Page 4 of Miss Delightful
He was broad-shouldered and muscular, and much as his physique lacked refinement, his brow, nose, and jaw were sculpted with an eye for durability rather than beauty. He would age into craggy distinction, and in a fight, he would be tireless and without mercy.
Despite that daunting conclusion, Dorcas would rather John grow up under Alasdhair MacKay’s protection than in a household of her family’s choosing.
“He has a cradle,” Mr. MacKay said, scowling at the bucolic landscape over the mantel. “I made it for him and delivered it myself. Not fancy, but sufficient for the purpose.”
“You made a cradle?”
“I spent some summers with an auntie as a lad, and her husband was a master carpenter. A cradle is a good project for a boy learning the trade. The result can be plain, fancy, or in-between. Designed to rock, to sit level, to do either. If I’d had more time, I might have prettied it up a bit, but Melanie wasn’t sure exactly when the baby would come.”
Dorcas hated, hated, hated to think of Melanie anticipating a birth alone, uncertain, and without family. That Mr. MacKay had not only provided a cradle, but also made it with his own hands meant much.
“You are certain he’s not your son?”
His gaze acquired a glacial quality. “I do not take advantage of ladies fallen on hard times, Miss Delancey.”
Dorcas rose rather than be glowered down at. “Very little taking advantage was involved. Melanie was a willing participant in her own sorry fate, Mr. MacKay. I warned her that her gallant officer would abandon her. I knew with the inevitability of original sin that she was authoring her own ruin, but she would not be dissuaded. Her father hasn’t spoken her name since the day she left except to cite her as a bad example.”
Dorcas’s papa, to his credit, mentioned Melanie kindly on rare occasion, even prayerfully, but never in front of company.
“So Melanie loved the wrong person,” Mr. MacKay said. “Many a woman has done likewise. So has many a man.”
Hadheloved the wrong person? The question was irrelevant, a pesky distraction from whatever point Dorcas had been meaning to make.
“My cousin is dead, Mr. MacKay. She was a good-hearted, merry, mischievous girl, then a disgraced woman, and now she’s d-dead.”Oh, pinfeathers. Not now. Please not a bout of the weeps now.
The tears had been threatening at intervals since Dorcas had received the note yesterday morning. She’d fought them off, ignored them, and refused to acknowledge the grief that drove them. John had to be tended to and Melanie’s affairs put in order, all without arousing Papa’s notice.
Mr. MacKay brandished a lawn handkerchief with purple flowers embroidered along the edges. “Melanie is at peace,” he said, stepping closer. “She is no longer anybody’s handy bad example, no longer suffering. We will see to John, as she wished us to, and you can ensure the boy knows your happy memories of his mother.”
His voice, so laden with command and confidence, had become an instrument of consolation. From burr to purr, and the shift wasn’t so much one of volume, though he was speaking softly, as it was intonation. Grooms knew how to speak to horses like this, to soothe and reassure even while the words themselves might be prosaic.
Dorcas meant to snatch the handkerchief from Mr. MacKay’s hand, but she missed, and instead, her fingers closed on his wrist. He came near enough to touch the fine linen to her cheek, and then she was leaning against him, wailing more loudly than John when his belly was empty and his teeth were hurting.
Mr. MacKay’s arm settled around Dorcas’s shoulders, and though it meant the complete surrender of her dignity, she yielded to the tears and let herself be held.
The comfort Mr. MacKay offered now was all the more substantial for being silent. He stroked Dorcas’s back and stood, as solid and unyielding as a granite tor, while she mourned a cousin who should not have died, much less so miserably. Guilt limned her grief, as did a fortifying bolt of rage.
Rage at Melanie, for all her stupid choices, and at Uncle Simon, for trying to pray and exhort high spirits out of a girl who’d been meant for smiles and laughter rather than dour piety. Rage at a society that insisted women be raised in ignorance and judged without mercy when their lack of wisdom resulted in a mis-step.
“I’m sorry,” Dorcas said as an after-shudder passed through her. “I am not usually prone to histrionics.” She stepped back and dabbed at her cheeks with the handkerchief. The fragrance wasn’t exactly lavender, maybe lavender and sage? No… heather. The sachets in Mr. MacKay’s wardrobe and clothes press were apparently scented with heather.
“You have lost a cousin and dear friend from childhood,” he said, holding out a silver flask. “When our hearts are broken, we ignore the sorrow at our peril. Have a nip.”
The note of command had returned with that last suggestion. A note of challenge too. Dorcas heeded the challenge, in part because Mr. MacKay was trying to be helpful and in part because, outside of a sickroom tonic, she’d never been permitted strong spirits.
The flask was warm and embossed with a crest, a sprig of some herb or other. Dorcas took a cautious sip, while Mr. MacKay moved away. A whiff of honey and oak was followed by cool fire trailing down her gullet. The fire muted into a glow, and the glow developed soft edges that rippled out from her middle.
“That is pleasant. Thank you.” She passed the flask back rather than try another sip.
Mr. MacKay returned the container to an inside pocket. “I mean to have a word with the river police, and I will speak with the landlady as well.”
“About?”
“Melanie was in good spirits,” he said. “She was taking in mending, watching another bairn in the evenings, getting by. She had her own healthy little boy underfoot and a few friends. She had much to be proud of and no reason to take her own life.”
Dorcas folded up the handkerchief and put it on the blotter, though she was not nearly as composed as her steady hands might have suggested. “My father would say Melanie had much to be ashamed of.”
“Then,” Mr. MacKay replied, “meaning no disrespect to you, Miss Delancey, your father is an idiot. He probably thinks all females should be born apologizing for an error Eve made millennia ago. Adam raised his boys so the one killed the other, but we don’t hear anybody blethering on about that spectacular failure of fatherhood, do we? Adam didn’t keep a proper eye on his missus either, but again, he’s not taken to task for that, is he?”
