Mine Is the Night_ A Novel - Liz Curtis Higgs [78]
“Well done, puss.” He shifted his stance. “Shall I see you at kirk in the morn?”
She curtsied, then met his gaze. “Indeed you shall, milord.”
Thirty-Three
O day of rest!
How beautiful, how fair.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
arjory still could not believe it. A gentleman who’d sailed round the world was seated in her pew, in her kirk. Well, not truly her kirk. The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof. She knew everything belonged to the Almighty. Still, Lord Jack Buchanan was definitely situated in the Kerr aisle that Sabbath morning.
Furthermore, he’d engaged her daughter-in-law as a dressmaker, a position not without merit, even for a lady. As if that were not enough, his lordship had sent Elisabeth home with a gold guinea. A guinea! The three Kerr women had taken turns holding the coin through most of supper.
Our dear Bess, the dressmaker. And our new friend, the admiral.
Marjory was trying hard not to be prideful and failing miserably.
True, she was not much pleased when Elisabeth returned home early last evening with the news of Lord Buchanan’s offer. He was a bachelor, after all, and had suggested she reside at Bell Hill. A gentlewoman in mourning, sleep beneath his roof? The very idea. When her daughter-in-law explained the reason—for her safety—Marjory was willing to give his lordship another chance to earn her good opinion.
He’d done so the moment he’d arrived at kirk that morning, impeccably dressed in a royal blue silk coat and periwig, and had inquired if he might sit at the end of their pew. “Mrs. Kerr,” he’d said with a courtly bow, “it would be my great honor to share your aisle this morn if you would allow it.”
When a very tall, very polite, very rich man asked for two feet of wood on which to sit, only a foolish woman objected. “Naturally, milord,” she’d told him, moving down so he might be seated next to her rather than beside Elisabeth. It seemed prudent.
Marjory looked round the church, beginning to feel at home once more. Providing a written character for Tibbie Cranshaw had turned out to be a wise decision. Tibbie was now engaged as a kitchen maid at Bell Hill and so had honest work and a worthy incentive to keep hidden her unfortunate history. And mine. And Elisabeth’s.
The admiral would hardly be seated next to her if he knew the truth. Perhaps by the time he learned the whole of it—and Marjory had no doubt he eventually would, for Lord Buchanan was a clever man—they would already be friends and such things might be forgiven.
He’d sung the psalms with conviction, she decided, and listened to Reverend Brown’s dry discourse on the Midianites with particular attentiveness. Earlier that morning Marjory had enjoyed pleasant exchanges with Sarah Chisholm and Martha Ballantyne in the kirkyard. It was in every respect a commendable Sabbath. As to the weather, the day was clear and bright and mild. Wasn’t that like June, to make so sunny an entrance?
With the reverend’s stirring benediction still ringing through the sanctuary, Marjory turned to Lord Buchanan, a thousand questions bubbling up inside her. “Will you be constructing a loft here in the kirk?” she asked him. “I’d imagined it hanging just above us.”
“I prefer to sit with the congregation,” he said. “In the Kerr pew, if I’ll not be imposing on you and your household.”
“Not at all!” she cried, then wished she’d curbed her enthusiasm a little. People were staring, and not all their expressions were friendly ones. Tibbie Cranshaw had an especially sour look on her face, which Marjory found irksome after all she’d done for the woman.
Composing herself, Marjory said to the admiral, “I am told, milord, that your father was Scottish rather than English.”
“Indeed, madam, from the Borderland. Though he too sailed with the Royal Navy and sold his land to the Duke of Roxburgh long before I was born.”
Marjory smiled, realization dawning. “You bought it back, didn’t you? Bell Hill was once your family’s estate.”
“So it was.” Though the admiral did not smile in return, his brown eyes gleamed