“Well,that’scertainly an improvement,” she said, in that kind but honest way she had. “You’ll put Wilkie in a state, to be sure, when he sees you.” Christie smiled at the thought.
She sat with me, contemplating my somber expression.
“What are you thinking, Roses? You had such a thoughtful look on your face when I interrupted you.”
I smiled at her, attempting to dislodge my own worries. “’Tis nothing, Christie.”
She leaned back in her chair, watching the flicker of the fire for a moment. I could see she had no intention of letting me off so easily. “That was some commotion the other night, was it not?” she began. “Wilkie calling to you, and very nearly barging into your chambers asa man possessed. I’ve never seen anything like it in all my life. I’ve certainly never seen my carefree brother behave in such a way. Not a once.”
I paused and decided to indulge her curiosity. I wanted to trust her and had a strong feeling that I could. “Aye,” I agreed. “I believe he was overcome by his delirium.”
“Ibelieve,” Christie said, “he has been overcome byyou,Roses. You should know that Wilkie has never allowed a woman into his own chambers before. He’s an intensely private person, for all his social tendencies. He’ll visit, aye, and he receives many invitations.” She paused, as though considering how to delicately express what she wanted to say. She was treading more carefully than I had yet seen her do. “Yet he is not one toissueinvitations, if you get my meaning.”
I understood what she was implying. And I couldn’t help but confess: “I wasn’t so much as issued an invitation, I’m sure. It was more of an order, I believe, to help him and assist his recovery.” Yet it was far more than that; I knew it, and Christie did, too. In my own mind, Wilkie’s request to have me near was much more than an invitation. He wanted me and needed me. In those deathly, fevered, magical moments at the cave and beyond, we had been an inexplicable necessity to one another. Our fight and our blood had bonded us. This was a realization that pleased me but also worried me. I knew how indelible that bond felt to me: permanent and alarmingly all-encompassing. But I wondered if Wilkie felt it as intensely as I did. I already felt owned by him. As if he had issued me with a new tattoo, this one inked to my heart. Could our connection last here inWilkie’s reality? Or would it be forced aside, as Wilkie’s duty took precedent?
Without meaning to, I spoke my question aloud. “I wonder what is to become of me.”
“I don’t know, Roses,” Christie replied. “Only Wilkie—and you—can decide that.”
“Perhaps he’ll keep me close until he tires of me,” I commented, feeling somewhat dejected at the errant thought. Would I become a kitchen servant of the Mackenzie clan, or would I be cast out, escorted perhaps—or perhaps not—to the Macduffs’? Christie couldn’t answer me, nor confirm her brother’s feelings either way, but it felt somewhat cathartic to voice my very real concerns. “Or perhaps he’ll want me as a mistress after he weds one of Morrison’s brigade of daughters and nieces. Maybe he’ll take me with him to the Morrison keep when he becomes their new laird. Or perhaps he’ll choose some other heiress to marry, as is his birthright.”
“I wish I could tell you what you want to hear, Roses. But none of these decisions are mine to make, I’m afraid. ’Tis all in the hands of my brothers.”
“My future is uncertain indeed,” I agreed, appreciating her sympathetic manner, even if her words offered no comfort.
“Would you even bewillingto become Wilkie’s mistress? ’Tis not a particularly glamorous prospect, Roses, and a woman possessing of your beauty might prefer to wait for a husband of her own, rather than to share a man with his wife—and perhaps even other mistresses—waiting for his visit, and meanwhile foregoing a marriage and legitimate children of your own. You do have a choice.”
Ah, dear Christie. I loved her already for her candid take on each and every matter, even if the matter being discussed was the man of my heart and the unlikelihood of my ever being allowed to marry him.
But Christie was right. Of course Ididhave choices. I’d been given no choice in the matter of becoming Ogilvie’s mistress, yet I had chosen another path, despite the significant difficulties that choice had introduced. I could leave Wilkie, as I’d left Ogilvie, and sneak away and make my way north as I had originally intended.
But the prospect of becoming Wilkie’s mistress was, most certainly, a very different one to becoming Ogilvie’s.
“What do youwantto become of you, Roses?” asked Christie.
Her question caught me somewhat off guard, and I took a moment to consider it. WhatdidI want? This was a path I rarely chose to wander. My personal wants were not something I reflected on often; they were largely inconsequential in the grand scheme of my life. Work, servitude, survival, the needs of others: these were the only priorities I had ever known. What Iwantedwas a frivolous indulgence I rarely pondered. Yet I did so now. I had nothing else to do, mainly, divulging my innermost thoughts to Christie as I waited here for Wilkie to return.
“What do you want for your life, Roses?” asked Christie, mirroring a question I was asking myself at that very moment.
“I would like my own garden to tend,” I told her with utter honesty, and she listened with quiet, eager interest. “A small house, like my father’s house, made homely by the loving attentions of my mother, surrounded bythe acres he worked.” I paused, thinking. “Safety. Belonging. The freedom to work and express my talents for the good and prosperity of my clan and my own.”
Christie was quiet, watching me, so I continued.
“I think these are lofty aspirations, indeed, for someone like me,” I said. “I’m a servant with no past and no family.” I stopped, wondering if I was revealing too much.
“Tell me more, Roses,” encouraged Christie. “I won’t share your secrets, unless you’d like me to. Wilkie will get them out of you anyway. He’s not one to take nay for an answer. And he’s most interested in you, ’tis clear enough.”
“’Tis not something I’ve had much need to consider before, Christie. For many years, all day, every day, I’ve been told what to do and when to do it. To attend to menial, undesirable tasks that no one else wanted to perform. I lived in the crowded servants’ quarters, adjacent to the kitchens. And I’ll likely be relegated to similarly damp depths at Macduff’s, if I make it there, or somewhere yet unknown.”
Christie listened, wide-eyed. “Do youwantto go to Macduff’s?” she asked.
“Not really. I had no other choice but to head in that direction, on my journey. I don’t have acquaintances beyond clan Ogilvie, except the one. But I’ve heard nothing very positive about Macduff’s keep, except that there are especially good hunting grounds along their northern border, according to Ogilvie’s men. They described Macduff as old, crotchety and not particularly welcoming...and his son as a massive bearded ruffian who delights in showing off his impressive strength.”
“Aye, I’ve heard similar things,” she commented. “They don’t sound particularly appealing.”
Nay, it was true. Those details, I could admit, had whispered their warnings once or twice. But that was at a time when I’d had no other reasonable alternative.
Now, it seemed, I might.
