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Helen was determined to take Royston up on his offer and ask about the letter but knew that discussion would have to wait until the journey to Dumfries for Edith’s wedding. Thus she put it out of her mind and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon tea. It was a spectacular success, and even Lord Salkeld was able to offer up his congratulations to his daughter and son on a most excellent turnout. Edith was very happy, and that’s all that mattered to anyone. And then, just as the guests were taking their leave, Royston was called away to attend to a patient and did not return in time to have supper with the family.
After supper, the cousins sat over their needlework about the fireplace in the sitting room, Helen entering into the excitement of the preparations in place for Edith’s wedding at Comlongon Castle, while Lord Salkeld dozed in his favorite chair. And such was the happiness of the two sisters to have Helen returned to them that they remarked it was just like old times, when they were all girls in their teens growing up together. Edith pointed out that one thing about her teens she did not miss was being teased mercilessly by her three brothers. Yet various examples of this teasing provoked giggles. Though when Edith admitted that Royston was always too serious to enter into their brothers’ scheming and that he always protected Helen from their playful pranks, there was a moment of awkwardness. But Helen smiled and lamented that she, too, had missed her cousins, even the teasing pranks of Thomas and Matthew, and everyone again fell into easy conversation. That is until Grace voiced what the family knew but which had never been spoken aloud: Roy returned from France a much more serious young man than when he had left. Edith and Grace were convinced the change had everything to do with Helen’s marriage to Sir William Dysart.
Helen ruminated about this and the discussion of the previous night while seated at the breakfast table the next morning. She often wondered how different her life might have been had Royston not gone off to France. But she never forgot his words to his father about her: “I wouldn’t marry her under such circumstances if she were the last redheaded gypsy worth a fortune this side of hell!” Words that still stung after all these years. So while she could wish there had been a different outcome, she was not bitter. She had always preferred to concentrate on the positives of what life had dealt her and so was optimistic about the future and what it might hold and did not dwell on what might have been, which seemed to be what Royston had been doing since he’d returned from abroad.
And then she recalled the fierce sincerity in his tone when at the afternoon tea he had said it had always mattered to him that she had married Sir William. But what did he mean by accusing her of breaking promises they had made to each other? Had he not done that very thing by refusing to marry her when his father had demanded he must?
This brought her thoughts full circle and back to the question of the letter he claimed to have left her before leaving for France. She was wondering where that letter could be and what it contained when Royston entered the morning room, hesitating on the threshold when he saw she was there alone.
He was dressed for travel, in buff leather breeches and top boots, and his riding frock coat, like his waistcoat, was a fine wool of dark blue and had silver buttons. She smiled in greeting, a heightened color to her cheeks the only sign of any awkwardness between them after yesterday’s outburst. And when he came into the room, she continued on with her breakfast. She sipped at her tea, nibbled on her toast spread with marmalade, and returned to perusing the newssheet by her saucer.
He went to the sideboard laden with covered dishes, and to one end where the large silver samovar of hot water sat on its pedestal. He lingered longer than was necessary before finally looking over his shoulder and saying as casually as he could, “Would you care for another coffee, cousin?”
Helen held out her porcelain cup. “I would. Thank you.”
But when he went to take her cup, his fingers lightly brushed hers, and he fumbled. He would have dropped it had Helen not had a firm grip on the handle.
Royston took a step back with a mumbled apology, and she half rose out of her chair and put the cup into his hand, just as affected by his touch as he was by hers. She quickly turned away to hide her blush and returned to finishing her slice of toast. She stared at the newssheet without reading a word, ears wide open to the sounds of coffee being prepared. He finally set the cup on its dish in front of her and disconcerted her further for having made the coffee the way she preferred, with only a splash of milk, the sugar lump in the bowl of the spoon resting on the saucer, so that she could plop it into the liquid and watch it dissolve.
When she stared fixedly at the cup without a word of thanks, he asked curiously, “Is that not the way you prefer it? Have your tastes changed? Do you want me to make you another?”
She shook her head. “No. Not changed. I’ve not changed,” she muttered, too overcome to say more. When she looked up, he was on the other side of the table, opposite, his plate laden with all manner of breakfast foods. Noticing the Cumberland sausage smothered in cooked apple and onions, she smiled. “When did your favorite dish become a breakfast staple? Lord Salkeld had only contempt for what he called farmer’s fodder.”
Royston flicked out the linen napkin and spread it across his lap and raised an eyebrow as if in displeasure, but a smile hovered about his mouth. He looked very well pleased with himself.
“A physician who has patients scattered from the town’s medieval walls and beyond the River Eden never knows when he will return home from his rounds or when he will next eat. Thus I have prescribed my favorite dish as a means of sustaining my own health and well-being. Cook is very obliging.”
“I do not doubt Cook is only too willing to ply Dr. Meredith with whatever his heart desires,” she teased him. “You always had a way of overplaying the situation and using to advantage your position to get what you wanted.”
He gave a huff of laughter, and the words came out before he could stop them. “How well you know me!” To mask his awkwardness, he quickly took up his knife and fork and concentrated on what was on his plate.
Helen stirred her coffee and returned to reading the newssheet to allow Royston time to eat a good portion of his breakfast before asking in a light tone, “Do you have patients to visit this morning?”
“Not today.” He glanced up at her. “But that does not mean I should not enjoy my usual breakfast fare . . .” He ate the rest of what was on his plate, then pushed it aside to pick up his coffee cup. “Besides, Cumberland sausage is justified today, for we have some distance to travel—”
“—to Dumfries?” Helen set down her cup. “I am looking forward to it.”
“Truly? I’d have thought travel again so soon after your journey up from London would be the last thing you’d wish to do.”
“Surely you cannot think me so feeble! I admit there was little to occupy me on the journey here, which made it tedious. But I have company to Dumfries, so the time will be but an instant by comparison. Though I dare say your father will wish it over before it begins, what with three chattering females for travel companions.”
“Ah. I see you were not told.”
“Told?”
“I saw Father and Edith off in the carriage at first light this morning.”
Helen was surprised. She tried not to sound it. “Oh? They have already left for Dumfries?”
“They have, but they are traveling only as far as Gretna Green in our carriage, which will then return here for you and Grace. At Gretna, father and Edith will be met by Sir James and his men, and it is his carriage which will convey them the rest of the way to Dumfries.”
“Dear me! I had no idea an English bride marrying a Scottish lord had to forgo her own carriage and horses at the border. It sounds positively medieval.”
Royston laughed. “When you put it like that, it does, doesn’t it? With a casting-off ceremony whereby the bride rids herself of all her English trappings and is wrapped in a plaid and taken on horseback to her laird’s hilltop fortress!”
“Escorted by a dozen brutish clansmen with thick beards and sporting claymores, and all to the accompanying wail of the pipes.”
Royston sat forward. “Oh, I like that! I’m counting on pipes at the wedding, and Scottish dancing.”
“I’ll be disappointed if there isn’t. And so will Grace. But your father . . . He is reconciled to his eldest daughter marrying an invader—for that is what he always called Scotsmen when I lived here.”
Royston’s smile was lopsided.
“Carlisle has been besieged since before Roman times, and so often by the English as well as the Scots, that my father has no right to direct all his anger at our northern neighbors. Besides, you know my father as well as anyone. His Lordship is easily won over by wealth. Sir James Murray’s heritage is overlooked because he is rich. More importantly for me, Edith’s intended is a good man. I like him. That he is also a baronet and a distant cousin of the Duke of Kinross, and thus he has ducal connections, impresses my father immensely. What happened at Carlisle in my grandfather’s time, when the Murrays were part of the Young Pretender’s invading force, was just one more episode of siege, capture, siege, and recapture for this unfortunate town. Their involvement is conveniently forgiven, though never forgotten. Nor should it be.”
Helen’s brow lifted. “So Sir James Murray’s ancestors were part of Bonnie Prince Charlie’s army?”
“They were. And it was Sir James’s grandfather and his great-uncle, along with the Duke of Perth, who laid siege to Carlisle during the rebellion of ’45 and captured it for Charles Edward Stuart. And it was my grandfather, the fifth Lord Salkeld, who assisted the Duke of Cumberland in recapturing the town for the English. It was my grandfather who signed Robert Murray’s death warrant. James’s uncle, along with many of his fellow clansmen, were strung up on Gallows Hill—”
“The hill just south of the town?”
“The very one.”
“Did Sir James’s grandfather escape prosecution for his part in the rebellion and capture of the town?”
“He did. But not because he was pardoned. He died of starvation in the dungeon of Carlisle Castle before he could be transported south to London to the Tower to stand trial.” When Helen gave a little shiver and grimaced, he added in a less strident tone, “Had he lived, his fate would’ve been much worse for his family. Dying in that dungeon did him and them a favor. If convicted of treason, he would’ve been publicly shamed and beheaded.”
Helen was quiet a long moment, and then she looked across at Royston and smiled diffidently.
“Sir William’s uncle died in the first siege. Cut down by one of the prince’s officers. He had no time for the Stuarts either, and shared his contempt of them with your father. He would have enjoyed toasting the last of the Stuarts dying in Rome this past January. No doubt your father did just that. But I hope with Edith’s marriage to a Scot, some of that animosity will be dulled, that he can let go of the past. To harbor such resentment for so long is surely unhealthy . . . It is to the future one must look. I hope he is truly happy for Edith . . . I am, that she is marrying the man she loves, and who loves her. Nothing else matters . . .”
Royston held her gaze. He was well aware she was not only speaking of his father’s long-held resentments but of his at her marriage to Sir William, and that the future she spoke of was not only about Edith’s happiness, but of her own. He understood. As far as he was concerned it was time to let go of the past, to bury it where it belonged, with Sir William Dysart. He had a sudden desire to talk to her now, here at the breakfast table. He did not want to wait until they were in a carriage trundling along a dreary landscape to Gretna Green. Besides, Grace would be with them, and the opportunity might not present itself. That might mean waiting until they were in Dumfries, or worse, until after the wedding and on their way home. He could not wait that long. He would not.
“Helen, about the letter I left for you when I went off to Lyon—”
“Sir! Dr. Meredith! Sir!”
“Letter?” Helen asked, ignoring the interruption of a servant banging open the door and rushing into the room and straight up to Royston. “You left me a—a letter?”
Royston was puzzled by her surprise. He scowled. “I did. You were too unwell to say your goodbyes, and so I could not give it to you in person, so I had—”
“Dr. Meredith! Sir!”
Royston tore his gaze from Helen and glared at the servant. “Five minutes! Only then will I get my bag, and we can be off to—”
“No, sir. You’re not wanted to heal. It’s not medical, it’s—”
“Then it can wait!”
“Go on,” Helen urged, hand outstretched across the table, refusing to be distracted. “Tell me about this letter you wrote—”
“Sorry, sir. M’lady. Mr. Lawson said it can’t wait,” the servant interrupted. “It’s about Miss Grace—”
“Grace?” Royston and Helen blurted out in unison. The servant finally had all their attention.
“A note was found, sir, and when her maid read it, she ran with it to Mr. Lawson. Mr. Lawson said to tell you Her Ladyship’s carriage is all hitched and ready, on account of His Lordship’s carriage ain’t returned yet. He said time was of the—of the—”
“—essence?”
“That’s it, sir! Essence.”
“Well?” Royston demanded, hand out for the note when the boy just stood there.
He snatched it when offered and snapped out the single piece of paper with a glance at Helen, who was half out of her chair in anticipation. It took only seconds to read, and then he stared across the table at her, face drained of color.
“What? What is it? Royston? What’s happened to Grace?”
“Bloody hell . . .” he muttered in disbelief. “Happened? Grace has run off to Gretna Green with Charlie Lawson.”