She would have been surprised if Nathaniel revealed a hidden proficiency for an instrument, despite his many other talents, and he didn’t seem of a nature to sing in front of others. He was quiet, still often every bit as inscrutable as he’d been in France.
Hardly dour, though. He’d formed friendships with a few of the men in the village; they stopped by to help with repairs on the crofter’s cottage, and he helped them sometimes with stake nets and the like, a communal give-and-take. He went some evenings for pints at the Arms.
He’d come along tonight too. They’d not been at the Arms long when Mr. Bairden shouted over to her in a lull, “Will ye favor us wi’ a song, Mrs. Graham?”
“It would be my pleasure.” She smiled at him, coming to her feet. “Have you any requests?”
“Ye sang a Rabbie Burns song one o’ th’ lest times I’ve a mind to hear agin. ’Twas aboot twa lovers wha’ were pairting. Whit was th’ name o’ it?”
She cast her mind back as that only narrowed Robert Burns’s extensive repertoire slightly. “Perhaps ‘Ae Fond Kiss’?”
“Aye, ’twas that ’un. Will ye sing us it agin?”
“Of course.” She smiled again, but her heart rate kicked up. It was a pretty song that she enjoyed singing. It certainly wasn’t that she was nervous to sing in front of others. The lyrics though... It was a song of separating from one’s love, likely forever.
Well, Mr. Bairden had requested the song, and she’d agreed. There was nothing for it now. She took up a place near the front.
The kiss on the heugh yesterday felt powerful and true. Gentle and tender, just as Nathaniel himself was, and so veryright. It had been in her mind afterwards to ask him if they mightbecome lovers again, but her courage failed her in the end. She’d been brave enough in France to ask for—no, todemand—what it was she wanted, but they were no longer in that place out of time.
She drew a deep breath, hands on her diaphragm, and sang the opening lines:
“Ae fond kiss and then we sever,
“Ae fareweel, and then forever,
“Deep in heart-wrung tears . . .”
Nathaniel’s dark eyes branded her as she sang. She felt them, although she looked anywhere but at him. Let him make of the words what he would; she must do the same.
Chapter 28
“Did my sister sing last night? She is usually prevailed upon to do so.” At Lucy’s invitation, she and Nate were walking along the shore the morning after the gathering at the Arms.
“Aye.”
Lucy looked sideways at him. “Is that all you’ve to say about it?”
It was all hewouldsay. He’d lain awake long into the night, restless, thinking about the song Isobel sang to great acclaim from the merry crowd. The hint of grief edging her mouth as she sang—who was it for?
“Why were you not there?” If Lucy thought to needle some sort of reaction from him, he’d turn that scrutiny back onto her. Heoughtto leave it alone, perhaps... but in his mind’s eye was Isobel’s face, talking wistfully about making music with her sister.
Besides which, he was coming to appreciate Lucy fully in her own right. He understood her well enough now to know she’d not walked away lightly from something she’d once loved. “Isobelsays you are a violinist of considerable skill. She also said you’ve not touched it since coming here.”
“Oh, I’ve touched my violin,” Lucy said wryly. “But no, I have not played.”
“Why not?” he asked bluntly. For all that they clearly loved one another, the sisters trod carefully around one another on some topics, perhaps both afraid after the year prior to disturb the tenuous peace that enveloped them here. But Lucy’s demeanor towards him had never demanded similar care.
Most days, she would have offered something biting in return. Today she only sighed, taking a long time to put an answer into words. “I suppose... It is too difficult. Remembering who I was— Before. Who I cannot be again.”
“So you’ve given up something you loved.”
“Unlike you, I suppose? Who has done nothing of the sort? Isobel has said you were little more than a boy when you took up your commission. What was it thatyouloved as a boy?”
She’d skillfully deflected his comment. “I was sixteen. Out of boyhood.”
She shook her head. “Younger than I am now. You were thrown quickly into war, were you not? Did it not change you almost overnight?”
“Aye. In some ways.”
