Kieran passed a hand over his face. His sister had died, too, then?
How much suffering could this poor lad endure?
No wonder his clothing hung on him. The boy had likely lost weight in his grief. More to the point, James was an orphan now. Just as Kieran had been when Charles hired him.
Looking at the lad was like peering into his own past.
“Is there nothing I can do for ye?” Kieran asked again.
A long silence. James stared at the rope in his hands.
Finally, he raised those striking eyes back to Kieran.
“Ye can call me Jamie, if ye like. It’s what my father and sister called me.” The boy paused. “And I like the idea of keeping that wee bit . . . alive.”
Kieran nodded, his throat tight. “Welcome aboard then, Jamie. I’m pleased tae know ye.”
4
How did it go then?” Dr. Alex Whitaker, Lord Lockheade, asked. “Meeting with Jamie?”
“Not great.” Kieran grimaced and picked up a rock, tossing it over the cliff’s edge, watching it arc down to the sea below.
“How was itnot great?” Andrew Langston, Lord Hadley, snorted. “Jamie is here, is she not?”
Kieran, Andrew, and Alex were walking the path that snaked along the cliffs beside Kilmeny Castle, discussing Kieran’s conversation with his wife that morning.
Though it was May and the summery daylight felt never-ending, the wind was cool off the North Sea. It tugged at the stoic gorse clumped along the cliff face, ruffling the yellow flowers. Kieran’s greatcoat billowed behind him, a sail catching a northerly wind.
He shook his head. “My wife’s body is here, but in a sense, Jamie herself is not. Miss Eilidh Fyffe is an older version of the girl she was beforeThe Minerva. A woman who never experienced the epiphanies that Jamie did aboard ship. More to the point, she dislikes me.” Kieran swallowed back the sting of Jamie’s words from earlier in the day—I don’t like you.“I’m right back at the beginning with her.”
“Have patience,” Alex said. “She has had a tremendous shock with the Gillespie’s leaving her as they did. It was cowardly of them.”
Kieran didn’t disagree.
He had little respect for Reverend Gillespie and his wife. The reverend had held Jamie hostage from them for months, refusing to allow the Brotherhood any contact with her and refusing to answer Kieran’s questions about what had happened to Jamie’s child. Gillespie implied that the child was no more but insisted Kieran would have to have the tale from Jamie herself.
Fortunately, the demands of the procurator fiscal had finally forced Gillespie’s hand, compelling the man to negotiate a solution with the Brotherhood. The reverend had transported Jamie to Kilmeny under the guise of visiting an elderly relative. Kieran had been appalled when the Gillespies had immediately returned home the next morning, not even having the courtesy to bid Jamie goodbye.
His wife deserved better than to be treated like an abandoned pup.
The three men walked in silence for a bit. The sweet scent of the blooming gorse threaded in and out as the wind swirled up the ocean cliffs.
Sea birds skimmed the sea. Their calls echoed along the cliffs, winging over the lull of the waves and the never-ending rustle of wind.
Kieran supposed if any sound could define Scotland, it would be that of wind.
Endless. Constant. Blustery. Wind.
“My emotions are alldoiltand confused,” Kieran finally said. “I’m so happy to have my Jamie here. To know that she is safe and well-cared for. But at the same time . . .”
“I warned ye it would be hard.” Alex paused to peer down the side of the cliff. He looked back at Kieran. “Ye will want to push, to have answers as quickly as possible, to reclaim the relationship ye once had. But ye must go slow with her. In this, the tortoise will win more handily than the hare. Jamie’s memory loss is a delicate thing, as I cannae say what precisely has caused it. She experienced a significant head injury, and it could be that her memories are truly gone. Or it could be that her memory loss is more akin to what the French would callle vent du boulet—”
“The wind of a cannonball?” Andrew translated, pulling off his hat and running a hand through his light brown hair.
“Aye. It is used to describe the mania that grips some soldiers when they return to normal life after the horrors of war—melancholia, an aversion to loud noises, difficulty sleeping, hallucinations, or even complete memory loss of events. I often think that the conflict with Napoleon continues on in the minds of soldiers who have returned. Though our Jamie was not a soldier, she could have suffered something similar—trauma that caused memory loss. I think the reaction is the brain’s way of protecting someone from the horror of difficult memories. Unfortunately, only time and patience will reveal the sort of memory loss she has experienced. I have heard anecdotal evidence from other physicians that a caring environment, patience, and time can help a patient feel ready to face harrowing memories.”
The thought haunted Kieran. That they still didn’t know what had happened to Jamie after she was separated from them.
