The crow’s raucous rasp split the air—and Jenny’s head. It focused the vague pain into a single, deep throb.
When she forced her eyes open, the fierce morning light stabbed them. She clenched them shut again. Not quickly enough to miss the black bird scavenging a gobbet of meat from what was left of the roast sheep. Jenny’s stomach heaved to disgorge its contents, and almost succeeded.
Her mouth felt dry as straw and tasted like the innards of a haggis, gone bad. When she made a feeble effort to raise her head, the world spun and tilted.
She tried to think through the heavy ache in her head, to figure out where she was and how she’d got here.
Nearby she heard snoring, and the flap of heavy wings—more crows, no doubt. From farther off came the howl of a hungry infant and the tortured sounds of some poor soul retching.
By painful degrees, Jenny extracted memories of the previous day—and night. Father in heaven, what had she done?
Raising her eyelids to mere slits, she looked around.
Harris lay beside her, snoring as peacefully as on that morning aboard the St. Bride, when she’d woken to find him sleeping on her pillow. His kilt had hiked up to an almost indecent degree, baring a shameless expanse of lean-muscled thigh.
Had they…? Did she let him…?
Though admittedly green where men were concerned, Jenny suspected that if Harris had relieved her of her virginity, something else should be paining besides her head and her stomach. Perhaps she hadn’t lost her senses entirely, last night, under the influence of Ewan Menzies’s cursed brew.
But neither had she been in her right mind.
Swathed in seductive shadows and beguiling moonlight, McGregor’s homestead had seemed a pastoral paradise. Where the warm night air hummed with fiddle music and lilting laughter, and cups overflowed with the water of life. In that enchanted place, Jenny had been able to believe that nothing mattered between a man and a woman but love.
Love?
Another spasm gripped her stomach. Jenny rolled over and vomited.
Romantic love was a temporary enchantment as potent as moonlight or moonshine. Making everything seem beautiful. Making anything seem possible.
Jenny whimpered.
In the night’s sweet, dark magic, she had lost her head. She’d found it again in the bleak light of day. And how it hurt!
Aware that someone else was stirring, Jenny glanced up. Several women had begun clearing away the carnage of the ceilidh. Sluggish, uncertain movements betrayed the sorry state of their own heads and bellies, but that did not matter. There was work to do, chores to tend, children to feed.
The wedding feast had been a once-a-year respite from the drudgery of their lives. The rest of the time, a woman’s lot in this frontier society must be heartbreaking, as well as backbreaking.
Steeling herself against the pain and the dizziness, Jenny lurched to her knees. Damned if she would live the life her mother had lived, or die the death her mother had died. Not even for the sake of the compelling attraction she felt for Harris Chisholm. She’d fled Scotland to escape it, and she would not be caught in its rapacious web with salvation so near at hand.
She’d adored Roderick Douglas once, with the fierce intensity of first love. When she saw him again, that feeling would surely revive. Wouldn’t it?
Casting a final, regretful glance at Harris, Jenny staggered to her feet and went to recover her bundle of clothes from one of the outbuildings.
“Which way to Chatham?” she croaked to one of the women.
“Yonder,” came the reply, accompanied by a weary nod toward a gap in the surrounding trees.
Weaving her way in that direction, Jenny stepped over several prone bodies, all snoring off the grim aftereffects of the ceilidh. Every step jarred her aching head and made her stomach roil menacingly, but she did not care.
Five more miles would bring her to Chatham. Five more miles would bring her to Roderick Douglas. Five more miles would bring her to a safe haven from the cruel realities of life.
Harris woke to the cruel reality that Jenny had gone. At first, he nurtured a vain hope that he might be mistaken. Perhaps she was just helping the other women clean up after the feast. As time passed, however, and he saw no sign of her, a clammy chill descended on his heart.
Finally, mastering the agonies of morning-after, he staggered to his feet and approached Morag McGregor.
Without any opening pleasantries, he demanded, “Have ye seen Jenny Lennox?”
Morag eyed him coolly. “This morning, ye mean?”
“Aye, this morning,” Harris snapped. He had neither the time nor the humor for quibbles just now. “I ken well enough where she was last night.”
She wrinkled her nose at the smell of his breath. “So do I, and a queer location it was for a lass promised to someone else.”
His whole face flamed. “I reckon a lass has a right to change her mind until the moment she makes her vows.”
The woman recoiled as though he had struck her. “I reckon so,” she finally choked, in a subdued tone. “It was no business of mine, anyhow. I haven’t seen Miss Lennox since last night, but I’ll ask around if any of the others have.”
Harris watched her approach one of the other women. After an exchange of words, the woman shook her head. Morag went to ask someone else.
Spying a whisky jar on a nearby table, Harris picked it up and tilted it from side to side. A faint splash of drink sounded from within. Bracing himself, he tipped it back for a quick swig. Though he’d always been a temperate drinker, he knew fellows who swore by the curative powers of “a hair of the dog.”
When Morag returned, she cast him a reproachful look. “Nan Cameron just spoke to Miss Chisholm a few minutes ago. She’s headed for Chatham, by the sound of it.”
Harris lurched to his feet. “Not without explaining a thing or two, she’s not.”
He lumbered off in the direction Morag pointed him. His head pounded its protest of being upright. His eyes smarted from the punishing sunshine and rebelled at his insistence they function properly. His stomach threatened vomitus revenge for every step he took.
He did his best to ignore them all. Jenny Lennox had plenty to answer for and this was his moment of reckoning. Spying a pair of her on the path ahead, he squinted until a single Jenny came into focus. As he stumbled after her, the agonies of his head and belly stoked his rage.
Fueling it almost as intensely as the pain in his heart.
She seemed unaware of his presence as he caught up with her. Wasn’t that just like Jenny? Oblivious to him and his feelings, as if they counted for nothing.
Grabbing her by the arm, he spun her around to face him.
“Damn ye, Harris Chisholm!” She jerked away from his grasp. “Won’t be satisfied until ye scare me out of my wits, will ye?”
“And ye won’t be satisfied until ye’ve ripped my heart out and spat on it,” Harris growled. “Where d’ye think ye’re going?”
“Where does it look like? Ye’re so blasted clever, ye cypher it!” She turned from him and took a few more steps toward her destination.
A couple of Harris’s long strides put him squarely in her path. “Ye’re not going anywhere until I’ve had my say. No more raising my hopes, then stealing away the minute my back’s turned. How can ye be heading off to Chatham after last night? Blast it all, Jenny, ye said ye love me.”
Against his will, his voice softened on those last words and he reached for her.
“Folks say all kinds of daft things when they’ve had too much to drink.” Jenny squirmed away from him, stubbornly refusing to meet his pleading gaze. “Last night…that was the whisky talking.”
“Fiddlesticks!” snapped Harris. “That’s rank nonsense and I reckon ye know it. Folks don’t lie when they’re tipsy, they only say the things they want to say but wouldn’t dare if they were sober. Ye do love me, Jenny. Don’t deny it.”
She flashed him a look then. Harris almost wished she hadn’t. Her blatant scorn flayed his budding confidence and pricked his long-suffering pride.
“There’s more to getting on in this world than love, Harris. Ye said yerself, a wife and family is the last thing ye need, just starting out like ye are…”
“So it’s back to the money again, is it, Jenny? Ye ken Rod Douglas’s gold will buy ye happiness.”
“Not happiness, Harris—security, at least, and peace of mind. A climate where love might stand a chance.”
She had struck at the core of his manhood—his ability to provide for his mate and his young. Harris flared back with primal fury, spurred by his mounting nausea and the throbbing in his temples.
“Fine, then. Fine! If ye don’t trust me to make a decent home for ye and do everything in my power to make ye happy, I’m well rid of ye. If ye hanker so bad after a rich husband, ye needn’t run away from me. I’ll tote ye on my back the rest of the way to Chatham and present ye to Rod Douglas with a red ribbon tied ’round yer neck.”
“Oh, Harris. It’s not that I don’t—”
Save her cold consolation. Harris cut her off. “Douglas has bought and paid for ye and as far as I’m concerned, he’s welcome to ye!”
“Ye won’t even try to understand, will ye?” she stormed.
The gall of her casting him in the wrong!
“I don’t know what I ever fancied I saw in ye, Harris Chisholm.” She turned away. Not before he saw the tears in her eyes. They unmanned him entirely. Inflicting pain on her did nothing to soothe his own.
He reached for her. “Jenny…”
“I’m going to Chatham.” She hurled the words back over her shoulder. “If ye so much as try to lay a hand on me…” Her voice thickened with every word. “Ye’ll be sorry, Harris Chisholm!” came out on one great gust of a sob.
Before he could say or do anything to stop her, Jenny bolted away at a speed he could never match in his present condition. What was the use in trying?
Harris crumpled to the ground.
He wanted to crawl inside a whisky jar and never come out. He wanted to put his fist through something solid. He wanted to lay his head on Morag McGregor’s shoulder and bawl like a wee babby. In spite of her admission that she cared for him, Jenny had left. This was not the first time she had led him on, only to push him away, or run from him.
Suddenly, as if conjured by his need, Morag knelt beside him. “Come back and sleep off the drink,” she urged.
“Women!” Harris snarled. “I was right to steer clear of the lot of ’em for as long as I did.” This was how he’d always feared a woman would treat him, if he ever let one sink her claws into his heart. “More’s the pity I didn’t keep on with it.”
Morag did not flinch from his outburst. A look of obvious pity softened her face. Once it would have burned him like lye. Now it soothed his soul like healing ointment.
“Why did she have to go away?” he asked, not expecting an answer. Uncertain whether he was talking about Jenny, or his mother…or both.
“I ken she had her reasons. Ye said yerself—a lass has a right to change her mind. That goes for ye as much as it does for the man she’s promised to.”
Reluctantly Harris acknowledged the natural justice in that. He knew Jenny had been pulled in two directions at once. What did he have to offer her, after all, compared to a man like Roderick Douglas? If he truly cared for her, perhaps the kindest thing he could do was let her enjoy the affluent life she craved with the man she’d adored since girlhood.
Stirred from his melancholy musing, Harris realized Morag had asked him a question. “How’s that again?”
“The man Miss Lennox is promised to—I asked ye his name. I may know him.”
“I’m sure ye know of him.” Harris heaved a gusty sigh. “Jenny is to marry none other than Mr. Roderick Douglas.”
He braced himself for some brusque remark about how it was no wonder Jenny had made her choice. Instead, a strange, unnatural quiet met his announcement.
When he glanced at Morag, her ivory complexion had gone almost blue-white, as though every drop of blood had been drained from her veins. The angry scars on her cheeks flamed in livid contrast.
“What’s the trouble, Miss McGregor? Are ye feeling ill? Can I fetch someone for ye?”
Before he could stir himself, she reached out, clutching his wrist. Harris winced. Her massive, ax-wielding father would have been hard-pressed to exert such force.
“Ye must go after her.”
“I’m done with that. Like ye said, she made her choice.”
“Ye must go after her!” Morag insisted.
“I’ll go. I’ll go.” He was prepared to promise anything, if only she’d loosen the crippling grip on his arm. “If ye’ll just tell me why?” Though he hadn’t known her long, he sensed Morag would not make such a demand lightly.
Something haunted and hunted looked out at him from her pale green eyes. “I can’t say,” she whispered. “I daren’t.”
The sound of that word sent a shiver down his spine. What danger had Jenny fled toward this time, like a moth to a flame? A pang of guilt stabbed him in the conscience. Whatever the threat, he had driven her toward it.
“For my sake and yers,” continued Morag with compelling force, “and especially for hers, go to Chatham and stop Miss Lennox from marrying Roderick Douglas.”
It was not the words themselves as much as the dire urgency of her tone that vaulted Harris to his feet and sent him pursuing Jenny Lennox yet again. That, and his burden of guilt, and his own vexing, daft devotion to her.
With a furtive glance over her shoulder, as if she feared pursuit, Jenny tapped on the door of Roderick Douglas’s house. At least, this imposing fieldstone structure was the one to which folks had pointed her. Queer looks they’d given her, too, when she stopped them to ask directions. Likely they wondered what such an unkempt creature wanted with a prosperous pillar of their community. Perhaps they’d questioned why her eyes were all red and swollen.
Jenny tried to swallow an enormous lump in her throat. When Harris had caught up with her, she’d almost been ready to abandon her dream of marrying Roderick Douglas and risk her whole future by staying with him. Only he’d made it clear he didn’t want her after all. He hadn’t even tried to understand that she feared as much for his prospects as for her own. Hadn’t he come to North America to make something of himself? How would he ever accomplish that with a wife and family to keep?
The door jerked inward, just then, and a tall, angular woman stared out at Jenny. She was dressed from head to toe in a shade of rusty black that matched her severely pinned hair. She had a sharp, narrow beak of a nose and dark eyebrows so dense they appeared to be one unrelieved line of bristling disapproval.
“Don’t just stand there, girl.” Even her voice shared a harsh quality with that of the crow who’d wakened Jenny. “State your business.”
“Please.” Jenny tamped down the lump in her throat and tried again. “Please. Is this the house of Mr. Douglas?”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Roderick Douglas?”
“Didn’t I just say so? What do you want with Mr. Douglas, girl?”
Jenny tried to still her trembling knees. If the house did belong to Roderick Douglas, this woman must be his servant. She would soon serve Jenny, as well.
“I’m afraid that’s private between Mr. Douglas and myself. Is he in?”
The woman looked Jenny slowly up and down, distaste plainly written on her features. She appeared to be weighing the decision whether to vouch that information.
“No,” she announced at last.
Jenny sensed the woman took pleasure in her own look of disappointment.
“No, and not likely to come home until supper—if then.”
“Where might I find him in the meantime?” Though she tried not to let the woman cow her, it was hard work.
Again a pause, and a hard stare. Finally she said, “He may be down at the yard, if you’ve a mind to go there looking for him.”
“Thank—” Before Jenny could get the word out, the massive door with its brass fittings shut in her face.
As she turned away, Jenny muttered, “Ye need charm lessons worse than Harris Chisholm, ye old crow.”
It took some little while, and more queer looks before Jenny found her way to the shipyard. The place was deserted, though the pungent scents of sawdust and tar mingled in the air, imparting a vision of busier days past and those soon to come.
From his short tenure at Jardine Brothers, Harris had taught her something about the business. How it often slowed in the summer while the colony’s labor force tended to their farming and haying. Come autumn there would be a short frenzy to get another ship fitted and under sail before winter ice closed in the river. Once the ground had frozen, lumbermen would take to the forests, looking for big old trees to fell for keels and masts. As March ice rotted in the tide head, shipyards up and down the coast would hum with activity, preparing their first vessels of the New Year for an Atlantic baptism.
Jenny inhaled a deep breath. This was the odor of prosperity.
Hearing men’s voices, she looked up to see Roderick Douglas walking from a large warehouse, arguing with a smaller man about something written or drawn on a large sheet of paper.
“I tell you…” There was no mistaking his voice, as he gestured toward a skeleton of wooden scaffolding. His Lowland brogue had muted, though. “A barque like that will ride too low in the water for…”
As he caught sight of Jenny, his sleek dark brows drew together in an inquisitive gaze. His aquiline nose wrinkled ever so slightly. “Can I help you, miss?”
For a moment she stood, dumbstruck to see him again after five long years. If anything, he had grown handsomer in the interval. His mid-height frame had filled out most agreeably, complemented by his well-tailored clothes. The North American sun had bronzed his face to a perfect complement for his dark hair. The air of promise he’d worn as a youth had ripened into one of success and accomplishment. And the hint of his smile could still set Jenny quivering like a jelly.
Her mouth worked open and closed several times, but no sound emerged….Lord, she must look like a walleyed codfish!
At last, in a desperate rush, she gasped, “I’m Jenny Lennox, remember? I’ve come from Dalbeattie to be yer bride.”
The hesitation in his eyes struck her like a blow. She was not what he’d expected. She was a disappointment to him.
“Bride?” As he moved toward her, his expression brightened and a smile of singular charm lit his fine features. “Janet—of course! But where have you come from? There haven’t been any ships that docked today.”
He clasped her hand warmly. To Jenny it felt as if dark clouds had parted and the sun had finally begun to shine. If anything could have crowned that blissful moment, it was Roderick’s heartfelt avowal. “You were so long in coming. I was beside myself, thinking what might have happened to you.”
Jenny gathered her breath to explain that something had happened, and how she had come to be in Chatham when there was no new ship in port. Before she could get the words out, she heard a commotion behind her and someone calling her name.
Not just someone—Harris.
She turned to warn him away.
Catching sight of him, Jenny cringed. She was thankful there were no more people around to see him. Bad enough she’d have to introduce him to Roderick Douglas. What would her suave, well-tailored fiancé make of Harris in his present state?
The green plaid that had looked so manly in the wedding procession now twisted and flapped around him in the most comical way. His long, bare shanks stuck out beneath the hem like double trunks of some improbable tree—a tree on fire. His rusty beard and wildly flying hair provided the flames. For all that, the sight of him stirred her heart with unwelcome intensity.
An intensity almost equal to that of his expression. Bearing down on her with the force of an Atlantic gale, Harris wrenched her hand free of Roderick’s and pulled her clear.
“No, Jenny! Ye mustn’t do this. Morag told me…”
She struggled to work free of him. Had he decided to wreak his revenge upon her by ruining her chance of a match with Roderick Douglas? She’d teach him to play dog in the manger.
Before she could get the words out, Roderick Douglas stepped forward. “I don’t know who you are or what you want.” He jabbed a forefinger at Harris’s chest. “But lay hands on my bride again and you will be very sorry.”
A look passed between the men—contempt on Roderick’s side, desperation on Harris’s. Jenny feared they might soon come to blows.
“It’s not what ye think, Roderick.” She took his arm and faced Harris, to show where her new loyalty must lie. “This is Mr. Chisholm. He’s been my escort from Scotland. When our ship was wrecked on the bar at Richibucto, he brought me overland to Chatham…so ye and I could be married.”
Intended to allay his hostility, her words seemed to inflame Roderick further. His dark eyes flashed and his perfectly proportioned features hardened. “Escort? You mean this fellow has been with you all the way from Dalbeattie, and day and night through the woods? What’s he been up to with you along the way?”
Jenny flinched at the accusation. Roderick was right to be angry with her. She’d behaved foolishly at best, wantonly at worst. Without a thought about the consequences it might have for his reputation.
“I know it may look bad, but I assure ye Harris was a perfect gentleman, and nothing improper took place between us.”
The lie burned on Jenny’s tongue. Well, it was partly true, she tried to salve her conscience. She would still be a virgin bride, and that must be Roderick’s chief concern. Fiercely she strove to suppress the memories of how passion had arced between her and Harris during their journey.
“I’d have thought ye’d be grateful to him,” she insisted, eager to change the subject. “If it wasn’t for Harris, I never would have made it to Chatham alive.”
“I see.” Roderick sounded contrite, but his tightly clenched jaw did not relax. His glare did not soften. “I apologize, Chisholm.”
Jenny fairly squirmed with shame. She was the one who’d behaved badly—to both these fine men. She was the one who should beg forgiveness and atone.
“I thought you meant harm to my lady,” Roderick continued. “I couldn’t stand for that. I’m sure you’ll understand.”
His lady? Jenny nearly melted into Roderick’s arms. After how she’d behaved, in spite of how she must look, he was prepared to call her that? No question, here was a knight errant capable of shielding and defending her from anything that might blight their future happiness. As for Harris—he was better off without her. If only he could see it.
“I thought you meant harm to my lady. I couldn’t stand for that. I’m sure you’ll understand.”
“Aye.” Harris took a step back, more dismayed by the adoring look on Jenny’s face than by Douglas’s vague threats. “I mind ye well enough.”
So this was why Morag had sent him tearing down the Chatham Road after Jenny. Harris had few memories of his rival from their schooldays in Dalbeattie, but he remembered Roderick’s father, Gregor Douglas. Though the man had been a pillar of the kirk and community, local gossip held that all three of his wives had died of a broken spirit. Likewise, Old Douglas had dominated his children—all but Roderick.
Harris had assumed the rancor between father and son sprang from their differences. Now he knew better.
Judging by the look on Jenny’s face, it was no use trying to convince her. At least not for the moment. Her fierce denial that anything improper had occurred between them was clear proof that she didn’t love him as she’d claimed.
Still, in spite of himself, he cared for her. He could no more abandon her to a future with black-hearted Roderick Douglas than he could have let her brave the dangerous journey to the Miramichi on her own.
Reaching into his vest pocket, Douglas extracted a few coins. “I owe you a debt, Chisholm, for seeing my lady safe to the Miramichi.” He tossed the money at Harris in a gesture both graceful and contemptuous.
As the coins fell around him into the sawdust, Harris wanted to hurl the money back with a bloodcurdling oath. If he was to stay in town, though, and watch for a chance to apprise Jenny of her fiancé’s true character, he’d need something to live on.
“Even ye don’t have enough coin to pay me for my trouble.” Harris had the bitter satisfaction of seeing Jenny flinch at his words.
“I suppose you’ll be on your way, now that you’ve discharged your escort duties?” asked Roderick Douglas.
So that’s what the money was for—to speed his departure.
“On my way? Not necessarily. I may hang about for a while. See what opportunities there are for a man with my skills.”
Roderick Douglas cocked an eyebrow and half raised one corner of his mouth. “And pray, what are your skills, Chisholm?”
Harris strove to keep his temper in check. “I was the manager of a large granite quarry before I emigrated. I know how to keep accounts and I write a good hand.”
“We don’t have much call for clerks in Chatham.”
“Aye? Then I reckon I’ll have to move on. Though after all I went through to get her here, I’ve a mind to see Miss Lennox properly married off. That way I’ll feel I’ve kept my word to her pa. How soon will the wedding be?”
“It could be as much as a month.”
Beneath the pretended regret, Harris heard a note of barely concealed triumph. No doubt Douglas assumed he couldn’t afford the money or the time to wait around until then.
“A month?” wailed Jenny. “Why so long?” She sounded as desperate to get the wedding over with as he was to prevent it.
“Banns, my dear Janet.” When Douglas treated her to a proprietary smile, Harris feared he might vomit again. “They have to read them for three Sabbaths, you know.”
“Aye, I know about banns,” said Jenny. “Only, I reckoned a ri—, that is a well-off man like ye could afford a license.”
“Of course, I can afford it,” Douglas snapped. Catching his lapse of temper, he continued with exaggerated civility. “It’s a question of propriety. What the community expects of a man in my position.”
It was too clean a shot for Harris to resist. “And a man in yer position must always be mindful of his position.”
Jenny fired him a look, half chiding, half pleading, as if to say, Please don’t do this—not now.
Roderick Douglas did not appear to catch Harris’s meaning. “Mindful of my position.” He seemed to savor the words on his tongue. “Just so. You do understand, then, Chisholm?”
“Now that I’ve met ye, Mr. Douglas, I understand a great deal.”
“I’m pleased to hear it. Once again, thanks to you for delivering my Janet safely. If you’ll excuse us, I must see her properly installed at my house, and confer with the vicar about posting banns on Sunday.”
“Vicar?” said Jenny. “We aren’t getting wed in the English church, are we?”
“But of course, my sweet Janet. Only Church of England marriages are recognized by civil law. This is a British colony, after all.”
“Then why did the McGregors and their neighbours have a Free Kirk minister to say the words at that wedding?”
“The Highlanders are…sentimental folk about such things. I assure you, the weddings in question aren’t recognized by law.”
“What about God’s law?” Harris challenged quietly.
Douglas cast him a smug look that set his blood boiling. “I won’t loll about in a shipyard debating theology with you, Chisholm, when a lady obviously needs her rest and nourishment…and a change of clothes. Come along, Janet. Cousin Binnie wrote me all about you, but I confess her letters didn’t do you justice.”
He continued to talk as he escorted her away.
Jenny glance back once. Harris could not read her expression.
When they were quite out of earshot, he muttered to himself, “Ye haven’t seen the last of me, Jenny. Nor ye neither, Rod Douglas.”
“A-hem.”
At the deliberate sound of a throat clearing, Harris spun around to see a small man, holding a roll of paper—ship’s plans, no doubt. Though he had not noticed the fellow during his exchange with Roderick Douglas, Harris guessed he’d been a silent witness all along.
“A word of advice, friend,” said the man mildly. “Do yourself a great favor. Don’t tamper with Mr. Douglas. You may live to regret it.”
Turning to walk away, he added thoughtfully, “Then again, you may not.”