Funeral services forAileen and her stillborn son were held three days later.
Fox assisted where he could.
He wrote a letter to Ethan, who was back in London, informing him of the events.
He helped the maidservant and farmhands drape black crepe over the mirrors and windows of Thistle Muir. He even picked laurel and hung it on the front door.
Fox walked beside Malcolm as they followed the cart carrying two caskets—one large, one small—to the kirkyard. He held Malcolm upright as Dr. Ruxton prayed over the graves and a lone piper played ‘Amazing Grace.’
Fox called upon the stonemason and ordered tombstones to Malcolm’s specifications.
For her part, Leah was entirely focused on Malcolm. Her brother had retreated to a small study at the back of the house, emerging only to attend his wife and infant son’s funeral. He spoke to no one and ate nothing, preferring to live on whisky alone.
Leah did as she always did, Fox now realized.
The world fell apart and she . . . set to.
She sorted everything.
The management of Thistle Muir and its farmlands instantly fell to her capable shoulders. Pushing aside her own grief and sorrow, she ordered supplies, oversaw the shearing of sheep, and made plans for the autumn harvest.
She was so busy, Fox scarcely saw her during the day. And every night, she collapsed into bed beside him, exhausted and mute. As he knew little of the business of running a farm, he felt underfoot and useless.
Five days after the funeral, Fox woke to find Leah already moving about the small bedroom. Her bedroom. The one where she had slept for thirty-eight years of her life.
A room that, he was coming to fear, would not accommodate him.
“It’s scarcely dawn,” he murmured. “You need more rest. Come back to bed, wife.”
She shook her head, buttoning up the front of her simple dress. “There’s too much tae do, too much to sort with the farm. Malcolm . . .” Her voice drifted off. She paused and looked out the window, her face in profile, swallowing hard. “It will be a long while yet afore he is in a state tae be out and working.”
The man’s grief was simply unbearable. Fox knew something of losses like that.
“I need tae remain here until my brother can find his way forward again,” she continued. “It will take months likely.”
Fox hated the lack of warmth in her voice. As if Aileen’s death and Malcolm’s cavernous grief had encased Leah’s own heart in ice.
“Why must you stay? You can’t save everyone and everything, Leah.” Fox meant the words kindly, but they landed with a clanking thud between them.
His wife stiffened, the only indication that she had heard him. “Who else does Malcolm have other than me?”
“Ethan, for one.”
“Ethan is in London, and he is no help with farm matters regardless. Likely ye should return tae Laverloch yourself. I’m sure Madeline misses ye.” She turned away from the window. “There’s not much for ye tae do at Thistle Muir now.”
Like Ethan, you are useless, she meant.You do not belong with us.
And so he said as much: “Say what you mean, Leah. You feel I cannot help you. You find me useless.”
“Nae.” Shaking her head, she began coiling her hair into a simple knot. “It’s merely that I dinnae have the energy for both yourself and Malcolm. I can only focus on one man at a time. And at the moment, that man is Malcolm. He needs me. Mrs. Gilmour and William have the running of Laverloch well in hand. Ye will be well-cared for in my absence.”
She clutched her hair to her head with a frown, rummaging through a small corner cabinet, likely looking for hair pins.
Fox stirred, sitting up fully and pushing back the counterpane, thinking to help. To do something for her.
But she stayed him with an impatient wave of her hand. “Besides, dinnae ye have some secret thing ye must run off tae London for?”
Her blood-shot eyes pinned him where he sat on the edge of the bed.
