Mists floated between them and the valley.
“Almost to the summit,” the gillie said with a motion of his walking stick.
Mr. Gallagher adjust the knapsack on his shoulder. “Come on then. The view is better from there.”
They did no more talking, each one intent on maneuvering the steep rocky hillside. In places, they faced great mounds of boulders that they had to climb over. At others, they had to walk single file along narrow ridges.
Maddie climbed through a fissure in a large crag only to find herself on another treacherous course of boulders and sheer drop-offs. She’d taken a few steps when abruptly her ankle twisted under her. Before she could utter more than a cry, she was falling, slipping down the rocky slope, the smaller rocks falling with her.
“Miss Norton!” She heard Mr. Gallagher’s shout above her but she could do nothing to stop her fall. Suddenly her head hit something sharp and the world went black.