There were grumblings among his people. While many supported the action he had taken against Callum, there were factions, even within his own men, who were bitterly angry. They did not think that a woman’s chastity should be prized over the life of a man. Particularly when a woman’s chastity had not even been proven.
He was beginning to feel concern for Mary’s safety. She was ensconced in the castle, and growing healthier by the day. But they would need to find a position for her and he knew it could not be back in the village.
It had become customary for he and Penny to take their late meal alone in their room.
‘Have you spoken to Mary about where she might want to go?’
‘I think she’d like a domestic position somewhere,’ Penny said. The place between her brows pleaded. ‘I’ve written a letter to Lady Beatrice Ashforth. The Duke’s sister.’
‘Yes,’ Lachlan said. ‘The Duke. It has been a while since I’ve heard you speak of him.’
‘It has been a while since I’ve thought of him,’ she said.
He did not know why, but that gripped him with a fierce, possessive pleasure.
‘And what did you ask this friend of yours?’
‘Initially, I had intended to ask her about household positions. If she might be able to provide a reference, or give me names of those who might be willing to hire a girl from Scotland. But then… Instead I asked about school.’
‘School?’
‘She’s young. She could go to a school that might train her, give her an education that she could use to take a position as a governess. She could have more options available to herself than simply being a scullery maid. Perhaps she’ll choose that life. But when I thought she might die the thing that grieved me most was that she didn’t have a chance. She didn’t have a chance at a better life. She didn’t have a chance to know what it was to be loved. To choose anything beyond this… This position she was born into.’
‘That is the life most people must contend with,’ he said softly. ‘Not everyone is spirited off to the Highlands, after a broken engagement to a duke, a duke who would have vastly increased her circumstances. Whichever path you’d taken, your life would have changed. You have experienced extraordinary events.’
‘It does not surprise me that you consider yourself an extraordinary event,’ she said, a sly smile touching her lips.
‘It is the way of things, lass. Most do not escape fate.’
‘You did. A destitute Scottish boy who made his fortune, who survived nearly a decade at war. You’re allowing this clan to escape the fate that your father consigned them to. Shouldn’t Mary have a chance?’
‘You’re forgetting the bairn.’
‘I haven’t forgotten,’ she said softly. ‘But that is… Have you noticed she does not hold him?’
‘I have not noticed the girl or the babe more than necessary.’ It wasn’t true. For he had seen how pale and weak Mary was and had watched her increase in strength, but had also seen that her interest in her child did not grow. The child still did not have a name. Not uncommon, for life was harsh and the chances of a baby dying were great enough that often the naming of them was delayed.
‘I want her to choose. Because she had no choice in any of the things that brought her to where she is. I want her to be able to choose.’
‘Do you expect word from your friend soon?’
She nodded. ‘I hope.’
* * *
Word came early the next day. With Beatrice writing to say that she could find a position for Mary at a school, thanks to the influence and generous donations of her brother.
His wife began to weep.
‘Always caring for wounded birds,’ he said, dashing a tear away from her cheek.
She went immediately to Mary’s room.
‘Mary,’ Penny said. ‘I’ve had a letter from a friend of mine. She’s sister to a duke. In England.’
Mary’s eyes went round. ‘A duke.’
‘Yes. She has found… There is a position available to you at a school in London.’
‘A school? What school would take me? No school wants a fallen woman who can’t read or write…who has a child.’
‘That you cannot read or write is not a concern. We can find you a position in a household with your baby if that is what you wish. But if you don’t want the baby to stay with you…’
The look on the girl’s face was one of such deep, pure emotion Lachlan had to look away. It was anguish, but it was hope.
‘I can’t leave him…’
‘How old are you, lass?’
‘Thirteen,’ she said.
Everything in him turned. He didn’t regret the death of Callum, not in the least. The man was worse than a devil, and he could burn in hell as far as Lachlan was concerned. Burn in hell for touching a child.
‘I had to become a man when I was thirteen,’ he said. ‘When it became clear my father was not one. Eventually, I made my way to England and I made my fortune. You have been forced to a burden you should not have been. But what you do now…it is your choice.’
‘The baby…’
‘He’ll be cared for,’ Penny said.
‘My parents won’t. And, I wouldn’t want him with them, even if they were willing, I wouldn’t want them to have him.’
‘If it was what you wanted,’ Penny said, her tone careful, ‘I would care for him.’
Lachlan took a step back. But Mary’s eyes filled with tears. ‘You would take care of him?’
‘I would.’
‘Would he be yours?’ The girl’s voice was filled with so much hope, it was nearly as sharp as any sword, as gutting as any bullet could have ever been.
‘Only if that’s what you wanted.’
‘I tried to get rid of him,’ Mary said. ‘I felt terribly guilty about that, after he was born and I saw him. But… I can’t take care of him. I don’t know how. And I never imagined that I might be able to go to school. That I might be able to learn something…’
‘You can,’ Penny said. ‘And if you really want, if you work at your studies, you might be able to find work as a governess.’
He could see a whole world of possibility in Mary’s face. ‘Not live in a house full of children like my mother. Not getting beat for the rest of my life by my husband. Learning to…to read and write and to get a real job. In London…’
‘I just want you to be able to choose,’ Penny said.
‘I never knew I could choose. Not anything. I’ve never been able to.’
‘You can now. And whatever it is you choose…’
‘I want to go to school. If he can be taken care of… I don’t know how to do it. I’ve been here, with no work to do, and I don’t know how to soothe him when he cries and I don’t know how to hold him right. And it is not his fault, but his father… His father hurt me. When I look at him I think of that.’
‘You shouldn’t live that way,’ Penny said.
‘Thank you,’ Mary said.
‘All I want is for you to make the best that you can with that choice,’ Penny said. ‘And don’t look back. Don’t wonder if you made the wrong choice.’
Dread built in his chest. The thought of this tiny, vulnerable child being in his care. Of Penny loving him. Of Penny…
If she lost this bairn, what would it do to her?
Lachlan waited until they left the room to turn to his wife. ‘You do not mean to keep the child?’
‘Why not?’
‘You did not ask me.’
‘You said to me, while we were on the way here from England, that I would likely be able to find myself a baby.’
‘I did not say that.’
‘You did.’
‘If I did, then it was because I was simply thinking you might hold a child on occasion. Not because you were going to take in a foundling.’
‘If your issue with children is your bloodline, then why can’t I have someone else’s baby?’
‘So, is this what it is? You’re offering her this position so that you can take the child?’
She looked stricken. ‘No. How could you ask me that?’
‘It seems to me a reasonable enough question, lass.’
‘I do want the baby. I love him. And I’m much more prepared to take care of him than a girl of thirteen. I have a husband with all the money and power in the realm.’
‘And you did not ask that husband what he might think of it.’
‘It’s a baby. And you made it perfectly clear you want nothing to do with them. But you told me that you were withholding a child from me because you didn’t want to carry on your bloodline.’
‘Do what you will, Penny,’ he said, anger rolling through him. ‘But this is not my responsibility. I have plenty enough to see to without taking on an abandoned child.’
‘He’s not abandoned. She’s making the best choice that she can, for both of them. If you could have seen the desperation on her face when I first spoke to her. She didn’t want this. And even now, it’s clear that she has struggled to bond with him. That she hasn’t. It isn’t fair what she’s been through.’
‘Do what you will,’ he repeated. ‘But I’ll have none of it. I have nothing to do with it.’
‘I didn’t think you were an unreasonable tyrant. I knew how badly your father had hurt you. How badly he hurt all the people here. And even though I don’t believe your blood is tainted, Lachlan Bain, I could understand why you do. But what I don’t understand is why you…why you’re angry with me about taking this child in.’
She didn’t understand. For she had not seen the things he had. The way the loss of her babies had destroyed his mother, year after year. The vow he’d made to that wounded child, on a battlefield years ago, that he could not keep.
That strength, love and power could not keep a bairn on this earth. No matter how deep it was.
She said she knew. She didn’t.
‘If you wish to take this on, I cannot stop you. I won’t. But you’re sheltered, Penelope, and you still believe that everything will work out right for you in the end because it has. But I know how quickly fever can take something that small. And when your heart is shattered over the death of a child…’
‘Lachlan, you can’t… We cannot guarantee that things in life won’t hurt. Just like you could not know for sure if you would succeed here. But it doesn’t mean you didn’t try. I cannot guarantee that the child will live two years, ten years, thirty years. But… This kind of closing off yourself…that’s what my father did. And he couldn’t stand my emotions. He couldn’t stand them, so he shut me away. And then I ended up shutting away pieces of myself for most of my life. And I missed them. But here… Here I have found myself, and I will not go back. I won’t stop love simply because it might harm me. I cannot do that.’
‘On your head be it.’
And he turned and left his wife standing there. If he were a man who could feel guilt, he might have felt it now.
But he couldn’t.
His wife was still the woman who had saved that bird.
But he was not the man who had helped her.
And he never could be again.