Page 66 of It Happened in the Highlands
Jo went on and relayed all they’d learned—the dates they’d focused on, the search for baptisms of girls with a first name of Josephine.
She thought he might know many of the people they encountered, possibly even the curate, depending on when he’d last visited the village. She talked about Mrs. Clark in detail, hoping the name of Josephine’s childhood friend might trigger some response.
“Josephine Sellar,” she said again. “For my entire life, I’ve never known my mother’s family name until Mrs. Clark revealed it. I didn’t know where she came from, who her family might be. The grief . . . the grief I felt after . . .”
Her voice shook. She paused, staring at their joined fingers. She studied the contrast of age in them. She touched the calluses and scars on the weathered hand. When she was finally able to speak, Jo shared how broken she’d felt last night. She told him of the tears, the sense of loss. She explained how, for the first time, she knew who her mother was and that only made her suffer so much more.
Her face was in the light and his was in shadow, so she couldn’t see if her words meant anything to him. But if he understood any of what she said or not, it made no difference. Charles Barton and his sketches had been the stimulus, the trigger that had brought her search to the Highlands. He changed everything for her. Finding Wynne again, discovering her mother’s origins, even knowing that this silent man was family—it was all due to him.
“I met Mr. Ezekiel Sellar, a distant cousin and a decent man,” she told him, reminding Charles of who he was. She conveyed the kind words the older gentleman had said about him and his father, Ainsley Barton.
“So now I know how we’re related, the Bartons and Sellars.”
Perhaps it was her imagination, but Jo thought she felt a gentle squeeze of her hand.
“You and Josephine were cousins. You must have seen each other many times while you were growing up. Perhaps you shared the same interests,” Jo suggested, wondering how many times those two had held hands. “And I now know that she moved to Tilmory Castle when she lost her own parents, which explains why you knew her features so well that you can draw her now, nearly forty years later. We never forget those we care about the most, do we?”
The smile, the laughter, the dark eyes dancing with the expression of a woman who knew she was adored. The sketches of Josephine depicted a young woman who was loved.
“I think you two must have cared for each other deeply.”
Jo had no right to assume more than that. She couldn’t speculate wildly and persuade herself there was more between them. Her mother was lost to her. She wouldn’t convince herself that Charles Barton was her father, only to have it come to nothing. She hadn’t come to the Highlands to find him.
“Mr. Sellar showed me my mother’s grave today,” she said sadly. “He didn’t really know her or care for her as you did.”
She pulled her hands away and gathered her knees to her chest.
“I didn’t tell him the truth about the grave. It would have only unsettled him. But you have a right to know. Josephine isn’t buried in the churchyard in Garloch. She didn’t die in the flood. She survived. And then she ran from her people as far as she could go.”
Her thoughts drifted to the image of her mother from the stories she’d collected over the years.
“Josephine Sellar, little more than a girl herself, turned her back on her home and her kin and traveled, heavy with child, like a pauper with other desperate and friendless folk driven out of the Highlands.” The words struggled to get past the fist gripping her throat, but she forced them out all the same. “They said she mentioned no man she was going to, and no husband left behind. She died holding her daughter in one arm and clutching the hand of the kind and loving woman who took me in and raised me.”
She stabbed at a tear that splashed onto her face . . . and then another and then another.
“I believe you thought she died and was buried in Garloch. But someday—when you’re better, I’ll take you to the Borders, to the village of Melrose. There in the kirkyard, I’ll show you where Josephine Sellar, my mother, is buried.”
She heard footsteps downstairs and knew Wynne was coming up. Jo lifted her chin off her knees and took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. She couldn’t fall apart. Not right now. Not when this man needed her.
The beam of light had shifted with the movement of the sun, and she stared at Charles Barton.
Tears ran unimpeded down his face, and he slowly reached out and took her hand in his.
Chapter 22
Wynne stared at the painting above the mantle of the library at Tilmory Castle. It was a depiction, done in the grand style of the last century, of Julius Caesar being assassinated in the Roman Senate. The irony was not lost on him.
The afternoon sun was rapidly slipping toward the hills in the west, and he wondered how long it would be before Mrs. Barton and Graham arrived from the Abbey. It didn’t matter, he decided. He was ready for what lay ahead.
“Cry ‘Havoc!’ and let slip the dogs of war,” he murmured, moving to a window overlooking the front courtyard.
Tilmory Castle, with its warlike, red stone exterior, presented itself far differently on the inside. Centuries old, the castle had been renovated only decades ago, and the interior had clearly been designed to convey the feeling of wealth and power. Reputed to be one the richest estates in the area east of the Grampians, the farms had long ago been cleared of tenants to make room for the more lucrative raising of sheep. The display of artwork, books, fine furniture, and other luxuries demonstrated the success of that strategy, in spite of the sometimes unrestrained shows of force it took to achieve it.
But it was the behavior of the staff that gave Wynne greatest pause.
In his time in the navy, he’d seen ships commanded by cruel men. The use of the lash and deprivation of rations in the hands of a sadistic captain often made for a disciplined but disheartened crew. Men accustomed to mistreatment did what was required, but with a slack and sullen manner, and they did nothing beyond it. It was the same here.
From the moment he climbed out of the carriage, he’d seen the sidelong looks of fearful, unhappy servants. Without meaning to, they projected the attitudes of whipped dogs, slinking about, disappearing around corners, answering questions when asked in the most hesitant manner, averting their faces when they came in to light candles. The workers at Tilmory Castle were afraid, and they’d been that way for a long time.
