Page 23 of A Two-Faced Laird
“Where are ye goin’, Mistress?” she asked, watching, mystified, as her mistress crossed her bedchamber to the door.
“I will be back soon, Mairi,” Edina told her. “There is something important I have to attend to.”
Edina started walking in utter silence, making sure no one was watching. When she reached her destination, she hesitated outside Aidan’s room, trying to will herself to go inside. It was already dark and as she turned the handle and opened the door, the light from her candle sprinkled eerie, dappled patterns of light and shade over the walls. She shivered in trepidation, but stepped further into the room and advanced towards what she had come to see. There was a portrait of Aidan and Lewis on the wall above the fireplace, which she had noticed on her last visit to the chamber, but she had been unable to view it properly because of Lewis’s presence.
Now she held up her candle and gazed at the two young men. They had obviously been around fourteen or fifteen at thetime, and both their faces had begun to lose the roundness of childhood and assume the chiselled planes of adulthood. They were so similar that if the viewer had not been acquainted with them, they might have been mistaken for fraternal twins, at least at first glance.
However, the artist had been extremely skilful, and every brushstroke revealed the most subtle of differences in the images, and after a few moments it was clear who was who. As well as that, she thought, there were other ways of telling the difference between people apart from looks. The brothers’ mannerisms and voices were completely different, but of course, that could not be discerned from looking at the portrait.
Suddenly, she jumped as she heard the sound of the door opening.
9
Lewis had felt restless after their encounter, and found it difficult to concentrate on the paperwork his father had given him. He kept his head down and forced himself to concentrate, however, and after a while he managed to lose himself in his work. So focussed was he, in fact, that he did not notice the time passing. It was only when he realised that it was almost dark, and he was having difficulty in seeingthat he lit a lantern and quickly finished off what he was doing.
He was ravenous, and briefly thought of sending for some food to be brought to him, but he knew that they would be dining on grouse tonight, and that was his favourite meat. His stomach rumbled at the thought of it. It would take at least a week before they could eat the stag, so that was not on the menu tonight.
He sighed, stretched and stood up. The fire in the study had gone out, and realising for the first time how chilled he felt, he left to head for his bedroom. However, he was careful to look around him, not wanting to bump into Edina again. She seemed to be omnipresent, magically appearing wherever he happened to be at any given moment, unsettling him and heating his desire to boiling point.
It was not to be, though. As he left the room, he was approached by the Captain of the Guard, who gave him a resigned look and shook his head.
“If ye are tryin’ tae find the young Mistress Edina,” he said, “she has gone tae your brother’s room.”
“Again?” Lewis growled, shaking his head. “I don’t know what she hopes to find in there, Jamie.”
Jamie shrugged. “She has been askin’ in the kitchen about your brother,” he told Lewis.
Lewis’s heart skipped a beat, and for a few seconds he was mute with panic, not quite knowing what to say next, but Jamie solved the problem for him.
“She just wants tae be in the same place your brother was,” the old man said, patting Lewis’s shoulder. “Sometimes ye can still feel your loved ones in the place they loved the best. When my Cathy died, I used tae take out her favourite dress an’ cuddle it. I used tae smell it because her scent was still there. Whenever I miss her too much, I can take it out an’ feel that a part o’ her is still with me.”
Lewis saw that the old man’s eyes had filled with tears as he remembered the wife he had lost to measles five years ago. She had borne him six children and had been the love of his life, and Lewis knew that he still grieved for her, in spite of the fact that he now had twenty-odd grandchildren. He hoped that such a love would come to him one day.
“I am sorry, Jamie,” Lewis said regretfully. “I truly did not mean to make you sad.”
Jamie wiped his eyes with the heels of his hands and shook his head.
“Ye didnae, Son,” he told Lewis. “I miss my wife, but I have nothin’ but happy memories o’ her.”
He gave Jamie a sudden, mischievous smile and winked.
“Somethin’ tells me you will be makin’ happy ones an’ a’ soon.”
Lewis frowned. “What is that supposed to mean?”
“Well, ye are a young man,” Jamie replied. “An’ Edina is a lovely young lady. Somethin’ tells me she is up tae somethin’, an’ it has something’ tae dae wi’ you!”
Lewis’s heart skipped a beat. He could not afford to think of Edina this way, even though every one of his instincts told him otherwise.
“She likes to go there because she misses my brother,” he told the old man. “She always liked him more than me. But now I have to go. Thank you, Jamie.”
The old man was looking at him keenly, and seemed to be wondering about something, but he said nothing, merely patted Lewis on the shoulder again and walked away.
As Lewis watched him go, he wished that his own grandfather had been more like the Captain of the Guard instead of the cold, unbending creature he had been. He was always astounded that his father was the exact opposite. He resolved that when he was a father, he would imitate his own in every way; he was a very fortunate man.
He walked very slowly towards Aidan’s room, thinking of what he would say to Edina when he met her. She would no doubt be looking around his stuff, he presumed, and the thought made his heart race. As the notion passed through his mind, he speeded up and was almost running by the time he reached the door.
When he opened it, he found Edina staring at the painted images, but she jumped, startled, as she heard the door opening. For a few seconds, she stood staring at him, then slowly turned to face him with a trembling smile on her face.
