Jamie went directly to her room and began packing her belongings.
How she longed to tell little Andrew that his father loved him! But he could never understand. He would not even know yet that he had been hurt. The pain would not solidify for several more years, and by then it would be too late to turn back the tide of his father’s rejection.
Neither could she face the thought of seeing Andrew for the last time. The very idea brought fresh tears to her eyes as one by one she placed her things in her carpetbag.
At last, however, she could no longer forestall the inevitable and went to the nursery door and entered.
“Jamie!” exclaimed Bea, “ye look awful! Are ye ill?”
“No, Bea. I’m—I’ll be leaving Aviemere.”
“Leavin’?”
“Yes. I came to say goodbye to Andrew.”
“Ye don’t mean t’ say the laird’s been at it again! Ye were good fer the bairn.”
“Don’t blame him, Bea. It wasn’t the laird’s fault. It’s just that I—”
Her voice caught, and though she swallowed several times, she could not continue.
Bea placed a sympathetic arm around Jamie’s shoulder. “I’m sorry, lass. Would ye like t’ be alone with him?”
Jamie nodded, and Bea left.
Now she had to face Andrew, who in his innocence could understand nothing of the emotions which were swirling about with him at their very center. He looked up, smiled sweetly, and said, “Up, Mamie!”
She stooped down, picked him up, and held him close. But she could say little to him, least of all goodbye.
Thirty minutes later the two were seated on the floor rolling a ball back and forth across the floor. Jamie’s tears had subsided, although the mood in the room was still somewhat somber.
When she heard the door open, she rose reluctantly, expecting news that the arrangements had been made and that the wagon was ready to take her into the village. But as she turned, Edward Graystone’s once-ominous form filled the doorway.
In an instant Jamie knew the granite facade had crumbled. The hollowness of his bearing brought a fresh ache to Jamie’s heart and she lamented the part she had played in bringing it about. She could not make herself look up at him.
“I—I’ve come to see Andrew,” he said in a halting voice.
With a silent prayer of thanksgiving in her heart, Jamie went over and took Andrew’s hand. She then led him over to the feet of this man who had been little more than a stranger to him.
Slowly Graystone dropped to his knees, and with trembling arms clutched the boy to his breast, weeping as Jamie had never seen a man weep before. She turned and made her way back to her own room, closing the door softly behind her, where she sat down on the bed to await whatever summons would follow.
Some thirty minutes later she heard a soft knock on her door. She rose to answer it.
There stood Graystone, composed again, but obviously with his former strength of presence altogether shattered.
“I would like to—” he began, “—that is—may I speak with you for a moment?”
Jamie nodded.
“I feel I owe you an explanation.”
“You owe me nothing,” said Jamie. “Don’t feel you must—”
“Please,” interrupted Graystone, “I want to tell you . . . for Andrew’s sake. And perhaps for mine. I want to make a clean breast of it. And you’re as good a place to start as anywhere. You have been kind . . . to us both.”
“Oh, no! I spoke too hastily to you. I had no right.”
“Perhaps not. But that hardly matters. Love has its own rights. And you spoke because you loved Andrew—loved him possibly more than I.”
“Oh no, sir, I know you care. You just didn’t know how to show it.”
“Never mind, Miss—Miss MacLeod. That’s all behind us now. I simply want you to have the whole truth. I feel you deserve it.”
With her heart in her throat, Jamie said nothing, and Graystone went on.
“I am not the laird of Aviemere,” he began, turning back into the nursery and pacing the small room slowly, pausing in front of the window. “But I have done nothing to dispel the illusion. My brother is the true Lord Graystone, Laird of Aviemere. I am nothing but a paid servant. I have loved Aviemere since my earliest boyhood, perhaps more than is decent, and would have done anything to possess it. Yet all my life I knew it would never be mine.
“Perhaps I wanted a child as much as does any man, but I had no need of an heir, so I was able to accept my wife’s inability. After two miscarriages she was told she could bear no children except at the peril of her life. We were in love and would have been able to live with that. We could have had a happy life without children.”
He paused, obviously struggling with rising emotion at the thought of his dead wife. He drew in a deep breath then went on.
“Then came a letter that my brother had been killed in the Transvaal. And suddenly, just like that—in an instant!—it was all mine! The thing I had dreamed of all my life was mine—the land, the estate, the mountain—everything! I cared nothing for the wealth, or even the title. But the land! It was the land I coveted—because I knew my brother cared nothing for it or its people and would be, if not a cruel laird, at least an uncompassionate one. But even with the news, which brought both joy and sorrow, Olivia could see even before I that one thing was missing. I lacked an heir to pass on my beloved Aviemere to.
“She came to me one day, with a smile on her lips, and announced that the doctor had rescinded his previous diagnosis and had given her his consent to bear another child. My Olivia, who was the essence of virtue, never having told a lie in her life, was willing to so degrade herself—for my selfish desires!”
In anguish Graystone wiped his eyes and drew in a deep breath, struggling with each word he uttered, yet compelled to continue, compelled at last to unburden his heart, even if to a servant, a mere child of eighteen.
“And I believed her!”
“But, sir,” said Jamie, seeking any way she might to speak out for this wretched man’s defense, “why should you not have believed her? You can hardly blame yourself.”
“I believed her only because I wanted to believe her! Just as I believed Derek was dead because I wanted to believe it. I could have seen through the lies if I had chosen to, if I had let myself. Especially Olivia’s! But my head was full of greed and selfish lust for the position which had all my life been denied me by my cold but powerful father. I could see nothing else! Then—but not until it was too late and Olivia was already pregnant with Andrew—came the letter with the news that my brother lived. How I despised him for that! But it was too late! And Olivia—! But I was the only one responsible—”
He stopped again, unable to continue for a moment. Then turning his hollow eyes full on Jamie, he said, “Perhaps it is out of place for me to burden you with all this, but I feel you ought to know.”
“I don’t need to know, unless it helps you to tell me. It only matters to me that you and Andrew are together.”
“Ah yes, Andrew!” he replied.
He returned to the crib and lifted the boy into his arms.
“I want you to know,” he said. “You have cared deeply for Andrew. You have given much to him. I have watched you—though I have made certain I was never seen—you have been . . . like a mother to him.”
“Please,” said Jamie, tears standing in her eyes, “I have not done nearly—”
“No! You have loved him, and that’s what matters most. He needs you, and it was foolish of me to dismiss you. I behaved very unkindly to you.”
“I was too forward! I had no right—”
“Nevertheless, I have not been pleasant to you since you first came. I want the chance to make it up to you. I’m asking you, please—won’t you stay?”
“If I can be of any help—”
“You already have been, probably more than either of us can know. You’ll stay on then, at Aviemere?”
“Thank you, Miss MacLeod! Though words are hardly enough.”
Graystone knelt down with one knee on the floor and set the boy on his other. He brushed the yellow locks of hair from the boy’s eyes, and stared into his face for a long while, seeming to behold him for the first time. What was passing through his mind he did not reveal. Andrew also scrutinized his father, touched his face, and spoke several unintelligible words to him. Then he scurried down from the knee, scampered into the adjoining room and returned a moment later with his toy. He held it out for his father to see.
“Baba,” said Andrew by way of introduction.
Graystone laughed, and Jamie took the moment of levity to wipe the tears of joy from her eyes with the back of her sleeve. “I know!” replied Graystone. “It was I who brought your Baba home for you, even before you were born!” His voice was husky with renewed emotion.
He rose, took Andrew by the hand, and said, “Thank you again, Miss MacLeod. And now, if you will excuse us, I think my son and I will go outside for a short walk.”