Page 54 of It Happened in the Highlands
Chapter 17
Josephine Sellar.
She had a name. Her mother had a name.
Josephine Sellar.
Her mother had a village. A family. People who cared for her. They remembered her.
Jo’s eyes burned from her tears. Locking herself in the room Wynne had taken for her, she gave way to the rip current of emotion that she’d stifled for so much of her life. She cried for herself. And she cried for the young woman who’d not lived to hold her daughter past the first day.
Josephine Sellar. Seventeen years old when she gave birth. Frightened, hungry, sick, alone.
The women and girls who arrived at the Tower House were often broken, solitary, and afraid. For Jo, every one of those women was her mother. She sat with them. She cried with them. She listened as they gradually crept past their shame and their fear, and revealed to her the details of their lives. As they spoke, Jo wondered which painful journey ran parallel with her mother’s path. And as she listened, she silently swore the same oath to each of those women—not one of them would die as her mother had, clutching her newborn in the mud while an unfeeling world looked away.
She paced the room—cold and shaken, recalling the insinuations, lamenting the lost years when she’d failed to fight for her mother. Guilt squeezed her heart and choked off the very breaths in her chest.
She thought of the grave in the Melrose churchyard. The grave she visited every Sunday when she was at Baronsford. The only true connection she had with the past.
JO.Two letters and the date her mother died. Nothing else. No acknowledgment of a life, only a death. No reference to when or where she was born. No family name. No husband. No parents.
But now Jo knew more.
A maid knocked at the door, saying the captain sent her up to help her get ready to retire. Jo sent her away. Sometime later, the same young woman came up to check on her. The captain was worried and asked if she needed anything. Jo sent her away.
She didn’t know how long she sobbed in misery before the realization came to her. Sellar. Sellar. Why was she sitting here? She had to see the family now. She wanted answers that only they could give.
With no care about how she looked or the disheveled condition of her dress, Jo left her bedroom and rapped on Wynne’s door. He appeared in the doorway immediately as if he’d been expecting her.
“Take me to them,” she demanded, his face a watery blur. “Please take me to the Sellar farm. I need to speak to them.”
“My love, I understand,” he said gently. “But the hour is late. Tomorrow—”
“I’ll go by myself,” she exclaimed, turning on her heel. She didn’t make it more than two steps down the hall, however, when Wynne caught her and drew her back to him.
“I need to do it, Wynne. I need to go now.” She struggled to free herself. “I need answers.”
The sound of boots coming up on the stairs startled her, and Jo let him pull her into his room and close the door.
“I know you need answers. And you’ll have them. I swear to you. But not tonight,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “Tomorrow, we won’t leave Garloch until you meet and speak with everyone you need to. I promise you that. I give you my word.”
“But tomorrow might never come,” she sobbed as he pulled her tightly into his arms.
The rush of tears, the pain rising from the cracks in her battered heart, the need to empty the boundless well of sadness was like no grief she’d ever experienced.
He whispered soothing words, tried to wipe away the tears, and as she felt calmer, another wave would begin, overwhelming her, drowning her.
“Talk to me, my love,” he murmured against her ear. “Tell me what you’re feeling. Perhaps it would make this heartache easier to bear.”
She pressed her face against his chest. The steady beat of his heart, the warm strength of his arms around her, made her troubles fade for a moment. For just an instant, the pain was gone. She tried to pull away, but he held her there.
“Stay. Let me.”
Jo’s tears soaked his linen shirt, and she realized he wasn’t wearing his coat and waistcoat. His hands massaged her back. His lips pressed kisses into her hair. He enveloped her with his soothing warmth. She didn’t know for how long they stood there, but gradually the sobs lessened. The tide of tears ebbed until only a few runaway drops were left.
“What happened?” he asked softly. “I thought the discovery of your mother’s family name would be cause for celebration, but your reaction breaks my heart.”
It was some time before she could trust her voice.
