Why not? This was why not!
Lydia stood before the mirror in her chamber, biting her lip. It was the day of the wedding and Eilidh had finished the dress. It was stunning. Eilidh, clearly a gifted needlewoman, had not only taken it in, she had made it hug Lydia’s figure to perfection. The dress had been a gift from Mrs Pickering before the rift between them—an old dress, she had said at the time, from before an excess of plumpness had come on her.
Lydia, always glad to receive her employers’ cast-offs, had thanked Mrs Pickering, who had been both taller and generally larger than Lydia. She had had to take the dress up a little at the time, but ensured that it remained wide enough to hide the lines of her shape. Eilidh had uncovered those lines and revealed every curve of Lydia’s body. Yes, the lace fichu was firmly in place—very little skin was on display—yet the cerulean silk with its gauze overdress hugged every part of her form. There were her hips, her stomach, her breasts and her waist. All visible. All on display.
She took a breath, tried to look at the image in the mirror as if she were seeing some other person, at a party, perhaps. Seen in that way, with a degree of objectivity, Lydia realised that the dress was not particularly unusual. It was pretty, in fact. Eilidh had added lace at the sleeves and a little on the bodice, and the effect was wondrous. It is the prettiest dress I have ever worn.
To make matters worse, Eilidh had insisted in styling her hair and Lydia’s tresses had been swept up into an elaborate chignon, with pretty golden side curls framing her face. To Lydia, who had spent all of her adult life trying to disguise her looks, the effect was terrifying. Eilidh, of course, was only delighted.
‘Ah, Miss Lydia, you will outshine even the bride today!’
‘But I have no wish to outshine her! This is Màiri’s day. I would not do anything in the world to take that away from any bride!’ She shook her head. ‘You will have to tell them I am indisposed. I cannot possibly go down looking like this.’
Mairead, who had been listening to this exchange with great interest, chose this moment to interject. ‘Do you not like your dress, Lydia? I think it is very pretty!’
‘It is not that. It is just—’ She bit back her words. Never could she admit aloud that she did not welcome her own good looks.
Mairead tilted her head on one side. ‘Eilidh worked very hard to fix your dress and your hair. And—’ she added, twisting the knife ‘I know very well that you are not indisposed, and you always tell me how important it is to be truthful.’
Lydia closed her eyes briefly.
I declare this child will be the death of me.
‘Very well. But I intend to retire as soon as I may.’ She reached for the child, who slipped into her arms and nestled comfortably against her hip as if she were meant to be there.
Mairead’s own dress was of white muslin, trimmed with blue ribbons, and with a split skirt as usual. The long fabric was a perfect disguise for little legs that were gradually getting stronger, and already, to Lydia’s delight, had some actual visible muscle. In the past fortnight, as well as perfecting her rolling and sitting up, Mairead had been practising kneeling and she was now able to kneel up for quite ten seconds at a time, before her strength gave out.
What could not be disguised however, was the healthy colour in Mairead’s cheeks. Some of the staff had made comment about her rosy complexion, which had gladdened Lydia.
I am not imagining it, then.
The Laird, if he had noticed, had made no comment so far. He and Lydia had taken to moving to his parlour after dinner each evening, to play cards, drink wine and converse on matters big and small. Iain frequently joined them, but most evenings, it was just the Laird and Lydia.
Lydia was feeling increasingly easy in the company of both men—which was entirely surprising to her, given her previous experiences. While Iain had occasionally had a warm look in his eye towards Lydia, he had done nothing to make her feel uncomfortable and she was hoping that, for once, she might be able to call a man ‘friend’. He was a good person and she had come to like what she knew of him, but he left her heart and body unmoved.
The Laird, on the other hand, showed no signs of attraction towards her. He was unfailingly polite—warm, even—but Lydia, who had been hounded by men all her adult life, was rather put out that this man, of all men, should show her nothing but cordiality. Despite her assumption that her fluttering innards would eventually settle themselves, they were showing no signs of doing so. Just being in his presence was enough to make her heart skip and her stomach complete strange tumblings. Wonderful! she thought wryly as she descended the main staircase, Eilidh by her side and Mairead in her arms. Finally, I am attracted to someone and he does not feel the same. Indeed, there were occasions when she still believed he disapproved of her.
It was as yet unclear exactly why. She knew he had been sceptical about her teaching abilities. Was he yet? He frequently quizzed her about Mairead’s lessons and Lydia provided the information with a calmness she generally did not feel. There was always a certain nervousness that accompanied discussing children’s progress with their parents, but it was even more pronounced with him. No matter how much she assured him of Mairead’s progress, she never felt that he quite trusted her.
‘Ooh!’ Mairead breathed, as they reached the top of the stair leading to the Great Hall, Eilidh beside them. Below them, the space had been hung with greenery and flowers, in celebration of Màiri and Calum’s special day.
‘How pretty!’ Lydia breathed, echoing Mairead’s response. The greenery had been intertwined with flowers from the machair and the marshes—pretty primroses and buttercups gleaming bright yellow and contrasting with the deeper hues of marsh marigolds and the golden frothiness of lady’s bedstraw.
So intent was she on identifying the flowers—some of which she had never seen before coming to the islands—that Lydia entirely failed to notice the Laird, standing to one side with Mrs MacLeod and looking up at them descending.
Alasdair always felt a certain ambivalence about weddings. They were a frequent occurrence in the island community, but he never knew whether to be hopeful and delighted for the marital couple, or cynical and pessimistic of their chances. Reason told him there were many married couples within the castle and the wider Ardmore community who were perfectly content with each other, even after many years.
Yet when his thoughts turned to his own marriage, and to Hester’s death less than two years after they had exchanged their wedding vows, he felt only a cold emptiness. Despite what the islanders believed, his fixation with his beautiful young wife had not long survived the reality of living with her.
He had courted Hester in the glowing candlelight of Edinburgh ballrooms and married her within two months of meeting her. Memories shuddered through him. The thrill of bringing her here to the castle for the first time. The hurt that had pierced him when she had seen only its imperfections.
Standing with Mrs MacLeod in the Great Hall, with the excitement of the upcoming nuptials in the air, his thoughts drifted to Calum and Màiri. They are both from Ardmore. Both from the same world, he reminded himself. Islanders understood one another. Outsiders will always be outsiders. In his mind, he used the Gaelic word ‘Sassenach’, which, naturally, drew his thoughts to the governess. Her status as an outsider, combined with her striking beauty, meant that she was dangerous. An outsider could never be truly content here in the islands, he knew. He knew it and yet could never understand it. It mystified him, for he knew Ardmore to be as close to Paradise as was possible in this world. Still, experience had been his teacher. Harsh experience.
Yes, Miss Farnham would inevitably leave and his main concern as a father was to ensure Mairead did not become over-reliant on the woman. He was rather pleased that, up until now, he himself had managed not to succumb entirely to the governess’s charms, although it had taken every ounce of self-restraint to do so. So far, he had succeeded in maintaining a balance between developing something like a friendship with her—a novel situation in itself—without yielding to the temptation to let his eyes or his touch linger on her.
To be fair, she had no airs to attract, being possessed of a down-to-earth practicality which contrasted greatly with her angelic beauty. In that sense she was very different to Hester, who had used her looks to wheedle, cajole and persuade people to comply with her wishes.
If Miss Farnham had been even a little flirtatious, she would have caused havoc in the castle. Indeed, it had surprised him to notice how she kept to herself and chose the company of other women—going as far as to avoid even conversing with men, apart from himself and Iain—and that was of necessity. She was, he knew, generally liked in the castle—liked, rather than simply admired for her looks.
If he were completely honest, he might confess to enjoying her company every evening—hers and Iain’s, naturally. She had a good mind and he enjoyed informing her of Scottish history and hearing some details of her life before coming to the islands. And if, in the dead of night, his thoughts of her were of a more intimate nature, he could set this aside in the cold light of day. He was a man, after all, and no man could fail to be inspired by her beauty.
His musings returned to her tales of London life. Although she had provided plenty of information about the various children she had cared for—their character and habits, their ages and dispositions—she had never explained why she had left each family. To listen to her, one would assume that she had been devoted to every one of her charges. Yet she had left every one of them.
Having noted this, he still could not fault her current diligence towards Mairead. She spent most of every day with his daughter, even on Sundays, and frequently carried her off for jaunts out across the low hills and moors. They went to the beaches, too, he knew, for Mairead was assembling an impressive collection of seashells. Despite his worries that she might succumb to a chill, the child actually looked healthier now than she had before. She was eating more, too, which might have been a coincidence. Or it might not.
Grudgingly, he admitted that Miss Farnham was doing a reasonable job so far. Catching his thoughts, he frowned. That was unfair. She was being conscientious and was getting results, both with Mairead’s lessons and with the child’s general appearance and demeanour. If a woman from the islands were achieving as much with Mairead, he would have been delighted. But Miss Farnham’s status as an outsider, combined with her impossible beauty, served only to increase his wariness of her.
A sudden lull in the Great Hall chatter brought him back to the present. People were nudging one another and eyes were turning to the grand staircase. Naturally, he, too, looked up—and caught his breath.
Miss Farnham was descending, Mairead on her hip. Someone else was with them, but for the moment his attention was fully captured by the governess. Never had he seen her look so beautiful—and he was well used to the knowledge that she was divinely pretty. It is the dress. It hugged every delectable curve and confirmed his previous suspicions that her body was every bit as perfect as her face. Greedily, his gaze roved over her form—those breasts! And the hips!
Abruptly, he caught himself. I am no callow youth, to be so taken by an attractive woman. Yet his body, frustratingly, disagreed. He slammed his jaw shut, belatedly realising it had sagged in hungry reaction. She had reached the bottom of the stairs and was hesitating, looking decidedly uncertain. I should go to her. Yet he did not. The hunger in him was too strong. He needed to get himself under some sort of control before he attempted to converse with her. The last thing he needed was to give her any sort of indication that he found her attractive. Therein lay the path to ruin.
Hester had played him like a master musician played the harp. He, blinded by emotion, had entirely failed to understand his young wife and tragedy had ensued. It was his fault and his failing that he had not realised Hester was unsuited to island life. And that he himself was not someone a beautiful woman could truly love. He had been too wedded to his duty, unable to give Hester the attention she had craved...
He forced himself to focus on Mairead. As if conscious of all the staring eyes, she had nestled deeper into Miss Farnham’s embrace and was currently hiding her face in the governess’s neck. The governess who will inevitably leave us all.
This was exactly the inducement he needed to shake himself out of sentimentality, fear, regret and desire. Quite before he knew what he was doing, he had marched towards the bottom of the stairs. ‘Give her to me!’
Even he heard the commanding tone. It was not a tone he often used, so it was little wonder that Miss Farnham’s eyes widened in startlement and—was that fear?
‘Of course.’ Her voice shook a little. ‘Look, Mairead, here is your papaidh!’
Mairead was already lifting her head. He held out his arms and, for the briefest of moments he wondered if she might refuse him. His blood ran cold. Then she reached for him and his heart began beating once again.
Danger!
‘Miss Farnham, I have been considering and I have decided I should like to observe some of my daughter’s lessons.’ He had not, in fact, been considering it at all, but now that the words had been spoken he saw the sense in it. ‘Each day after nuncheon I shall spend an hour with you both.’
‘Yes, of course, sir.’
He could tell that his words were causing her some nervousness, but the feeling that Mairead was becoming much, much too attached to her governess terrified him. ‘Good. We begin tomorrow.’ He looked down at Mairead, who was balanced on his hip. ‘Now, mo nighean, we must take our places, for the wedding is about to begin.’
Striding away from the governess, he did not look back. And yet, indelibly etched in his mind’s eye was an image of her almost frightened expression just now—eyes huge in her pale face, a face perfectly framed with the addition of fashionable guinea-gold side curls. As if she was not beautiful enough!
A few moments later the ceremony began. While it might have seemed to others as though he were attending to it, his thoughts were elsewhere. Actually, there were very few coherent thoughts. Instead there was a whirlwind of swirling emotion—fear of losing Mairead, regret at his own curtness, concern at having distressed Miss Farnham, a sense of righteousness at having reminded her that Mairead was his daughter...underneath it all, and threading through everything else, was a damnable attraction towards her that he could no longer deny.
Lydia watched him stride away, shock holding her immobile. Eilidh, who had stood quietly nearby during their entire exchange, slipped an arm into Lydia’s. ‘Let us find a place to sit, for they will begin shortly.’
In something of a daze, Lydia allowed Eilidh to lead her to two seats near the back of the hall. I knew this was a mistake!
They had almost reached the bottom of the stairs before Lydia had realised that numerous people were staring at them. A governess, she knew, should never be forward, never seek attention. She should remain in the background, quietly and unobtrusively dealing with the children. She should certainly not be wearing silk and lace and sporting saucy side curls. As she recalled the Laird’s thunderous expression, her innards tightened with nervousness and regret.
I should never have worn this dress!
Her heart was pounding. She felt distressed, upset—tearful, even. Where had her friend disappeared to? The person who had talked with her so easily each evening? In his place was a laird, a distant figure giving commands in an imperious manner. It was a side of him she had seen less and less as time went on and it was a shock to be reminded of it.
Thankfully, the wedding ceremony began soon afterwards and so there was no longer any requirement for conversation. Years of hiding her feelings allowed her, she hoped, to appear outwardly serene, yet inwardly turmoil raged. The Laird was displeased with her—so displeased that he had behaved with more impoliteness than she had ever seen from him. Part of her secret admiration had grown, she, knew, from watching him respond with understanding to difficult issues and controversies among the castle—urgent challenges to do with disagreements which he mediated with unfailing good judgement and equanimity.
Such equanimity had been absent just now, when he had made his displeasure towards her crystal clear. There had been nothing of composure in his harsh tone and dark scowl. Never had she seen such incivility from him. She felt chastised, uncertain, lost—as though she herself was a recalcitrant schoolgirl and he her angry tutor. She had come to expect harshness from employers when they found out about men importuning her, but this felt so much worse—partly, she owned, because she had been beginning to trust him.
This time, no man had attacked her, despite her foolish decision to dress in a way that could only draw attention to her looks and form. A sudden thought struck her. Perhaps the Laird was angry at her new dress, her fancy hairstyle and the attention it had generated—attention she had never wished for.
The failing was hers. Yes, her gown and hairstyle had been fashioned by Eilidh, but Lydia herself, in a fit of vanity, had succumbed to the temptation. And now she was to pay dearly for it. Whatever the Laird’s reasons were for mistrusting her, she had added to them. It was all her own doing. No man had importuned her, it was true, but the Laird had made his disapproval of her transformation clear.
As the ceremony continued and her thoughts flitted about like butterflies in a garden, there was one clear thread running through all of the agitation within her.
Please, please do not send me away!