Page 25 of Highland Jewel
Maisie leaned toward him as if she were about to reveal a great secret. “Before you returned to Edinburgh, Fiona let me read some of the poems and tales you wrote and included in your letters to your nieces.”
“A soldier’s life is one filled with very large, empty spaces. The stories are slight things, and the poems… well, it’d be a kindness to call them doggerel.”
“The poems are lovely, and I found the stories, in particular, to be quite gallant. In every one of them, whether you depicted a child or an animal in distress, you created a woman warrior to act heroically and save them.”
Niall wasn’t about to share it, but he always named the heroines after one of the two girls or their mother or their grandmother.
She straightened the spoon and knife at the side of her plate. “I thought they provided a precious lesson,coming from a man they adore and know to be a warrior in real life.”
“My nieces are being raised by two women. Two courageous women.”
“But it takes a very special man to give credit where it is due. And what better way to illustrate to those little girls the value of such loving effort?”
As the tips of Maisie’s fingers absently caressed the rim of her plate, Niall tried to make sense of the tumult that had erupted inside of him. She made him feel… what? She made him believe he’d done something right. No tributes from battles he’d fought, no acknowledgment on the part of his superiors, no honors for serving God and country meant more to him than her recognition of these small things he’d created for those two girls.
“Are you still writing?” she asked, looking up at him. “Since you’ve been back?”
“I am writing,” he admitted.
“I know this is a bold thing to ask, but may I read your work sometime?”
“Perhaps. Sometime.” He was surprised by the quickness of his response. Niall always told himself that what he wrote was for himself and not for an audience, with the exception of those things he’d written for his nieces.
He stretched a hand across the table. She paused for only a heartbeat and then placed her own hand in his. She was opening doors inside of him that he didn’t even know existed. From the feel of her fluttering pulse, he knew she was experiencing something quite similar.
“Enough talk of me. I want to know about you.”
“I believe you already know everything.”
“I don’t think so.” He brushed his thumb across the back of her soft hand. “You lead two lives. You pretend to be someone else when you’re with your family. Fromwhat I can see, you only show your true self when you’re away from them. Why is that?”
Shyness overtook her again. She began to slide her hand from his grasp, but he gently pressed his other hand on top.
“I’ve already shared my deepest, darkest secret,” he whispered. “Don’t you think it’s time that you confessed as well?”
An eyebrow arched, and the corner of her lips quirked playfully. She looked up at him from under her lashes. “That was your deepest, darkest secret? Really?”
“What self-respecting Highland warrior admits to writing poems and stories for a pair of wee nieces? An officer needs to be seen as hard as shoe leather. Do you think that bruiser out there would have given way if he had any idea that I’m a custard?”
“You have a point.” Her smile bloomed.
“But I know that you’re a writer, as well. You’re educated and well read. You’re an idealist and reformer and…” He lowered his voice. “A radical who espouses universal suffrage. But you live in a household that supports those same causes. So why the secrecy?”
The smile disappeared from her face, and she pulled her hand out of his grip. She leaned back in her chair. “What do you know about the political positions of my family?”
Niall understood her question and, considering the times they were living in, he was glad she understood that not everyone was to be trusted. “You know that I’m no informer. What I said was simply from observation.”
“You’ve been in my home only once.”
“True, but I’ve seen the flyers and handbills at Fiona’s house. Some of the information obviously came from the weavers’ organizing committees here in Edinburgh. I know you wrote those flyers. You’re not a weaver. Thattells me you’re getting your information from someone else. Someone close to you. Someone in your family.”
She frowned as she considered his words.
He had more information, but Niall wasn’t willing to share it with her. It would be too distressing. Several times while dining with old friends in the officers’ mess recently, he’d heard references to names of possible radicals in the city. Niall always listened for fear of hearing Fiona’s name. This past week, however, he’d heard a belligerent windbag of a lieutenant with the 10th Hussars mention Dr. Archibald Drummond as someone who was clearly in league with the “troublemaking weavers.” Niall had paid close attention to the conversation, knowing he was Maisie’s relation. But nothing more was said.
“My family knows nothing of what I do. I want to keep it that way.”
“And why is that?”
