“Does he often travel there?”
“Not since Havilah died. He told you about her, I suppose?”
“Only that she was Romany and they made an unusual match.”
“It all started quite harmlessly, as things often do.” Taking a drink of her cocoa, Lyrica seemed at a loss for words. “’Tis tradition here for Romany babies to be presented for baptism. Ladies of the parish give these infants and their families gifts when they are. On the Sunday that Havilah’s clan took a newborn to the Buchanans’ parish kirk, Leith’selderly aunt—his mother had passed by then—was recovering from a fall, so she asked him to accompany her. You can guess what happened.”
Juliet envisioned it. A newborn. The parish kirk. A cartload of gifts. A bewitching beauty with an unusual name. And a very marriageable Buchanan.
“It all happened so very fast. Soon Leith was taking great interest in Havilah’s family as tenants when he’d not done so before. He courted her, she accepted, then it all came apart.”
“It wasn’t a happy union from the first, then.”
“For a time, perhaps. He did seem to care for her deeply early on. But she was so very ... common. Refreshingly different and without guile, Leith said.” Lyrica shook her head. “There was talk of his being unfaithful to her in the papers, but that was a lie. Leith had a great deal going on business-wise, and she fell ill with a difficult pregnancy. She nearly died at the birth, though the twins were healthy and thriving.”
Juliet all but held her breath as Lyrica continued.
“She seemed to almost lose her mind for periods of time. Violent mood swings and the like. A wet nurse was hired in the hopes Havilah would recover her strength. I’ve played it over in my mind dozens of times and believe the final straw had to do with her family moving on without her and not letting her know. She went to the tower encampment to see them and they’d left without a word. The few Romany who remained couldn’t say where they’d gone or when they’d be back.”
Juliet felt a surge of pity, not only for Havilah but for Leith. And she couldn’t help but note the disdain with which Lyrica spoke of her.
“That last night in Glasgow...” Lyrica paused, her features haunted. “Havilah left after midnight and went toward the Jamaica Street bridge without so much as a cape or a hator even shoes. Leith followed in a hard, driving rain, intent on giving her her freedom if she wanted to return to her people. She saw him and shouted for him to go away as she climbed up on the bridge’s side. And then she jumped. The fall was far and the water icy, and Leith jumped after her, but she was swept away by the current. If he wasn’t a strong swimmer he’d likely have perished with her.”
Juliet wondered at the depths of Havilah’s despair and Leith’s horror at watching her take her own life. Was it any wonder he was emotionally reserved? Afraid to risk his heart again?
“Of course, Leith’s critics blamed him. The newspapers continued to print it as the worst sort of scandal. He hadn’t a moment’s peace for months. He went into mourning and shut himself away.”
“Where is she buried?”
“In the park at Ardraigh Hall. She always loved swans, so Leith made her final resting place near the lake.”
A touching consideration given their last haunting moments. Juliet wondered if he ever went there or would show the twins one day.
“For a time, I feared he would forsake the bairns completely and leave them solely to the servants. They seemed to remind him of Havilah, of his personal failings regarding her.”
“Cole and Bella ... I sense they miss their mother.”
“Perhaps. We spent all the time we could with them when Leith was away in the colonies. There’s nothing like children to enliven a house. Yet he sees so little of them.” Tears shone in Lyrica’s eyes, and suddenly Juliet realized what she’d overlooked before. Lyrica and Euan were childless. While Leith spent little time at home with his twins, they were denied the privilege of having any.
“Yet they seem to care for him despite his frequent absences. They even prepared a surprise for him last night before bedtime—some drawings they made—but he didn’t come home.” Swallowing, Juliet pressed on. “I always listen for him...”
There, she said it. Clumsily and inelegantly but honestly. The young women he’d partnered with at dances still haunted her. And there was mention of infidelity in the newspaper printings she’d found about Havilah, though Lyrica denied it. Had Leith been faithful to Havilah? Had he been faithful toher?
“Leith spent the night here,” Lyrica told her. “After tearing up the second floor of the Saracen’s Head in your defense.”
Juliet recoiled.What?
“He’s a bit of a brawler when he feels maligned—or when someone maligns you, in this case.” Lyrica chuckled. “He didn’t want to hazard seeing you after the fight.”
“Is he hurt?”
“The offending party got the worst of it, though Leith does have a few bruises. Not enough to keep him from business as usual today, though it may have cost him his standing as city councillor.”
City councillor? How much she still had to learn about this man whose name she shared, if nothing else. “And pray tell, what was the offending remark?”
“A fellow tobacco lord, Cochrane”—Lyrica looked pained—“called you a saucy minx on account of your canceling the assembly. He felt slighted, it seems, to have been second to the city’s poor.”
“Humble of him,” Juliet murmured, taking another sip of the now lukewarm chocolate. Leith had warned her about Cochrane aboard ship, had he not? “I’ve never been called a saucy minx before, at least to my knowledge.”
