Let Me Be Your Hero (11 page)

He pulled her against him, and her head went so easily against his chest. For a moment, she wanted to throw her arms around his neck and tell him that in her heart she did not believe him guilty of adultery, but she was shy to speak of it, and hesitant after all the things she had said. Childishly, she waited for him to take the lead as he had always done before, to be the strong one, the leader, and to do whatever it took to keep them together, for the world already seemed so dark and lonely and terrifying without him in it.

Still, she tried to muster the strength of will, if not to ask him to remain, at least to suggest they talk about
it. Suddenly, he released her, and she realized she had hesitated too long.

He stepped back and she felt acutely his distancing himself from her.

“I bid ye farewell, sweet Claire. So few words, yet they take all the power of my will to say them. Leaving ye is difficult and so against my heart. I must keep reminding myself that ye were never truly mine.”

It is not an easy thing to do—to blame yourself for your mistakes that cause you pain and suffering, but it goes beyond difficult when one must also shoulder the blame for decisions that inflict pain and suffering upon others.

Claire had to accept the fact that her decision to divorce Fraser was a mistake for many personal reasons: she still loved him; she’d made a life-changing decision under tremendous pressure and strain that she would not have made otherwise; she was seduced by the kindness, generosity and pretense of love that were nothing more than silver hooks of lies dangling from the silken threads of deception that Isobel and Lord Walter baited her with; and when she trusted them and turned against Fraser, she swallowed the bait and was hooked.

Fraser was gone and now she was trapped by her own gullibility. That she suffered was one thing, but to see her own stupidity as the cause of misery in her sisters’ lives was an open wound that never healed.

Well, ye have what ye wanted, Claire Lennox. Ye chose Isobel and Lord Walter over Fraser, and now ye maun reap what ye have sown.
But oh, she never dreamed she would pay such a great price for her foolish immaturity.

Almost immediately after the divorce was granted, Isobel and Lord Walter’s first official duty was to contest Claire’s right to the earldom, disputed on the grounds it could not legally descend to a female heir. It was a weak claim from the beginning, and it did not take long for the matter to be decided in Claire’s favor.

It was not long until the greedy pair enlisted the help of an unscrupulous lawyer, in an attempt to have Claire declared mentally unsound, which they based upon her melancholy.

Once again, the matter was settled in Claire’s favor. The Duke of Argyll addressed Isobel and Lord Walter with stern and steady frankness at the final hearing, “I ken anyone who lost a beloved family member would suffer bouts of sadness, and when ye consider this lass has lost four o’ her family members in a short period o’time… Weel, I canna find fault with that, and I am concerned to hear that ye do. I find the Countess of Errick and Mains’ melancholy to be normal and expected, and not an indication she is of unsound mind.”

The once-happy surroundings at Lennox Castle began to change as well. Gradually, the cheerful and efficient staff began to disappear only to be replaced by aloof employees, devoid of any feeling, but with a devoted efficiency at reporting to their employers the moment anyone stepped out of line.

Laughter became a rare occurrence.

At night, Claire and her sisters would lie in bed and whisper how anyone could do anything more to render their environment less gloomy or more miserable.

It was as if the castle itself had undergone massive change, and its thick walls and huge oaken beams took on the characteristics of a prison, along with the
narrow windows set high in the walls. Most of the loveliest furnishing began to disappear, as they were moved to Isobel’s home, or to that of Lord Walter, in exchange for pieces of lesser quality, or for nothing at all. Soon they became accustomed to the bare places in rooms where exquisite antiques had once been.

One gloomy afternoon as Claire and Greer were on their way to their room, Greer said, “Even the paintings look frightening now, ye ken.”

It was true, for even to Claire, the portraits of their ancestors, who always seemed to smile warmly upon the generations that followed them, now seemed somber and grim, as they scowled at all who passed by from the walls of the galleries.

Their first two attempts having failed, Isobel and Lord Walter began to plan other ways to gain control of Claire’s title and inheritance and, utmost in their eyes was coercing her to marry Isobel’s son, Giles. Claire and her sisters were placed under the supervision of a strict and unsympathetic governess, after Kathleen O’Malley was sent away.

Cora Baber was cold, reserved, and in possession of a peevish sternness and all around air of bitter discontent. She made their hours in the schoolroom miserable, and when they were punished, which was often, it was harsh. Whenever Miss Baber reported to Isobel or Lord Walter the slightest infractions of the rules, they were punished a second time, only more severely.

For some reason, Cora Baber selected Briana as her favored one to pick on, and consequently she found fault with everything Briana did. She scolded her, slapped her palms with a ruler, assigned her grueling tasks, or gave her a thorough shaking.

If Briana dared to ask a question, she would answer, “Everyone else understands, and since ye are the only one who canna pay attention, ye will have to find the answer yerself.”

Because Briana was the youngest, things were especially difficult for her. Her thoughts were so much occupied with the loss of her father and brothers that she had difficulty focusing her mind on anything else. As a result, she was the recipient of daily punishment in the schoolroom because she could not concentrate. Briana, who was always the happiest child, was now known for bursting into tears at the slightest cause.

Miss Baber especially liked asking Briana a question, then answering it herself, before Briana had an opportunity to reply. She would call Briana a dunce and stupid, then she would throw the book down and tell Briana to stand in the corner because “Ye are too stupid to learn.”

“Ye only make it more difficult for yourself,” Kenna told her. “Canna ye see the malicious smile on Miss Baber’s face whenever ye cry? Do ye not think she enjoys it when ye cry?”

“Aye, I k-ken she does,” Briana said between sobs.

“And will ye be content to spend the rest of yer life pleasing the likes o’ her? Is that to be yer lot in life, then?”

There were many nights when they were only allowed bread and water for dinner. Spankings were frequent and harshly administered. One day, Miss Baber said to Isobel, in front of Claire and her sisters, “One must be brutally severe at times, but that is the only way to break the obstinate will of children, ye ken.”

“Oh, I agree with ye,” Isobel said. “Wholeheartedly.
Do feel free to discipline them in whatever manner ye choose.”

Isobel did not rely on Cora Baber to provide all the misery, for she seemed to take equal pleasure in finding ways to show the girls that the Isobel they had previously known was not the real Isobel.

All the beautiful dresses she had made for the girls disappeared. The piano was sold. The art room was locked. They were no longer allowed to remove books from the library. The trips across the loch were canceled. They were not allowed to attend kirk.

When Greer commented at dinner, “I dinna like peas. They stick in my throat,” Isobel smiled coldly.

“What a pity I did not know sooner,” Isobel said, “for I thought ye were especially fond o’ peas, and ordered cook to have plenty on hand for ye.”

Poor Greer was forced to eat nothing but peas for every meal for one week. To make certain she ate all of them, Isobel said, “For each pea ye leave on yer plate, one meal will be denied of one of yer sisters.”

They all suffered, but it was worse for Claire, for she felt responsible for being so gullible to believe the best of Walter and Isobel, even to the point of turning her back on her own husband. It was a rare night that she did not cry herself to sleep.

Lord Walter’s favorite torment was to order them to their room for an evening or several days, depending on his mood and what the guilty person did to acquire his wrath. He also came up with the idea for cold baths during the wintertime, where they had to sit in the bath for a certain period of time, and often the water was so cold, a thin layer of ice had to be broken before they could sit down.

Eventually, all the color in their world faded away to sepia tones. For the entire winter that followed, the only cheerful sound or sight in the castle was the crackle of the burning fire and the warmth it lent to the room.

It was not like your great and gracious ways! Do you, that have naught other to lament,

Never, my Love, repent Of how, that July afternoon, You went, With sudden, unintelligible phrase,

And frightened eye, Upon your journey of so many days, Without a single kiss, or a goodbye?

Coventry Patmore (1823-1896), British poet.
The Unknown Eros
“Departure” (1877)

Utrecht, Holland Summer 1745

F
raser Graham was going home.

He did not realize how hungry he was for his family and his homeland until he saw his brother waving energetically from the boat, and felt a corresponding lump of homesickness swell in his throat.

Two years…

Two long years he had been here, without setting foot on Scottish soil; without the sight of a family face or the lilt of a dear one’s voice. But that would all change now that Bran was here.

Fraser was deeply touched when Bran wrote of his plans to come to Utrecht. “I will come to visit for a week or so, then I will return home with ye,” he wrote.

“I will accompany ye back to Scotland,” he wrote, “for I canna wait any longer to see ye, Fraser. I also want to make certain the women in Utrecht are as beautiful as ye say.”

When Fraser scanned the faces of the passengers on the boat and caught his first glimpse of Bran’s face, it all became real to him: his brother was here, and he
was
going home.

Bran no more than stepped on solid ground when Fraser appeared at his side. Immediately, the brothers greeted each other with polite fondness as befitted their class, and then, in the manner the Graham brothers did since their childhood days, they tussled energetically—until Bran managed to encircle Fraser’s head and lock him against his body with his arm in a tight hold.

“Ye ha’ gotten weak, brother,” Bran said. “I ken you will be in for it when you arrive back at Monleigh and Jamie, Niall and Callum have a go at ye. Surely ye know they will be waiting for ye.”

“Aye, I ken they will, but perhaps my superior intelligence will enable me to escape that fate.”

“Och…so it’s a super intelligence you acquired, is it? And I was thinking ye came to study law.” His eyes gleamed with mischief as he said, “Mayhap ye are better suited to wrestle our wee sister.”

“Och, I let her try her hand at it when she was no more than nine or ten. When I got the best of her, she lost her temper and gave me a swift kick. It landed in a most unfortunate place.”

Bran was laughing. “Oh aye, I remember that day and the sight of ye sprawled on yer back in the garden and Arabella’s comment that she liked kicking better than wrestling.”

“Look at ye,” Bran said when he stepped back to look Fraser over. “The first lawyer in the family. Have you any inkling of how proud we are of ye?”

Fraser grinned and gave Bran’s hair a bit of ruffling. “Ye are only thinking of the free legal advice.”

“Aye, that, too,” Bran said.

Fraser picked up Bran’s portmanteau. “It is good to have ye here,” he said, and the two of them started up the street, each taking the opportunity to bring the other up to date on what had transpired in their lives over the past two years.

Once they reached the house where Fraser rented two small rooms, Fraser talked about plans for dinner when Bran dropped wearily into a leather chair. “I fair to wore myself out wrestling ye, and I am grown quite gray in the head for want of sleep,” he said. “I ken an hour or so of rest would make me a more jovial dinner partner.”

“Then hie yourself off to my bed for a nap.”

While Bran napped, Fraser packed the things in his desk. He still found it difficult to believe that after his years of study at the University of Utrecht, he would bid adieu to this ancient city. How long ago it seemed when he first arrived in the
Hart van Nederland
—the heart of the Netherlands—and saw for the first time
the colorful, magical city of Utrecht, traveling as everyone did by a horse-drawn boat through the canals that linked the River Lek to the Utrecht Canal.

When he reached the bottom drawer and started to empty it, he picked up a bundle of letters. The top one was from his sister, Arabella, and the first letter he received after he arrived. He studied his sister’s familiar handwriting, which he found to be similar to Claire’s, although Arabella’s letters had more pronounced loops.

Claire…always Claire, remaining for some time in his thoughts and mind, like the last note of a song that has ended. He thought of the broken heart that brought him here, and Claire, so beautiful, so dainty, and yet so strong, having to endure the gossip and shame of divorce, in order to be free of him.

The feel of her in his arms… God, Claire, small and sweet, whose face haunted him still. Claire, both goddess and temptress, whose beautiful nudity lying soft beneath him was a powerful balance of innocence and sensuality. Claire who said, “There is no oath so binding as to hold me to you.”

More than once during his time here, he would think about her and wonder if she still considered him guilty of adultery. It still puzzled him how she could have thought him capable of such, and with such a notorious courtesan as the Countess of Stagwyth.

He remembered that day well for two reasons: Claire’s decision to believe her calculating aunt over him, and how very sick he really was. He had to stop this, he thought. Put her out of your mind….

When Bran came out of the bedroom Fraser was still standing there with Arabella’s letter in his hand,
wrestling with his mind. He did not notice that his brother entered the room.

Bran walked over to Fraser and glanced at the letter. “It’s from Arabella,” he said.

His words entered Fraser’s consciousness and the memory of Claire vanished. “What…? Oh…yes… Arabella…she was the first to write me, ye know.”

Bran shrugged, giving his attention to the writing on the envelope. “It is more of a woman’s nature to be punctual with that sort of thing. When I came into the room and saw ye, I thought at first that the letter was from Claire.”

Fraser’s expression stiffened. “I havena written to Claire, nor has she corresponded with me. Why would ye think she would?”

“Hold on now, I did not say I
thought
anything, except there was something about yer expression that made me think ye entertained thoughts o’ her in yer mind.”

Fraser’s features relaxed and he put the bundle of letters in the trunk. “I ken ye to be a man of keen insight and judgment… I was thinking of her.”

Fraser watched as his brother dropped into the leather chair. He was glad Bran was here. Although Fraser had made many friends in Utrecht, and had two friends from Scotland attending the university. He missed the close bond with his family. The five Graham brothers were bound tightly together by love, loyalty and family pride, and were as close to one another as any brothers could be. Arabella, by virtue of being the only sister, and the youngest of the six siblings, was the soft spot in all of their hearts.

Close in age, they grew up huddled together like the
bright red clusters of rowanberries that grew in the rocky crags, gills and becks near Monleigh Castle, high in the Highlands.

“I want to hear about the Dutch lass ye wrote me aboot. When do I get to meet her?”

“Ye willna. We have already said our goodbyes.”

“The way you wrote, I thought ye were contemplating something more permanent, like marriage.”

“Ye should know better than that.”

“It’s been long enough, Fraser. Ye need to forget Claire Lennox.”

Fraser thought that sounded a lot like the same thing his brothers and sister told him when he returned to Monleigh Castle after he left Inchmurrin. He was still suffering the effects of what he knew was Isobel’s attempt to poison him, and a visit from the doctor confirmed that his symptoms and Kendrew’s were symptomatic of arsenic poisoning. As soon as Fraser was back on his feet, his family had wanted to know what happened, and Fraser told them, leaving nothing out. When he finished, Jamie was ready to take action. “Isobel and Lord Walter have been granted the ward of the Lennox children, and I ha’ never heard of anyone, in spite of despicable acts and spending the heir’s fortune, who has ever had the right of ward revoked. However, there is always a first time, but it would be a lengthy process, and Claire would more than likely reach her majority before we could get anything done legally. I am no’afraid to pay them a visit, though, and to let them know that I will no’ abide mistreatment of the Lennox women.”

“’Twould do no good,” Fraser said.

“Why would it not?” Arabella asked.

“Isobel and Lord Walter have Claire and her sisters fooled, to the point the girls think they are wonderful, caring guardians. Claire would not stand for anyone making charges against them. I tried, and ye see what happened. She chose them over her own husband. She willna allow any outside interference.”

“We dinna need their permission to interfere,” Tavish said. “I say we make Claire see things as they really are, even if we have to kidnap her to do it.”

Sophie, Jamie’s beautiful French wife, shifted her infant son to her other shoulder and placed a hand on Tavish’s arm. “No, Tavish, you cannot fight those who do wrong by doing wrong yourself. Whatever action you take must be done without bringing shame, criticism or disgrace to your clan. When you are dealing with treachery and those who excel at it, you must remember they are as slippery as a panicked trout.”

Everyone smiled at her use of the trout example, because they knew it was her way of showing she was part of the family, in spite of her French birth and upbringing.

“Believe me,” she said, “I know all about treachery and the minds of those who perform it without a conscience, or a care for those they destroy.”

It was true, for Sophie was the granddaughter of Louis XIV, and her life had been ruled by treachery, so much so that she had risked her life to escape France and, unexpectedly, she found love in the arms of Jamie. They were a fine example of how good triumphs over evil, for to look at the Earl of Monleigh and his Countess, and the young heir, the Master of Graham, whom Sophie held in her arms, one understood that risk always involves some element of danger
or failure, but the possible rewards make the risk worth taking.

“If what Fraser says is true, and Claire is of the mind that Isobel and Lord Walter are acting in good faith on their behalf, there is nothing we can do,” Niall said.

“Aye,” Calum said, “the best thing for Fraser is to try to forget all aboot the Countess of Errick and Mains.”

“Forget Claire?” he repeated. He shook his head and gave Bram a direct look. “To say I need to forget her is like asking me to lop off my arm, or a leg. Claire was part of me. She still is.”

Bran shook his head. “I dinna want to fall in love quite that much.”

“What ye want doesn’t have anything to do with it. Ye canna choose the depth of yer love any more than ye can choose the person ye fall in love with. I suppose there are some, like me, who have only one great love in their life, and when it’s over, that is the end of love for them.”

Fraser was surprised at the feeling those words evoked in him. How could he put so much pain and emotion into simple words? It would do no good to tell his brother that not even death would have separated her from him in such an acute manner. Someone like Bran, who had never been in love, would not understand the endless torment, the agony of knowing she was lost to him and yet remained warm, vital and beautifully passionate.

It was the worst kind of separation—worse even than death, for in death you know it is final, and there is nothing you can do to change it. When the one you
love is vibrantly alive, and dead only to you, there is a period of desperation, when the mind plays out all manner of situations in which the rejected one can regain the love he lost. He did not know how to put this into words. Even now, the memory trapped him in a bubble of time, his apparently frozen state belying the turmoil that raced inside, and set fire to his mind.

His entire time with her seemed to play in his mind: the warm memories of their courtship; the all-too-short year they were married; the sweet passion they found together. He thought of how it all happened so quickly that he did not have time to stop the ravaging of his psyche, or his heart. What did it matter now? It was over, and when the end came, it was swift, overwhelming, and left him devastated.

He could feel Bran’s gaze upon him and for an instant he felt a sort of helplessness, a state of indecisiveness, as if he did not know which way to turn, then he moved to the bed and sat down.

Perhaps Bran was right….

He had lived for too long with disbelief, confusion, anger, humiliation and despair, which was followed by a period of sadness and yearning. There were times he doubted his own sanity, and moments when he wondered if it was worth all the pain, just to stay alive. In spite of it all, and his doubt that he would ever survive it, the pain had lessened, and at some point he realized he had fully absorbed the impact of losing her, and accepted it as something as irrevocable as it was final.

The wounds had healed, but the scar would remain forever.

“Let’s take a walk before dinner,” Bran said. “I would like to stretch my legs.”

“All right. Let us be away from here. I want to show ye Utrecht, and some of the fine, fine women we have here, and then I plan to get you drunk on beer, and who knows, I may join ye.”

They both ended up quite inebriated, and on the way home, Bran decided he wanted to drink for a living. “I am
slimply slupliflied
I can drink
slo mush
and feel
schlimply slupendoos.
”

Once they were home, Fraser set to work preparing a bed for Bran, but when he turned around he saw Bran stretched out on the floor. When Fraser called his name, Bran lifted his head, gave him a sickly smile and lay back down.

“Ye big bairn,” Fraser said, covering him with a downy cover and going to bed himself, leaving his brother where he had landed.