"You're delightfully lovely this morning,” Richard said.
"You say that every morning."
"It's true every morning."
"You say that, too,” she said, smiling.
"Am I becoming redundant, then?"
"Not at all, and you know it. What woman wouldn't want to hear how pretty she is?"
"You're not any woman, though, Maggie."
"No, I’m not.” It was such an odd agreement that he studied her face.
"What is it, Maggie?"
"Nothing, truly."
"It was something,” he said. “What?"
"A little unwelcome melancholy, that's all. Totally unexpected and certainly unwanted."
"Tell me."
He tipped her chin up with his fingers, staring into her face as if to see what it was she hid from him. She was not good at masking her emotions but then, neither was he. At least, not with her.
The phone call from Anne had put him in a beastly mood. While he understood that Billy and Anne needed to return home, their doing so meant this idyll was over. His relationship with Maggie had lasted a scant two weeks, fostered and protected in a bubble he’d created for just such a purpose.
If it was out in the open, could it survive?
If he told her his identity, would she forgive him for the omission? Could their relationship be a permanent one? He didn't want to say farewell to Maggie Carlisle. He especially didn't want to see the disappearance of the man he became in her presence. But there was every possibility that once she learned of his deception, she'd walk away.
He studied her in silence, marveling at her beauty. Her lashes fluttered softly against ivory cheeks now tinted rose. Her hair was thick and full, tumbling over her shoulders. He wanted to wrap his hands around it, tilt her head back for a gentle kiss.
Her smile faded.
"Are you looking at me?" she asked. "Have I spinach between my teeth? Is something wrong?"
"No," he said softly. "I was just taking a photograph of you in my mind."
She turned away from him, then, walking to the other side of the room. Her fingers felt for the edge of the leather wing chair arranged in a grouping there. She'd been often enough in this room to have learned its dimensions, the placement of furniture.
Sometimes, he forgot she was blind. He wondered if she ever could.
Now she sat, and when Betsy pounced up on her lap, she let out a startled laugh.
"If anyone rules Hawthorne House," he said with a smile, "it's Betsy."
She didn't speak, merely sat beside the window petting a fractious cat. Another image he would forever recall.
"I have to leave tomorrow," she said.
She didn't have to leave. But she may wish to, especially after he’d said what he needed to say.
He came to sit beside her, and when Betsy deserted her for his attention, he was annoyed at the old cat’s fickleness.
He'd always thought himself a relatively brave man. He’d no hesitation about running into Maggie's burning cottage. Nor of facing his wife three years ago. Now, however, he wondered if his courage was only physical. The words didn't seem to come with any ease.
He could ask her to stay.
He was wealthy and a peer. She was an American and not remotely royal. Yet those weren’t insurmountable difficulties, after all. Look at Anne and Billy. This was the twenty-first century. Obstacles like class, finances, and background were no longer barriers to relationships.
“I’ll miss you,” she said when he didn’t speak.
He looked out at the snow shrouded landscape, focusing on it rather than her.
"I suspect," he said, clearing his throat with uncharacteristic nervousness, "that we have a great deal in common, Maggie. Too much. Loneliness, for one."
Maggie didn't move but he could feel her tension, as if she drew herself up in a small ball to be less of a target.
"Past pain, certainly. We’ve both felt betrayed. Like recognizes like, you know."
She stared down at her clenched hands, and if he could have, without revealing that his hands trembled, he would have tilted her chin up so he could stare into those luminous eyes of hers. So beautiful, despite their lack of sight.
"Maybe we have abandonment issues,” she said, a hint of a smile curving her lips.
“Or perhaps we're just cautious about being abandoned again."
"I'm not abandoning you, Richard," she said. "I'm simply going home."
“Maggie, there's something I must tell you."
She leaned forward and placed her fingers across his lips unerringly, as if she could see them. Richard put Betsy down on the floor, reached over, and pulled Maggie on his lap.
"Don't."
He drew her close, felt her nuzzle his neck, her arms wrapped around his shoulders. He looked up at the ceiling, as if God rested among the plastered cornices.
These would be the most difficult words he'd ever had to speak. Even deadlier than the ones he'd said to Eleanor. This time, he'd kill something in himself with them. But what he felt for her demanded it; honor dictated it. Maggie deserved it.
He held her close.“Maggie, I’m not who you think I am."
“Not now, Richard. Please."
She placed her fingers against his mouth. He captured her hand with his, kissing each finger. The center of her palm was a target for a kiss; he held his lips against her wrist, measuring her pulse.
She pulled free, framing his face with her hands.
“Thank you for this time,” she said. “Thank you for not treating me as if I were different."
She widened her hands until her little fingers curved beneath his jaw, feeling the ridge of bone. Her thumbs were bracketed against his cheekbones. Was she memorizing him?
“People will define you, Maggie, if you let them. The trick is to out maneuver them first. Give them your definition of yourself before they can affix one to you."
She leaned forward and kissed him.
Richard marveled that he could feel so many things at once - the warmth of her skin, the sultry soft beckoning of her tongue, the press of her breasts against his chest, the beat of his heart.
His lips left hers to kiss her cheek. "I once thought you'd taste like cream," he confessed.
"Do I?"
He shook his head. "You taste like Maggie."
The tenderness of his smile was implanted on her eyelids although she'd never seen it. How could she not imagine such a look?
She suddenly wanted to give him something, make a present of something valuable and uniquely her own, a gift of honesty.
"I never thought that making love could be fun. No, don't laugh. I mean it."
She bit her lower lip. He'd come to realize it was a nervous gesture of hers.
"It's supposed to be earthshaking and awe-inspiring, but I never realized you could laugh with someone the way I've laughed with you, and still have so much fun."
“‘All my joys are due to thee, as souls unbodied, bodies unclothed must be,’” he quoted, touching her forehead with his. “John Donne,” he said, answering her unspoken question.
“I wish I had a quote for you,” she confessed. “I could quote from the Book of the Dead. ‘Behold me, I have come to you, without sin, without guilt, without evil, without a witness against me, without one whom I have wronged. I am one pure of mouth, pure of hands.’”
What an odd moment to feel himself tumble into love.
He held her, words beyond him.
She reached up, her fingers tracing the strength of his arms, the breadth of his shoulders.
"You're like a haptic painting, Richard," she said, needing to touch him, be touched by him.
"What's a haptic painting?" He wrapped her hair around his wrist, pulling gently on it so her head tilted back. The beauty of her face, softly flushed, enchanted him, at the same time it aroused him.
"A painting that can be felt as well as seen. You have texture and beauty all your own."
"I think, Maggie, that you’re prejudiced to the extreme.”
"Maybe I should feel Harold. He’s probably as handsome as you,” she said, her tone gently teasing.
"If you wish,” his tone carefully unemotional.
He didn’t want her to know that he was speaking from the unenviable viewpoint of a man whose wife had been repeatedly unfaithful. Nor did he know what to do with the raging jealousy he was feeling right at the moment. He didn’t want her teasing about touching another man.
He didn’t even want to think about it. Even Harold.
“Richard? Have I said something wrong?” she asked.
No, but he probably would. If he didn’t handle this just the right way, she would be thousands of miles away from him soon.
He kissed her, infusing into the kiss all his frustration and fear. He tightened his arms around her, pulling her across his lap until she was sitting astride him. With no finesse whatsoever, he held her, burying his face against her neck.
Life was intruding, but the world couldn't have them yet.
A soft sound made him pull back. Her eyes were closed, and two tears fell down her face.
"Stop it, Maggie. Stop it, please."
He didn't think he could stand that silent crying. It made him think of a very fragile butterfly with wings shivering in the wind.
When he thought about her, he would remember her laughter, and the exquisite contrast of her auburn hair and ivory skin. He’d recall these soft tears and the gesture she made next.
She lifted both his hands to her lips, cupping the backs of his hands in her palms as if in offering. Then, she bent her head and kissed the center of each palm, a kiss so soft and sweet that it speared his heart.
He folded his arms around her and just held her close, wishing he could stop time.
Inverness, Scotland
Fiona MacDonald walked through her house one last time.
She'd given her solicitor instructions, by letter, that the house and all her belongings were to be sold. After taxes, any proceeds were to be given to the SFS.
She was almost ready.
She’d no hope of escaping justice. In fact, it would defeat everything she was attempting to accomplish if she did so. Instead, after she killed the Duke of Lancaster, she was going to surrender herself to the authorities.
The letter she'd left for the young people in her SFS chapter. She wanted them to know that she, single-handedly, had called attention to the cause of Scotland's freedom.
All she needed to do now was to alert the paparazzi.
That afternoon, Michael was close to rationalizing why he didn't need to check on Fiona again. He still hadn't muffled that voice inside him. But the strange thing about voices, they sometimes needed consensus in order to survive. He wasn't living on an island. He was dependent on others to validate his views. So far, not one of the members of the SFS cell had agreed with him.
Yet here he was again, patrolling the street in front of Fiona's house, and wishing he could be either normal, or as insouciant as his SFS companions. If he had any sense at all, he'd blow the whole damn thing off, go to a pub and pick up some friendly lass.
Instead, he pulled down the block, got out his laptop, and began to work on his novel, telling himself that he'd watch Fiona just this one last time.
He kept looking up, staring at the red brick three story house, built as square and solid as Fiona. Every few minutes, he'd lose his train of thought, and study the house again, wondering what it was bothering him.
He finally got it.
Fiona's car wasn't in the drive.
She'd probably gone round to the shops. He waited. The minute he saw her, armed with groceries, he'd say goodbye to Fiona and all her oddities.
Three hours later, she still wasn't there. An hour into nightfall, and Fiona hadn't shown up.
The little voice was getting louder, and accompanying it was a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach.
He called Donald, and after a few moments of interminable chit chat, he asked, "Does Richard Strathmore have a house in Scotland?"
"Don't be daft. Of course he does. Hawthorne House."
Michael suddenly knew where Fiona had gone.